(Rose)
I’m following the large road heading south. The weather is getting cold and all the trees are losing their leaves. The dead leaves rapidly lt, in a matter of a day or so once they’ve hit the ground. They don’t accumulate much therefore along the roads.
Blu follows the Autumn changes claiming it’s getting too cold to keep flowers outside. She’s getting closer to my skin, and eventually will burry herself underneath and spend winter inside the warmth of my torso, sheltered within .
R - Co on, you’re not that frail truly.
B - My flowers are. It’s too cold for them outside... more comfy here...
Her voice is muffled as it cos from underneath my clothes, for now.
The sky is leaden grey. It did rain a lot recently and there might be a storm coming soon.
I’m looking for a shelter this afternoon. Along the road there isn’t much, but along the paths on the smaller roads, in the distance are small buildings here and there. Houses, farms. They’re old and collapsing.
I exit the road and reach a small town by the evening. Houses and buildings, deserted. I chose a comrcial building and enter. I climb the stairway to the last levels. There is an odd place. There are tiles everywhere.
I find restrooms and changing rooms. Then, a pool. Beneath the sky, as the ceiling above it collapsed everywhere.
Well, it’s a swamp now, but it was a pool once, on top of a building with various shops and retails below it. That’s funny how everything was clustered together. Maybe there was a school and an hospital there too, on another floor.
I’m about to go one level below for the night, when I hear bubbling. Might there be sothing inside the pool? I take a very cautious look. There are old corpses I think. I recognise so bones, shapes, and the sll...
An old perfu of death.
B - There is sothing moving there, alive and probably voracious.
R - Let’s not bother it then. Let’s go.
We leave to spend the night far from this pool.
An abandoned shop of cookware. For once, I can recognise what it once used to sell, as most of the ti I don’t. I can’t tell apart electrical tools and computers. Not that it matters much now, but had humanity remained, I might be just as lost in this ti.
I lie down between so rates and doze off.
~
I have nightmares again. Screams. That young man who beca monster, running at in that stream bed. The way he banged my head against the rocks. The pain in my severed fingers. The flesh...
I wake up in a gasp and cold sweat. I sit in the dark, trying to catch my breath. Why now?
So ghosts will never let go...
Blu is a soft scarf around , whispering that I’ll be alright. I’ll be alright.
B - A bad dream?
R - Yes... I just recalled... What was his na again? Alan I think. The ti when we fought to the death and I almost didn’t make it... Fear made ...
B - It’s alright Rose. It’s long over... They’re gone.
R - I need so air... Co with please?
B - ... Sure. Of course.
I stand up, still barely lucid. Blu does too and cos with . I dressed lightly.
I go back to the pool for so reason. I rember now why. The corpse. The skull I saw.
My mories are as fucked-up as reality itself was at the ti. I just feel nauseous about that ti, when I swam in an awaken nightmare.
And it was partially because of you... Blu. Though I don’t feel any anger about it now.
R - Why do I spend more ti reminiscing about those bad tis than they actually lasted?
B - Because they were traumatic for you... They wounded you. The scars will remain itchy and sensitive for a long ti... I’m sorry Rose.
I go and sit on a bench close to the pool without replying. I wonder if she could brainwash and erase those mories? She probably could... I’m not sure this would be such a good idea though...
B - I know what you’re thinking about, Rose...
R - ... I think I’ll keep these ntal scars for ever, so please, keep comforting every ti they hurt again, okay?
B - I will, my dear Rose. I will, always.
She cuddles and I relax a little.
~
We’re leaving on the next morning. I relieved myself behind the building, but before we go, I want to take a last look at the pool. The pieces of corpses floating inside... I don’t like them.
R - Blu, what’s the living being inside this swamp?
B - Sothing like , but younger. It has no definite form yet. It’s swimming inside, trying to build a body and to eat what it can.
R - I see... Help , would you? I want to pull the skeleton out. I don’t want it to build a modern Protheus...
B - I see... You’d rather not encounter humanoid monsters anymore.
R - I’d rather not see my kin turned into such things anymore. In exchange, I’m willing to give it a finger or two if it wants.
B - I don’t think you need to go to such lengths. It’s barely aware, we can just snatch the bones.
R - I’d feel bad if we didn’t give it sothing else in exchange.
B - So of your blood would be more than enough to make it happy. I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t want to eat you either way.
R - That’s fine. I still feel sick from my bad night so let’s do this and leave.
Blu plunges her ribbons inside the sludge, grabs the human remains and pulls them away. She throws them away while igniting them. They burn aside the pool, and even the bones turn into dust.
I notice the water bubbling in anger. The living thing inside is annoyed.
I raise my arm but Blu asks for my leg rather. I raise a leg above the water. I feel my muscle obey to Blu and my flesh moving oddly.
A blood vessel pops out from my skin above my sock and blood begins beading and pearling down from it.
The pool seems to like it and gets nervous. It has sothing like algae gathering around where the droplets of blood are falling.
After a minute, Blu pulls the blood vessel back into my leg, and my leg back onto the ground. It was more than enough she says. I thank her and we leave it at that. I’ve fed sothing in exchange of one less chance to suffer from bad mories.
As we leave, the pool is still bubbling. It will beco alive very soon, thanks to Blu tells .
R - It won’t look like the monsters I faced at least.
B - It might be grateful for your help even... What would you like it to look like however?
R - I don’t know... Sothing peaceful?
Blu laughs at this as we hit the road again.
B - Peaceful like a rose?
R - Oh, co on... You know what I wish to be. Soone between Licht and my mother. I just hope it turns out nett...
B - I think it will.
She repeats that I gave it a lot. An incredible gift. My living blood infused with her energy is a strong mixture of chemical, biological and... magical (?) energy.
It carries many tabolic patterns, and so tips to structure biology as well as the use of their kind of energy.
A huge amount of useful information is carried by a drop of blood, for those able to read them.
In exchange of so peace of mind for , I helped create sothing I poorly understand or care about.
I just hope it will turn out right.
anwhile, we keep going. Once we find so nice city to settle camp in, we’ll chose where to go next.
Maybe we’ll just keep going south as winter approaches? We’ll see.
~
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