Watching Lawrence riffle through the engine was like watching a painter snatch shapes off a canvas. It began slowly, then proceeded in extreme bursts as Lawrence dismantled the machine, clawing and burrowing his hands into the insides of the still warm engine.

The plan was simple enough- whatever failings the engine had suffered could be corrected, the parts of the engines of older vehicles were as hardy as they were rugged. After almost twenty minutes of digging and sorting various parts of different sizes on the ground in an organized chaos Lawrence stopped for a moment, frowned, and then gingerly removed a small piece of rubber with a long slit along the side and started grumbling "Damn this little thing".

"That's it?" I asked incredulously "That's the leak that overheated our engine?"

"It ran from the motor into the heater. This little split would have taken our used coolant and dropped it on the road instead of going back to the tank to be recycled." Lawrence chuckled "Can you get me your leather jacket and your knife? I'm going to make a temporary patch for this hose to last us until we reach Olivine, then we can find some stuff to do some real repairs."

I complied, beginning to remove my jacket even as I opened the door. As I exited I felt a deep, heavy feeling of worry stopped me, and I let my eyes wander about, eventually falling upon Jenny. Something about the way she sat felt deeply unnatural. As I approached her, the reason for this became clear; she was pale, her brow covered in sweat, and seemed to sit unnaturally still. Gravely concerned, I reached out and grabbed her wrist, checking for a pulse, only to confirm the worst of my suspicions.

"Shit! Shit! Lawrence, Jenny's pulse is gone!"

"What!" Lawrence bellowed, running to the cabin and checking himself "Fuck!"

Lawrence quickly unstrapped Jenny, laying her back on the road and began rapidly doing chest compressions while yelling obscenities. After fifteen seconds of slamming his hand against her diaphragm he placed his ear above her heart and attempted listened for the rhythm of life, muttering something along the lines of "You better be beating you son of a bitch."

Several seconds passed in silence before Lawrence reacted "FUCK!" Lawrence leapt up and paced back and forward, then back again before his eyes lit up "Crescent, keep up the chest compressions! I have an idea."

I spared only a second, a second longer than I should have, watching Lawrence run around the front of the car. He began digging through the engine again, but gone was the grace of an artist, this time he was like a wolf tearing the entrails of its prey. He did not care about the state of the barriers, only what was within, and it showed as his hands fumbled through different parts as he ripped them out and flung them behind him.

I kneeled down next to Jenny and began pumping her diaphragm, forcing blood to flow in place of her own heart. Ten seconds and fifteen pumps, twenty seconds and thirty pumps. Lawrence ran around the side of the car holding an orange box with two cables attached "How many volts does a modern defribulator put out?" He asked urgently.

I looked at him confused "It can fire up to two-thousand volts" I answered, eliciting a confused look from Lawrence. Understanding dawned on me as I did a double take on the box he held, and quickly corrected myself "But I think standard operating procedure is to start at 120 volts."

"Right," he replied, setting down the box and placed each of the two cables near Jenny's heart "Alright Rotom, you heard it, let her have it!"

Jenny jerked as 120 volts of electricity passed through her body, starting at the sinus node of her heart. Lawrence removed the two cables and set his ear above her heart. It was the perfect Hollywood defribulation, a patient plugged into a magical machine that could instantly revive someone, provided they were shocked enough times before they expired.

But then again, what the hell did Hollywood know?

"Damnit, it's not working!" Lawrence yelled, grabbing the makeshift defribulator and preparing to administer another shock.

"Stop!" I interrupted, pushing him away and resuming CPR "Don't be a dumbass! Electricity resets the heart, it doesn't restart it! Administering another shock this soon will only make it worse!" A crunching sound was heard as one or more of Jenny's ribs cracked, not helping my argument, but Lawrence seemed to trust me enough not to interfere, instead throwing down his orange box angrily, the orange and jittery form of a Rotom barely leaving the object before it crashed into the ground.

"God damn it! Is there anything I can do to help?" Lawrence asked, eyes fixed on Jenny's unconscious form.

'Damn it. I lost count. Screw it.'

"If you want to help" I started "Put the engine back together. CPR isn't a cure, I'm only delaying death, hoping that the heart starts itself back up after that shock. Even if her heart does start back up she won't be in the clear, she'll need adrenaline, which means we need an emergency room. Which means we need a way to get there."

"That's it? That's all I can do?"

