I have a story recommendation for you guys: "Welcome to a world called Earth" by Satoru Taiyo. It's pretty good. I must also mention, to those who think this chapter is YAOI: No. It's not. You'll see what I mean when you're well into it.

Also, it's worth noting that I actually finished writing this chapter last night, but held off on posting it until today. The reason for this is because I don't want to overwhelm readers too much with my lightning-fast updating speed. From here on out, I'm going to post new chapters on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

Finally, I must emphasize that I do not own the cover picture. If the original owner should contact me and ask me to replace it, I will. But for now, this is it.

Enjoy this chapter, and please don't forget to review!

BRADLEY CLARION

The remainder of the morning passed with very little conversation.

This really shouldn't have been surprising. After all, between the slight upward incline and the fact that we were moving fairly quickly to make up for lost time, it made sense that people would need to save their breath for only the absolutely necessary.

As the sun got closer and closer to noon, the day got hotter and hotter. I should not have been worried about being soaked to the skin from my quick swim in the Phoenix River, because the sun was already starting to dry off my clothes.

Mind you, they wouldn't dry all the way. There was still some lingering moisture in my socks, pants, and T-shirt, but it was still better than being covered in mud. I just hoped that it wouldn't last for the rest of the trip.

If it rains, I am going to be in a world of hurt.

Even though the wound on my left arm had been expertly stitched up and was no longer bleeding, it still throbbed like hell. At least it had been cleaned carefully, and there were no signs of infection, at least not yet.

Make no mistake, I was no longer enjoying myself. There had been a certain degree of excitement in the beginning, to be sure, but it was long gone, to be replaced with a desire to just get through this alive. It didn't help that Matt, who was right behind me at the back of the single-file line, kept giving me annoyed looks, like he was still pissed at me for taking so long bringing Jacob back to his mother.

"Okay...here's the supply cabin" Mike announced from up ahead. He pointed at a small building that looked like a one-room log cabin; in fact, for all intents and purposes, that's what it was. "The food that we'll bring on our trip is there. After we eat lunch here, each of us will have to carry one-eighth of what is left".

That includes me.

I groaned audibly. I didn't mean to, but when you're faced with such bad news that surely heralds more misery in the near future, there is no other response that comes naturally.

Fortunately, if one of the Chelan twins heard me groan, neither of them brought it up. Instead, Mike said, "Today we'll be having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. All the ingredients are in the supply cabin, so let's get some food in our bellies. We have a lot more hiking to do after lunch".

I sat down just outside the cabin, my back roughly five feet from the side of it. I was already exhausted, more so than the others were for having made the "jaunt" up a hill to reunite an Alolan Vulpix with his mother, and there would still be several more hours of this hiking today before we bedded down for the night.

My father sat down next to me. "The food's really good, if it makes you feel any better," he told me.

"It is? That's cool". Truth be told, I wasn't very hungry. Hiking for as long as I'd been doing it should surely have worked up quite an appetite, and yet I was almost indifferent as to whether I ate anything or not.

In hindsight, this should have been a warning sign that infection had already claimed my body. I remembered losing my appetite several times when I'd had fevers as a child, and I felt almost the same way right now.

But I didn't put two and two together until much later. The only thing I could really process at that time was that the rest of the day was going to suck.

Mike came back out with the ingredients for the sandwiches, and I tried to act as though I was interested in them. Even if I wasn't particularly hungry at the moment, I had to get some sustenance in my body for the rest of the day.

Another possible symptom that should have been a red flag, but that I didn't notice until it would end up being too late: I was sweating a lot more than I should have been. I didn't think too much of it at the time, since we were in such a hot area, but it was still rather uncomfortable.

I lined up to get ingredients to make a sandwich, and, when I had one ready to eat, I sat down next to Chris Ruby. He was already about halfway done with his; I hadn't noticed just how fast an eater he was.

As I pecked at my sandwich, he watched me intently. "You don't seem that hungry, Bradley" he told me eventually. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes" I replied on instinct. Truth be told, I said this more for my own benefit than for his. I was running on the "fake it 'till you make it" philosophy, that if I pretended that all was well, I would start to believe that.

The fact was that by the time I had finished eating my sandwich, I felt rather overly full, although not quite at a level of nausea yet. I knew that if I ate any more, however, I'd be risking throwing up.

