Rotten World

Chapter Nineteen

We've been walking for God knows how long and the only sound heard is the sound of the moist and squishy ground beneath our feet and the furious grumbling of our angry, empty stomachs. Usually, you'd be able to look at our odd-colored sun to see what time it was but it seems to be cowering behind a thick layer of mossy green clouds. "Anyone else feels like dying right now?" I grumble as I stumble over the bones of a long-dead animal, gross. Eddie wordlessly raises his hand and lets out a defeated sigh. Roman on the other hand is way in the front and seems to be having no problem what do ever. 'what is with you and not being human?' I ask through our link.

'rude. It may not seem like it to you but I'm struggling too. I hardly ever got hungry or tired and now I'm beyond exhausted and my insides are eating each other, and it's scaring me. I don't know what is happening.' it took me a second to actually process what he was saying but after looking closer at him I realized that his shoulders were slightly slumped and his hands and arms were slightly shaking. He was terrified. Not knowing what to say I pick up my pace and catch up to him, I then take his somber face into my hands and examine him more closely. His red skin is completely gone and his scabs are light and barely noticeable scars. He's normal! I let out a gasp and lower my hands from his face to examine the rest of his visible skin. His arms are normal give or take for acid burns and some scars. I look back up at his face to see worry and terror in his eyes and with a Shakey voice he asks "wwhat, what is it? What's wrong with me?" Before I can say anything Eddie speaks " damn bro you look like an actual person for once, what happened? Your not red and bumpy anymore" the color drains from Roman's face and he turns away from me and reaches his hands up to his face and mutters " I don't understand. Why is this happening? Why now?" His voice is shaky and filled with confusion.

I lower my head in thought " I don't know, and the only being that I can think of that would have an answer is quite possibly dead" Eddie places a comforting hand on Roman's shoulder and gently squeezes, this causes Roman to flinch and step away from Eddie, who scrunches his eyebrows in confusion and raises his hand in surrender "my bad, sorry" Eddie backs away and goes to a nearby rock to sit on.

I cautiously step to Roman "can I see it?" He lightly nods his head " it's not healing properly and it hurts like hell, I don't even remember getting it." I gently pull down the collar of his t-shirt to see what's causing him pain and all I see is I giant black and purple bruise covering the entirety of his shoulder and spidering out over part of his chest "Jesus, why didn't you say something? Your shoulder might be broken or dislocated for all we know!" Not meaning to I start to yell out of frustration. God, why wouldn't he tell me? Roman bows his head and shakes it " I'm sorry I thought it would heal like it has thousands of times before. It probably was healing then something happened to me and well this happened" he jesters to his shoulder with his good arm, I huff in response as I think of what could have happened to Him to make no heal.

Then it hits me, like a bolder to the head. He died and I brought him back. That must have reset something internally and now he's, for lack of better words, normal. "What? What is it? You have that look on your face." I look up at him " I think I know what happened, when we were fighting that thing you got tossed around like a rage doll. I think that's how your shoulder got hurt. Then you basically died and I brought you back. Jesus Roman, you were dead!" He reaches up and cups my face " I know, but I'm not anymore. What so your thinking that you bringing me back what reset something?" I just nod, and he lets go of my face " this is your fault, you did this to me." Me not knowing the exact way that was supposed to be taken I burst into tears and rush to blabber a string of apologizes, that is till he pulls me to him and whispers a silent "thank you" before planting a kiss to the top of my head.

To say I was mildly confused would be an understatement. He's not mad at me? What the fuck. I made him normal and vulnerable, he could get killed because of me, again! And he's not mad at me. Forgive me but I don't understand. "What?" I mutter into his neck and he slightly pulls back to look at me " what you thought I'd be mad? I've lived through so much pain, I've caused most of it. I've had to watch the people I love die over and over again and I lost who is was as a result of that. You freed me from having to go through that alone. you made it so I don't have to look in the mirror and see the monster who caused you so much pain. with my sensitive red skin gone, I get to see you in the sun and be able to be like a normal person with you. I still have my strength and my speed I'm just more human-looking and feeling. my shoulder is probably not healing cause it may have gotten reset as well when I died, so it's gonna take awhile but I assure you that it will heal in time." I'm stunned into silence as he finishes what he was saying, seeing this he smiles and leans in to place a gentle kiss on my lips. The wholesome moment is then interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing "uh I hate to break this lovely moment up but I'm like dying of starvation over here and would very much like help to find something to eat" Eddie was then answered with the load grumbling of two very empty stomachs and with that me and Roman let go of each other and started to help Eddie search of something if not anything that would be classified as edible.

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for a while, we searched for food together as a group but we figured we'd have a better chance at finding something if we split up, which brings me to know. I'm walking through a swampy messy swatting large blood-sucking bugs out of the way with a stick I found. the water is green with orange algae and has a ton of unusual little aquatic creatures that seem to really like my feet and legs. the swamp smells horrid like something died and never got moved or eaten. my shoes up to mid-thigh are completely socked and every time I step down in my shoes I can feel water and mud squish between my toes. gross, the feeling makes me gag every time and it takes everything in me to not bend over and throw up stomach acid. It's hard to throw up when you have nothing in your stomach. 

ten minutes is way too long to have stayed in the swamp but I was hoping it would lead to something useful and I was just about to give up when out in the distance amongst the tall dead trees I saw a long metal rod erecting straight up into the air. "well that something you don't see every day."  and so began my trudge through the deeper end of the swamp that landed just above my boobs, great now I'm completely drenched and it's not even warm!

luckily it didn't take me long to get to the base of the rod but what I saw I was not expecting and was immensely unprepared for. "This day just got a thousand times worst."  littered all around the base building of the metal rod were over two hundred large nest groups of different creature types, 'shit'. just my luck I stumble into a monster community and I'm covered in orange algae and mud.

'what? what's wrong?' shit Romans listening in, I don't want him to worry. 'nothing I just stubbed my toe, I'm fine. did you find anything yet?' 'nope nothing, I met back up with Eddie and we're on our way out towards you' shit ' ok sounds good see you then '. damnit so they had no better luck than me, that means that it's up to me to come up with something. anything would help it doesn't even need to be food, if I could find medical supplies I could help roman with his shoulder and Eddie with his burns. I bet we could find some kind of animal out here that we could eat without dying.

making up my mind I crouch down and slowly start making my way through the grounds of the monster community, for the most part, it seems pretty quiet and desolate. at least that's how it seemed till I stepped on a patch of loose ground and plummeted what fell like to the center of the earth, where I landed was extremely hot and pitch black, I landed on my back knocking what air I had in my longs out. my head hit something upon impacted and I was knocked out almost instantly.

This just got complicated...