01

Ch.1

 (March 20th, Early 21st century A.D. – 2230 – Suburban House, Somewhere in the Western Hemisphere)

            A tall fellow sat there in a cheap folding chair in front of an old desk. He was staring at a blank word document on his laptop. In fact, if he was staring any harder, he might just burn a hole right through it. His fingers drummed the side of his chair in a combination of anxiety and frustration. He finally stood up, dusted off his purple bath robe, and screamed.

His rumbling voice set off a nearby parrot perched in the room which joined the chorus and added to the cacophony.

“Damn it!” he cursed loudly.

“Damn it!” parroted the parrot.

 He began pacing back and forth as he mumbled to himself. “I haven’t written anything in weeks! How am I supposed to write anything when my ideas suddenly dry up after a few days?”

The parrot kept screeching profanities in the background, giving the man his full support.

 He sat back down and began to rub his temples in an attempt to alleviate his headache. “I really, really need some inspiration,” he moaned. He leaned back in his chair until it only stood on two legs and stretched.

The chair’s legs suddenly slipped out from under him. His eyes widened before he pulled his head up to try to avoid hurting himself and closed his eyes, bracing for impact… The impact never came. He opened his eyes to see a blue sky. He still felt the pull of gravity. Curious, the man turned towards gravity’s pull. The sight caused the words “HOLY FUCK!” to come forth from his mouth. The sight was a large patch of dirt about twenty-five meters down, commonly known as “the ground” heading towards him at an alarming rate.

His savior, a rather conveniently placed tree branch, snuck up under the fellow’s bath robe and snagged his boxer’s waistband. The man’s face contorted in silent agony as the fabric cut what most certainly didn’t like to be cut. He squeaked while tears and mucus flooded his face. Then, his waistband snapped, sending him careening face-first into a lower branch. He then pinballed his way down the rest of the tree to a relatively rough landing. Battered and bruised, he laid there for a few minutes before emitting a steady, high pitched moan before passing out.

 

(March 21st – Dawn – Ruins of Old Home, Unknown Woods)

            He had camped in the ruins of his home’s furnishings, which had apparently been brought with him to God-only-knows-where. In the morning, he looked around the camp for any provisions he might’ve overlooked the previous night. He almost cried when he discovered that his 120 lbs. safe had landed on top of his cell phone and thus literally crushed one of his main lifelines.

Oddly enough, his laptop and its charger survived by landing on top of one of the cushions of his bedroom sofa, but the screen was too damaged to use. His only boon of this whole mess was that he managed to break what was left of the busted-up, scrap yard Caddie’s windshield and pop the trunk, allowing him to get to his emergency survival kit filled with flares, his magnesium stick, and other essentials. All was not lost and maybe he wouldn’t die right away. The one electronic device in the kit was going haywire for no determinable reason and shorted out a minute after he switched it on. It seemed that even if his cell phone or any other form of communication had survived the fall, it’d have been useless anyways. What, was he in the arctic circle or something? Did some kind of solar flare kill the device? What were the odds?

With one final look at what was left of his home, he opened his safe and took the emergency wad of money that he kept stashed in there, untraceable save for the serial numbers on the bills themselves. Who knows? Maybe if he got out of here, he could pay his way home or at the very least bribe someone into getting him the hell out of here. That is, if they don’t simply gut him and take the money.

            The man fashioned a makeshift harness made out of numerous extension cords and reinforced with duct tape. His confidence in its strength and practicality dwindled glance he chanced it, feeling that an unnecessary sneeze might destroy it.

 The harness carried a box of various objects and had a thirty gallon trash bag tied to it. The bag was carrying rolls of… more bags. Sighing for what had to be the second dozenth time of the still very young day, he pulled up a bag that had collected dew in it the previous night and lifted it to his lips. After getting his bearings and looking around to see himself surrounded by forest on all sides, he decided that being conservative was crucial at this point. He knew his scavenged remains of his old stash of junk food wouldn’t last forever and what precious water he could gather by leaving a bag over a leafy tree branch overnight to collect dew was in itself limited and inadequate as well.

            Foraging was useless in this place. There were no fruit bearing plants in sight, nothing with nuts of any kind, and nothing that grew vegetables that he could recognize or even goddamned pinecones. There were no animals either. Not that he expected to see many after all the racket from last night, but there weren’t even any birds. Downtrodden and low in morale, he marched on in a straight direction, heading for some kind of distant foothill or mountain.

