.:: Burnt Town; R ::.

I stood over an unconscious man

{ The same man who screamed like my little sister. }

*Hah, I remember her screaming like that when she thought there was a monster in the barn just to eventually find out that it was just a drunk who apparently waded through ‘all kinds’ of filth after he got lost in the woods after a particularly nasty night in the local Inn.*

Something about this guy probably triggered that memory.

Hmm… so I just need to keep moving forward and I’ll probably recover most of them.

*That’s one goal to look forward to.*

Sister or otherwise, This guy was a serious mess. His attire wasn't brown at all, just caked in dirt.

*What the hell happened to him I wonder?*

{ Something bad, I may guess.}

“Now, what the hell do I do with this guy?”

I thought aloud as I prodded him with my foot.

After I glanced down at myself, and I decided that I’ll just help myself to his jacket first, no matter how dirty it was. Some things were just more important.

“Sorry dude, I’ll ask you properly when you wake up.”

I carried him back to the shack by the beach. Then I decided it would be better for him to get a better impression of me lest he goes screaming off again. And so, I set off to gather some firewood from the plundered shack nearby and start a fire. It was a bit difficult to find any usable firewood from the woods at this moment since there was still some lingering moisture from the rain that poured barely a few moments ago.

Eventually, due to lack of anything else, I had to pulverize an already broken table and piled all of it out front. Made me wonder what happened here. It probably has something to do with that attack in my dreams, but I wasn’t sure of how recent that was. Or even if it was anywhere even close to wherever I was right now.                                                     

I had no idea how long I spent adrift, or how far the sea carried me.

I was no survival expert but I eventually managed to set the thing on fire and added more combustibles into the mix. Now for the food...

There was still some dried meat in the storeroom so I lucked out.

That also meant that whatever happened here was fairly recent.

Well… whatever.

I tried a bite. No problem with my sense of taste.

*Check.*

I swallowed and as soon as I did it, I felt nauseous. My stomach started to push it back up. I tried to keep it in, but to no avail. Tried different stuff to eat, but none of them stayed down.

{Can’t eat normal food then.}

*Noted in memory.*

Wonder if I can eat at all... There goes my chances of being a gourmet.

I let out a sigh.

From a corner of my vision, I saw the guy stirring. He slowly rose up and sat against the log I placed him next to. Blinking a few times, he got to his senses, and started to check himself for injuries and saw that His broken arm was set straight. He suddenly shook and frantically searched around till his eyes caught sight of me.

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He froze.

I waved at him and promptly said “Hi”

After blinking a few more times, he slowly got back to his initial position. I swear I could hear the gears turning in his head as he charted out a plan for escape. It was the second time I caught him and knocked him out, so he probably figured that he couldn’t outrun me.

After a few minutes of intense silence,

“Hello?” he eventually spoke up.

“hey” I replied with a smile on my face.

“you can understand me?”

There was a queer expression on his face that I couldn’t make out very well, but the disbelief in his voice was obvious. Was it really that strange I could talk?

*He thinks you're undead, girl. probably. I don't know what he's thinking. How can we possibly? Don't bother with that.*

“Of course, we wouldn’t be in a conversation otherwise now, would we?”

He shook his head and muttered something inaudible. I still managed to make out the word ‘impossible’ despite everything. That’s advanced hearing for you. Really need to train that more.

“What do you want with me?”

Was the question that came eventually.

“I want to talk,” I replied

He had a dubious expression plastered on his face. With a sigh, I started to explain

“Well, you see, I barely have barely a few fragments of memory left and have no idea who or what I am, and talking to someone like yourself might clear me of a lot of things on my mind.”

“someone like … Me?”

“well yes, you are an explorer are you not?”

“technically yea but…-“

He looked up at me for a brief moment and with a low voice, asked,

“you’re… not after me?”

I was confused

“why?”

He dismissed the question with suspicious enthusiasm.

"Why would I be after you?"

He remained silent.

I tried to think. why would I be after him?

There was nothing, other than the fact that he might have thought that I was going to kill him as a zombie or something of the sort, but we already resolved that, did we not? I wondered as I glanced at him.

He was looking at some seaweed scattered by the fire. Strange.

“Then what do you want me for?” He broke the silence.

“You could contact your guild and get some questions answered right?”

He winced.

“Ugh… that would be…”

“what’s the problem?”

“Actually, you see, I, ugh … Sent a memory report back.”

”what’s that?”

“well… It’s a, ugh message we send back to the hub when we’re in extreme danger, and for several reasons, I’m going to lay low for a bit of time before I return.”

“why?”

“several reasons.”

His tone was a bit suspicious though.

He started to rummage through his pack that apparently seemed to have more space inside than what it had any right to possess.

Magical perhaps. There were, some pretty stones embedded on it.

okay, back to the conversation.

“explain.”

“for one, I don’t trust you.”

Huh.

“Okie then how will I get you to trust me?”

He took out a vial filled with Yellow Liquid and chugged it all in one go. It probably tasted bad since his face twitched. Then, to my amazement, he flexed his broken arm like it was never broken in the first place.

*Healing Potion. Takes longer for it to fix things completely, it probably still hurts like hell.*

Oh.

“ It’ll take some time to get there anyway, The next scheduled train here is in a week’s time and we’re practically stuck here till it comes, so I’ll judge you when the time comes.

And don’t think your vampire hypnotism’s going to work on me.

I wave a lot of wards placed on me, and if I catch even a whiff of your magic on me, I’m not going to help you. ”

“vampire?”

“You’re one aren’t you?”

Is shook my head.

“I don’t know”

*Vampires don’t just regenerate entire bodies or walk out in the open sunlight.*

Yea, no shit.

“I don’t know anything”

There was a Hint of emotion in my voice but I hope he didn’t catch that. I handed him the dried meat.

“Here.”

He stared suspiciously at the meat.

Then he glanced at me before testing it as if it was poisoned or something.

*Which he probably thinks it is.*

Eventually, he took a nibble, Then we sat there staring at each other in tense silence for nearly an hour. He looked like he expected to drop dead at any moment now. Finally, he relaxed with a sigh and roasted it in the fire before digging in.

“Why don’t you have any?”

“I can’t?”

“you can’t?”

It was a question.

“I can’t eat. Anything It seems.”

He nodded with fearful understanding.

“vampire”

“vampires can be killed”

“so?”

“I nearly regenerated my entire body, and I can walk in the sunlight without issue.”

“A better vampire then.”

“ I’m not.”

I shook my head with exasperation, trying to convince myself more than him.

“What’s your name?” I eventually croaked.

“Nael. You?”

“I’m…. I don’t know.”

He stared at me quizzically.

“It starts with an R I think.”

“Let's go with Rayola then, need to call you something.”

I smiled and stared at him for some time. That was a cute name, I liked it-

“It used to be my dog’s name.” He continued.

...

“I will just stick with R” I concluded.

“Rayola” He corrected

“R” The bastard was starting to annoy me.

“Ra-“

“No.” I cut him off

“Need to-“

“No!”

“I’m not going to listen to you and you can’t convince me otherwise, Rayola.”

“UGH!”

Is it just me or is he extremely obnoxious?

*He is.*

{ Agreed. I will probably regret this right? }

*Yes, but it is necessary.*

Right. Necessary.

{ Can I just sleep now? }

*Well… We can’t, remember?*

I didn't know what else to think at this point.

I let out a long sigh.