Show no sign of weakness.

I looked over towards the horizon, as I'd been taught that this was the best thing to do when you felt sick to your stomach. I wasn't sure quite what the reason for that was, but I wasn't going to question that.

As I did so, the feeling of being overly full began to abate ever so slowly. I didn't talk to anyone during this time, not even Chris or my father.

Speaking of my dad, he was currently chatting with Ken Weldworth. I knew practically nothing about Mr. Weldworth, but he seemed to be good friends with my father; that was about it.

"Brendan, will you pass me the bag of chips?" Ken asked my dad.

My father nodded and passed the bag of potato chips over to Ken, who began eating them. I then looked at both of these men sitting together, and, despite what seemed to be an appreciable difference in age, enjoying each other's company.

I'm not my father. I'm not built for stuff like this.

My dad was a tall, burly man with thinning dark brown hair and glasses; at fifty-two years old, he was probably fifteen or twenty years older than Ken Weldworth. Despite this, they talked as though they were long-lost brothers.

I understood the camaraderie that came from the risks and rewards of an expedition, even if I did not share it. There had to be something that made you feel connected to others once you had all risked your lives together.

Even though Matt asked if we wanted seconds, I declined. Again, this should have been a major red flag that something was not right, but I pushed any worries out of my mind almost as quickly as they entered it. Worry wasn't productive; soldiering on despite the worry was.

"Why don't you want seconds, Bradley?" my father asked me. "I know you better than anyone else here, and you're always hungry. You should get seconds".

I shook my head. "I'm really not hungry anymore. Trust me, I'll be okay".

My dad shrugged. "Well, if you're sure, then that's fine. More for the rest of us, I guess".

After everyone else had had seconds who wanted them, we distributed the remaining food between the rest of us. There was enough for seven days; split eight ways, each of us was carrying nearly a day's worth of food.

A day's worth of food might sound like a heavy load to carry, and it is, but it's that much heavier when you're as tired as I was.

Matt said that we were going to be continuing on the trail. I took a few sips of water from my canteen, knowing just how important hydration was out here, and then put on my duffel bag and slowly stood up.

Jesus Christ Almighty, this is going to suck.

My bag felt about three times as heavy as it had been before. Perhaps it was, thanks to all the food that was now stuffed in there, but I didn't think it was supposed to be this heavy. Yet another thing that should have been a warning sign, and yet I somehow didn't put two and two together.

In any case, I heaved it upwards so that it was around my shoulders, and the other seven men did the same. We then continued on the trail.

It didn't take much longer for me to realize that my clothes wouldn't dry. Not all the way. My socks continued to make a squelching noise with every step, and they still felt quite moist from the Phoenix River.

It must be the jungle humidity. These things won't get completely dry, and I'll have to live with it.

The going was hard enough for the first hour after we began. We were on a pretty flat trail, not going upwards or downwards, and I still felt as though I were toting a bag of rocks on my back.

Nobody said a word other than Matt, who was leading the way. Even he only spoke when he was mentioning the direction to take on the trail.

At one point, we reached a narrow wooden bridge that crossed the Phoenix River. It might have only been about five feet wide, but, despite clearly being extremely old, it appeared to be extremely sturdy as well.

"We're going to cross this bridge," Matt said. "It's known as the Bronze Bridge, and it's the only one that crosses the Phoenix River. Just a little fun fact for you guys".

As we were crossing the bridge, I got a chance to take a glimpse at the sky. Underneath the dense foliage, it had been hard to see the sun; perhaps that was another reason my clothes wouldn't completely dry, because they weren't being pounded by the full force of the hot tropical sun.

But then I looked up at the sky and saw that it had gotten increasingly overcast. The cloud cover was now low and gray, striped much like a tiger's pelt. It wasn't any cooler, but the sun was nowhere to be found.

"We're going to keep going for about two more hours," Matt said. "Then we'll make camp in another clearing. Try to stay dry, because it looks like it's going to rain later".

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.

My clothes were already still damp from the river, and now rain was imminent. My day had gone from okay to bad to worse.

And it was even worse than that, because ten minutes after crossing the bridge, Matt made another highly unwelcome announcement.