            Then, something rustled the bushes. He looked over to them, naturally curious, but when he actually saw just how much they were rustling, he rethought any investigation. That had to be one big animal to do that. The next thing he knew, something the size of a yak burst forth from it and darted past him. He could hardly follow it with his eyes except for a streak of electric yellow down its side. It had some pretty effective camouflage.  Of course, the strange animal was running from something. That something bowled him over, knocking a banged up guitar he was carrying for… protection out of his hand, and continued on running without giving him the time of day. He propped himself up with his elbows to try and get a look at it. Whatever it was, it was bipedal which must mean…

            “HEY!” he cried out. Such luck! He must be not too far away from some people. He tried to get back on his feet but was knocked down again. Turning over, he groaned and looked for what hit him. What he saw was familiar, the biggest Doberman he had ever seen, something that would scare any grown man shitless when poised right over him. He liked dobies, but didn’t want to upset this great big beast.

            He heard heavy sniffing noises. Its nose found its way under what was left of his bath robe and took a deep whiff of his crotch.

            “Whoahoo! Easy there,” he said when it started licking. It snarled and pinned him down with its hands. Wait. Hands?! Now that he had a better look at it, it wasn’t exactly a Doberman. It, rather she, looked like something that escaped from a furry’s wet dream and was mostly humanoid from the neck down. Was it a costume? No, those teeth were definitely real. What did he eat before he got here?

            “Can you understand me?” he asked tentatively, feeling rather stupid. He was answered by a growl. Guess that would be a no.

Not liking being pinned down by what was an unknown probably dangerous animal that was a good foot taller than his 6’3”, he jerked and twisted, grabbed the guitar that he had dropped, and tried to scramble far enough away so he could get  back on his feet and make a run for it. Apparently he was too slow because the creature caught a hold of him rather easily. Fortunately or unfortunately, his body chose that moment to release a thunderous racket of flatulence into the animal’s face. She yelped and whined like a dog and clamped her hands over her nose. Meanwhile, He was running away as fast as he could.

Throughout the day, these strange and frightening creatures seemed to be under every stone of the road. Why he hadn’t seen any earlier, only God knew. If he wasn’t so confident in his lucidity he would have determined that he was either hallucinating or dreaming. They all generally had the characteristics of human females with some “extra” features. He even saw some that resembled bugs and other creatures that he couldn’t fathom. Since his encounter with the dog woman/thing, he decided that he would treat them as he would any other animal that he had no knowledge of, warily and with great respect. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough at times, especially now.

As he was walking through the forest, he heard a growl behind him. In surprise, he whirled around wielding his rather banged up steel guitar and clobbered the source of the noise right up alongside the skull. After doing so, he promptly bolted away from it as fast as he could without even looking back, vaguely registering the aggressor as some sort of red cat woman. He ran until he could run no more, and then ducked into a bush and glanced around. It seemed like he lost it. He squatted in the bush and caught his breath… until his adrenaline wore off and he noticed that the bush was full of brambles. Plenty of hissing and wincing later, he untangled himself and his belongings and headed off. Encounters like this were happening way too often.

(April 3rd – Evening – God Forsaken Forest, El Bumfuck Nowhere)

            Shit, he was cold. How long had he been out here again? He didn’t remember, a fortnight maybe. But goddamn he was cold. You know, he really needed to- ‘Fuck it’s Cold!’ He’s thoughts continued in that likeness as he searched for shelter. He had waited too long to rig up some sort of shelter and now he was paying for it. No food had shown itself since those peppers, and they had been hotter than the red savina habañero he had eaten on a bad bet. Not only had the wild peppers he had found made him cry like a bitch going down, they also made him uncomfortably familiar with the term ‘scorched asshole.’

That had been ten days ago. Since then, he had lost weight, he was hungry, and he was cold.

            He finally found a cave that would shield him from the cascading sheets of hail that was showering the forest outside. He set his back to a wall and slid down, hissing as he did so. His feet felt like they were on fire. The forest floor had not been kind to them. To make things worse, lacerations, scabs and repeatedly broken toes were the least of his problems. Part of his right foot had turned green and was getting harder and harder to walk on. The nightmares about mushroom people growing out of his foot, declaring his foot a free state, and succeeding it from the rest of his body were of no comfort either. Hey, it was a scary dream when your foot was rotting off.

            On top of all this, explosive diarrhea had been plaguing him almost since he had first arrived.

