Please sit back, und enjoy!
Four men were standing in a dim-lit cave. One flashlight and an old-looking oil lamp were the only light sources, besides the starlight pouring in from the few occasional cracks in the ceiling. It had been cloudy all day, but the evening breeze had apparently cleared everything up a bit.
"How do you think they're doing out there?" one of the men asked. He was the shortest of the four, and was holding the flashlight.
"Well, I certainly don't bloody care. It's night, they're late and they'd better be back soon, or else…" a second man grumbled. Even in the semi-darkness, it was possible to distinguish this man's rather large eyebrows, because he was standing right behind the oil lamp which was at his feet.
"Or else you'll cook for them. Again! Hahaha!" a third man laughed, patting the second one on his shoulder.
"Shut your trap, you git." The second man replied with a British accent, swatting the hand away.
"Hm." a fourth man, the tallest of them all, grunted. He smacked the third man on the back of his head.
"Ow! Berwald, that hurt, bastard!" the third man complained, offended, nursing his head, glaring at the tall man.
"Stop complaining, Mathias, I think I heard them." the British one hushed the third man.
"But…!" Mathias whined, rubbing the back of his head and glaring at Berwald, who innocently looked in another direction.
"Wait a second, Arthur's right, they're coming!" the first man excitedly said.
"Ya sure, Tino?" Mathias asked, nearing him.
The sound of a running jeep engine reached their ears. "Yes, I'm sure!" the smallest man, Tino, said with a smile.
"They are late. I mean, beyond the usual late." the British repeated, eyeing the stars outside through the cracks in the ceiling. "It is dangerous to be out this late." He mumbled, more to himself than to the others.
Tino gasped, his eyes widening. "Maybe something happened to them?"
Mathias snickered, throwing a heavy arm onto the smaller man's shoulders. "Silly Tino, you heard the car! They're already here, don't worry, pal. They probably just got lost. Maybe Ludwig saw a beer and got distracted for a while."
Another smack echoed in the cave. "Ow! Hey, what was that for?!" Mathias glared at Berwald again.
"F'r being stoopid" the tall man grumbled with a heavy accent.
"Again, Berwald, that freaking hurts!" Mathias complained, rubbing the back of his head.
"They're here!" Tino waved as the jeep took the last turn and lit the area up with its powerful headlights. The sudden brightness momentarily blinded the four men, but they saw how the jeep devoured the last few meters, before slowing down and coming to a skidding halt, finally turning off. This time, it took a few seconds for the men's eyes to readjust to the sudden darkness lit only by their two small light sources.
"What took you so long, you irresponsible idiots." Arthur scowled, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Yeah! I mean, Arthur got all worried and shit and I got worried he was going to cook again." Mathias chimed in, earning another back-head whack, this time from Arthur himself.
Ludwig stepped out of the vehicle, moving his shoulders because they had gotten stiff. "I apologize, but we had a hard time finding the ammunition Kiku came across with the other day. We did scavenge some good stuff, but…we got some complications." He sighed, his shoulders sagging.
"Complications?" Arthur raised a thick eyebrow. "...What kind of complications?" He was instantly assuming the worst.
Kiku stepped out of the jeep as well, and held his hand out for someone inside the jeep. Now the four men were really curious.
Another man stepped out of the vehicle, about the same height of Tino. He looked rather frail and thin. In the dim light they could make out light brown-reddish hair, and a bizarre curl popping up on the left side of his head. He was wearing a tank top that had once probably been white, dirty blue trousers and brown leather knee-high boots. Arthur's keen eye however noticed immediately that his right hand was bandaged, and that there was a bit of blood caked to the man's hair.
"Uh Ludwig... Just who is this guy?" Mathas asked Ludwig, exaggeratedly pointing with both hands to the newcomer.
Ludwig sighed. "He can talk for himself, Dummkopf. Anyway, long story short, we found him in the city all alone while he was being attacked by a Nightmare."
"That's right! It was really scary, but Luwdig and Kiku saved me, so I am still alive and well!" Feliciano suddenly exclaimed, startling everybody a little. "Hello everybody, my name is Feliciano Vargas. Pleased to meet you!" he took a step forward, thrusting his right hand forward, but unsure who to give it to.
