I awoke to the evening sky-just before sunset- and a world a pain. Sad as it was, I had become acclimated to waking up to significant injury and the pain it brought. I went through the motions I had learned well in the last few weeks: Localize the pain, find the injury, assess the damage, roll over to my stomach, and push myself up with either my arms or my knees and back.
'Pain: Mild discomfort in the shoulder. Ribcage is burning on the one side, and sore on the other. Stinging everywhere.'
I pressed the fingers of my right hand over the burning side of my ribcage. Where I had expected my fingertips to touch raw, bloody flesh I instead found soft- if gritty- bandages. I craned my neck to get a better look at myself, finding my entire abdomen bound tightly by a thick layer of bandages. Checking each of my limbs, I found my arms and legs also bandaged to varying extents. Out of curiosity, I pulled one of the bandages on my right arm back and peeked under it, finding the flesh of the bandaged area to be skinned terribly.
'Right, I fell from that tree and hit almost every branch on the way down. No wonder. But who put these bandages on me?'
My neck grew sore, and I found myself again laying flat on my back. Deciding I would do well to inspect my surroundings, I curled into a ball and rolled sideways onto my knees and elbows, pushing myself onto my bare feet.
Or at least, I tried. My head collided with a tangle of small branches. Now fully awake, I realized I was deep in a small thicket, about my arm span wide and twice as long, with thin brambles sprouting from the ground and tangling themselves over head into a loosely woven net with only a small opening in the top in which one could see the sky unimpeded. I was already facing the exit; a low hanging arc of branches, so I lowered my stance and crawled to the exit. As I moved my abdomen, I became aware of a distinct itching, and a painful pinching sensation.
'Must be stitches. Whoever patched me up spared no expense. Better be careful, don't want the work to go to waste.'
I stepped over a small blackened pit of earth at the entrance (probably where a small fire had burned previously, to keep the den in the thickets warm), and again took in my surroundings. It was a rather modest camp, set up in a small clearing, probably no more than twenty square feet large. A firepit -with a modest fire still burning- dominated the center, next to a small platform of sticks and stones mere inches off the ground and about as long and wide as an adult. Off on the edge of the clearing, a pile of small sticks, dry pine needles, and a few larger branches rested beneath a tree branch covered by some sort of large plastic bag- one of several about the clearing.
What lay on the other side of the fire though, really captured my attention. A large pidgeotto lay on the ground, it's wings spread wide, foggy eyes open, and tongue sticking out of its half-closed beak. I tiptoed over to it, overcome by cautious curiosity, until I knelt directly over it. It was massive, most likely almost eighty pounds, with a long mane and long talons, probably having just passed it's prime. What surprised me though, was how pristine it looked. No blood stained its feathers, no bruises to speak of. Flipping it over, I could find only two anomalies; a small bald patch towards the bottom of its stomach, and a thin cut on it's right leg.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."
'That voice, that damned voice.'
I turned back to the platform by the fire, finding the dead girl letting the flames lick her hands, she addressed me again "You survived huh? It was touch and go for a while there."
"You weren't the one that patched me up, right?"
"Me? Nah, I bugged out as soon as you got here. I don't know how to do bandages and stitches and stuff; besides, I certainly didn't set this all up. Someone was camping here, but he grabbed a bag and set off a while, you're alive because of him."
"And no thanks to you." I growled.
The girl actually looked offended "Excuse me, I did warn you not to climb the tree, remember?"
"Yeah, but I only fell out of it because your yelling surprised me! Yelling about a caterpie, no less!" I challenged.
"Well, I didn't know what it was, I could barely see up there. Besides, you thought it yourself- anything is dangerous these days, who knows what that thing could have done. It might have glued you to the tree and let you die of dehydration, laid eggs in you or something creepy like that!" the girl shuddered at the thought, and I thought better than to mention that her body was probably decomposing in a plastic bin as a home to thousands of microorganisms.
I huffed, but surrendered "Fine, it would have probably scared me and made me fall anyway. Caterpie look terrifying up close."
"Yeah, most bug types do. Can you BELIEVE that a lot of kids think that caterpie look cute? I swear, it makes me want to scream just looking at one."
I silently agreed, the memory of those bug eyes and the hundreds of needle-sharp-teeth fresh in my mind "We digress. Do you know anything about the person who helped me?"
The girl shook her head "Like I said, I ran off after you got here, and it was dark. I heard you screaming A LOT though, but looking at you, I'd say that's not entirely his fault."
