Long time no speak, I've actually had this chapter for about a month now, but just hadn't brought myself to proofread it. But what can I say? I finally have a free time and I only pulled two all-nighters this week, and after Cornova got busy on his/her/its stories (four new chapters for four different stories in four hours? Sheesh, good on you!), I felt a bit inspired. Its been a while, so I went back and edited the last chapter, so it reads a bit better, you should check it out, if you need a refresher. Thanks to Easter, I now have four days off in a row to make up for all my slacking off in class and writing, and the next chapter is halfway done. I plan on updating both of my ongoing stories (shameless plug: I'm experimenting with a new third person narrative with Fire Emblem- between changing skies, I've heard good things about it, and I want to know your thoughts on it.) in the next three days. Anywho, if you're still here congrats, as a reward, without further ado let the story resume.

I did not remember what it was like to lay there in the dirt, curled up in fetal position, dying as a victim of a botched robbery. That much is unsurprising; it was a particularly traumatic experience, but then again, my life was rich with those. I may have benefitted had I remembered the experience in the months following it, or it may have broken me. In the moments my mind was not filled with waking nightmares I would fantasize- what if? The world we found ourselves in felt grossly unnatural, like it simply was not meant to be, it seemed more likely that the status quo would remain, for time immemorial. Where would I be then? Would I be a paramedic in Johto, trying to save money for a little sister to go to college? Or something more sinister, trying to take life one day at a time, with the love of my life at my side? Or perhaps neither- perhaps I would have wasted away in a perfectly blissful life, alone, and neither particularly happy nor upset over it.

Just who was I? Why me? What in my past made me able to survive? Or was it because I didn't have a past?

Who or what I was, or the life I lived, was irrelevant though, the same could be said of the what-ifs. My fleeting fantasies were just those: fantasies. I considered myself to be quite the oddball, even still. After all, how many people alive could claim to have lost their memory on the day of the apocalypse? If only I knew, only the strangely competent and incredibly fanatical could survive the shattering. When I would once again find myself waking up in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, I would see more of what I was not in the faces of those I was thrusted into the center of, more so than I would have ever discovered by watching myself.

Even when I felt like I was swept up in events greater and more dangerous than myself, I grew to consider myself fortunate. Its far easier to be a leaf flowing in the wind than a rock in the stream.

August 24th

The smell of disinfectants tickled the end of my nose, drawing me out of the all-encompassing fog that clouded my mind. I focused on the smell, grasping for any tangible sense that could lead me from my confusion.

I slowly pulled myself from my stupor, the disinfectant-tinged air filled my lungs, mixed blood, and something else- faint traces of a sickeningly sweet smell I couldn't put my finger on. I was alive, of this I was fairly certain-unless there was some odd realm in the afterlife that smelled like an operating room. I opened my mouth to take in a hefty breath of air, but paused. My lips were parched and rigid, so much so that the mere act of opening my mouth opened small cuts in the corner of my mouth. The air was no better, dry beyond dry, and the air dragged over my tongue like sandpaper.

I opened my eyes slowly, only to find a room filled with darkness. I moved my arms behind me attempting to push myself up, only for pain to erupt within my stomach. I grunted, and lowered myself again. I recalled standing in the path of a submachine gun, and meeting the only fate that could be expected in such an unfortunate circumstance. It seemed all I could do for the time being was wait, and so wait I did.

It was not long after that I heard a door open, and two people walked into the room. The first was a man that appeared halfway through life, a face of extreme apathy, and dull hazel eyes filled with boredom. He slouched with an odd posture, as if shrugging off a heavy burden.

The second was an oddity for the season. It was at least six feet tall and covered from head to foot with thick clothing; a thick green jacket with a hood drawn over his head, an olive scarf, a pair of black goggles between the two covering the entirety of his face. Sturdy khakis covered his legs, and a pair of black boots and leather gloves guarded his extremities from view, such that no skin was exposed. It appeared to be a man, though it was difficult to tell through all the clothing.

The second person noticed I was awake before the first, and nudged him with his elbow and tilted his head towards me. The first man took notice, and then addressed the first "Make yourself useful for once and get some soft food and water and bring it. After that run through the two others, I'll handle the dead man."

The covered person faced the doctor for a moment before turning back out the door without a word. The middle-aged man pulled a chair up to my bed and waited patiently.

I pointed at my throat and rasped "Water."

The man said nothing, but moments later the clothed person returned with a large canteen of what I assumed to be water. The middle-aged man took the canteen and propped my head up, slipping the canteen between my lips and allowing a small amount to pour out.

"Not too fast you'll choke." I complied and swallowed in small sips, but before long all of the water was gone.

"More." I asked but the man only shook his head.

"That's all you're getting for now."

I nodded my head and resigned myself to it. My mouth and throat were wet so I could speak again. I could feel the cogs in my head start turning again.

