I said I would wait until tomorrow to post it, but I was in the mood to put something out today, so here we go.
Also, a recommendation for you guys: "30 Percent" by Jackboy0815. He's a friend of mine, and I think you'll enjoy it. I'm also on the PercentVerse Discord server; go to his profile if you want the link. We'd love to see you there!
One warning before we begin: If you're the type of person who is very squeamish when anything medical is described, I suggest you skip this chapter. With that out of the way, enjoy!
BRADLEY CLARION
Even though I was eventually able to doze off, I woke up a couple hours later to my father getting into the tent. I heard the zipper on the tent's door being pulled before I saw him climb in.
"Evening, buddy" he said as he entered the tent. "How's it going?"
"Pretty well". I was lying through my teeth. I didn't think it was going well at all; I was starting to feel slightly cold even though I was wearing flannel pajamas, in a thick sleeping bag, in the middle of the jungle. In other words, I was feeling rather miserable.
My father could clearly tell that I was shivering, and he said, "Well, it can get rather cold in the jungle at night. You're doing the right thing by wearing flannels; all I have are boxers".
"Why boxers?" I asked him, slightly incredulously. "Why do you only sleep in boxers?"
He shrugged. "It's just the way I've always done it. It works for me, and you know what they say. If it ain't broke…".
"...don't fix it. Yeah, I know".
My dad nodded. "In any case, sorry for waking you up. I know you're trying to get as much rest as possible. Matt and Mike have already gone to bed, as have everyone else".
"Okay". I didn't know how to respond to that.
He put a hand on my forehead. "Bradley, your forehead feels really clammy and slightly sweaty. Let's have Dr. Saint Lawrence take your temperature tomorrow; you don't look good".
Under most circumstances, I would have been very glad that my father cared about my well-being. However, since I knew there was no rescue from the thick of the Alolan rainforest, I would only be more miserable if I still felt sick in the morning.
"That's okay," I replied. "I really don't believe I have a fever". Once again, I didn't really believe what I was saying; I was only saying it to reassure myself that everything was okay.
My father shrugged again. "I believe you believe that. But I'm concerned about you; I'm your father, for crying out loud".
He did have a point, and I didn't have the strength nor the desire to argue with him. I crawled back underneath my sleeping bag and tried to catch some more of the last letter of the English alphabet.
I slept fitfully for the rest of the night. I would toss and turn, images of Braixen's Curse burned into my retinas, and finally get some shut-eye. I would wake fifteen minutes later to find that I was covered in an increasingly thick layer of perspiration.
Let me explain something to anyone who hasn't had a fever before: There is wetting the bed, and then there is sweating the bed. Both are awful, and, while one may be far less embarrassing than the other, the aftermath is still quite miserable.
When I woke up for what must have been the fourth or fifth time, I had to relieve myself. By now I was drenched in sweat, almost like I'd just run a 5K, and my muscles were starting to ache as though I had the flu.
I slowly sat up in my sleeping bag; merely the act of doing so made my head throb. I then stood up, bent over so that I didn't hit my head on the ceiling of the tent (not that it would have hurt too much) and opened the flap.
There were no outhouses anywhere nearby, so I had to find a tree. After I found one that was suitable for this purpose, roughly fifty yards away from camp, I did my business and left.
As soon as I had finished urinating, I looked up at the stars. Even though the jungle canopy was thick, I could still see a good number of them.
Wow. Even in the feverish haze I currently found myself in, the sight of the starry night sky filled me with awe. There were more constellations than in Pastoria City, or even in the suburb in which I lived.
Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
I made my way back to the clearing in which we were sleeping and saw that there was no sign of life in any of the tents. Of course, this wasn't surprising; everyone else was trying to sleep as well.
In the cool night air, and while wearing my sweaty clothes, I began shivering. My teeth were chattering slightly at first, but I managed to steady them as I got back into the tent.