Tino was the first one to recover from Feliciano's bubbly behaviour. He took a step forward and took Feliciano's right hand with his own. "Hello, pleased to meet you too!Nimeni on Tino!"
"Eh?" the Italian asked, cocking his head to one side, puzzled.
The hope in Tino's eyes died almost instantly, and he sighed. He had hoped that the man would be Finnish, but that was a very remote possibility. But he was not going to get depressed over the fact that he was the only man from Finland there. "My name is Tino," he repeated, smiling.
"Oh! Pleased to meet you!" Feliciano shook his hand, understanding now what he had said. He released the Fin's hand, and turned to greet the tallest man present.
"B'rwald." the man said in a gruff voice, not taking his hand. Not because of rudeness, but because Berwald himself felt a bit awkward around new people, mostly feeling self-conscious about his facial expression, which was almost always a glare without him wanting it to be like that.
"Pleased to meet you too, Berwald. What a strange name, where are you from?" Feliciano was oblivious to his involuntary glare.
Berwald was surprised that this man hadn't been scared away yet. Feeling optimist, he answered. "Sw'den."
The country's name made something click in Feliciano's head again, and he remembered what and where Sweden was. "Oh really? That's so cool, where are you from, Tino?"
"Who, me?" The man pointed at himself, surprised, as if he were used to everyone not really being interested in where he came from. "I'm from Finland!" He smiled.
Again, the concept of 'Finland' unveiled itself in Feliciano's head. "Oh, so your place is actually near Berwald's, haha." He chuckled.
Another man jumped in between them, interrupting Feliciano's musings. "Hey, I'm the coolest guy here! Pleased to meet'cha! Mit navn er Mathias, and that's Danish for my name is Mathias!" The tall blond took his hand with two, and shook vigorously.
"Pple-e-e-e-e-a-se-ed to-o mme-e-et you-u to-o-o!" Feliciano answered, the concept of 'Denmark' appearing in his head once more. Mathias was much stronger than the Italian, and so by the sheer force of the shaking he fell butt-first on the hard ground.
"Oh my God, sorry! Hvordan har du det?!" the Dane worriedly asked, as if only then realizing what he had done.
The fourth man appeared in Feliciano's vision, and gave Mathias a firm shove, before bowing down and offering his hand to help him up. "Don't worry about Mathias, Feliciano. He's a stupid man. Let me help you up."
"Hey! I heard that!" Mathias complained on the background.
Feliciano looked up and smiled at the politeness of the man. "Grazie," he said, standing up again. "So who are you?"
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Arthur, a pleasure to meet you." He replied politely, shaking Feliciano's hand.
Feliciano was about to reply something, but Berwald clapped his hands once to get everyone's attention.
"Now th't 'vrybody 's b'n introduc'd, wh't d'd yoo twoo get?" he asked Ludwig and Kiku.
"Oh, that's right. The stuff." Tino mumbled, smacking his forehead lightly. Everyone had kind of forgotten about it because of the newcomer.
While Tino, Berwald and Mathias helped Ludwig take everything out of the jeep, Kiku observed Feliciano, and he noticed something.
"Oh my, Feliciano-kun!" he exclaimed worriedly, stepping closer as to see if his eyes weren't tricking him.
"Whoa, what is it, Kiku?" the Italian asked, a bit startled.
Instead of answering, the Japanese man gently grasped Feliciano's bandaged right hand. "You're wounded! Your head too..." he muttered, his eyes observing the blood caked on Feliciano's hair.
Arthur appeared beside them, his massive eyebrows downcast a bit. He was holding a small cardboard box in his hands. "Indeed, I noticed the moment he stepped out of the car. Didn't you notice it before? I thought you were the ones who treated his hand."
"No, it wasn't us." Kiku murmured, sounding a bit ashamed. "I apologize for my lack of attention, gomena-sai, Feliciano-kun." He bowed his head.
"Don't apologize, Kiku my friend. But he'll have to come with me for treatment. Now we finally have new supplies!" Arthur said with a toothless smile, raising the box in his hands so that you could hear its contents shuffle and roll inside.
"What?! Wait a second, I don't want to be anywhere near those needles! Kiku, protect me!" Feliciano had assumed the rolling sounds had been produced by needles, and had almost immediately moved behind Kiku as if he were a shield of some sort.