"There's two others here? Is one of them a man with blond hair and a gunshot wound? Or a woman with turquoise hair and a concussion?"

The man frowned and shook his head "Nothing that exciting, the other two are old arrivals with minor injuries. We don't get many gunshot wounds around here for me to work on."

"How did I get here then? Who brought me?"

"To be honest, I don't know and I don't care. People change hands here faster than I can keep track of, so as far as I'm concerned you didn't exist until the moment you were placed on the bed needing someone to cut you open and you're dead to me the moment you walk out or get carried out in a body bag."

The man was rude and seemingly ill-tempered, but I figured he was a surgeon, and somehow I knew that of all things to become after being a surgeon for so long, ill-tempered was a blessing compared to the alternatives. I suppressed my concern for my two companions for the moment, I didn't have time to address my grief, though denial would only last so long.

"Tell me then, what do you know?"

The man cracked a sly grin, and reached into his pocket absent-mindedly as if reaching for something, but he scowled as he withdrew it empty. He scowled, but nevertheless he placed his hand on his chin as if recollecting.

"You came here couple days back, two bullet wounds in the abdomen. One was just a graze, but the other cracked a rib and ruptured your intestines. Lucky you, probably lost more blood through the graze than the intestines, but then again, instead of an easy death you get a long, miserable death from infection."

"So, am I going to get a long, miserable death from infection?"

"No, we took care of it. We didn't know where the bullet went, so we cut you up a bit, found the wound, shoved a hot piece of iron in it to piece your guts together, sewed you up, then pumped enough antibiotics to make a germaphobe swoon."

"Why go through the effort?"

"Well, we didn't use anesthesia, so it was good that you were nearly dead or you might have died from the pain outright. It was still expensive but we had to try something, right? Nothing more valuable than a human life."

I looked at the man as he wore a convincing smile, or what I thought was supposed to be a convincing smile. Instead it looked like an upside-down frown, and so forced I expected his face to go red with strain.

"You're a surgeon, act like one. Why did you people really bother saving me, and where am I for that matter?"

The not- smile faded from his face for a moment, and was replaced one a little more genuine, though on his face it appeared alien, and almost hostile, even though well intentioned. "Pretty sharp for someone who's been under for two days, well if you really want to know you're in a navy-oh, my bad 'Johto Marine Civil Defense Force'- base turned refugee camp, right outside of Olivine City. As for why we bothered, well, wanderers like you that are lucky enough to stumble onto our little patch of land are our only source of intelligence about the outside world right now. I imagine that I'll have to interrogate you on the state of whatever place you came from and submit a report to the commander, or maybe he'll do it himself when he gets a chance."

I nodded "Do you want to take my statement now, or wait for the commander?"

He shrugged "Depends, where are you coming from?"

"The heart of Goldenrod City."

The surgeon whistled "Geeze, figure the commander is going to want to look at you himself then."

I tried not to be disheartened by the fact that no one had come from that direction, after all, the fact that meant that no refugees have come here did not mean none existed. It still provided a fair warning about those that thought to travel through the Johtoan peninsula.

I cleared my throat, "So how long until the Commander can interrogate me?"

The doctor glanced at a clock on the wall- reading about 5:30 "Not for another hour or so, he's probably micromanaging everyone. For the time being let's see if you can move, the surgery did a number on you, and we need to see how long until we put you to work."

The surgeon got up and fetched something; a cane. He offered an arm to help me up, and I accepted it and rose reluctantly, even as my stomach protested with sharp bursts of discomfort. I slowly and carefully swung my legs over the cot. The surgeon eased me onto my two feet, and I was careful to use the cane to keep the pressure off my abdomen.

The surgeon turned his attention away from me and shouted elsewhere "Hey, I have a way for you to make yourself useful!"

There was a shuffling as the seasonal-oddity returned to the room, walking, skulking quietly, and turned its dark goggles towards the surgeon.

"Take this kid down to the tents, help him ask around for those friends of his that he was travelling with. Let him get used to walking again, but don't let him hurt himself, got it?"

The man nodded in response and gestured for me to follow him, I glanced between the two doctors, and then followed the fully-clothed man with small stumbles.

The military base was in an odd, cluttered state. Chain linked fences topped with barbed wire surrounded the camp on each side. Between the fences and the outermost buildings there was an amount of empty space, designed to keep invaders from gaining a foothold inside the camp in the unlikely chance of an attack, and to allow the soldiers in the watchtowers to more easily monitor the inside of the camp. Then came the less important buildings, the dining halls, the offices, and other buildings with similar functions. At the heart of the camp was the heart of its purpose- war. Barracks, armories, warehouses of rations, detainment centers, and modest airstrip.