I nodded and rubbed my bandaged stomach, looking at the dead pidgeotto and the fire "Damn, I'm hungry though."
"Then wait" The girl suggested "I doubt he'll be gone long, or that he intends to let you starve after going through so much trouble to keep you from bleeding to death. Who knows how long that's been there."
"I know, I know." I assured her "I don't know the first thing about preparing fowl anyway." I swayed a bit on my feet, "I'm still tired, how long has it been? Wait, never mind, you won't answer that."
The girl shrugged and stood up "You should lay down here, you lost a lot of blood, and haven't been awake to replenish fluids, of course you're tired I'm sure he'll be back soon, and if not, I'll wake you up if anything happens."
I cocked an eyebrow "You can do that?"
The girl shrugged "I've done it before."
I still felt worried, but I was terribly cold and fatigued, and the fire was still warm "Alright then" I lied down on the platform "I'll get some sleep."
The platform was just as uncomfortable as it looked, but at least is was dry, and off of the cold ground "That remind me actually, did you help me find this place last night? After I fell?"
"I yelled at you a bunch, and showed you the stick you dropped in the right direction, yeah."
"Is that all?"
The girl rose one eyebrow in confusion, Arceus, I hated people that could do that "Yeah, why?"
"Oh, no reason" I yawned "For some reason I felt like someone was pushing me, helping me along or something like that. Must have been a near-death delusion, not like it's the first time I've imagined up a guardian angel."
The dead girl put her hands on her hips, and I knew my dead-person senses told me to brace myself for chastising "You see that? That's why you'd never I'm a ghost. No imagination. None! What if it was something crazy, like fate, a bad plot device, an angel, or psychic powers."
I scoffed "That all sounds ridiculous."
"See that? No imagination. I bet you were an atheist too."
"Whatever" I waved her off "Aren't you supposed to be hating me right now?"
"Was I? Oh, right, you insensitive jerk! Get some sleep before I talk your ear off!"
She didn't need to tell me twice.
When I awoke night had fallen.
The fire was still burning, not quite as strongly, but brightly enough to illuminate about half of the clearing. The girl was gone, where or how I did not know. I first attempted to go back to sleep, counting the seconds of wakefulness to help me along, but gave up around eleven-hundred. The fire's heat was no longer enough to keep the night's chill at bay, and I decided I would have better luck in the thicket, while the fire still illuminated it well enough I would not launch myself into a face full of thorns.
Before I had a chance to rise, I found myself looking into the eyes of the dead pidgeotto, finding it's dead stare unnerving.
And it moved.
I jolted upright so quickly I felt my stitches pinch my side. I grabbed at my waist, reaching for the knife that was no longer there, and swore. Reaching into the fire, I grabbed a burning stick and pointed it suspiciously at the deceased bird pokemon.
'There is NO way I'm going back to sleep with that thing there. No way. None.'
After several moments of consideration, I cautiously approached the cadaver, still holding the stick far in front of me, as though it could spring to life and lurch at me at any moment. I jabbed the bird once in the wing, then quickly skipped back, half expecting it to lunge at me. When no such thing occurred, I approached again, prodding it in the wing several more times. Emboldened, I prodded its abdomen next.
The carcass shuddered, causing me to yelp and again skip back several steps, almost tripping as I did so. Mustering my courage, I struck the thing hard on the head with my stick, then several times on the body. I skipped back again after finishing my attack on the moving corpse, watching carefully, ready to attack at the smallest movement.
Several minutes passed without incident. I drew another stick from the fire, just in case, and approached again. The bird shifted again, and I swung my sticks at the head again, but brought them to a stop as a small head poked out from under the bird.
I relaxed. No crazy undead bird creature stirring in the night. Just a bug hiding under a bird's down to stay warm.
"Stay away from it, you don't know what it can do! No, better yet, kill it!"
I sighed. Bugs were gross. But while I would happily stay away from it, there was no reason to kill it. Beedril were aggressive, fast, and relentless. Pinsir were strong, territorial, and merciless. Weedle were just weedle; they ate leaves until they were too heavy to move, spat out a cacoon, then slept on a tree branch for three to eight weeks.
That didn't stop me from feeling perturbed as it inched toward me, I shuffled back a bit, and shifted a little bit to the right, just enough to move out of its path.
The pidgeotto shuddered again, and a bloody appendage shot out of its chest; six inches long, bloody, upright, with a single horn on its tip.