My father didn't stir; he could be a pretty heavy sleeper whenever he wanted to be. He was lying on his side, completely dead to the world, but I knew that he'd be reinvigorated when he got up again. Unlike me, he was probably having the time of his life.
I'm not my father. I will never be my father.
When I got back into my sleeping bag, I continued to toss and turn for the rest of the night. I might have gotten a few minutes of sleep here and there, but on the whole I felt completely unrested, and the feeling of being covered in sweat didn't help.
I drank some water from my canteen and kept rolling over. I didn't have much space to get a position that would take me to dream land. It just wasn't going to happen, so eventually I just laid there and closed my eyes.
When the sky went from pitch-black with plenty of stars to navy with far fewer stars, a couple of hours later, I was still in that position; it was the same position that I'd had when I had gotten into my sleeping bag at the beginning of the night.
For all anyone else knew, I had been sleeping soundly all night. But I knew better, which was that something was keeping me from getting a good night's rest.
And then…
"Way up in the sky, the big birdies fly, while down in the nest, the little birdies rest!"
It sure sounded like Matt's voice. It must have been him trying to get us to wake up, as it was now dawn on the second day.
Dawn of the second day. Forty-eight hours remained until we reached the Temple of the Fox. I had no desire to keep going, but then I remembered that my father would probably be very proud of me if I stuck it out.
Although he did tell me to get my temperature taken. I'm sure I have a fever at this point.
There was no other conclusion I could come to. Between the sluggishness, the massive amount of sweat, and the fact that my legs felt like they could barely support me, it seemed pretty obvious I was sick with something.
As I slowly raised myself into a sitting and then a standing position, I saw my father begin to stir and heard the next lines of the song.
"And up comes the sun, the dew goes away, good morning, good morning, the little birdies say…".
If I'd had the desire to yell, I could have roared like a lion to tell Matt that he had a horrible singing voice. Were he on Alolan Idol, he would have been booed off the stage almost immediately; he certainly would've been the first person eliminated.
However, I didn't do this; instead, I put on my hiking boots and stumbled out of the tent. I saw that Mike was already cooking something over a fire that he'd built next to the tent he had been sleeping in.
"What's for breakfast?" I decided to ask him.
"Grits," Mike replied. It was fitting, too, in a way, since he replied in a gritty tone of voice. Okay, I'll stop.
I could barely stifle a groan. I hated grits; they always got stuck in your teeth, but, perhaps more importantly, they weren't very tasty. They tasted almost like nothing.
But if that was all they had, then I was going to eat it. Unlike last night, I was quite hungry, and that gave me hope that maybe if I'd had a fever, that it was now breaking.
Unfortunately, nothing else about my physical condition had improved. My legs were starting to ache now, and not in the way that is typical after prolonged exertion like a multi-day trek through the jungle.
The other men started exiting their tents. Chris and Terrence came out of one tent, and Ken and Dr. Saint Lawrence came out of another. All of us were waiting for breakfast to be ready, as well as listening to the sounds of the morning.
I could hear birds, as well as some smaller Flying types, chirping in the morning twilight. The mere sound of chirping nearly gave me PTSD from yesterday.
The sun had not yet risen, and that only added to my overall tiredness. It feels a lot less natural to get out of bed if it's still dark outside, even if the sky was lightening.
"Okay, guys, breakfast is served".
As I was coming up to get my helping of grits, I cast a glance at my left arm. And it wasn't pretty.
To my horror, the area around the stitches had become red and swollen, as well as hot to the touch, almost as hot as a furnace. I was no medical expert, but I'd been told enough about field medicine during the preparation with my father to know one thing:
If the area around a cut is swollen, then you have to make the assumption that there's a bunch of pus under there.
I shook my head. I didn't even want to think about the processes going on inside my body as it tried to fight what was evidently a pretty decent infection. All I knew was that I felt even more wretched than I had been in the rain yesterday.
"Dude, your arm looks pretty bad".
