SMG4:// Exodus

Part 5: Entente[v2.0]

Ch 1: おやすみなさい

The last thing my doctor told me before I was released from the hospital was to rest. After I had spent so long as a living cadaver in the hospital, being dissected and tested in surgery after surgery, drugging me and slicing me open and mending me again, I was to rest again. He never told me a time; whether it was a few weeks or the rest of my life. Until the first week of my recovery, I had never minded waiting for life. I lived my life indoors on sprites and hitboxes and never going outside. I got used to the comfort of waiting.

Then it became unbearable. A week before I walked through the doors of the Castle, I came down with jaundice. My now-healed liver was trying desperately to function again on its own as my Meta Arm was phasing itself out of my body. The overall deficiency that it caused left my blood anemic and my skin itchy and a sickly yellow. I slept the whole week. I slept until sleeping bored me to tears. My feverish dreams were haunted by the episodic flare of pain and itch engulfing my whole body. I couldn't do anything but rest; rest and let the agony fester and swallow me. Every doctor that opened the door to the hospital room had pity in their eyes. Every friend that walked into my bedroom had pity in their eyes.

I had been a corpse for 4 weeks and a zombie for 3 more, so how could I rest any longer?

~

Today is the first day that the ASS is on duty and the second day of my unstructured rehabilitation. I took no medication this morning, even as my wound stood over me like a feudal lord demanding payment for all the energy I expended yesterday. I clawed my way out of bed and rolled onto the floor. I lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling. I raise my hand and slowly reach behind me toward the nightstand. The wound fought me, enraged by my defiance. Each degree I stretched further, the sharper the pain became. Finally, just before my fingers reached the underside of the nightstand, My abdomen contracted forcefully, making me keel over and bump my head on the bedframe in the process. I sat up and pulled open the top drawer of my nightstand to get my electric heat pad, turning it on and laying on my stomach. I began to cackle to myself like the maniac I am, it felt so much better to fight the ache than to pacify it. Waluigi was right.

~

Ch 2: Do Not Look Down

In the mornings, I went running in the valley to build up my body. It was all I could really do, even if it wasn't the boot camp that Peach probably expected of me (if she expected anything of me...). Even so, I sensed that the pain had less of a grip on me with every passing day I ran. Since I could do much of anything as long as I stayed inside the umbra of the Epithelium, I ran as much as I could. I couldn't help but run, even during the inevitable flare-up. Barreling down the valley at full speed... with the early spring wind crashing against me... just felt so damn freeing. Sometimes, far out in the infinite green hills behind the castle, I would put my hands in the pockets of my unzipped hoodie and spread out my arms as I rushed through the grass. My shadow on the ground always made me look like I had bird's wings , so I went on giggling to myself and pretending that the wind would pick me up and let me fly away. I guess that's just a show of how looney I've become these past few weeks.

Just yesterday, I saw a flock of swallows touch down in front of me. Swallows are commonly the first birds to return to the skies after winter, and probably first birds I'd seen in a long time. I guess even during the end of the world as I knew it, nature would always be there.

At some point in those two weeks – maybe a week into the rehabilitation period – a flag fell from one of the corners of the castle and landed in front of me. Now, the front right corner of the castle was missing a flag on it's spire. It just came untied and floated to the ground over the moat. I was just about to come in after a long morning for lunch. I should probably get Toadsworth to go up and re-hoist the flag. Better yet, I could probably do it myself...