"We're going to start heading uphill. The clearing is about a thousand vertical feet up from here, although the trail is rather shallow. If you guys move quickly, we can set up camp before it starts raining".

That would be awesome.

Of course, this was easier said than done. Not only did my duffel bag feel increasingly unwieldy and heavy, but I was starting to become short of breath more quickly than before. At first I chalked this up to the slope and having been going hard all day, but this was probably more due to my fooling myself than anything else.

I mean, I knew the type of fatigue associated with heavy physical exertion. This did not feel anything like that, not one bit.

"Here we go; we're at the Mud Flats now. Although I suppose you can't really call them flats". That was Matt talking, having increasingly taken the role of tour guide on the trip. He chuckled after that last word.

I mean, he kind of IS a tour guide. Only this isn't really a tour; he's just pointing everything out, which I guess is nice.

Wait...MUD FLATS?

After my next step, I saw that I slid slightly on the ground, and it was only by reaching out my arms to steady myself did I avoid slipping and falling to my knees.

My old enemy had returned.

Every step felt like five when you were already so exhausted from the events of that morning. Not only that, but every step had to be calculated carefully when climbing a muddy slope so that you didn't fall to the ground.

This mud was, if anything, even thicker than the mud I'd had to contend with while carrying Jacob to his clearing. It took a great deal of effort to keep going.

I heard others breathing hard, and I found myself doing so as well. The heat of the afternoon and the upward gradient of the trail certainly didn't help matters in that regard.

As we climbed higher and higher, the mud got even more slippery. I tried not to look down; I could only imagine how far I'd slide if I ended up tripping over a root.

My arm was also acting up again, starting to throb. With every step, my heart pounded, pumping blood close to the surface of my skin.

The seven stitches that adorned the wound were supposed to stay dry, but I didn't think that would be easy in the middle of the coming downpour. I sincerely hoped that Matt had been wrong about the rain.

Unfortunately, as I took the occasional glance skyward, this seemed highly unlikely. The sky was getting darker, not lighter, and I had no doubt anymore that the heavens would soon open the floodgates.

It was about an hour into the Mud "Flats" that it happened. I felt the first drop hit my nose, probably having fallen from one of the leaves in the jungle canopy.

"It started raining a few minutes ago" I heard Chris say, the first time in a while that I'd heard anyone speak. "At least, it must have been a few minutes ago; it takes some time for the storms to take shape".

I turned around to face Chris, grabbing a tree with my good hand so that I wouldn't lose my balance as a result of doing so.

"Well, they don't call it a rainforest for nothing" I replied, chuckling a bit. I wanted to lighten the mood, but, much like with my earlier reassurances that I was okay, it was more for my own benefit than anyone else's.

"I suppose not" Chris replied, but he didn't sound amused.

For the next ten minutes, we continued climbing the hill. The going was slow and arduous for the reasons listed above, except that now the ground was almost like an ice rink; you had to be that careful when walking on it.

Eventually, we reached the top of the hill. I was almost entirely out of breath by this time, and beginning to feel rather sluggish as well. I could not wait to set up camp, but the words that came out of Matt's mouth did not please me.

"It's about thirty more minutes to the campsite. It takes some time to set up camp, so we want as much daylight as we can get".

Thirty more minutes...the thought of going for thirty more seconds was already almost more than I could bear. But I didn't want to be seen as the weakest link in the group, so I stayed in the middle of the line, trying not to draw any attention to myself.

At one point, I saw an Alolan Rattata in the distance. After the encounter with the mother Rowlet, I had become determined that I would stay as far away from any wild Pokemon we encountered as possible.

I've seen an Alolan Vulpix, an Alolan Ninetales, an Alolan Rattata, and a Rowlet so far on this trip, I thought to myself. I wonder how many more I'll see.

It was much like the classic road trip game where you see how many different states' license plates you see while on the road. If I could turn this trek into a game for myself, then maybe it would be more bearable.

About fifteen minutes after cresting the hill, there was a slight rumble of thunder. Fortunately, judging by its low volume, it was pretty distant, and the lightning that had preceded it posed little threat to us.

Seconds after the thunder, the torrential rain came cascading down from the heavens. It was coming down so heavily that I wondered if Arceus wanted to drown us for some reason. What could we possibly have done to piss him off?