I looked over at Terrence Santorini, who was rubbing his beard and had never, to me at least, looked more like a stereotypical thirty-something surfer dude. He was staring down at my arm with concern.
I understood why he was gawking at me that way. The infection in my arm was like a car crash: It was horrible, but no matter what, you just couldn't look away.
"Yeah…" I replied sheepishly.
"Hold up, what is that?" I heard Matt nearly gasp those words out as he came rushing over from the tent.
There would be no hiding it any longer, that was for sure. The secret was out, not that it had ever really been a secret at all.
"My arm's infected," I told Matt. "I think there's a...what's the word? Abscess?"
Dr. Patrick Saint Lawrence, who was at the back of the line to receive his serving of grits for breakfast, cut the line in order to come up to me. Unlike what usually happens when someone cuts in a line, nobody seemed mad at him for doing so, for reasons that should be obvious.
"Yes" Dr. Saint Lawrence said in a hurried tone, nodding at the same time. "Looking at your arm, it sure seems like there's a big collection of pus there. And, as you know, out here, even a small cut can quickly become a disgusting infected wound. As soon as we're done with breakfast, I'll do an examination".
Throughout the meal of grits, which I dressed lightly with maple syrup that had been provided, I felt several pairs of eyes on me the whole time. I was the center of attention, and not in a good way. It was really quite uncomfortable to be gaped at like an animal in a zoo.
Once we were done eating, Dr. Saint Lawrence asked Mike, "Could I have the medical kit?" (During the expedition up to this point, Mike had been carrying the medical kit in his bag. I had no idea how he had the strength, because that thing looked heavy).
Mike nodded. "You're going to examine Bradley?"
"Yeah" the doctor replied. "I'd like some private space to look at his arm and see what we need to do to address it".
"Okay" Matt said. "You guys do what you need to do; the others will take down camp". Even though he should care about my well-being more, I had the sense that he was pissed that instead of eight people helping to take down camp, there were only six.
Dr. Saint Lawrence gestured for me to follow him into the rainforest, to an area that was relatively flat. He then sat me down on a rock and told me to tell him my symptoms.
"Well, I've been tossing and turning all night. I definitely have a fever; at least, that's what I think. I've been sweating so much that it's hard to see how I wouldn't".
The doctor nodded. Feeling my arm, he asked me if him touching me caused any pain. "A little" I replied.
"It is quite nastily infected. I know I sound like a broken record here, but you really do need to keep any small wounds clean. There are any number of bacteria out here that will look for any tiny hole in your body to get in and cause trouble".
Dr. Saint Lawrence continued speaking in some sort of medical jargon that I didn't quite care to decipher. As stated above, I didn't want to picture what was going on inside my arm, and besides, I didn't want to be more worried than I already was.
I only tuned back in when he began discussing treatment options.
"There are two things we can do out here. I could either start you on some antibiotics, or I could lance it. Incise it, cut it open, drain it, clean all the muck out…".
Oh, Arceus, that's so disgusting. But if that's what it takes.
"Under normal circumstances, my first choice would be to lance it. That would solve the problem the fastest. But since an I & D, an incision and drainage procedure, would create a wound in itself, it's a risk out here in this environment that is so ripe for infection".
"So what are we going to do?" I blurted out. "And be honest with me. Is this going to kill me, or otherwise stop me from getting to the temple?"
Even with all the misery I was putting myself through in order to see the Temple of the Fox, perhaps especially with all of it, I still badly wanted to see it for myself. I had enough awe in the world that I was of the utmost desire to get there.
Dr. Saint Lawrence shook his head. "The good news is that it's not near a joint or bone, so it's not going to damage anything for quite a while. The bad news is that it's not superficial; it does seem to be rather deep".
Yeesh. No wonder I feel so awful.
"So we're going to start you on some antibiotics, and if it still gets worse, we can always go to step two. But I think we'd better get back to the group".