I leaned down and breathed into Jenny's mouth, resupplying her lungs with gas, then resumed pumping "Pick a god and pray. Quietly, it's hard to count in my head with so many distractions. You fix that machine I'll fix this one."

"Uh, right, right! I still need your jacket to repair the hose!" He said frantically, to which I obliged him, quickly removing my jacket, careful not to get my arms tangled in the sleeves, and threw it at him before resuming chest compressions.


Lawrence removed his hand from the engine, opening his fingers wide and stretching the muscles in his hand, grimacing, the tendons of his palm sore from the toiling within the heart of the truck. Though the fear was still evident in his eyes a small look of triumph passed his face. Lawarence cracked his knuckles and removed a cap from one of the tanks, peering into it. Unsatisfied, he hastily unstrung one of his shoelaces and dipped it into the tank. The small relief on his face faded as he withdrew the string and ran his fingers across it.

"The coolant tank is empty." He said "Did we bring any water? We have to refill it before we set out, or else the engine will overheat again."

I scoured my mind between pumps, thinking of what I had gathered whilst fleeing the pinsir. Of all the things that I had thought to bring with me, water was not my top priority. I hadn't expected the engine to give, and was gambling on us being able to replenish our stocks of water at a stream. Streams of peanut butter, honey, and bread seemed much more difficult to come by.

Obviously, it hadn't quite worked out.

"No. I could only carry so much, and I figured that since we were heading to the sea we could refill at a river on the way. How badly do we need it?"

"Brimstone and hellfire. We can always walk all the way to Olivine, or even better, fly! I've always wanted to fly, just like I've always wanted to get chased around by giant bugs while I run all…" Lawrence trailed off absentmindedly, almost in a daze before shaking himself to awareness and placing his hand on his forehead. "There was a polywag on the side of the road not that far away. They are probably docile, and they only stay around clean water, so I'll check that out, see if I can't get enough to run this thing safely."

I looked at him confused "Lawrence, the last thing we need is to be following those-"

"You need to not worry as much, stress is bad for your health. Live a little." Lawrence said, pulling a large tank out of the engine "Besides, we need that water, and you're a bit tied up now."

Truth to be told, I wasn't so worried about Lawrence's caution, but I was worried that if isolated, his focus would waiver. Not only now, but his reaction to the approach of Heracross- which turned out to not only be harmless, but a godsend, if what he had said about the Herculean-Beetles protecting us turned out to be true- echoed in my mind. The panic portrayed in his eyes, and in his subsequent actions was clear. In a group- that sort of panicked disregard for reason was a liability. But on his own with no one to baby-sit him, no one to make sure he didn't do anything stupid in a frenzy?

Regardless, it was a risk that had to be taken. All that besides, all other incidents showed him to be capable of acting on his own, and given his focus when Jenny's heart stopped, it seemed likely that the incident was a one-time occurrence; perhaps the bastard child of disorientation from the crash and some long-repressed fear of bugs.

I hoped as much.

"I concede, you're right." I said reluctantly, putting aside my fears and trying to reinvest faith in my first and most trusted (and as of right now, only) companion.

Said companion laughed and began gloating "I usually am! It shouldn't take long; the stream wasn't that far back. Auf wiedersehen jungen man!" With that gibberish farewell he spun on his heels, coolant tank in hand and began running back down the way we came.

I placed my ear on her chest still checking for a heartbeat. Disappointed for the umpteenth time, I breathed into the mouth again and began the compressions again, hoping that she hadn't flatlined, and that her heart was merely on idle. Then again, how much longer until Jenny had passed the point of no return?


My arms ached- one would think that such a simple action would be easy on the arms, but one would also be surprised to find their arms writhing and feeling as though they were falling off after the thirtieth pump, and I had no idea how many hundreds of pumps I had performed. I tried my utmost to ignore the pain, exacerbated by my already-injured shoulder. CPR-I somehow knew- could sustain a human cardiovascular system almost indefinitely, in the end, this struggle only boiled down to a battle of wills between myself, and her inactive sinus node. Had the situation been less urgent, I probably would have wondered how I knew all this, and speculated details of my hidden past, but my mind was empty of everything but the urge to continue CPR.

A movement in the bushes, and the sound of two heavy boots greeted my ears. Immediately I was wracked with worry. If Lawrence was already back it could only mean that something had gone wrong, which we could not afford.

Then came two things I was not expecting. Firstly, and unfamiliar voice. Secondly, the familiar sound of a gun's safety flicking off.

"Freeze! Hands in the air, now!"