            He shrugged off his makeshift harness which had taken quite the beating, and checked the large trash bag filled with dead pine needles and leaves from some recognizable plants he finally found. Thankfully they seemed to have somehow remained dry. He was about to try and slip into it to get warm when he heard a growl behind him. He slowly turned to see a half a dozen orangish dog women behind him. He vaguely noted that they all had a blond mop of hair before he was, for lack of a better term, dog piled.

            Their weight slamming down to the hard stone floor was among the least pleasant experiences he had that day. His groan turned into a scream as one of them raked her claws across his chest. He tried to shake them off, but they were stronger than their frames suggested, and there were too many of them. He stopped struggling and looked around for another possible means of escape.

            The strange creatures all snapped at each other momentarily until the largest and… best developed of them pushed her way closest to him. The other smaller ones backed down pinned He’s limbs down at awkward angles. He didn’t know what he was going to do. Did they eat their prey alive?

            What was left of his tattered bathrobe, the only article of clothing that came with him on this horrible trip that wasn’t caught in a tree twenty meters up, was torn off and cast to the side. He was growing frantic; being eaten was not on his to do list. The largest of them which had cowed the others, the apparent leader of the pack, straddled his waste and, much to He’s surprise, started grinding up against him.

            His shock caused him to stare blankly as the admittedly warm humanoid rubbed herself up against him. His weird shit o’meter really just hit the roof. Was this what they were all after? Well, he hadn’t seen any males of any of the creatures out, and interspecies sex wasn’t exactly uncommon in the world, even the animal kingdom. No, some of them were definitely trying to eat him. He had one or two bite marks to show for it.

            Still, he was technically being raped. God he hoped he didn’t catch anything. He stiffened, in more than one sense, as the ministrations continued and grimaced slightly as a few of them began licking his face and… other areas.  It wasn’t long before he was mounted and ridden like it was the end of the world.

            He’d be lying if he said it didn’t feel good. He was a healthy young man, so being attended to and fawned over by a large troupe of women was one of his fantasies. But even though he knew that such a fantasy was farfetched to begin with, he really didn’t imagine it happening like this. He hissed as she dug her claws into his shoulders. That was definitely not a pleasant part of this, and he thought he felt blood trickling down his back besides.

            She was hotter on the inside than a normal woman, much hotter. Was it because she was canine-like? He knew dogs had a higher body temperature than humans. His thoughts blurred as she squeezed him tightly and howled. The pack leader rolled off of him and lied still, panting. Damn, he was still loaded.

            As soon as the pack leader had rolled off, a brief scuffle broke out until the next biggest won and scrambled on top of him. She grinded against him a few times like the previous one which sadly caused him to shoot off the built up pressure from the round with the previous doggy, rapist, girl, thing. This seemed to upset her since she put her nose to his and growled menacingly.

            He chuckled nervously. “Sorry,” he rasped, his voice strained from overuse after such a period of disuse, “your friend there did quite the number on me.” His words apparently held no meaning to her, and she went back to her business and forced him back into working condition.

The entire pack worked their way down through some kind of ranking system, each getting their turn. It was weird when a couple of young ones, really young ones, were coaxed into mimicking what the older ones did when it apparently became their turn. All in all, by the time everything was over, they all jut piled on top of him and went to sleep. His dick felt like it was going to fall off.

He tried to wiggle his way out of them, but stopped when they all started growling. He tried again a few times, but eventually one gave him a love tap to the gut. Well, it looked like a love tap but felt like a full force punch dealt by a professional boxer. He gave up after that and tried to fall asleep. His anxiety made it difficult, but it came eventually. At least he was warm with all these bodies surrounding him.

The next morning, he awoke to the cold. He tried to sit up, ignoring his aches and pains not to mention opening scabs and looked around. He was alone. Scratch that, the dog women just came back. One was carrying a limp figure, probably a kill.

He was right. They flopped what looked like a bird woman of some sort onto the ground and dug in without hesitation. He was hungry. He hadn’t eaten in two days and was tantalized by the sight of the corpse. More than willing to chance it, he got onto his feet only to wince as sharp pain shot up his leg. He looked down at his foot and grimaced. It had swollen horrifically and turned an ugly combination of moss green and puce.

Ignoring his wound, he limped over to the humanoids hunched over the kill. When he reached them, he attempted to grab something to eat but was batted away by one of them. He tried again, but one of them got up and gave him a double handed push, sending him toppling down a few feet away. He let out a wheezing cough before trying to get up again.  When he was back on his feet, he noticed that they were done eating and looking at him.

He had a couple of seconds to process that fact before he was piled on top of again, repeating the night prior only in a much more aggressive manner.

