Consciousness brought with it a migraine. My eyes were sensitive to light, my nose sensitive to the awful stench emanating from my feline roommate, and my stomach... My stomach was—nope! I threw the door open and practically fell out of the tractor onto the ground, emptying what precious little contents were left in my stomach onto the dew-sparkled earth. The Sabelynx trotted out after me, stretched, and sniffed the vomit. Appalled at the idea that it might like stomach bile, I pushed myself onto shaky feet and wobbled back into the cab to rest.

The splotches were gone, but the scratches left behind were obviously infected. The wounds themselves were red and puffy yet bubbling just underneath the surface of the skin, the pus took on a peculiar combination of purple, blue, and gray. I'd never seen pus this color and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out what it might do if left untreated.

I braced myself and opened the wound just enough to flush out the refuse with water from my canteen. I didn't have bandages or any spare linen, and it wasn't a good idea to try to make a bandage out of my filthy clothes. I needed an antiseptic to flush the wound out thoroughly, a topical antibiotic medicine, and clean bandages. The only way I'd be able to acquire any of that was to find civilization.

My mind wandered back to the road. I cleaned off the rim of my canteen, sipped at some water and considered nibbling on pecans. I held off on eating. My stomach was not ready for food, though it might help with the migraine. I waited an hour, slowly sipping at water, in case the inflammatory pain from the venom returned. Nothing, thankfully.

I climbed out of the cab. The sky was a clear blue with only small, fluffy clouds scattered across the sky. A tender wind ruffled through my hair. I whistled at the Sabelynx and headed in the direction I'd seen the road, bow in hand. Whether the Metamon followed me or not was his business, not mine.

The sun's position signaled mid-morning around the time I reached the empty farm highway. All sorts of vehicles crashed into each other or left behind in people's rush to escape their inevitable deaths during the early days of the apocalypse. There were no bodies left, just pieces of discolored or molded leftovers from what the Metamons and wild animals didn't drag away in the last six months. I checked a few vehicles for supplies, but after finding nothing in the first five, I decided it was a waste of time and effort to check all of them.

"There's food in town," I told myself to stop the panic from rising up. "Food, medicine, and bandages. And hopefully a stiff drink."

It wasn't panic that bubbled up from my stomach. It was bile. I dropped to my knees next to a car and hurled. The venom must not have left my body as I'd thought, or the infection had already turned septic. Blood poisoning would kill me if the venom hadn't. I might only have days to live - and that was with a decent meal. A substantial meal would help my body produce the nutrients and stamina it needed to fight this crap.

My vision blurred momentarily. The interface with my stats appeared in a dream-like haze. I could barely read the numbers, but my health bar looked like it was about half-full.

"That's not good," I mumbled.

I ignored the other bars. What mattered at the moment was health. If I didn't eat, I'd starve and my body would surrender to the venom and infection. If I did eat, well, it might speed things along or I might throw it all up again. Either way, I needed to find food. Sipping water and resting long enough to force some pecans into my stomach seemed to recover some sense. The haze lifted. I closed my eyes, hoping to take a short nap.

Something fuzzy rubbed against my arm and startled me. It was the Sabelynx. It swatted my injured arm with its tail and glared at me.

"If that's your way of apologizing, you're doing it wrong. I don't accept."

It pranced away in the direction I'd originally been going: northeast. I knew that if I went to sleep, I might not wake up. I'd been lucky so far, but it was naive to rely on luck. Someday, it would run out. With every ounce of willpower I had, I forced myself to stand and struggled to maintain balance for the first few steps. I sipped more water, nibbled on more pecans, and righted myself. Sabelynx sat atop the roof of a one-ton truck, impatiently flicking its tail. When I caught up to it, the Metamon dashed onward.

Why was a Metamon following me? Or, I guess now I was following it... but why? I thought of all the possible reasons a predator like Sabelynx might behave this way. The Metapedia said they were antisocial and hunted at night. Was this one somehow different from typical Sabelynx?

