Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

Ultimus Chapter Twenty-Five: Injuries

Andrew laid wherever he may be. He wasn’t sure where he was or what happened to him. His eyes closed, his ears rang through the and his head throbbed. He opened his eyes, his vision was fuzzy but he figured that he was in a tent since the above him was red. The ringing in his ears died down as he started hearing yammering nearby.

“Ouch!! Watch it, Paul, that hurts.”

“Ya darn right that it hurts Erica. Ya cracked three ribs, now stay still while I bandage ya up.”

“I am Paul!!! But you keep hurting me!! Here, just let me take the bandages from here.”

“Fine, here. Let’s see ya try it yourself.”

Andrew started sitting himself up slowly. His head throbbing from whatever happened before. He was having trouble seeing as his vision went in and out. He felt dizzy as he tried sitting up. He heard a woman grunt in pain as a man tried giving her suggestions. The woman seemed to be irritated by this from her tone. He looked at the two of them, he knew them. He just was having a moment where he just couldn’t remember their names. But he soon remembered, though it was a bit foggy.

“Ya gonna let me handle it now Erica?” The Paul said,

“I got it Paul- gah…” Erica winced. Paul nodded.

“I assume this is a part of yer plan?” He said in a joking manner. Erica just glared at him in irritation for being right.

“Shut up and finish it.” She said, the man chuckled as he walked up to her and started bandaging her up again. Andrew flipped himself around so that his feet hung off and touched the floor. He grunted as he forced himself off the bed he was on and onto his feet. He started staggering as he couldn’t find his balance, the world was spinning around. He crashed into something and made some noise. He staggered to a table and grabbed onto it. Paul looked over at him and gasped.

“Andrew, what do you think you're doing? You need to rest right now; you might have a head injury,” Paul said as he jumped away from Erica, who grunted as he did and scowled at Paul. Paul rushed over to him, helped him back to the bed, and laid him down. Andrew, though, looked over at him and took a deep breath.

“Thank you, Paul, but I’m fine. My legs are just asleep from the armor. It does that when I sleep in it.” He fibbed as he sat back up. Paul looked at him with doubt.

“Ya know, you and Erica are a lot alike.” Paul said,

“Excuse me?” Andrew said,

“Ya, both are more stubborn than a couple of oxen. Just rest, only for a little while at least!” Paul said, Andrew nodded for a moment. He would for the moment, he knew wasn’t feeling well. But he wanted to show and prove he was strong enough to be a part of this group.

Paul got up from Andrew’s side to finish Erica’s. She looked irritated with Paul for leaving her half-finished and slightly irritated that he went over to aid Andrew. She seemed still upset about him being there with them. But it was less of the cold shoulder and more judgmental. Andrew couldn’t make sense of this woman. The first people he’d seen in twelve years, and one for some reason hated him. But I guess he could understand her too. She just seemed judgmental and mistrusting. But above all protective.

‘Geez, why always me with these people?’

Rue herself was judgmental and the jealous type too, but she always played it down as jokes around them. Even though later she would talk Andrew’s ear off how much she disliked someone from their first meeting. Two weeks later they would be best friends. This was a trait in their family though. The same was true for Salmon. They were both judgmental and kinda jealous of people when they wanted to be. But they had their good sides too and were easy to be friends with. How was he going to make friends with a lady who had a mean streak along with that type of behavior? He wasn’t sure.

“How, how did she get hurt?” Andrew asked aloud. Erica looked at him and stared with a slight glare.

“It’s your fault, when you got kicked by that horse. I had to sit and stay by you while Jonathan finished up taming your Equus. While I waited, a Sabertooth Cat came out of nowhere and attacked me. I got it knocked out without it killing us, but not without the animal landing on top of me.” Erica said rather annoyed. Andrew was surprised by this, he couldn’t remember anything about taming the Equus— whatever it was or why he got kicked by it.

“I’m- sorry.”

“Yeah, you better be— This can endanger us all now because I am injured Andrew, because of you. If someone dies or is further injured. Sorry, won’t cut it. And it will be your fault!!” She snarled.

“Erica. Ya acting worse than my daughter did when she was four and she wanted something from her big brother. This was his first time riding a horse, I know I have seen a couple of people have a horse get the better of them when they were experienced. You need to cut him a bit of slack.” Paul said to Erica while looking at her. She huffed as she looked back at him. They kinda had a staring contest as they did before Erica rolled her eyes.

“Okay. I’m sorry Andrew for making it sound like your fault.” She said, almost half-heartedly, she looked at Paul irritatedly and raised her arms signaling that she needed Paul to finish. To which he did.

Andrew sat there watching Paul bandage Erica around her waist. He was careful and delicate as as wrapped her waist. He and she talked casually as he did this, almost as if this was a normal day for them. Andrew though was having trouble concentrating on their conversation. His mind was having trouble in general processing things around him, his head throbbed as he sat there. It seemed to be consistent, his vision getting better but everything else was either the same or getting worse. He got up again and started walking towards the tent entrance.

“Hey, ya okay Andrew? Do you need me to check ya out?” Paul said as he was giving Erica a bottle with some sort of brown liquid. Andrew shook his head.

“No, I am fine. I just need to take a walk.” He lied, he wasn’t even sure why he was. He just was restless and needed to do something. He thought if he got up and did something he would start to feel better. And he walked out of the tent.