Kiku chuckled, a bit surprised by his reaction. "Don't worry, Arthur-san will not make use of needles."
The Italian suddenly seemed relieved, but didn't look reassured enough. He glanced at Arthur. "Are you sure? I hate needles..." for some reason, the mere thought of needles, or simply... objects that pierced skin made his skin crawl.
The Englishman smiled warmly, picking up the oil lamp off the ground with one hand. "Of course I'm sure, we don't really have them anyway. In any case, you need treatment and those bandages have to be replaced." He then turned around. "Follow me, please."
Feliciano stood straight again, thanked Kiku and followed Arthur through the only passageway – a man-sized hole in the rocky wall – in which Arthur had disappeared.
Kiku sighed, relieved, and then turned around to help the four blonds unpack what they had retrieved in the city. As he picked up a box however, he turned and, like everybody else, shot a worried look at the disappearing back of Feliciano.
"...Wow... What is this place?" Feliciano wondered, looking up and around himself while walking behind the Englishman. The antique oil lamp, which resembled those which were once usually used in mines, slightly lit the darkness surrounding them with a delicate yellow hue. The dim light bounced off of the rounded muddy-coloured rocks that were walls and the slightly lighter ground, but in the semi-darkness Feliciano could also distinguish other shapes. A massive table, couches and chairs, even counters of some sort.
Arthur casually shrugged, moving the lamp up a bit so that its light could reach a bit further. "This is our home. This is where we eat, where we cook, where we sleep... where hide from the Nightmares."
"Ooh, I get it," Feliciano breathed, almost a bit afraid to talk too out loud. This place was dry and warm, it felt homey. He on the other hand felt very small and as if he were intruding this place, and yet... the welcoming air wasn't rejecting him.
Arthur was everything but relaxed like the Italian, and cautiously studied him from over his shoulder, while walking to his room. The boy was too cheerful, and seemed pretty disoriented. Either the madness of the Apocalypse had cracked his mind like it had almost done to him, or…
He glimpsed the blood on Feliciano's hair. He wondered if he had taken a harsh blow to the head, which might have caused this temporary state. But what if he has been scratched, what if his bandaged hand-...? He was asking himself, before slowly shaking his head.
A flap of cloth was the closest thing they had to a door in this place. So the Brit moved a dirty green flap from a passageway and entered into his medical room. The Brit didn't see any harm into keep talking to the Italian. "You see, everyone here has a job to do, a part to fulfil so that we all can survive. Kiku and Ludwig for example venture out scavenging for supplies once a week, and switch with Berwald and Mathias the following week. Tino mainly focuses on getting something edible on our plates, and I specialize in medicine, in case one of us gets hurt." He said, vaguely gesturing around the room.
"Oh, I understand...! It is like a well-oiled machine," He said, looking around the new place with his brown eyes.
The medical room was pretty big, simply an average-sized room, and many objects made of glass and metal glittered in the light of Arthur's oil lamp. The walls were almost fully covered by stacks of boxes and makeshift shelves, full of plastic bottles and small medical boxes, jars, papers, and a few books that appeared to be about medicines and the human body. Some of those didn't even have covers anymore. In the middle of the room was a metallic, probably recycled metal table, wide and long enough for a person to lie on, while two smaller wooden and plastic tables had been crammed in the back of the room, covered in instruments, two oil lamps, pens and sheets of paper. Each table had a respective chair; under those tables there were plastic and tin containers, probably full of precious chemicals or distilled water. Somewhere to Feliciano's left there was another opening roughly covered by a flap, and the Italian could see a mattress. It was either Arthur's own bed, or a bed for sick people.
The Englishman hung the lamp on one wall, took a used match and lit it to the lamp's flame, so that he could lit other lamps in the room. When every lamp was lit, all darkness had been banished from the room. Arthur put out the half-used match and put it back in his pocket, before taking a piece of cloth out of one of the many boxes; he folded it and put it on the table, like a pillow.
Arthur gestured to it. "Sit there please, so I may take a look at you." In the meantime he rummaged through the boxes, in search for what he needed.