It was on this airstrip that the refugees stayed. A small sea of tents, around a hundred in all occupied every inch of pavement, and then some of the dirt beside it. Near the entrance to the sea of tents there was a large platform, where a couple of bored soldiers sat lazily, occasionally glancing to a large pile of crates and an equally large pile of what appeared to be broken handcuffs. The camp was mostly empty, people seemed to be just returning from whatever labors the day had in store for them. People seemed to pay us little heed as they slowly filled the camp, some simply not caring enough to pay attention to our little duo. Other's however, avoided us like the plague; seeing us and turning back, some becoming very interested in what they were doing, whether it was talking or placing one foot in front of the other or suddenly remembering that important thing that they had left in their tent. My companion didn't seem bothered by this, though it would have been hard to tell if he had.

The man slowed us to a stop next to a head of red hair, suspended in two pig tails, sitting patiently outside of a tent facing the sky, not seeming to notice us. The man waited patiently for a moment before clearing his throat. Finally the girl took notice of us turning towards us, speaking with an odd accent that I could not place "Scar, is that you? You shouldn't sneak up on me like that!"

The hooded man responded in an accent much the same, though slower, and much deeper "What would you have me do? Wear a bell?"

The girl laughed "Somehow I doubt that would help. Who's this you have with you?"

It was only now that I really looked at the girl, taking in her features. She appeared to be around my age, probably a little younger (Again, I wondered how old I was, I had nothing other than intuition to base it upon, it was somewhat surreal, trying to get to know yourself), she might have been considered beautiful, but she was filthy, covered in a thin layer of dirt and dust, granted I was covered in all that and blood as well. Her face was soft, and she wore her smile naturally. Were she standing up I imagine she would have been much shorter than myself, and I was hardly tall.

But when I looked into her eyes, nothing seemed to look back. Her irises pale and clouded, and I understood now how she had not noticed us, and how she could stand to stare at the sun lost in thought, and I shuddered, her eyes eerily similar to another pair I had seen, the first I had seen in fact.

Before I could answer the man, Scar responded "He is no one-er" He fumbled with his words a bit here, as if he had lost track of them "Came here with…can we…?"

The girl interrupted his sentence with a rapid series of words in a language I could not understand. The man, much more at ease, responded in kind, seeming to regain his footing in the conversation. The girl nodded in understanding, and they exchanged a few more words, as I sensed the topic drifting away from me. The man seemed to regain his confidence and scratched his chin (or where I assumed his chin was), seemingly confounded by whatever she said. I felt the conversation shift back to me briefly, and then he addressed me in perfect Common "Sorry, it is rude, I know, but it is easier for me sometimes. Stay with her, I have business I must attend to, she can answer any of your questions. I will come back for you when I am finished and we will return to the…medical room?"

"Clinic." The girl chirped.

"Yes, the clinic."

"And what about my friends?"

"If they are here, they are not going anywhere. Whether you find them today or tomorrow is unimportant. It is better that you heal slowly and not strain yourself looking for them, but I shall inquire about any new arrivals, if it would make you feel better."

I sighed in resignation, realizing how powerless I was in this situation. "Please do."

Scar took this as permission and left silently, fading into the sea of tents in seconds. I measured up what little I could gather about him from the conversation, I was in unfamiliar territory, and for some reason I was did not feel safe nor welcome at this base. That said the voice of danger was silent, so I presumed the danger was not immediate.

Realizing I was beginning to personify a voice in my head, and beginning to trust said voice, I thought it was a good time to derail my train of thought. "Something about him rubs me the wrong way." I muttered.

The girl turned to me, her face disapproving "He's weird, but he's a good person. He saved me and a lot of other people when, well, you know. Anyways, where are my manners?" She extended her hand towards me, "I'm Rui, nice to meet you. And you are?"

I looked at her hand for a second before I realized she was offering it to shake, and I did so "I go by Crescent."

"Wow, cool name, did your parents give it to you?"

Friendly as she was, I was uncomfortable disclosing my-admittedly brief and unlikely- life story with a near-stranger. I bit my lip and chose my response carefully "I chose it for myself."

"Huh," she said, not appearing completely convinced "It sounds like there has to be a cool story behind it, but there's you can tell me later, not much to do other than exchange stories anyways. For now, I think I should tell you how things work here."

"I'm sorry," I interrupted her "But aren't you blind?"

Rui didn't miss a beat, responding in an almost cheerful tone "Yup, for just more than a week now. Scar said it probably has something to do with a pulse of high-frequency radiation from the shattering interacting with the neurons in my brain, or something like that. He said a lot of really complicated things but that's the gist of it, he doesn't think it's permanent, but you never know."

I nodded slowly, despite all appearances, Scar was a doctor of some sort, so if he said something along those lines, it was probably the closest thing to the truth I would have for some time "By the shattering you mean August 16th?"

"Yeah, that's what Scar called it. No one else thought of something else to call it, so it kind of just stuck."

"Anyways, enough about Scar. Tell me whatever you can about this place."