I didn't even bother looking up "As tempting as that is it's more tempting to not let her die. So, you'll have to excuse me if I choose not to. And for the sake of all things logical, put that gun down, I couldn't raise a hand against you even if I DID have a death wish."

"Then you'll have to forgive me as well, better safe than sorry."

"If you seriously plan to shoot me I recommend you rethink your methods. It's a waste of a bullet, and these woods are filled with things that would love to know exactly where we are."

"I won't if you don't try anything, that's the best I can do."

I paused our banter to check Jenny's heart again, then replenished her air supply. "Is this a holdup?"

"Sorry, but yes."

'That settles that, I don't suppose I could appeal to his sense of sympathy?'

"Please just leave us alone." I interrupted my begging with another mout-to-mouth, preparing suitably heart-wrenching fantasy "My wife and I just want to find somewhere safe to wait this out. We heard Olivine City is safe, and she has family there so we were headed there when we were attacked by Pinsir on our way out of Goldenrod. Please help us, or at least leave me be. My arms are tired-" I paused to check her heart and replenish her oxygen again, more for emotional effect than anything else, and then resumed compressions, this time with a furrowed brow and an exaggerated shaking in my arms as I bent my elbows in improper technique. "-and I've been trying for so long, I don't think she's going to make it. I don't know what I'm going to do! How can I live without her?"

The lie fell from my lips like honey, even if the need to beg tasted like ash. Lying was easy, making a lie believable was hard. It seemed I was proficient at both, and as I waited for his response, I worked to prepare the next.

"Here's what you do; make way for those of us that still have reasons to live."

"How can you be so heartless?" Even though my plea was harder to watch than a bad romance this reaction was true. He seemed to buy my ploy, but just didn't care.

"I'm sorry, but it's not my problem."

"Damn you then, I hope that this forest eats you alive." I growled angrily.

"How about this then." He said, his voice taking a new, dangerous inflection "Comply or I'll shoot her, then I'll shoot you."

I spat in anger, then for the first time looked at the highwayman- the definition of average. Average height, average build, short black hair, and the standard pale Johto skin.

There were however, two things that stood out about him. First was the sleek build of a submachine gun- clearly military with its carbon black coat, long magazine, tactical light, collapsible stock, pistol grip, tactical sights, and a switch on the side that had three settings that a fool could guess the purpose of.

"Safety. Three round burst. Fully automatic."

The second was even more shocking than the first. His clothing consisted of a button up shirt and long pants covered in a pattern of small blue, black, and grey rectangles of various sizes that mashed together and overlapping. On his right leg a holster with a large and sleek handgun. A large backpack was slung over his back, appearing only half full, and a black vest covered the upper half of his abdomen, complete with tactical rigging that was filled with spare magazines, and the letters 'JMCDF'.

"You're a marine in the Johto defense force! I though you enlisted to serve the state and its people, not rob it!"

The marine payed me no heed, instead gesturing to the truck "Does it work?"

We could not afford to lose the truck, no matter what. I'd have to come up with a convincing lie "No, we lifted it on the outskirts of Goldenrod, it was abandoned and out of gas but we brought a jerry can with us. We didn't bother looking under the hood though. The previous owner took out the coolant tank, probably wanted to use it to carry water. We didn't realize it and we burned out the engine when we were fleeing the pinsir."

"You made it this far without any coolant?" He asked, suspicious.

'Think fast'

I bent down and breathed more air into Jenny's lungs to buy time to think "There's a cold front coming through, and my wife is from the tropics of Hoenn. We were running the heat. Between the removal of heat from the engine and the cold weather it held together. Also, we mostly drove at night, so it was even cooler and we went slowly. You know, so we didn't hit something that would damage the tires."

The marine moved into the car and began bagging supplies "Is that where you came from, Goldenrod? What is it like there?"

"The sea is infested with man-eating pokemon. The whole city is dead, killed by electric pokemon within hours. The streets are roamed by krabby that scavenge from the dead and hunt any survivors. Below the streets Tentacruel travel the storm drain system."

"Figures. And the area around it? Any word from Violet City, Cherrygrove, New Bark town?" the man seemed unusually desperate for this, I tucked away this little detail for future use.

I didn't recognize any of those places, so I said the obvious "No, none. But around the city bug type pokemon wage constant war on one another and on rural humans."

The marine whistled, moving to the back of the truck "And how did the two of you survive all that?"

"We were visiting Hoenn for a family reunion. Jenny- my wife is from there, and I went to college there. We were supposed to fly to Olivine, but our plane had a fuel leak and we had to land right outside Goldenrod. There was a good view from up there."