 

(April 5th – Early Morning)

            He forced himself to stay awake all night. It was difficult, but his patience paid off when he saw all but two of them leave. Fortunately, the remaining two quickly fell back asleep. Unable to help it, he held his breath as he slowly got up. He nearly yelped but managed to hold it in. That foot was getting really bad. He slowly limped to his strewn about belongings and then out of the cave. When he was a good twenty feet away, he let out a deep sigh and quickened his pace, trying to put as much distance between himself and it as possible.

The day continued with plenty of fleeing and not enough foraging, not that foraging had yielded anything other than those peppers more than a week ago. He kept thinking about these creatures that he kept bumping into. They were all either female, or looked female enough to convince anything with a pulse that they were, even if they were a bit odd. He was actually rather jealous of these beings as they usually seemed to have food of some sort, even though the ones eating rocks didn’t have anything that looked particularly appetizing to him. He actually worked up the nerve to try and scare one away from its meal, but all that got him was a roaring jet of flame sent his way, making him even more terrified of them than he was before. The mere thought of his experiences usually called for a change of pants, if he had any. His robe had been reduced to a fuzzy loincloth.

It was getting dark, and he was getting hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything in almost two weeks. He hadn’t even found any fruit or anything, and he couldn’t really get anything from leaves like some animals. He had survived longer than he thought he would and was secretly proud of himself for it. But, he couldn’t let such things get to his head. Desperation reared its ugly head and left a sinking feeling in the pit of its gut, right next to his aching hunger.

He grunted as he felt something hit him in the back. He spun around as quickly as he could to see something a little less… exotic than the forest’s usual inhabitants. It appeared to be just a youthful woman, Caucasian and only about five feet tall, dressed in what were probably once colorful rags.

She seemed to find his look of bemusement quite entertaining because she suddenly burst into fits of laughter. Now completely bewildered, he backed away from her, unsure if she was one of the creatures around here or another survivor driven insane by the environment.

She pounded a nearby tree with her fist as she finished the last remnants of her laughter before looking back up at him and bursting into another fit of hysterics.

He edged away and decided to leave her be, hoping she’d return the favor. It was not meant to be so. She followed him in an acrobatic manner more expected of a primate, using branches like gymnastic bars to swing after him.

The woman(?) seemed mostly harmless, giggling like a child the entire time, but his suspicion would not allow him to risk his well being. However, she seemed absolutely fixated on him and followed him relentlessly only stopping to occasionally burst into hysterical laughter at something, anything.

He studiously ignored her, concentrating on weathering what appeared to be some kind of path with a tree branch of a convenient size to service as a walking stick. His trusty guitar had been demolished some time ago, the neck snapping while being used to swat away some kind of bird-thing intent on snatching him from the ground. He persevered, looking for food, people or… anything really.

Behind him ensued more laughter followed by a thud and silence. He turned around to look and saw that she had apparently passed out laughing and had fallen out of the tree, face planting with her butt still sticking up into the air, so he walked over and poked her in the side with his walking stick. No response.

Curiosity blared in the back of his mind, but he wouldn’t want to do anything to endanger himself. He had best leave her, no Heer how harmless she looked. She was probably crazy anyways, and crazies are about as predictable as the weather.

The pink tinted sky announced to the world the slow departure of the warming sun. The survivor somehow managed to gulp with his dry throat. He needed to set up some kind of camp before it became too torturously cold to do so. He quickly busied himself by setting up his dew-bag and other survival essentials that had survived his trip

 A burst of inspiration dawned on him, and he found some sticks on the ground and broke some from trees. He then cut open a spare bag and turned it into two small sheets and used his remaining roll of duct tape to tape the sticks into a rectangular frame for the plastic sheets, creating a crude double lean-to. He barely had any duct tape left, most of it having gone to waste in his crude attempts to make shit.

Having something to keep him dry, he curled up inside a new bag freshly packed with dry leaves for warmth and slowly tried to force himself asleep despite the roaring craving for sustenance his mind and body were both screaming at him.

Hours crept past at the pace of a crippled snail, and just as he was drifting off to sleep, something pressed up against him. His eyes shot open, and he remained perfectly still. His pupils dilated and darted every which way, and then he heard a soft chuckle, like it had barely escaped its confinement.

He knew that voice, it was the crazy girl. Dear god, she was pressed up against his back… and kissing his neck. Not exactly threatening compared to the usual treatment he received around these parts. Now he knew this place was hell. More sex concentrated into a short period of a few days and he couldn’t actually enjoy it with the whole imminent threat of starvation and all that rot.