My line of questioning ended there. Two miles up the road was a building. I unloaded my pack and quiver next to a smashed Jeep to rest. More water, more pecans. While I rested, I double-checked the map. I almost spit out the water.

I was deep in the heart of faction territory. My small blue marker was surrounded by an orange diameter which spanned a good ten miles in every direction. If the faction caught me, I'd be dead. Or worse. I poked my head around the vehicles to watch the storefront. For two hours, nobody came or went. I thought that was odd. It certainly lessened the chances that any valuable supplies were inside. There had not been a human-owned property, building or otherwise, that was left untouched by looters and scavengers since the first week of the apocalypse. This faction, whoever they were, might have been using it as a base or a hideout and routinely made a supply run elsewhere.

"Best to do it while they're out, I reckon."

I prepared myself for a fight, nocked an arrow in my bow, and approached the convenience store with extreme caution. A mile away, I inhaled the vulgar tang of death. It threatened both my resolve and initiated a new bout of nausea. Within a quarter mile, my senses were assaulted by an abrupt permeating stench of rancid decomposition. It sent me heaving, but with nothing left in my stomach, my only option was to ride it out. I held my breath as I continued my approach towards the convenience store. Sabelynx scouted the exterior of the building while I neared the front. Windows were boarded up and the doors hung off their hinges with shattered windows. I pulled the bowstring tight and aimed my arrow at anything that moved.

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The buzzing of flies alerted me to the corpses which littered the floor and rotted away in puddles of dried blood. "Rangers" and an encircled star had been spray-painted in bright orange above the interior threshold leading to the kitchen directly across from the entrance. Every single one of the victims wore an orange bandana somewhere on his or her person. Everyone except for a lone middle-aged man positioned upright against the counter facing the door with a rifle rested in his lap. As I stepped over the bodies to examine the scene closer, I realized all of them had been shot with a medium caliber bullet: the holes were small entry points and massive exit points—if they exited.

I surveyed the rest of the store in haste; my gut told me something was amiss here. Unsurprisingly, the shelves had been cleaned of non-perishable foods. Such foods were becoming more scarce with each passing month. Distracted by flies, my attention again swept over the corpses. Through the haze of my migraine, I realized most of them, men and women of assorted ages, wore steel-toed boots. My own cheap sneakers had holes in them from walking. Would any of the boots fit me?

I took a few steps inside to check the size of the nearest woman's boots. Pieces of shattered glass crunched under my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, the rifleman's corpse made a movement. I instinctively I jumped back, bow stretched taught and my arrow ready to fly. The barrel of his rifle aimed directly at my own chest. Several minutes must have passed between us. My scrambled mind caught up to the present moment, a dominant thought taking over: don't shoot! I'm alive! He didn't fire!

Gauging his own reaction, I suspected we were both surprised by the fact that we were still alive. Our swift reaction times had not translated to impulsive action. We must have both frozen. Despite this revelation of our ability to still breathe, I became fully aware of our mutual dilemma: one of us might still die if the other made the wrong move.

"You with them?" he asked me.

"No," I answered in a tight voice. "You?"

"Nope. You alone?"

"Yes."

He slowly lowered his gun. "You should get outta here."

Even after he assumed a non-threatening posture, my pounding heart and the adrenaline rush did not slow. Both contributed to my worsening migraine and I felt my judgment slip. I maintained my tight hold on the bowstring. "How do I know you won't shoot me in the back?"

"I don't got a reason to shoot you unless you're one of them."

I glanced at the corpses surrounding me. "I just want some food. I'd rather not kill you if I don't have to."

He chuckled which immediately transformed into a groan of agony. "You couldn't anyway."

"Excuse me?"

"Your aim is off. You might shoot my arm, but it wouldn't kill me." He took a deep, rattled breath and closed his eyes. "If we'd shot each other, you'd be dead and I'd still be alive."