I nodded, and the doctor laid out his prescription. I would take one pill with each meal until it went away, and even a little after that. He warned me that antibiotics came with their own risks, mainly the risk of side effects, but I didn't want it to get any worse.
"Okay. Let's get back to the group".
We headed back to camp, where the others were just finishing up the task of dividing up the remaining food into their bags. The tents, as well as the gear tarp, had been taken down.
"Wow, you guys are pretty efficient" Dr. Saint Lawrence told Matt. "You sure got everything down quickly".
"Yes, well, we have to be moving as quickly as possible. You know as well as I do that we need to cover as much ground as we can every day. We only have enough food for seven days".
After we were all delegated a roughly equal amount of food to carry, and the task of bearing the tent bags was given to my father, Chris Ruby, Dr. Saint Lawrence, and Terrence Santorini, we left what had been our temporary home.
Even though the trail began sloping downhill, which should have made the going easier for at least a little while, I still had a hard time putting one foot in front of the other.
My head throbbed with every step, and I occasionally put my hand to my forehead in order to make it hurt less. This was not very effective, but unless there were painkillers here, it wouldn't work.
Hopefully the antibiotics help, but I don't know if they will.
When your body is that weak and sick, your mind goes places that you don't think it will go. It's then that self-doubts start to creep in, and you begin worrying about things that you hadn't thought about previously.
Maybe I won't survive this trip. Maybe I get too weak to continue, and they decide to leave me behind to die here.
The thought of wild Pokemon, including the mother Rowlet from yesterday, feeding on my corpse was one that completely disgusted me. It also gave me reason to keep going, because it was an outcome I sought to avoid at all costs.
It wasn't too hard to keep our balance on this part of the trail. Even though the path was rather muddy at points, it wasn't nearly as steep as the trek up here had been. For the most part, we were traversing the ridge of a hill (or small mountain, depending on the way you looked at it).
Although we were trying to keep up a decent pace, I got plenty of chances to look over the ridge at what lay far below us. And it was beautiful.
It might not have been quite as awe-inspiring as the starry sky from last night, but there was something about seeing all that greenery below us, palm trees as well as various other trees that grew in the tropics, that made me realize how grateful I was to be alive.
By this time, the sun was rising over the jungle, and the green mixed with orange was a sight I wouldn't soon forget.
Let's see...I've got a large duffel bag on my back and an abscess in my arm...but I'm really glad to be here all the same.
And in the midst of all of this, I heard birds, as well as Flying-type Pokemon, chirping all around me. I might have been breathing very hard, but I could recognize natural beauty when I saw it.
The feeling of gratitude didn't last very long, though. When Mike called for a water break about an hour and a half after we'd departed last night's campsite, I took off my backpack and nearly collapsed onto a rock.
"Bradley Clarion, I called for a standing water break," the guide said sternly as I opened my pack to grab my canteen. "You weren't supposed to sit down".
I wasn't sure how I had managed to miss the statement that we were supposed to keep our packs on. Perhaps I'd been so caught up when he'd mentioned the word break that I'd ignored the rest.
"Okay…" I replied, taking a swig of my water and then slowly standing up.
As I did so, I nearly collapsed forward. I felt as though my legs could barely support my body weight, much like I usually did when I had a fever. It would be nice to stop walking for a few minutes, but I sincerely wished I could have had more time to sit down.
Then again, if you stopped now, you might not have been able to get up again. That was a voice inside my head, the voice of self-doubt.
The "voice" might have been "trying" to make me doubt my own abilities, but it did have a point. Perhaps the only way I'd be able to keep moving would be with constant motivation, and sitting on a rock for five minutes would not be the best way to stay motivated.
The other seven men all took a drink of their water, and Mike said that we'd be descending back down to the Phoenix River. There, we'd get a chance to fill our water bottles back up, and that was very welcome news to me, since mine was getting close to empty.