The makeshift sleeping bag crinkled as she tried to peel it off of him. What should he do? All the women-things were stronger and more dangerous than he, especially in his current state. He slowly turned, orienting himself so that he might be able to hit something vital and/or painful on her person and escape should he need.

The woman swung on top of him, straddling his waist, and looked at him in the eyes, he mouth twitching in amusement. She started snickering as she ran her hands across his chest and down, peeling the foliage lined bag off of him. She seemed to either ignore or be oblivious to his tightly coiled muscles ready to spring and flee at a moment’s notice.

After it was mostly off, she heatedly threw herself down upon him and kissed him, kissed as in shoved her tongue down his throat. The suddenness of the action caused him to freeze, not that this seemed to discourage the mad woman on top of him.

His rationality dimmed to a dull roar in the back of his skull as he started to slightly give in. Ah, what the hell? He probably couldn’t hobble away from her anyways, not in this time of night let alone with that blasted foot of his. Sex wasn’t exactly a bad way to go anyways, if this was it.

She paused to tear the rags adorning her off and negligently toss them away. If this was the end of the line, he was going to damn well enjoy it. Besides, they always say that it’s the crazies who are best in bed.

 

(April 6^th – Midmorning)

            The survivor cracked an eye open. It was a pretty eventful night. Oddly enough, the crazy girl moaned out “Trixie” in the middle of sex a lot, but he wasn’t even going to bother asking about trivial things. Now that he thought about it, she was still next to him.

            His movement seemed to have disturbed her because she stirred and opened her eyes to look up at him. She murmured something that sounded vaguely like “Hallo Krasivom.”

            He had no idea what that meant or if she was just slurring things together in the typical delirium of a sleepy person. What should he say? “Hello?” he asked with a slightly wary tone.

            She cocked her head curiously, a bit more stable than the night prior, not giggling. A keen intelligence shined in her ice-blue eyes which wasn’t there the night prior. “Wy guere rare vyou naw?”

            He blinked as he processed the foreign babble. He didn’t even know what language it was. “Do you speak English?” he asked hopefully.

            She gave him a funny look before answering, “Dya, Ai speezk.”

            He did not recognize her accent, but at least it was somewhat recognizable. “Fantastic, do you have any idea where we are?” All he got in response was a blank stare. Oh of course, she probably didn’t speak English as her first language hence the accent, so this time he spoke slowly and clearly “Where... are… we?”

            “Pek oir ba’dn?” she asked before she seemed to get it. “Ai ne no.”

            “Wha-?”

            “Not know,” she corrected, slightly stumbling over the pronunciation.

            He rubbed his temples in frustration. She seemed to be lapsing back into her native tongue while speaking. For all he knew it could’ve been a habit like how the Filipinos slurred a pidgin of English, Spanish, and another language that he was unfamiliar with together simply because that’s what the norm there was.

            That aside, it looked as if they were both lost. At least his misery had company, pleasant company at that if last night was any indication. He sat up and brushed some of the dirt off of himself. The woman merely watched him curiously as he attempted to stand.

            A flash of pain caused him to his when he put pressure on his infected foot. Damn it, it had spread to the ball of his foot. He would have even more trouble walking now. Seeing his pain, the young woman leapt to her feet and put her hands on his shoulders to help stabilize him. “Rara vyou kay, Masta?” she asked worriedly.

            He gave her a funny look at that last word before figuring that that last word was just a mispronounced ‘mister.’ “I’m fine, thanks,” he said, grimacing as he glanced at his sickly infection. How long did he have? A week? Two?

            His morbid thoughts distracted him enough that he didn’t see the woman coming and was unexpectedly given a hug. Despite the weird circumstances, she seemed to understand what he was worried about, and for some odd reason, he felt comforted.

            And that brought up a rather distracting thought. What was this woman doing here? Goddamn he’d get her killed! He was going to die soon with his infection either by organ failure or getting eaten. She couldn’t stay with him! Granted, company was wonderful. A real person to talk to that wasn’t trying to kill him had appeared, but he couldn’t be selfish and have her stay with him when she had a better chance of survival without him, could he?

            They say that people have a much more noble view of themselves than others, that they see themselves as much more giving and kind than they really are. Double blind experiments had shown that, when asked what they would donate to a specific charity, they would generally overestimate themselves greatly. The reality was that people tended to be less than half as generous or kind as they predicted themselves as being. The oddity was that most anyone could accurately predict what other people would do within a very small percentage of error. So, the conclusion was that everyone saw themselves as a saint above the rest. It was also speculated that this had something to do with the infamous ‘Bias Blindspot.’