Even though we were no longer in the Mud "Flats", the ground was still rather slick owing to the rain that had already fallen. I ditched my sunglasses, both because I didn't need them anymore and because they had become very blurry due to the water that had accumulated on the outside of the lenses.

After another fifteen minutes or so, Matt said, "Okay, we'll stop here".

We had arrived in yet another clearing, this one about a hundred yards across and shaped like a circle. The rain was still pouring, and it had become very windy as well; you could see entire palm trees leaning to the side.

"This is where we'll set up camp?" Dr. Saint Lawrence asked Matt.

The guide nodded. "That is correct. We will set up camp here and leave at first light, which is…", he checked his watch, "at 6:02 AM. I'll come wake you up when it's time, and we'll get moving again".

I shivered. Even though it had been hot for most of the day, the combined effects of rain and wind were chilling me almost to the bone. It was the kind of rain that made you feel as though you would never be dry again.

"Who has the tent bag?" Matt asked the group as a whole.

My father held up his hand, which contained a waterproof bag, gray and green, that presumably held the materials required to set up a tent.

"Good. Brendan Clarion, you will set up one tent for yourself and your son. Dr. Saint Lawrence and Ken Weldworth, you will take another tent. Chris Ruby and Terrence Santorini will take the third. My brother and I will sleep together".

That last sentence sounds so wrong out of context.

After a few more instructions, as well as a demonstration on how to pitch a tent from the Chelan twins, we got to work on building a temporary home for ourselves here in the jungle.

I had never been camping prior to this, so I had no experience in setting up a tent. I only had the slightest idea of the theory of it. Suffice it to say that I was pretty much clueless.

The first thing we did was to take the two curved metal poles that came in the tent bag and cross them over each other in the shape of an X. Since they were light, and it was a windy afternoon, they went off track rather easily.

No such thing as beginner's luck here. More like beginner's suck.

I chuckled at my own joke, but I wouldn't be laughing for long, because after we had locked the poles into their proper positions, the time came to put the "body" of the tent together.

If it had been hard to set up the metal poles, it was absolutely brutal to try to get the tent in place. It kept billowing around in the wind.

"Bradley", my father told me, "make sure you clip the tent to the metal poles".

Oh. I had previously been under the impression that you were supposed to simply drape the tent's body over the metal, but this made it a lot easier. It still wasn't easy, but my father and I got it done.

After fitting the rain cover on the tent, we drove in the stakes. This took a great deal of strength, which was hard to come by after such an exhausting day. When we were done with that, I sat down, winded.

The rain was starting to taper off by this time, but the damage to my clothes had already been done. My blue shirt was stuck to my chest as though tape had been placed between them, and my long socks were done for.

Beginner's suck, indeed.

As it turned out, however, setting up the tent was not the only thing we needed to do. I shouldn't have been surprised by this, and, in a way, I wasn't. I was pretty displeased about it, though.

"Now we have to build a shelter for our backpacks. Bradley, Chris, will you two help me set that up?" That was Mike speaking, telling Chris and I that we needed to help him. That wasn't a question, it was a request.

I understood why he had chosen me. Supposedly, since I was the youngest, I might have the most energy out of any of us, and therefore it would make sense for me to do most of the work.

This wasn't true in actuality, but I didn't want to be seen as a weakling who was being dragged along on this trip by his daddy, so I gritted my teeth and stood back up. I walked over to the place where Mike wanted to set up the tarp.

While it wasn't raining right now, the clouds had not fully parted; it wasn't out of the question that it would rain again that night, and if it did, we would be in a world of hurt.

At this point, my feet seemed to be moving of their own free will. That's how exhausted I had become.

After we had stretched the rope out between two of the jungle's trees, I sat down once more. This time, I really was done with setting up camp, and I reveled in the ability to rest and not do any work.

I say that not to sound lazy, but rather to highlight just how much energy all the hiking had sapped from me. I sincerely doubted I could even do ten more minutes of walking, let alone another hour.

Mike then said something that I found very relieving.

"You can now go into your tents and relax. We'll cook dinner, and then we'll eat outside here. Who has the can of pasta?"

Terrence Santorini raised his hand. I had to give him major props for being able to remember every food item he was carrying in his pack, because I certainly couldn't remember everything I'd had to stuff in mine.