I didn't try to hide my revulsion as I recognized it for what it was, and my anxiety towards the weedle inching towards me turned to panic. The thing sprung, the tip of it's stinger aimed squarely at my exposed calf, but I was faster, swinging both sticks at it midair, through sheer luck striking it down midair with the stick I held in my left hand.
I scrambled away from it, searching for something to throw at it. I settled for a decent sized rock on the other side of the fire, I lifted it over-head and threw it down forcefully, crushing the bug-type without mercy.
Before I could catch my breath, another weedle- the one that had sprung from the pidgeotto's chest appeared next to me. Again, I scrambled to the other side of the fire, and tossed a rock, crushing it. And then another one appeared, from who-knows-where, and I scrambled for the other side of the fire again.
Unfortunately, I felt a pinch and my side followed by a sharp pain. Caught unawares, I misstepped, my foot catching the small platform, and fell on my bruised ribs. I gritted my teeth through the pain and grabbed a stick from the platform as I stood up preparing to swing at the next oncoming weedle.
My stick bounced off some unseen surface with. I felt a surge of panic, then confusion. A large axe came down on the weedle as if from nowhere, the rose and fell four times, until there was little left resembling anything that once lived. To be on the safe side, spun around, so the blunt end crushed what might have once been the head, destroying the stinger for certain, and then pushed the mangled remains in to the fire.
The axe fell to the ground, abandoned, and a large figure emerged from the darkness, leaping over the fire to where the pidgeotto lay, a bottle in hand. The figure sprayed the contents onto the carcass furiously and then wrenched it up by its legs. Two more weedle burst from the carcass, one from the chest and another from the leg. Angry noises from the figure filled the clearing as he grabbed closer of the two just below it's head and wrenched it, separating it's head cleanly from its body. Ignoring the other weedle, the figure grabbed both legs and heaved, sliding the large bird into the fire, where it burst into flames. The weedle was not spared from the same fate, it stood fully erect from the chest of the carcass it was birthed from, as though through some goliath effort it would leap into the sky, clear of the flames.
It was not to be. I felt a twinge of sympathy for the small monster as it screamed, curled into a ball, and burnt to a crisp. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air, accompanied by the less than pleasant memories I associated with it.
The figure wiped his hands on the ground in a futile attempt to remove the insides of the weedle he had forced outside. He turned and addressed me "My sorries, it was foolish for me to bring that thing here with you still resting. I should have known better."
"No way…"
'What are the odds?'
Standing in front of me, addressing me in broken common, the roaring flames casting grim shadows over his bandaged face and dark goggles covering his eyes, was Scar.
"You will not like this." Scar warned me as he examined my unbandaged side "You tore three sutures. I will need to remove them and replace them."
Scar left the platform we were sitting on to add more wood to the fire. The pidgeotto had since shriveled away into a mere husk of its former glory. From his backpack Scar withdrew a box and a container of clear fluid. He cleaned his hands with the fluid and dipped a curved needle and a tiny pair of scissors into it. Before proceeding, Scar addressed me again "You want to put a stick between your teeth. Trust me."
I reached down to the ground and took one from the platform, clamped my teeth down and gave him a forced grin. Scar nodded and began working on my side with for the next couple minutes he worked silently as I felt a small prickling in my side. His job done, he put the scissors back in the box "That wasn't so bad." I grumbled through the stick in my mouth.
Scar starred at me from behind his goggles "I just removed the broken sutures. We haven't started yet." To annunciate this, he pulled a different pair of scissors, this one curved, like the needle.
I gulped as I saw the long needle and looked away.
The next few minutes were agonizing- more painful than getting shot, but not as painful as the walk from the night before. At least it was brief, complete within five minutes. Tying off the final suture, Scar looked at his handy work and addressed me again "Give me your hands." I complied, and he caught my wrists in his hand, holding them in a vice-like grip.
"Sorry."
In his other hand, Scar pulled out his bottle of antiseptic and poured it on my cut. The pain was unbearable, and my hands attempted to shoot to the injured area, but Scar held them still. In a minute, it was over. Scar pulled bandages out next and began re-wrapping my abdomen "It's not a particularly bad injury, if how have healed so far is an indication, you will be well within two weeks. I can remove the sutures in a week." Scar stepped back and admired his handy-work, and gave an amused grunt, gesturing to his bandaged and face "We are alike, you and I."
I said nothing.
"Maybe not then." Scar conceded, though I couldn't tell exactly how he meant it. Changing the subject, he reached into his backpack and pulled something out placing it on the ground next to me "I retrieved your belongings while you were resting."