            On the other hand, he rationalized, he had supplies, duct tape, a portable makeshift tent thing he had constructed the night, and his numerous trash bags that he used to collect water. Yes, she might be better off with him after all.

            But, was he being truly rational, or was he just looping logic around his desires? He would probably never know. However, it was not up to him whether she stayed or not. He nudged her, and she looked up at him. Those eyes reminded him of a playful Husky for some reason, but he couldn’t let himself get distracted from what he had to do. He’d see if she stuck around and then confront her about it… he had to do it. The thought of it hurt.

            He had unconsciously wrapped an arm over the girl’s shoulders. It became painfully obvious that he probably wouldn’t have the strength to ask her if she wanted to leave him behind. Oh well.

(April 6^th – Late Afternoon)

            It had been hours, and she was still following him like a lost puppy, not that he minded. Maybe it was the length of time running away, alone, from monsters that endeared her to him, but her mostly silent company was enjoyable. It was because of this, that he found himself almost frantic with worry when she disappeared. Sure, he had been debating whether or not it was moral for her to stay with him, but he couldn’t help but miss the company after being deprived from it for so long.

He felt like he jumped three feet into the air when he felt something tap his shoulder. He whirled around to see the woman that had become his companion. He sighed in relief. “Sorry, you scared me.”

“zhorry,” she apologized. She then held out a bag she seemed to have helped herself to from his supplies, not that he really minded. It was filled with huge, juicy grapes, causing his mouth to water at the sight of them.

“Great grapes,” she clarified with a surprisingly thin accent. “Odan ‘dan.”

“What?” he said, not understanding the last part.

“woon für da,” she tried to say.

“One for…?” he tried to clarify, still not understanding her accent.

“Da.”

“Day?”

“Dya.”

“Yes?”

“Dya.”

“What?”

“Chto?”

He clutched his throbbing temple. One grape per day? That did not make sense at all. He gave her a skeptical glance. She met him with her hoping eyes.

“Trusht mne?” she asked hesitantly. She seemed a little confused at something. He wasn’t sure what, but he decided to trust her words for now. She hadn’t wronged him yet, had she? Then again, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t.

Maybe she knew something she didn’t. Still… grapes, even one would probably help him even a little. However, if he doubted the ‘one per day’ advice even an iota more, he’d go to town on those suckers…. Not all of them… she did all the work… Wait, was he even entitled to them? Damn his stomach interfering with his head!

He graciously accepted one of the ‘great grapes’ and popped it into his mouth. It was succulent and caused him to let out a moan as he forced himself to savor the lone grape. The moment he swallowed it, his stomach growled angrily and demanded more, but he ignored it. For all he knew more than one could be detrimental for his health. Or, maybe she knew he hadn’t eaten in a long time and thought that he would suffer if he ate more than one? He didn’t know.

“Masta?” the woman said, causing him to smile. Mister was a little formal, but for some reason it was endearing.

“Hmmm?” he replied casually, a little distracted by the fact that he was suddenly full from that one stupid little grape.

“Ai zee peepal ‘tem,” she said, pointing off into the distance.

That brought him into reality. “What?!” he shouted, spinning around to face her completely. “People or those creatures?”

She frowned at the word ‘creatures.’ Maybe she didn’t understand it. “ah tama.”

“Huh?”

“Tama,” she repeated, first pointing at him.

Oh, she must mean a man. Phew. He wanted to leap for joy at that moment but couldn’t with his infection, so he settled for throwing his arms around her and holding her tight. “Thank you,” he whispered. He was so excited; he didn’t calculate his actions at all. “Please, lead me there.”

 

(Elsewhere)

A red batgirl flitted around the forest, shirking her watch duties. She was so mad at the “Master.” He hadn’t given her two glances all week!... Okay, it’s only Monday, but still, the audacity! It was unforgivable. He wasn’t even trying to bond with her. All he did was dick her, push a firestone into her face, and start giving orders. The Foxglove mumbled something about premature ejaculating bastards as she continued to flit gracefully through the woods.

As she was cruising above the treetops, she saw a virtually naked man with a barely clothed woman, probably a pokégirl, moving at a rather slow pace through the trees. Curiosity got the better of her, and she flew closer by. Her suspicions were confirmed, that woman definitely carried herself like one of her kind.

