Darkest Before Dawn

Chapter 37

Tails' POV

The next few days plodded on with never-ending grief and sorrow. We had all voted to delay our return to Hatsu and aid the relief effort, though 'relief' was a dream no one here could grasp. Half of the population of the forest town of Mori Mura had been reported dead and most of the surviving were struck with disease or had become classified as mentally insane. Food was scarce because the animals had scurried deep into the uncharted forest and dared not to return to the place where the dark smoke of defeat rose into the air. The water was almost worst because blood had been merged into it and was running with infection.

The days were long and hard. From moving pieces of debris to searching for anything to eat wore all of the healthy, able people out. Not only was the physical work exhausting, but the deaths of the villagers and all the havoc surrounding us threw an emotional toll on us too. One of the days I had thrown up three times because it seemed that every time that I hoisted a block of rumble I would find someone, a nine to ten chance it was a child, with their head smashed in and their brains dripping off the brick I was holding. Everywhere you stepped here it was not on ground, but instead discarded blood and body organs. I had to keep remaining myself that this was not as bad as Descentmet, for everyone there died, but seeing the look on these people's faces told me otherwise.

The sick were isolated about a mile away from the city so the workers that were healthy would have less of a chance of falling ill. Still though, viruses filled the air of the village and everyday we would have to add more to the list of the sick and to the list of deaths. Thankfully Amy and I had our shots. Most of the diseases these people were dying from where easily curable with simple medicine. Others though were cases that not even the most educated doctor could fix. Because of the aliment floating around I had to keep a special eye on Kage and Ero, who were vital to defeating Shikyo and were easy targets for any bug.

A spiritualist by the name of Partsin took command of the ruined town. The citizens trusted him because according to most he was the Grand Elder's apprentice and was training to become the next Elder. He was a raccoon with a keen eye for detail and cared about the smallest child to the oldest man. He remained me of Sonic a bit, though he was calmer and smarter. He has the same determination and eyes I guess. He had a way with words that while he spoke words of inspiration and hope you just can't help but believe him, but after he was done it was back to the depressing atmosphere where people would break down crying when they found a loved one or hurt themselves because they're whole life was buried beneath the ashes. Partsin tried though. He wanted a funeral to be held for each and every person that was found, but the death toll finally got too overwhelming for it.

I had hoped that one of the modern towns around the Great Forest – preferably Knothole – would see the ascending smoke and come to our aid, but nothing came. This caused my nerves and my paranoia to rise. Either Knothole was completely oblivious to the black smoke that slinked its way into the heavens or Mori Mura was not the first annihilated town on Acorn. I childishly wished for the first one, but everything inside of me told me the latter was correct and Knothole has been a disaster site for a while now.

And with every passing minute of the day and every resting moment of the night my passionate hate for Shikyo increased. How could she do this to these people? They're innocent. They've done nothing to her. And whenever I did ask these questions to her all she would do was cackle and then make irritating riddles that she thought were amusing.

Bitch.

But while we were clearing rubble I didn't have much time to think about her. All I really could contemplate during the time was how fuckin tired I was from countless hours of labor and restless nights. The spiritualists helping would tell me, along with Kage, to go to sleep, but Shikyo was getting more dangerous and it could not be afforded. If we could I'm sure both of us would be out for a week.

Speaking of Kage, he's doing better now. It took him some time to break out of the shock he was in over Nekosa, but after that he acted as normal as he possibly could. I don't know if he is hiding the extra feelings deep down or he has actually gotten over it. After the gray cat died we had to knock him out so he would stop freaking out… in the morning we told him he had fainted and he amazingly trusted us.

At least he wasn't as bad as Nicole or Ero.

Nicole could not believe her brother was dead and she couldn't stop crying. Amy has had to comfort her for hours at a time and at points the tan cat would talk as though Nekosa was alive. It wasn't that she was going insane; it was just that the grief that was racking up in her body was too much to spare and she needed to boot it out somehow. I never had a brother so I could not state that I knew the dejection she suffered, but I vaguely remembered that I was in a depressed stage related to her's when my parents were slaughtered by the deceased Eggman.