"What happened to all the other passengers?"

"There were none, my wife is a certified pilot, and we rented a plane."

"Huh" The man said, coming back around the front of the car "So you are all on your own then, no one else?"

"Truth or lie? Half-truth."

"We met someone else on the way out here, but he…" Again, I did mouth to mouth to buy time to think "didn't make it."

"Shame." The man said leveling his weapon at me again, and I suppressed a fearful shudder "We need to talk."

I gave nervous chuckle "Really, what else is new?"

The soldier frowned "Not small talk, about these" He said, holding my belt of pokeballs along with Jenny's, which I had neglected to remove from the car. "And that." He finished pointing at the gun on the ground by my side, Jenny's pistol.

"You want it? You can come and take it if you want. I can't stop you." I attempted to reason.

"Where you can tackle me? I don't think so." His gaze hardened, made more terrifying looking down the barrel of his gun.

"Now here's the thing, you seem like a pretty stand-up guy, and I want you to do well, really, I'm not looking to shoot you. But at the same time, I can't take a bullet in the back, or whatever in the hell these things can do to me" He emphasized by waving around the pokeballs. "So here's what's going to happen. You are going to grab the barrel of that gun with one hand and slide it over here. Then I'm going to walk back twenty steps in the direction you came from and drop these pokeballs in the bushes. After that I am going to run away. If I hear you moving to the pokeballs, I will turn around and shoot both of you. If I see you grab the gun the wrong way, I will shoot both of you. If you try to charge me while I'm picking up the gun, I will shoot both of you. Am I clear?"

I gulped visibly "Crystal."

"Good now grab the gun. Just like I told you to."

I pushed down on Jenny's diaphragm one last time and then slowly reached over to the gun, rapidly glancing between the trembling deserter and the pistol.

"Wait, look at his uniform!"

'So NOW the invisible voice speaks up? Come on!' I wasn't sure if I was more troubled that the voice has chosen not to speak up until now, or that I was begging a disembodied voice in my head for advice.

"Look!"

I obliged, letting my eyes linger on the deserter's uniform, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Military standard, well taken care of, no rips or tears, no frayed edges. Befitting of a soldier.

'Wait a minute!'

The deserter's finger twitched, coming just short of the trigger and then looked at me annoyed "What?"

I withdrew my arm and looked at him confused "Did I say that out loud?"

"Yes you did, and it almost got your ass shot. What is it?"

"Your uniform, it's very well maintained, you haven't been out and around all that long, have you? And your vest looks heavy, you wouldn't want to wear it unless you were fighting something. But you didn't know I was here, did you? You were too loud, and you would have left the safety of you off."

I realized I had stopped chest compressions too long, and once again resumed "This is your first day out and about, isn't it? You were a marine stationed at a military base, but you didn't like the conditions after shit hit the fan, so you stole equipment and ran away a few hours ago. Please, tell me where it the base is, we might be able to get there in time to save her."

"I'd recommend against it, but your wife looks screwed otherwise, though I'm not sure how much good it will do you." The deserter sighed "Alright, I left a compass in your car, already have one on myself. The base is in a straight-line west of here. It's on top of the hill overlooking the sea, not far from Olivine itself, and they are accepting refugees, but they don't know what to do with them with limited rations. I don't know if they'll help your wife."

"At least it's something" I assured "How is Olivine?"

"So far it's been left alone. Ships can't come or leave without being sunk by pokemon though, so our aircraft carrier is docked until we figure out what to do."

"Ok, the gun now."

"Right yeah, they won't let you keep the gun so hand it over now, just like I told you. Wouldn't want to die before you get there." He emphasized his point by switching the gun to fully automatic.

For the second time, I slowly reached to the pistol, taking it by the snout. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, watching him tremble nervously. I slid the gun on the ground towards him, and he slowly walked up to grab it, stall all nerves and jitters.

"Hey Cresc-"

The deserter almost jumped in the air, startled, his finger immediately slamming the trigger, and I reeled back, feeling as though I had been hit in the gut by a fastball. I slumped onto the ground as the deserter spun, catching Lawrence in his crosshairs as the unfortunate engineer's face contorted into shock. The gun rattled off again, and Lawrence too fell to the ground, dropping the tank of water as he fell.

The deserter looked just as surprised, as if he couldn't fathom what had happened as he held the smoking gun. Several seconds passed before the shock settled into panic, and he slung the gun over his shoulder and sprinted down the road, probably due to meet an equally grisly end at the hands of the pinsir.