Terrence handed over the dry pasta to Mike, and then I waited for the guide to say who he wanted help with for cooking dinner. When he didn't say my name, I headed back over to the tent and opened my duffel bag.

Fortunately, my bag had been sealed very carefully. No water had gotten into the bag, so my clothes were still dry.

Thank Arceus.

I tried to think of what to do now that there was nothing I absolutely needed to do. The answer, however, soon came to me.

Although it was only around four in the afternoon, I felt as though I had been awake for several days. At such a level of fatigue, I could barely keep my eyes open, and seconds later, I was searching through my duffel bag for my sleeping mat and sleeping bag.

It took me a minute or two, but I eventually pulled them out. I laid down my sleeping mat, then the sleeping bag, and then I got in.

In hindsight, it would have been a better idea to get out of my soggy clothes before I crashed, but at that moment, I was too tired to even consider it.

Within seconds of my head touching the ground, I was asleep. My dream was very vivid, much like the one I'd had the previous night.

I was sitting on hot black pavement, looking at a mansion surrounded by a golf course. At first, I didn't realize where I was, but then I remembered that I was dreaming.

This is the same mansion as the one I saw last night.

I stood up and began walking towards the garage next to the manor. I recalled from my last dream that it was protected by a passcode. I punched in the number 12213119, and the door opened.

Wow, it's that easy.

Unlike the last time I'd dreamed of this garage, this time I walked inside and was still in the dream. I figured that I'd get more time to explore the manor, because I was morbidly curious as to what lay inside it.

The garage was very large, like you might expect at an enormous mansion. Inside, there were spaces for twelve cars. There were several cars, which I could see were clearly luxury brands despite not being a car connoisseur (in fact, I didn't even have a driver's license).

Not all of the spaces were taken, however. In fact, half of them were empty, meaning that, yes, I was in a twelve-car garage that only had six cars.

With the sound of a drum being banged, I opened my eyes and sat bolt upright in my sleeping bag.

After wiping the sleep from my eyes, I was shocked by just how blinding the light in the tent was. I saw that my father had gotten in and had been tapping on my shoulder to wake me up.

"Hey, Bradley, you okay? You went in the tent and didn't leave for two hours". His tone seemed genuine; he was speaking from fatherly concern for me, something I very much appreciated. It made me feel appreciated, too, that he cared about me still in the midst of the jungle.

I nodded sheepishly, slightly embarrassed. "Yeah, I just fell asleep. I was really tired".

My father nodded. "That can happen sometimes, but you look really clammy. Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," I insisted. "Just tired".

"Very well. I came to tell you that dinner was in five minutes. You can stay in the tent until it's time to eat".

"Okay".

As soon as my father left the tent, I became aware of just how uncomfortable I was. Sheer fatigue had made it so that I could fall asleep quickly once I'd gotten into the tent, but now that I'd woken up, I realized my mistake of not taking off my wet clothes and putting something different on.

The interior of my sleeping bag was soaked not only in the water from my wet clothing, but also in a cold sweat that could only have come from one source: Me.

I looked over at my left arm, as it was then that I finally realized that something could very well be wrong with me, and I soon discovered that there was both good news and bad news.

The good news was that the wound on my arm wasn't swollen or emitting pus. The bad news was that it felt warm to the touch, much like a furnace on a very low capacity.

It's probably nothing, I told myself, but I wasn't convinced anymore. I'd gotten mild fevers before from being out in the rain for a long time...was it a believable enough alternate explanation?

I shrugged and looked around the tent. I decided to put on my pajamas right then and there; I'd insisted on packing them, simply because I felt disgusting sleeping in any other clothing. If the others saw me in my PJs, I didn't really care; I just wanted to be as comfortable as possible. Besides, it wasn't like we were in a public place.

It felt amazing to take off my damp blue T-shirt and sweatpants. I still wasn't remotely dry, mind you, but it was way better than still having them on.

To some extent, I felt like a whole new man after I was in my pajamas. To be sure, I still wasn't in the best mood, even if it was greatly improved from being in soggy clothes.

"Dinner time" my father said, opening the tent flap and peeking in. "The pasta's ready".