Rui frowned and stuck her tongue out at me "I'm blind, not stupid. Besides, Wes told me about it."

I chose to ignore this Wes character for the time being "Of course, I didn't mean to imply anything."

"Liar."

I found myself frowning at her childish behavior, which seemed so out of place given the current state of the world. Then again, it seemed like she had been at the camp since the beginning, of the series of unfortunate events that brought me here, and blind to boot, I was uncertain if she understood the full extent of how badly Johto was royally screwed "Fine, I apologize, can you tell me now?"

Rui nodded "Right, starting three days ago, everyday soldiers take the refugees to a nearby river that is full of magikarp, and they try to fish them with spears and nets, they come back around now every day, and they got to the rationing station, where they receive food and they put a metal bracelet on your wrist to show that you've already eaten. They collect the bracelets in the morning when they give us a small breakfast, same idea. I think soldiers are sent out of the camp every day to find news about Johto. Scar says the commander is trying to find a more sustainable way for us to get food and put the rest of the refugees to work, but until then most of us just sit around here all day. Oh, important! At night, no one is allowed to leave their tents, no matter what."

I nodded in understanding, fishing was an odd attempt to sustain the camp, but the commander was probably reluctant to send men into the woods, where who-knows-what could be waiting. But fall was starting to come in full swing, and felt particularly cold. At some point the camp would have to send soldiers to the farms in the area to collect the crops before they went to waste. The curfew was nothing out of the ordinary, but the way she said it seemed to imply something other than the norm. "When you say no one…"

Rui paused for a moment, almost as if making sure no one was listening in "They want us to think that the guards are patrolling around at night, but I can tell that they don't. I'm not sure why, from what I understand bandits and thieves were a problem before me, Wes, and Scar got here, so it seems really weird."

And weird it was. The fact that people had resorted to banditry so soon was surprising, but then again, I had experienced it first hand, and it made my unfortunate run in with the deserter slightly less random, though the haunting encounter still confused me. "Is desertion a problem here?"

"Like, with the soldiers? Not since we got here, I don't think, but Scar spends more time with the soldiers and knows more about the camp administration then I do. You should ask him on the way back."

"Are you sure he could tell me if I asked? His grasp of Common seems a bit shaky."

"He probably speaks better Common than you do, even if it seems like he's having a hard time with it right now. He's from Orre, and since Common is mostly based on Unovan, he should be able to speak it perfectly."

"Then what was that language you talked to him with? He spoke it much better than common, from what I could tell."

"It was Orrian, as in the original Orrian tribes. He's from one of their desert tribes from what I could tell, and my grandfather is the last sage of one of his tribes, so he made me learn it when I was little. And take it easy on him, okay? He seems to be really distracted, I think that's why his speech seems rough."

"Why do you assume he'll be my problem?"

"I'm the nurser here…"

I jolted in surprise when his voice appeared behind me, without warning, eliciting a similarly sudden jolt of pain in my abdomen. Rui only smiled "It's nurse, Scar, nurse."

"What did I say?"

"Nurser."

Scar gave a soft grunt "I'm tired, I guess. I've done what I've had to do, we should return to the…clinic, before the commander shows up."

Rui seemed surprised "Huh, already? What did you want to talk to Wes about?"

"Nothing interesting, mostly exchanging information. I heard that cloud cover is rolling in soon, so curfew is getting called early. He should be back soon." He turned back to me, and said again "We should go before the commander shows up."

I nodded absentmindedly and began to hobble back with him. Despite Rui's advice, I did not question Scar, for he was about as inclined to speak to me as ever, and my thoughts were occupied.

More people flooded into the camp, and I noticed as people gathered around the stand that I saw earlier, eager to grab their rations. Oddly enough, those that came were quickly shooed away apologetically, and the soldiers were hastily packing up their supplies.

I put my mind to work, analyzing anything, overanalyzing everything, planning, plotting, anything to keep my mind from wandering. It was a new environment, and I needed to adjust quickly yes, but I knew that if I did not focus, I would think about my last companions.

They were alive, they had to be. No matter if logic said otherwise. The last thing I needed as to start thinking of the many reasons they should still be alive as excuses.

When we arrived, the nurse claimed he was needed elsewhere and excused himself. The commander did not come that day, as the nurse had warned, a thick cloud cover had come overhead not long before we arrived back, but the clinic was without windows, so I could not know when the last vestiges of light faded from the sky. I forwent dinner- probably for the best, with my guts still recovering. I took in the room and memorizing its layout. Knowing I was alone, I turned off the lights, draping the room in pitch black, and limped my way back to the cot. I rested my head on the pillow, and hoped for a night without terror.

Give me your thoughts on this, I know the story is taking an unexpected turn, and I want to know how I can improve my writing and plot-development to accommodate what I hope will grow into a fantastic story.