Epilogue

Epilogue 3.23

---Crawford---

     I come to, sporting the mother of all headaches. I'm soaked and shivering in the shallows—a quick glance around indicates that I've washed up on the shore of the rocky island along with the rest of the group. I crane my neck to get a good look at the island stretched out in front of us. Further inland, stretching along the massive slope of the island, stand the ruins of an ancient city.

     The stone structures lie in various states of disassembly, with thick rust-coloured vines sprouting along the sides of them. It's like a poorly designed FPS map—the semi-collapsed architecture provides more than enough places to camp without any worry of an enemy getting the drop on you. And seeing as we're out in the open, I'm not exactly looking forward to our inevitable trek through the ruins. The city crawls along the gentle slope of the rock island and culminates at the base of the volcano that presumably birthed the whole place.

     Just thinking about having to scale the volcano makes my legs cramp up. I wheeze, and a sharp pain resonates in my chest. I vaguely recall being constricted by one of the kraken's tentacles. Replaying the battle in my head, it dawns on me that tentacles in real life function a lot differently than animated ones—they're a lot less pervy and a lot more murdery.

     "Crawford!" Mya's angelic voice snaps me out of my agonized musings. "Are you all right?"

     I try to speak, but can't. Each breath of air causes the pain to spiral out through my body. What'd that freaking kraken do anyway, crush my lung?

     "I thought I lost you too. When the kraken grabbed you..."

     I give her an awkward thumbs up. She suddenly leans in and plants a kiss... on my cheek. That's the best I'm going to get, isn't it?

     "Can you walk?" She holds out her hand.

     I bite my tongue to stifle the pain, which shockingly results in an aching tongue. Something warm and salty trickles along my taste buds. God, is that blood? Why the hell do people do this to themselves? I'm not even remotely distracted from the pain. If anything, this made it worse!

     So maybe putting on a machoistic front right about now isn't the best of ideas, but my hormones override the logical part of my brain. I take Mya's hand and force myself to my feet—and, oh boy, the aching. I don't think there's an inch of me that isn't sore as a mother. What's that supposed to mean, anyhow? Sore as a mother after giving birth, I wager.

     "Come on." Mya lets me lean against her and walks me over to dry land. As soon as I'm out of the water, I collapse onto the bumpy, ashy rock. One by one, our band of misfits gathers along the rocky coastline. The barren terrain persists for about a five minute trek, after which the remnants of the ruined city start sprouting out of the rock. The deeper into the stone-age city you want to trek, the further uphill you've got to go. More exercise. I swear to the nacho gods that the first thing I'm going to do when I get to paradise is triple my body weight.

     Ace and Liluye limp over to us, collapsing. They've both sustained serious wounds. And by serious, I mean they'll walk them off, because we haven't got the luxury of sitting around for weeks waiting for our fragile human shells to heal themselves.

     "I'm about to catch some serious pneumonia," Ace mutters, his teeth chattering as a frigid breeze strikes us. My teeth start chattering too. What do you know, it's contagious.