FLOOD [Pokémon]

Chapter 11: Sweet Samaritan

NERO

Friday, March 16, 2018

The sun was setting, but the pavement was still deadly hot: it cooked the palms of my gloves and my bare knees as I dropped to the ground, but I barely felt that pain. All I was aware of was the piercing nausea that boiled up from my belly, threatening to undo me; I felt breaths away from retching.

I stared down at the baking sidewalk between my hands, trying to beat back the incoming tide of grief...and failed. That she was gone was bad enough, but my true anguish came at how close I had been. She was there until just this morning. If I hadn't gotten caught on the Strip... If I hadn't been slowed down by delirium and thirst, brought on by the Drought fever... The two of us might've been heading back to the ocean. Instead, she was gone, slipping through my fingers as easily as salt water. I looked down at those fingers, and they blurred behind a film of tears.

Is this it? Will I ever see her again?

My eyes closed as I struggled to suppress a flood of cold terror. No, I thought, working to swallow the rank taste of defeat. If the knowing that she was gone was like a fist to the belly, then the thought of giving up on finding her was like being gutted. I couldn't do it — it didn't even feel like an option.  I can find her. I can. I will. This was just another setback.

But these thoughts felt worthless, because was there any way to know where she'd gone? I knew so little about the boy who'd captured her, after all: not much beyond the fact that he was human, male, young, and had gray eyes. And if he'd taken Mag away this morning, who knew where he might be now? He could be dozens of miles away from where I was, in any direction. Or he could be just around the corner. I couldn't know, and that knowledge was a terrible thing. She could be anywhere — anywhere. She's lost to me.

I sat up on my knees, trying to bottle a mounting scream. There's a way. Think.

But my head was a storm, and I despaired at how, with every passing second, Magdalene grew further and further away, buried deeper and deeper in this complex labyrinth of land and roads and buildings and humans. Up above, the sun was sinking below the horizon line,  turning earth, sea, and sky into molten gold; it seemed to move faster across the sky as I knelt there, watching it pass overhead, trying not to panic.

Pass overhead...

I'll come and...save you...just like...old times...

But not a second before then, mister. You stay here until that sun passed overhead twice. Okay?

Terror came like a painful shock. Arceus help me. Jude. I had completely forgotten about him, and our two-day deal. Quickly, I calculated: forty-eight hours hadn't passed, not quite, but did it matter? Jude was reckless and impulsive by nature. Right now, with evening approaching and hungry predators coming out of their dwellings, he could be leaving the cave to come look for me, or worse: he could already be gone, heading towards land. Him, the weak, easily-fatigued swimmer that couldn't mount an offense if his life depended on it.

My came teeth together so hard that they nearly shattered. No, no, no. Not now. I couldn't let Magdalene's trail go cold, not at such a crucial moment where the gap between us was so rapidly expanding. Even if she was beyond reach, I had to stay here, where I'd last seen her, and find clues, figure out a plan... I had to do something. I couldn't just cut and run...

But Arceus, I also had to know that Jude was safe. Out in the open ocean, he would make for a stupendously easy meal — one bite, and he would be gone, for good this time. My heartbeat ratcheted up into a panicked frenzy at the thought, and I got back to my feet, one despair momentarily forgotten for another. Make sure that's he's okay, I thought. Then come back — you'll be gone for an hour, at the most.