FLOOD [Pokémon]

Chapter 52

^ "Underwater Fire" (6-28-20)

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NERO

Friday, April 13, 2018

Simeon woke me up at 6 AM again, and for the first time since I'd been taken home from hospital, I was grateful. Another bad dream had come to me early in the morning, of course about Jude and Mag, what was happening to them, what they were doing. This time, Jude's tail had gotten cut in half by a hungry Crawdaunt, and his blood had turned the sea... Green, not red.

It was a bit of silliness that failed to make the dream any less terrifying: Jude was weak. Mag was injured, probably getting more and more fatigued the farther they traveled. What if they did come across a hungry Crawdaunt that—?

I ground my teeth as Simeon helped me dress, hoping the crunching sound would crowd out my increasingly paranoid thoughts.

It also distracted me from the fact that Simeon had to help me dress, though the embarrassment wasn't as severe as on my first day with the Lilycove City Seawatchers. I didn't have a choice, after all: despite being out of the hospital for nearly five days now, I was still shaky and weak on my feet, despite the fact that I'd been given a transfusion at the hospital. Simeon assured me that they'd pumped the right blood type into me, but I had to wonder: I'd been feeling weird and off-kilter the past week, like my old blood was warring with the new dose.

Besides that, my injured arm still hadn't regained its full autonomy: there was an alarming numbness gripping my forearm and most of my fingers, making them hard to move. Both Kara and Simeon suspected some kind of nerve damage, and I prayed that it was temporary. I had an appointment with the doctor in — twitch — three days, and they would tell me more then, Simeon said.

I wasn't sure I could stand to wait around in this place for another three hours.

But again, no choice: besides the bad blood and the bad arm, my body had also taken the opportunity to crash into a full-blown Drought — I could tell because the low fever that had rested somewhere in the back of my skull, telling me that I needed to return to the sea soon, had disappeared, and so had the debilitating thirst pushing me towards water. Instead, I'd been wracked with chills — my body wanted the sun, the kind of sun you couldn't find underwater.

Stuck. Again. I couldn't believe I'd almost forgotten how horrifying it was. But a traitorous part of me was relieved: even if I really wanted to go somewhere... Goddamn, I was beat. Still beat, even after five days of sleeping nonstop in a plush bed, being delivered meals by Kara and Simeon.

After I finished dressing — black, meshy running pants today, along with a sleeveless green top — Simeon led me into the kitchen of the Lilycove City Sea House. Emphasis on house — where Slateport City had its expansive premises of fancy buildings and beachfront property, here in Lilycove City the Seawatchers called a small manor their home base, one sitting up-shore from a lake pushing out into the ocean. To the northeast was that tall, bleak-looking mountain: Mount Pyre, according to Simeon.

The house was large, but it had a small, homey, almost too cozy personality. I suspected it was all the wood: wooden walls, wooden floor and ceiling, wooden cabinets, wooden doors, wooden shelves, wooden flower pots... Even the table and chairs in the kitchen spacious were wooden. According to Simeon, Kara's husband's father had built the place, and the husband himself had constructed many of the furnishings. And that was nice and all... But this tinderbox was just asking for a match to be thrown in the wrong place.

Thank Arceus my powers only worked underwater.

Today, Kara was at the stove, stirring something in a pot. By the smell, I had to guess that it was beans again, same as yesterday: beans, hamburger, and collards, all foods to help me regenerate my lost blood supply. I prayed I had room to stomach it all again.