Once we were moving again, I started looking less at the landscape all around us and more at the ground. I was feeling a little unsteady, like someone who had just had a drink of alcohol for the first time and wasn't prepared for its effects.
The last thing I wanted was to trip, fall, and end up covered in mud again. I recalled what had happened yesterday, which was most likely the cause of the infection I was currently suffering from. Besides, I didn't want to have to walk in muddy clothes for the next several miles, or however long we were planning on hiking today.
As we walked, I pondered the dream I'd had the previous evening. I'd seen the same mansion twice in my nighttime visions, and both times I'd been unable to get past the garage. It was immensely frustrating; since they were lucid dreams, I figured they were somehow very important.
I'd seen plenty of pictures of mansions, but this one was completely new to me. I certainly hadn't been there, so what meaning could it possibly have?
I shook my head, visibly enough that the others probably wondered what was up with me. I didn't have the time to worry about that right now, not with everything going on around me.
Even though I was preoccupied by the difficult task of taking one step, then the next, then the next, etc., the image of the painting from the IRAA HQ forced itself into my mind, like a burglar trying to steal away my other thoughts.
Perhaps it was just because the transformation looked extremely painful, but I was seized by a sudden fear that the Braixen's Curse painting would end up being prophetic. I had no idea how I could possibly have thought that, given that people can't turn into Pokemon except in stories. And the thing about stories is that they are not real life, and anyone pretending that they are is delusional.
As we continued down the hill, I had to be more and more careful with every step that I took. Not only was I becoming more exhausted, but the ground itself was becoming more slippery due to the accumulation of mud at the bottom of said hill. And then…
"Fuck!"
I heard the scream behind me, which sounded as though it came from Terrence, who was right behind me in our single-file line. He had evidently tripped, fallen, and, because the ground was so slick, begun sliding down the muddy hill.
Under normal circumstances, I would have had the reaction time to get out of the way, but, in my current feverish cocoon, I was not able to do so.
Like a human bowling ball knocking down a human pin, Terrence knocked me to the ground; I landed hard on my tailbone, and I grimaced in pain.
It wasn't broken, but it was going to hurt tomorrow. Actually, I'll take that back. It hurts right now.
The other men in front of us got out of the way in time, and we slid down the mud on our asses until we reached the bottom of the hill.
I winced once more. Even if my tailbone wasn't broken, there was still a chance it was bruised and would continue to hurt for some time. The problem with that is that you really can't do anything about it in the middle of the jungle, except for painkillers.
And the problem with painkillers, I thought bitterly to myself, is that many of them make you sleepy. Yeah, we don't want that.
"You okay, Bradley?" Matt asked me. It seemed like the millionth time in just the last twenty-four hours that I'd been asked this question.
I grabbed a nearby palm tree and slowly eased myself into a standing position, moaning as I did so. "Yeah...I'm fine. That did hurt quite a bit, though".
As I rubbed my aching tailbone, I waited for Matt to respond. When he did not do that, Mike raised a hand, evidently asking for permission to speak.
"Yes, you may talk," his brother told him.
Mike cleared his throat. "We're at the Phoenix River now, so if you need to fill up your water bottle, now is the time. We'll stop for five minutes to allow everyone to do that".
I didn't miss my chance. The thought of getting some more fluid into my body was motivating enough to sustain enough energy for me to make it to the riverbank. The literal pain in my ass was starting to go away already.
As I scooped up water from the river, I had to resist the urge to drink. The thirty minutes of waiting before it became safe was going to be agony, I knew that much.
But you know what they say. This is how it is and this is how it goes.
With a sigh of resignation to my fate, I turned the cap to fasten my water bottle shut and headed back to join the rest of the group.
Yes, this is a pretty short chapter, but I figured that I ended it at the right place. I promise that the next chapter will be longer than this.
In other news, Temple of the Fox now has 30 followers, which is pretty insane. Keep it up, guys, you are amazing!
See you next time, Lucas Whitefur