I lowered my weapon at last, flabbergasted. He was right, of course. I had terrible aim, yet another of many reasons why hunting proved so difficult for me. I just hadn't expected him to bluntly critique me. Up until that point, I'd assumed he was just another corpse. How could one man at such a disadvantaged position kill so many people and live? Details blurred in and out of focus because of the pressure in my head and, on closer inspection, I noticed dark blood stained his plaid hunting jacket. The interface appeared at my silent directive to show his profile. Although he counted as an enemy, I could see his health bar. It was extremely low, the last bit blinking in red. He was dying...

I returned my arrow to the quiver and shouldered my bow to search the empty shelves. Even if much of the food was gone, some important artifacts remained. Among them, rubbing alcohol, pain pills, and packs of bandages. I gathered an armful of the items and dumped them next to the older man. His face screwed up in confusion.

"What are you doing?"

"Saving your life, I hope."

"Who asked you?"

I paused in the middle of fishing out my canteen, struck speechless and senseless by the tone in his voice more than the question itself.

"Y-you want to die?"

"Kid, I'm tired and—"

"Penny."

"What?"

"My name is Penny, and I'm not a kid."

He seemed flustered. "I—look, I don't care who you are! Just get outta here before the rest of 'em come back!"

"I can't walk away and leave you to die."

I didn't tell him that my guilt would make me sick to the point of malnutrition and, eventually, cause my own death. He did not immediately object or counter this argument and I took advantage of his silence to lighten my load. My pack and weapon restricted my range of motion.

He turned to me with an astonished expression after spotting the red cross on my field pack.

"You're a field medic?"

I didn't answer him. Instead, I took a set of migraine pills. I'd be in more pain later for taking them on an empty stomach, but right now I needed all of my mental faculties and senses to concentrate on my task. I handed him the canteen and offered him similar pills. He growled.

"No thanks."

"Suit yourself."

I eased him out of the jacket and his button-up shirt. Tattoos of both the prison and military sorts decorated his pale skin. To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I flushed the wound out with water, then alcohol to be sure. He might have noticed my hands shaking or my blanched complexion because he firmly gripped my wrist to stop my efforts.

"You don't have to do this."

"But I—"

"You're obviously not a field medic, so don't bother forcing yourself."

"I can't..."

"Kid, I don't have much of a reason to live even if you could save my life."

Crushed between the stress of saving a life of someone who wanted to die and the throbbing of my migraine with all the terrible smells, bright light, and disturbing silence, tears of frustration stung my eyes. I fell back into old habits learned from a lifetime of being completely neglected or agitated into panic attacks by family members; I responded the only way I knew how in this situation: I lied.

"There's a safe haven up north!"

"Huh?"

"There's a safe haven," I sniffled and turned away to hide my tears. "It's up north. I've been hearing rumors for weeks now from, y'know, stragglers. If you'll let me save you now, I'll take you there and you can do whatever you want."

He assessed my expression in an attempt to gauge the truth. I have no idea how transparent I was to him, but he relented with a nod of agreement.

"Fine," he growled. "Once we get there, though, we're on our own. Even if I end up in this state all over again, you leave me there and walk away. Deal?"

He spit on his hand and held it out to me. Spit was a binding contract in the South, as good as blood but half as wasteful. I spit in my own hand and we shook firmly to seal the deal. I'd rather lie to him now and save his life than walk away — for my own selfish, guilt-ridden sake. If he shot me later for it, well, I reckoned he'd be well within his rights.

"Uh, is there a bullet still in there?"

"I didn't get shot. I got stabbed."

"Stabbed? Who the hell would bring a knife to a gun fight?"

"A moron, that's who."

I dabbled the topical antibiotic salve onto his wound. "Well, he's a lucky moron."

"Not so lucky. He's dead, I'm not. Yet." He emphasized the last word with a scowl aimed at me. "Don't waste all of that on me! Save some for yourself."

I hadn't forgot about my infected wounds (they were starting to itch again), but I did forget they were visible. To avoid more bickering, I tended to my own pus-filled scratches. It didn't hurt as bad as the night before when the venom first entered my system; it wasn't pleasant, either. I started on the bandages when we heard the distant roar of a vehicle.

"Damn, they're back!"