Oops, looks like the man noticed her. What was he- She dodged out of the way of a flying rock. “P’stap! P’stap!” she shouted to him, landing and raising her winged arms in defense, “YA tame.”

The bewildered man blinked repeatedly. Several moments of tense silence passed. “You can… talk?” he asked, disbelief permeating his raspy voice.  The bat cocked her head. She wasn’t sure about how to respond to that. She took a couple steps forward, which did nothing productive as the fellow leapt back and chucked another stone at her. It beaned her in the nose, breaking the skin and causing blood to leak out her nostrils.

A few foreign curses escaped her as she clutched her nose. His companion stepped forward and they began babbling at each other. If any was English, he couldn’t tell. A few moments later, the bat-thing took off into the woods

 

(Nearby)

            Louis was annoyed. He considered himself a good man since he did all the things that were taught to him as right. He paid his debts, was moderately kind to lesser creatures, fulfilled all his promises no matter how impossible, and yet despite all the things he did to keep all well in his little bubble of life, his pokégirl had gallivanted off to the Thousand knew where and completely abandoned her post. His A-bra that he had paid good money for was asleep… again, and, on top of all that, the only one who had done her job was his Drow Zee; the reason being her job was the fun one. He balled his psychic snoozer, since she could do little about her exhaustion, and proceeded to look for his wayward Foxglove.

            His search was apparently unnecessary, since she suddenly showed up, apparently excited about something. She engaged him in their regional pidgin. “I found a lost tamer! He’s barely alive!”

“What?!” Louis asked incredulously. “There’s no civilization for kilometers.”

“He doesn’t speak Russian or even have a recognizable accent, so I think he’s here by mistake. He’s only got one pokégirl with him.”

“He probably got attacked and stranded. Take me to him.”

She led him back to see a rather… naked man and what had to be a Very Near Human type.

Louis called, “Rare vyou alle’ight?” The man leapt up and rushed to him. Louis thought he was going to be attacked.

The man grabbed his shoulders and Louis tried to call for his Drowzee, but before he could, the man began bombarding him with questions. “Oh god, are you real? Please tell me you know a way out of her! What is this place? How in the world...”

The questions of a desperate man rang through Louis’s ears. He tried to push the ragged individual off of him but to no avail. Finally he just shouted back at him, “Lit a’ay. Vyou vonk!” He looked down to his foot. That didn’t look good. He needed medical attention. It was probably the source of the smell too.

The words seemed to bring the other back to his senses. He immediately released Louis and backed away. “I’m… sorry,” he began, “I’ve been out here on my own for more than a fortnight.”

Louis barely understood that. The stranger was probably from a wealthy family. Those pricks tended to pride themselves on speaking like that. As it was though, he barely understood him. A fortnight was what though… Two weeks? That can’t be right. It would take a miracle for him to be still alive. Louis’s expression softened for a moment before it darkened. “You’rre firy lacky man. Maany dan’t last trii das.” he said solemnly.

Fortunately for the survivor, the Louis’s accent was considerably less thin than his companion’s or that bat-thing’s and he could make out what was said. The survivor was in a strange country with stranger creatures. He felt uncomfortable using his real name. He’d need to pull one from his ass.

“Feuerstein,” the ragged cast away said, holding out his hand in greeting, “Jeremiah Feuerstein.” He’d need to keep an ear out so he could react to that name appropriately since it’d look suspicious otherwise.

“Sowends Azure a mne, vyou hab Azure aasent vyou speezk. Lang a’ay fon home?” Louis wrinkled his nose. “Vyou nasissary bath.” He remained silent, not really knowing what he meant. Louis sighed. To da hospataal.

“What?” He asked, feeling stupid. He saw a Yellow woman with Antennae coming out of her head materialize in a flash of red light in front of him. He let out a startled yell and fell onto his butt.

Louis winced at the sight. This guy was jumpy and scared. “Byt’ Calm,” he commanded in a surprisingly authoritative voice.  After a tense minute, He held out his hand and let Louis help him up. Without waiting for orders or permission, the A-bra grabbed onto He and teleported him to help before he could protest.

Louis blinked in surprise. When the psychic teleported back, he gave her a hard stare. “Did you really need to do that?”

She nodded. “Yes, I read his mind, and he didn’t trust me. He screamed pretty loudly when we appeared at the hospital.”

“You didn’t just leave him there, did you?”

“No, I told the staff that my master and I found him starving in the woods and that I had to come back for you.”

“Oh,” he paused to reconnoiter himself, “Well, grab his pokégirl and let’s go see him off.”