I managed to pull myself up to my feet, shocked and confused, not entirely sure what had transpired. I made my way over to the tank of water, sore but not terribly so. It was not until I attempted to lift the tank that I noticed an intense burning sensation in my stomach. I looked down and saw three red stains on my abdomen, on my right side, below the ribs, and then I fully realized 'I've been shot!' I felt sick and I fought the urge to crumble, standing on my two feet and limping towards the engine in a final, valiant last stand against my doom that I knew to be futile. With each step the burning increased in magnitude until I reached the engine.

I ignored the excruciating pain as I lifted the tank into the car, connecting the one loose hose and slammed the hood. I began to make my way to the driver side of the car, now fully hunched over in pain. I dragged myself into the driver seat and searched for the keys, before realizing they were in my hand. Choosing not to question it, I put it into the ignition and turned feeling relief as the engine hummed. I could go anywhere now, Goldenrod, Olivine, or even those places- Cherrygrove, Violet, New Bark. It was liberating, but I couldn't help but feel that I was forgetting something important.

And then suddenly my high ended, leaving only grim reality. Jenny and Lawrence, and even I myself would die here. I knew this from the moment I fell over, maybe before we got in the truck this morning, maybe even before I woke up six days ago, without memories and baptized in a blood in a city of ghosts.

We weren't far from the base, I could remember, just west. I had to try to save as many of us as possible. I was struck by the sad matter of fact that Jenny was almost surely dead- I could not recall how long it had been since I had been shot, but her heart had been stopped for too long, with or without my compressions she would have been dead by now. There was no false hope here, not anymore, there was nothing to be done for her.

Lawrence on the other hand, could still be saved though. I was still alive, after all, and I had been much closer to the deserter when shot. He may be unconscious, but depending on where he was hit, he might even have a better chance of surviving than I did.

It was decided then, I was going to try to bring Lawrence with me, at least. I was almost surely dead, even if we did arrive, there was nothing to gain from leaving the only one of us to survive on the ground to bleed to death.

I opened the door, and to my surprise the pain in my abdomen faded. Taking this as a good omen, I tried to step out onto the ground. I took one step and then fell on my face, though I did not feel it. I was in shock. This was it. The grand finale. The destination of all walks of life.

I looked at the ground with fascination, noticing for the first time how colorful the dirt was, millions of grains of dirt and sand, each one a different shape, a different shade of brown or gray. Beautiful. I felt like I could study the dirt forever, but there was something else I noticed. Like millions of pieces of paper rubbing together. Curious, I rallied my strength to prop myself on my side so I could see it.

I almost gasped. So much green, complimented by yellows, reds and browns- but mostly green. The leaves were beautiful, and then shifted, by mere millimeters, all at once, casting a mosaic of light on the forest floor.

What was it Lawrence had said to me? Learn to live? Not worry as much? If I stopped seeing death around every corner, saw a forest for the trees instead of the many ambushes awaiting us within it, would I have noticed all this? The songs of the wind? The rhythm of dirt crunching beneath someone's weight? The many shades of brown? The different shapes of leaves? Even pain was not so unpleasant, when you stopped and felt it.

I heard my heart thumping rapidly and knew this moment was drawing to a close, as I entered the final stage of shock. I wondered, I had pretended to be married to Jenny to save us, and failed, but would I have minded it? Heck being married to anyone? Loving and being loved?

A question that would never be answered. I could no longer hear my heart, the wind, and my vision grew darker. This morning if you asked me if there was an afterlife I would have said that any world this terrible would never allow it. But now, seeing the world for the first time with wonder, not horror I could not help but wonder. Was there a heaven? Would I go there? Or in my past did I do something irredeemable, and go to hell? Or was there something else entirely? Or nothing at all? Had I not remembered I was dying I would have been excited, much to see and discover on this last journey, if it was the last journey.

The edges of my vision faded, and I turned onto my back, taking in an infinity of blue, with a single round, bright object breaking the uniformity. There was something beyond I knew, though I could not remember what. I could not recall what it was called, but it was art in its own right, but what was beyond it…who knows.

It faded to black quickly, and even that had its beauty, a sense of peace and order. And there was one sound breaking through the emptiness a voice that I could not recall. It was there for me when I needed it, I knew, and I had trusted it before. I listened to it, making sense of the sounds…

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. It's all going to be alright."

And I believed it.