"Sure, alright." Feliciano murmured, sitting on the table, almost merrily swinging his legs back and forth until a look from the Brit made him stop. The Italian crossed his dangling ankles, and looked at his knees, thinking why he felt so out of place here. Was he doing something wrong? And if yes, what in the heavens was it?
Arthur neared him with a small plastic bowl of water and a piece of clean cloth. "I'm going to clean your head wound now, tell me if it hurts, alright?" he said kindly. "Please lie down with your belly."
The Italian nodded with an affirmative hum, he positioned himself prone on the table, using the cloth the Brit had put earlier as a pillow. Arthur waited for a second, and then started doing his work on his head.
After a while however, Feliciano couldn't contain himself anymore. "Arthur?"
"Yes?" The blond answered, dipping the piece of cloth in the water, removing the caked dried blood from his hair.
"Can... can I ask you a question?" the Italian mumbled in the makeshift pillow, his head turned away from the medic.
"Pray, tell me." Arthur said, leaning his head to one side to see and clean his caked strands of hair better.
Feliciano sighed, feeling heavy in his chest. "I... I just wanted to know, if I could really stay here. If it's okay with you all..."
Arthur's eyes slightly widened at the innocence of the question, it was not the kind of question he had been expecting. Actually, he didn't really know what to expect. "Of course you can stay, why wouldn't it be okay?"
Feliciano turned his head to look at the Brit. "Well, Ludwig didn't seem all too happy about bringing me here, even if it was him who saved me! And you all looked surprised earlier …" he paused. "…I don't know."
The Englishman's eyes and heart softened. There was something warm in his chest, something he had not felt in a long time. Sympathy? Compassion? "We were jus surprised. As for Ludwig, he has difficult personality." The Brit was done removing the caked blood and was now delicately touching the back of his head to find the wound and its rough edges.
Feliciano hissed for a second when the cloth gently rubbed his wound to clean it from hair and eventual dirt. "He probably wasn't like that before the Disaster, but… Ever since he came here he's been like this. Don't worry about him, he'll start tolerating you soon enough, he just has a problem with trusting people. We've all been sheltering together here for more than a year now, but the only person he still really trusts is Kiku. And that trust cost him five months to build." He chuckled once. "Mathias used to complain all day about the fact that he was so tired, and that Ludwig and Kiku should get off their arses and do something as well. He was always the one scavenging back then, either with Berwald or Tino. Sometimes even all three of them went out together. Not really wise, but it's Mathias we're talking about."
Feliciano nodded, understanding. Arthur left the cloth in the now dirty water bowl, and turned to take a green bottle of disinfectant from the box of medicines newly supplied by the German himself. He then started dabbing the wound with disinfectant. It was a big bruised gash, it did not need stitches but it would probably have left a scar if it had not been treated properly. Feliciano hissed and his fingers curled when the burning disinfectant came in contact with the open flesh.
"Sorry, it stings but it's necessary. Anyway, if that's what you're so worried about, stop worrying. You're very welcome here." The medic said without changing his expression, still concentrated on the wound.
Feliciano smiled. "'Survivors have to stay together. Every man counts.'" He recited. "That's what Ludwig said."
"Yes, that definitely sounds like Ludwig. And partly, what he says is true. We are survivors of an Apocalypse, we need to set our differences aside and work together so that we can keep surviving." Arthur was dead serious, and his massive eyebrows suddenly knit together. "Ludwig said you were all alone in the city, what were you doing there? And are you really all alone, or do you have a group of your own?"
Feliciano hesitated before answering. Not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't know what to answer. After all, he didn't remember. "Yes, I was all alone... I wasn't in a group, I think, because there was nobody there... I was lying in a puddle, and then a Nightmare attacked me, but Ludwig saved me!"
Arthur frowned. He was growing suspicious now. What business did a man, all on his own, have in a city? Didn't he know that those are the deadliest places in which to hang around?
A horrible thought struck him like lightning. What if…?!
Suddenly every nerve and muscle in his body was on high alert, as if he were ready to jump away from the metal table. However, he bowed down so that his wary eyes were on the same level as Feliciano's. His left hand was trembling. "Feliciano, I am serious. What in the heavens were you doing in the city all alone...?"