Though he was sad about the passing of Nekosa, that wasn't the thing that troubled Ero. What really got to him was the fact that he let it happen. I have heard him several times remind himself of the phrase 'fate is fate' that he had told us when Swap-deck was eradicated, but he couldn't get it off his back that way. He wasn't the same rabbit the days that we stayed to aid the relief effort. I noticed a strange new glint in his eyes while he helped move the wreckage one piece at a time. No one else took note of such a thing because they speak more than they observe and that he did not act differently. Of course, at the same time, he could not afford to flatter. He was the strong one – the big brother I guess you could call him – to Kage and many others and if they saw him break… well, it wouldn't be pretty.

We did stumble upon ways to pass the time and overlook our position for a while, though. Amy and I at one point concluded that Ero and Kage's bickering moments were very closely related to a married couple's fights. So whenever their brawls got irritating I'd just lean over to Amy and say 'they're having a married couple's fight – aren't they just so cute together' loud enough for them to here. They'd immediately then stop fighting and instead start yelling at us. Hey, the rest of the spiritualists around thought it was funny. Guess they just don't have a sense of humor.

But on the last day we were there Kage devised a plan to get back at us – damn sly kitsune. He was gone the day before and none of us could find him. Ero stepped up and said he was fine and quickly got us back to work (traitor). The next morning he was back with a wide grin on his face and hands behind his back saying that he brought good news. I should have suspected the grin as a billboard saying 'I'm going to prank your ass,' but I was dreadfully tired and didn't have the brain power to think of such things. So Amy and I, being the modern world idiots we are, run up to him really believing he had great information.

He's response to our inanity was whipping out the skunk he had behind his back and forced it to spurt us both in our faces with its reeking output of gooey crap. All I could do was stare at him in disbelief while Amy shrieked and hit him as Ero and Meep screamed in laughter in the background.

It took forever, especially with the lack of clean water, to get the smell out.

Everything except for that was on a very serious scale. The whole fact that the town was in ruins and the population was quickly dying out did call for a somber atmosphere. There would be times that for hours no one would talk and it got extremely lonely – well, not exactly lonely for me, since I had good-ol-bitch Shikyo to keep me company – and annoying. Sometimes I felt like screaming out and doing something stupid so someone would talk, but Kage would pull that off first. And the first person talking would usually be Ero hitting him with something screaming at him to stop being an idiot.

After a week of helping, we decided that it was time to get back to Hatsu. We really wanted to stay and help more – even maybe get over to Mobotropolis to get some modern technology in to save lives – but we all knew there was no time for such drastic actions. We had to get to Hatsu or Shikyo might do even worse to this town…

So we packed up or things and said our regards and goodbyes. And as we left the ruins of the village on our way to a certain castle then was only one thing I knew:

All that answers lay in one place.

A fire.

….. I know, okay… I know its only three pages… (plugs ears and screams out loud) I'M NOT LISTENING TANTRUM! I swear, this chapter was going to be the death of me! I wrote every single day from January 7 till now – every day – and still only got this far. I have a bigger writer's block than Saddam's ass (… see, I can't even think of any good one liners! Gah!)

But good news is while I was beating up this chapter and swearing to kill anything that told me to continue it I was able to get a good thought on what is going to wrap up this story – and my next one (which I'll tell you guys about later). So this time I guess is better than I thought it would be. But still, this chapter sucks crap.

Anybody heard of Doom 3? Now that is a sweet game. My brother, who is 2 years older than me, is like freaked out from it but I play the demo I downloaded everyday. I'm so sick of those people getting possessed and attacking me. Can't they tell I'm going to whip all their asses for the 134th time?

Til later,

Kelsey

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"People who