I looked at it all; my jacket was empty of water, my knife was covered in my own blood, my jeans were muddy but dry, and my t-shirt was for some reason ripped. The shoes I had been wearing as I climbed were there two, but they were badly worn, and the socks were bloody. I shrugged and began putting the clothing on over my bandages. I was able to without much difficulty but opted to leave the knife where it was.
Scar noticed this "You abandon the knife?"
I shook my head "You can keep it, it's all I can repay you with. Besides, I don't feel comfortable with it after what it did to me."
Scar shook his head "I will not touch it. But it is foolish to abandon a tool because its wielder's ineptitude. You should learn from your mistake. What is saying, 'cannot make omelet without breaking all the eggs?'. Well, nobody learns cutlery without a few scratches."
I stared at the knife, feeling Scar's chastisement hit hard. I was smarter than this. I needed to be smarter than this.
I looked away.
"Hold onto it for a day. Ask me again tomorrow."
Scar shook his head "I cannot touch it."
I looked at Scar confused "Why not?"
"I cannot touch it."
"Well, how did you get it here?"
Scar shook his head "I cannot touch it."
I grumbled, but reached out and snatched the knife, clipping it back onto my waist before I could think better of it "Happy now?"
"No."
I looked at him confused again, but chose to write off his answer as a language barrier "What are you doing out here anyways?"
Scar remained utterly stoic for a moment, then responded simply "I could ask you the same, but both are long stories, and not suited for the hearth. Perhaps tomorrow." Scar rose before I had a chance to ask another question, fetching more wood for the fire, and gingerly pushing the sizzling bird carcass out of the fire with a stick.
"What is the bird here for?" I asked, curiously.
Scar gave no indication he heard me, so I asked again "What is the bird here for?"
"Thinking." Scar said curtly "I had it to tell me what was happening in these woods."
"Tell you?" I asked, concerned "It talked?"
"No, no. These woods are empty, especially for the area. Normally there would be flocks of birds travelling south to escape winter. I found it odd, and found this one, and hope to examine it. I learned why the woods are empty, but there is more I do not know."
"You think these…things have spread through the entire forest?"
"I do not know. I only know that these woods are empty, and there are weedle killing silently, without leaving injury." Scar abandoned the fire again, moving to one of the bags laid over the tree branches in the clearing.
"What is that?"
"It is a sill, I believe it is called, or something similar. The sun heats the bag, changes pressure inside, drawing out water from the leaves. With a large enough bag you can gather water like this." He continued by poking a hole in the plastic with a straw and held it into a bowl he had procured from Arceus-know-where, and allowed the water to drip into the bowl. After a minute, satisfied with the water he received, he withdrew the straw and tied off the area he poked a hole in. Focusing at the bag, I noticed many of these small tied up portions existed, and this was only one bag of several.
"If the weedle are dangerous, shouldn't we leave as soon as possible?"
Scar moved to the other side of the fire, withdrawing something else from his bag that I could not see and began peeling it with his fingers "All lands are dangerous, better the evil you know than the one you don't. If the weedle were so threatening, I would have learned of the threat before inviting it to my camp. I did not build this with the intention of leaving at the first sight of panic."
"You mean you intend to stay here? You can't!"
"I do not intend to. But I must wait, as must you,"
"Wait for what?"
"For I, two days. For you, to heal. You do not know the way, so unless you intend to starve, you would do well to listen to me."
"What happens in two days?"
"I leave." Scar dead-panned "You ask many questions."
I huffed "You have terrible answers."
A long pause.
Scar broke the silence "You would do well to sleep again, in the shrubs. I will watch the night. You will have food in the morning."
"I'm not tired. Let me watch, it's the least I can do."
Scar stared at me, his bandaged face unflinching, his goggles hiding his intent. I fidgeted, it was like being watched by a statue, only its eyes followed you, now matter which direction you faced it from, "The least you owe me, you mean. You owe me nothing, I chose to save you, just as I choose to watch the night. You are free to choose what you want; your choices are not dictated by mine."
"Then I choose to keep watch tonight."
"Then you are free to join me, but I do not trust your eyes over my own."
"Then I do not trust your eyes over my own." I countered.
"Very well, but do not speak."
I nodded, and sat, and sat, waited.
And waited.
And waited.
My head bobbed.
And waited.
My eyes fluttered.
And waited.
And waited.
And slept.