Feliciano gulped, suddenly feeling afraid and pinned down by the Brit's green glare. "I-I…" he gulped again. What did he do wrong? "I d-don't remember…"
A warning was in Arthur's eyes. "Feliciano, don't lie to me. We welcomed you here, I'm treating you and you can stay here with us, but we have to trust each other." It was better to be safe than sorry. He didn't want to put everyone in his home at risk because of a stupid mistake. "So tell me the truth." His gaze was locked with the Italian's.
Feliciano was scared now. What if he didn't believe him? What if he... would he throw him out? Ludwig definitely would, and happily so! But then he would have to deal with those monsters!
"I don't remember!" He blurted out, propping himself on his right elbow and raising his head. His brain went in short-circuit, and he started ranting. "I swear, I solemnly swear that I don't remember! Please, per favore, I beg you, I don't want to go out there again where those monsters are, I'm telling you the truth! I woke up in the middle of this city, I was all alone and lying in a puddle of water, I was wounded and alone and scared, and then I realized I didn't remember anything except my name and that I was completely alone, and then…!" Feliciano was gasping for air. "…And then this horrible monster appeared and started chasing me! I ran, but then I tripped and fell and I started praying and then Ludwig showed up out of nowhere and shot the monster and saved me and then I met Kiku and in the car Ludwig also didn't believe my story but Kiku did, so he told me this weird story about the Disaster and…!"
Arthur halted him by raising a hand, suddenly feeling less worried. "Wait, wait. Kiku believed you?"
Feliciano nodded eagerly, breathless because of the rant.
The Englishman shook his head, all his muscles relaxing. Feliciano was telling the truth, as bizarre as it seemed to be. If Kiku trusted him immediately then he would do so as well. The Japanese had probably been working for something that involved his government before the Disaster, so he was an expert at detecting lying people. "I believe you now."
Feliciano almost could not believe it, an brightened up a little, smiling hopefully. "Really?"
Arthur nodded. "So, memory loss, is it?" he asked, as he returned to treat the wound with disinfectant.
The Italian hummed, feeling a bubbly warmth in his chest, a mixture of relief and happiness. He was allowed to stay, they would not throw him out. "Yes, at least I think so. I mean, I can't remember anything from before this afternoon, but at the same time some concepts pop up in my head as soon as someone mentions them. For example, the places from which everyone comes from, me included. Isn't that weird?"
"Hmm," The medic mumbled. "Almost complete memory loss, apparently. Most probably, it has something to do with this." He stressed his last word and gently poked the throbbing wound on the back of Feliciano's head, earning a complaining groan. "Sorry. You probably hit your head pretty badly somewhere. I'll have to check my medical books for more information, but as soon as I know more I'll tell you, okay?"
"Thank you, Arthur." Feliciano mumbled in the pillow.
Arthur smiled. He had no idea why, but he felt at ease with the disoriented Italian. Normally, he wouldn't trust people so easily, especially after the Disaster. He was not as bad as Ludwig of course, but... one of the Disaster's consequences was that it had manifested and brought out some of the worst sides of human beings. They, at the Rock, were only trying to be civil. "Don't mention it." He replied.
After that, not much more was said. Both medic and patient remained silent, as the Brit finished disinfecting the wound. He then made Feliciano sit up and wrapped a tight, clean bandage around the Italian's head.
He then clapped his hands together. "Alright, I'm done here. Now, show me your right hand, please." the blond medic said.
"Sissignore. Oh, I mean, yes sir. Thank you." Feliciano awkwardly said, giving him his hand.
Arthur slowly and carefully unwrapped the dirty and tattered bandages, murmuring "These sure are a lot of bandages…". Indeed, Feliciano felt more like he had a club instead of a hand: the bandages were many, heavy and tight. Both of them gasped as they finally all came off.
"What the bloody hell…?!"
"Eh?!"
Both were staring at it with eyes as wide as saucers.
The back of his hand had a horrible, deep-looking gash in it. However, if you looked closer, it didn't even remotely look like a normal wound, because it was wide open, but at the same time it was not bleeding. The gash ran from between his thumb and index finger to the right side of his wrist, it seemed more as if the flesh had been literally ripped and torn open with a hook of some sort, and it was open like a mouth. Inside the flaps of ripped skin, there was something that faintly glowed instead of blood. It was a faint white light, but it glowed. It almost resembled a Nightmare's weak spot...