Even though it was time for dinner, I didn't feel hungry at all. I wondered how many bites I would be able to force down before I ended up puking in front of the rest of the group. Not only would that be rather humiliating, it would result in them painting me as a weak link.

I was determined not to be the weak link.

I put on my hiking boots, which were sadly still drenched and caked with mud, and got out of the tent.

The rain had stopped, and the clouds had parted to reveal a brilliant sunset. The sun was extremely bright even though it was now very close to the horizon; it was about to sink behind the jungle canopy.

Now, the sun's extremely bright even under normal circumstances. That's why children are taught never to look directly at it. That applies doubly if you're in the jungle and suffering from what feels like a mild fever.

Two of the many items that had been included in the checklist for the trip was a bowl and utensils. If we lost them, Matt had told us, then we'd be eating with our hands for the rest of the trip.

Fortunately, I still had those items in my duffel bag; I'd been careful enough with my supplies that I didn't lose any of them. (Besides those socks, which I decided I was going to ditch; I had other pairs).

After I got out my bowl, I got in line to be served pasta. I might not have been hungry, but I knew that I needed to get something in my system to start fighting off whatever this was that was making me feel sick.

Once I'd gotten my serving, I scanned the clearing to find a good place to sit while I ate. The ground was still pretty wet, so I took that into account when searching.

My father was sitting on a log in the middle of the clearing. He was eating his serving of pasta and looked very pleased.

"Say what you will about the trek itself, but the food is pretty good for what it is," he told me as I sat down next to him.

"Yeah...I'm just not that hungry" I told him. "It might be something about the jungle that's taking away my appetite, but I just don't know".

My dad shook his head. "I really don't think it's that, Bradley. I'm still pretty hungry. No matter what, though, you should eat. You'll feel worse if you don't".

"I suppose you're right," I replied, spearing a piece of bowtie-shaped pasta with my fork and bringing it to my mouth.

Even though we didn't have any condiments, and I didn't really feel like eating, my father was right: The pasta was delicious. If I'd had an appetite, I probably would have enjoyed it more than I did. Still, my father was right: I would feel worse if I didn't eat.

"How are you holding up otherwise?" my dad asked me after a few minutes, once he had finished his bowl of pasta and was about to get up for seconds. "You doing okay, Bradley?"

I nodded. "It's just so new to me, and kind of overwhelming". It was a simple answer, one that might not have been completely satisfying to my father (or to myself, for that matter), but it was the first thing that came to mind, so I said it.

My father shrugged. "That's how I felt at first too. Anything can be scary the first time. Remember what I told you last night?"

"Yes". Over the course of the day, I had tried to remember what my father had told me about courage. It wasn't easy, not when my thoughts had constantly been sidetracked by so many other things, but I knew he was right.

My dad got up for seconds; I passed on that offer. When he came back with a new bowlful of pasta, he said, "You need to keep that in your mind. Maybe I'm a little biased since I'm your father and all, but I think it's pretty good advice".

It was much like something my mother had once told me: Grin and bear it, because you could have it far worse. Also good advice in most situations.

After eating, the others stayed up for a while with flashlights, telling each other stories about their personal lives outside of Expedition 33B and the IRAA. Personally, however, the two-hour nap had not cured me of my exhaustion. It might have alleviated the symptoms, but a full night of sleep was all that was going to solve the problem.

I took my muddy hiking boots off and crawled underneath my sleeping bag. As I tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position, an image kept appearing in my mind.

It was one of the paintings I'd seen yesterday, as well as early this morning (had it really only been this morning?) at the IRAA headquarters. The one known as Braixen's Curse, to be more specific.

While trying to get into a comfortable position, all the while beginning to sweat once again, images of the human male's body being contorted into extremely grotesque yoga poses, as well as their extremities turning into those of a Braixen, danced through my mind.

These images seemed to be saying, We're coming for you.

And I had an eerie sense that somehow, some way, they were right.

And that's called jazz! No, I'm kidding, but this was a pretty satisfying chapter to write. It's the largest chapter yet, at about 6,000 words. I've proven to myself that I CAN write long chapters again, and that's a very good feeling.

More good news: Temple of the Fox is at just over 1,000 views! Considering it's been up for less than a week, I find this pretty amazing. Thank you all for your support as I write this story.

See you later!