 

(April 6th, 300 A.S. – 2130 – Coastal General Hospital ER, Coastal City, Ruby League)

            “How is he?” Louis asked the NurseJoy working the station.

            She grunted and pulled up his file. “He’s lucky you found him. That foot of his was gangrenous and spreading. He needs extensive work to remove and regenerate all of his necrotic and rotted tissue. Plus he needs to have a couple bones re-broken so they can heal properly.” She made sure that was all before putting the chart away and mumbling to herself, “Such a shame, he looks like he was a handsome man before all that.”

            Louis had heard that and felt a touch of annoyance at that statement but felt that it was petty, so he pretended not to notice. “Any luck on finding out just who he is?”

            She shook her head. “No, we don’t even have his name.”

            “I thought I gave it to you,” Louis said with his brow furrowed. “Jerry Foristain or something like that.”

            “No record of that name matching him. We did a DNA test, but no record of him in Ruby.”

            “He hasn’t told you anything?”

            The NurseJoy snorted. “Hasn’t had a chance unfortunately. We had to sedate him. He freaked when a Bunnygirl was sent in to check on him.”

“What happened?”

            “He hit her over the head with his IV rack.”

            “Oh dear.”

            “Yes, he also had a bad reaction to a sedative just now and is having some disturbing hallucinations. I don’t suggest you go in there until it’s out of his system.”

            “How long do you think it’ll take for him to recover?”

            “Well,” she began, “physically he should be fine in a couple days and recovered in a couple weeks. We’ve already removed all of his dead and diseased tissue, so it’s a matter regenerating him back into working order. Psychologically…” she trailed off, not really sure what to say, “We have no idea what happened. If his reaction to Vyktoria, the bunny, earlier was any sign, it might be a long road to recovery.”

            Louis nodded solemnly. “I saw what he was like before I brought him here, but…” He glanced towards He’s room. “Yeah, I’ll come by to see how he’s doing tomorrow.”

 

(April 7th 300 A.S. – 0930 – Coastal General Hospital, Coastal City, Ruby League)

            He blinked at the bright light streaming in the window. He tried to raise an arm to shield his eyes from the light, but his arm felt too heavy to lift. He could barely lift his head either. He craned his neck to look down at his arm. He had an IV drip. Once he focused, he realized he was in a hospital gown… on a hospital bed… in a hospital. It looked like he was finally safe.

            His ears focused on a clatter to his right. He turned his head to the source of the noise to see a pink haired woman in a sexist nurse costume wheeling something into his room. Then again, he didn’t know where in God’s name he was, so it might be the norm.

            “Ah, vyo’ra vake,” she said.

            “Yeah… awake,” He rasped, not sure what else to say.

            Louis popped up behind her and peaked in the room. He brightened up at the sight of the survivor awake and alert. “Heya,” he greeted, “Ha’ow’ra feeleng?”

            “Like a magic portal opened up in my room, sucked me in unawares, dumped me off in the woods with no supplies to rough it for two weeks and get molested and chewed on by scary monster ladies.”

            Louis winced at that. “Haapy byt back en tsyvillizatshion?”

            “Definitely.”

            Louis walked in and sat down in an armchair next to the hospital bed while the nurse went about her duties. “Ef vyou ne mand mne axing, ha’ow vyou get ta thare’m woods? De vya lus vyou’rre pokégirls?”

            Matt missed some of that. Louis’s accent got decided thicker in some areas. From what he did catch though, caused him to chuckled humorlessly. “I told you,” he said, “A magic portal opened up in my room, sucked me in unawares, and dumped me off in the woods with no supplies to rough it for two weeks so I could get molested and chewed on by scary monster ladies.”

            Louis gawked.  He just looked at him, seeming to have realized something. “Kay, kay. Ai know. Stranger happenings happen.” He paused uncomfortably. Such an ordeal would be a touchy subject for anyone.

            He’s stare didn’t relent. “Did you say pokégirls?”

            Louis blinked dumbly. “Uh, Dya?”

            He’s gazed intensified. “Where am I?”

            “Coastal stii... Coastal City.”

            “Which is where?”

            “Ruby League.”

            He stared at him for a few more seconds before he burst out laughing. Louis didn’t know how to react to his hysterics, so he simply leaned away. The nurse looked at him with concern while he continued to guffaw. “Pokégirls,” he repeated. He gasped for air, only for another bout of raucous laughter. Pokégirls of all things! It all made sense now.

NAME: John Doe

STATUS: HOSPITALIZED