Feliciano was immediately alarmed. "No…No!…what is it?!" Feliciano asked, frightened, scuttling away from his hand as much as he could. The glow reminded him too much of those monsters, and he now knew you could get infected from them. "Am I going to turn into a Nightmare…?!"
Arthur seemed as confused as he was, but he did not let go of the Italian's hand. "I…I don't know, honestly. Probably not, because it's not Nightmare Infection, from what I can see…" Arthur furrowed his bushy eyebrows, inspecting the gash with mildly grossed out curiosity.
Feliciano was not reassured. At all. "Are you sure...?" he tentatively asked. He felt his freshly-acquired hope of being allowed to stay slip between his fingers.
"Nightmare Infection's first alarming and telling signs are that it turns the subject's eyes green, and then that it manifests scales on the subject's skin, creating the first so-called 'weak spots' in less than an hour, with the typical lime-green colour…" Arthur muttered, and he seemed to be directly reading out of a text book. He was turning Feliciano's hand in his own pale ones, observing it from all angles. "...Or that it mutates the subject's regular limbs and bones structure, or that it creates an unusually aggressive behaviour of the subject towards other humans…" he thought a little more, mumbling and scanning Feliciano's body from head to toe, before releasing his hand and straightening his back.
Feliciano awaited the dreaded verdict with fear constricting his guts.
The Brit took a deep breath. "No. It's definitely not Nightmare Infection. But that's the only thing I'm sure of, along with the fact that you are not a RED."
Relief washed over the Italian like a tidal wave, releasing the tight knot in his guts. He sighed, feeling suddenly a bit tired. "So I'm not going to become a Nightmare? I don't have to go away?" he asked, almost breathless, inspecting his hand from afar as if it were not a part of his own body.
Arthur scratched his forehead as he picked up the roll of bandages again. "No, you're not going to become a Nightmare, and no, of course you don't have to go away. But," he stressed the word with a warning finger, "You will have to come to me here every day. I'd like to keep an eye on that thing, and try to figure out what it is and why it's there. Also, please don't tell anyone here about it, understood?" He started wrapping the weirdly-gashed hand with the clean bandages, the faint white glow disappearing already after only one layer.
Feliciano looked up at the last sentence and frowned, not understanding. "...Why?"
The blond Brit shrugged, not looking away from what he was doing. "Because thanks to the Apocalypse we're all constantly on edge here. Especially Ludwig. Also, we don't want any them to mistake you for a RED now, do we?" he explained, finishing the wrapping and motioning for the Italian to get off the table before turning to put the bandages away again.
The Italian complied and hopped off the metal contraption. "A... RED?" he asked, confused. "What is a RED?"
The Brit had his back turned to Feliciano, and was about to roll his eyes and tell him to stop acting so stupid and naïve, but then he remembered that this man had suffered an almost complete memory loss. He closed the small metal box he used for his bandages, and left his hand to rest on top of it.
He hesitated.
"I... I'll tell you another time. It's been long past dinner time now, so we ought to go and eat, don't you think? Aren't you hungry?"
Feliciano's stomach rumbled. "Uhm, actually, yes!" Feliciano awkwardly chuckled, a hand going to cover his now belly. Arthur smiled, and after he turned off all the oil lamps except the one he wanted to bring with him, he opened the green flap of his medical room, Feliciano following him diligently.
Somehow, the mere thought of eating made not only his stomach, but his whole being happy, for whatever reason. He also felt as if he were craving for some particular food, but of course, he couldn't remember anymore what it was.
Another rewritten chapter :) I fusedtwo different chapters into one, I hope you don't mind!
I hope I did the translations and the different languages right, I tried my best, so please alert me if I accidentally butcher something because I hate doing so!
...
Dummkopf : (German) Idiot, numbskull.
Nimeni on Tino : (Finnish) My name is Tino.
Mit navn er Mathias : (Danish) My name is Mathias.
Hvordan har du det?! : (Danish) Are you alright?!
Grazie : (Italian) Thank you.
Gomena-sai : (Japanese) Sorry.
Sissignore : (Italian) Yes sir.