Emerge from Isolation (Whumptober 2019)

Secret Injury

Lorna rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. She looked at her side, where she found a hole in the fabric, and there were droplets of blood staining the edges of the hole. Wincing against the pain in her side, she shrugged off her coat, and then she lifted her shirt to find a puncture wound in her side, right above her hip, where there were no vital organs.

It felt like someone was holding a lighter to her skin.

The buck had only just been attacked, and while it could have passed the magical parasite to her, it was possible for a freshly turned creature to not be so potent as a fully mutated creature. Its antlers had not even looked affected yet.

As Lorna watched blood slip down her skin, she felt relief at the lack of black fluid. She pressed her hip to the sink, and she poured cool water over it to help cleanse it. Once she was sure that there was no evidence of Merge magic entering her system, she stepped out of the bathroom.

Alex was still outside, and part of her wished he took a long time because she wanted to take care of the wound without him noticing. He had already let her sleep longer than she should have, and if he knew about the wound, he would try to coddle her even more, to treat her like a child when she was just as capable as he was in these forests. While he had certainly saved her out there with the Merged Boar, she wanted him to think of her as an equal teammate while they were traveling together.

Lorna grabbed her small medical kit in her backpack, and she took it with her into the bathroom to clean and dress the wound.

***

When the sky turned dark, Lorna could hardly believe they had made the remainder of their journey without incident. No raiders surrounded them with guns, and no animals jumped out at them to eat them or spread a horrible disease. They just walked through the snow, stopping in cabins a couple of times to take a short break and eat.

Once it started getting dark, Lorna found herself walking faster to stick to Alex’s side out of fear of what would happen to them.

“We’re almost there,” Alex insisted, and he gave her shoulder a rough pat. “Just a few more minutes, and we’ll make it to Withergate.”

Lorna just nodded. Ever since it had started getting dark, she had found her chest and belly tightening, making the burning in her side worse. Her heart sped in her chest. She knew that part of the reason for it was the idea of them being stuck in the woods in the middle of the night, but there was also the promise of being around people.

For the past ten years, Lorna could count on one hand all the people she had seen before she met before Alex, and she considered herself lucky that Alex seemed to be a kind person, making him different from most of the other people she had met.

The forest became brighter, and Lorna looked up and spotted a bright light in the distance. She pointed at it and looked at Alex.

“Hey, is that it?” she asked.

“Yeah, we made it.”

Alex turned to her and grinned. He clapped her on the back, and instead of speeding up his pace, he slowed down, easing the strain she put on herself to keep up with him. As they drew closer to the lights, she realized they came from large spotlights sitting on top of a fence, which was made of both chainlink and metal sheets and stood at least ten years tall.

There was also a gate, and there were two people with guns standing above it and on either side of the gate. With the light shining from behind them, they are each too dark to make out any details about them.

“Hey, stop right there!” a man called.

Alex stopped, and he looked at Lorna. She lifted shaking hands to grab his coat. He frowned at her.