~

Paul stood there and watched as Andrew left the tent. It concerned him. He didn’t seem well, he wanted to examine him to see if he was ok. But he wanted to respect their guest’s privacy. He sighed to himself. He just hoped that he was telling the truth and was okay. He turned back to see Erica, she seemed concerned—in her way at least. He caught the agitation that she had with Andrew. She took a swig of the medical brew he gave her. Her face puckered with the taste of the brew. She was holding something up about trusting people, he knew she had some sort of problem in childhood or something that caused this. But she was so secretive that she wouldn’t say. And he respected that. But he was disappointed that she would keep trying to throw blame for something that hadn’t happened. It just seemed like an unnecessary threat and just hurtful. He had heard from Sylas that she had done the same to Jonathan; and as much as Jonathan did deserve it for what he did. She still went too hard on him. She looked over at Paul and looked at him in a puzzled way.

“What? What did I do?”

“Erica, I want you to relax with the lads. Especially Andrew. He doesn’t know how to work with a group nor does he know how to do things we can do. Don’t blame him for going unconscious while taming a horse. And you shouldn’t put so much pressure or effort into scaring him. He to worry about our group’s lives being at risk if he makes a beginner’s mistake.” Paul said,

“It’s not wrong. Rookie mistakes here can get you, Freya, Tweedle Dee, and tweedle dumb seriously injured or even killed.”

“Aye, it’s not wrong. But it’s certainly not right to scare him even more. That’ll make him doubt and feel worse about himself. Which’ll cause him to make more mistakes.” Paul said,

“I am just afraid of losing you guys. I can’t lose anyone, not for someone I barely know. I can’t go through any more death Paul.” She said,

“Then think about this, why did you sit with him?”

“What?”

“Why did you sit with him and protect him? when you could have run away and saved energy when the saber came?” Paul asked, Erica stayed quiet while she stood there. She bit her lip. Paul raised an eyebrow.

“Well, why?”

“I don’t know okay? I just stayed.” She said gesturing her hands wildly. Paul leaned against the table in his tent and smiled.

“Just go easy on him from now on, he’ll learn— now ya get rest, go take a nap. That medical brew won’t work if you move and undo what my bandaging did. It’ll only aid your healing if you can heal from it naturally.” Paul said, Erica gave an odd look at him before she nodded.

“Alright. I need one anyway. Watch on him for me then while I do.”

“Aye, I will Erica.”

~

Andrew began to wander the camp, his head wasn’t getting better. He was having trouble remembering where he was in the camp. Everything was spinning around more and more. He was beginning to feel like a drunk, he kept staggering and was afraid he would knock into something. He found himself that he was at the area they cook their food at. He struggled his way to the table and plopped himself in a chair next to the table. He said his head on the table. His head was pounding, and his vision was going in and out even more. He groaned in pain.

“Why did I lie? This was a mistake to do.” He whispered to himself. He thought that he should probably set his head down back on the table, his memory about what exactly was coming back, but he was still a bit fuzzy about some stuff. He just wanted to think of something else for a moment. Then he realized something, he thought about Samantha earlier. He remembered something he thought he would never remember, he nicknamed. Salmon was a pet name that her sister Rue gave her for two reasons, one was her love for ichthyology. She just loved fish way too much that it was an unhealthy obsession for her. But the other was because of her skin condition, she had extreme atopic dermatitis or eczema and she was always lathering up in lotion so she was always slimy to the touch like a fish and was slightly pink due to her skin being inflamed. To this, Rue like the kind sister she was; came up with the fun nickname of Salmon to make fun of this in a light heart. Sam didn’t care, she in fact loved it. Samantha wasn’t one to get mad or upset when teased about her skin condition. She saw it as funny, she would say she was born to love fish. Rue meant no real harm by it either. Andrew watched Rue drop a kid to the floor who was making fun of her skin and her frizzy black hair, and then he punched out another kid's lights; and incapacitated another to the floor. Andrew realized Rue was a bit of a brute, and that there were too many kids who didn’t hear of her reputation.

Andrew lay with his head against the table, reminiscing about his past while he was feeling sick. He heard humming coming from nearby, the sound of someone trying to make some food on the grill. Andrew looked up to see Sylas Fennec cooking some meat for himself. Sylas looked over at him and smiled as he pointed the makeshift spatula at him in excitement as he trotted over to him waving the spatula back and forth.

“Andrew!! Andrew your up!!” He said excitedly, Andrew looked at him like it hurt. To which it did. Though he tried to play it off.

“Yeah, I am. Though I wish I wasn’t right now.”

“Didn’t the doc fix you up?”

“I refused to get ‘fixed’ up, I thought I just needed a walk.” Andrew said, Sylas nodded his head.

“Understandable, I don’t like getting meds from him always. So do you want some meat?” Sylas asked, Andrew looked over at the grill and saw flames coming from it.

“I think your food is on fire.” Andrew said, Sylas looked over and his eyes widened.

“Oh shoot!! Shoot shoot shoot!!” Sylas shouted as he ran over the grill and pulled the burnt chunks of char off of it. He sighed in disappointment as he took them off.

“Boy, that sucks.” He said with a depressed tone. Andrew got up and decided he would leave Sylas alone and go head to bed for some rest. But as he started walking out of the camp’s kitchen area. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Andrew turned to see Sylas directly behind him.

“Hey, are you busy?” Sylas asked.

“No, not really b-” “Great, because I really need some help. I was supposed to finish some droids for resource gathering. However, I kinda got distracted the past two days… I got them finished now, but I need to get them out of here before anyone realizes that I messed up. There are a couple of wagons we can hook up onto our creatures and we can go drop them off across this city!! I mean, as long as you want to help. I can do it on my own if needed.” Sylas said. Andrew looked at Sylas, he was desperate. Andrew sighed knowing that he wasn’t gonna get the rest he needed.

“I’ll meet you down by where the tames are at.” Andrew said, Sylas nodded as he grabbed some raw meat from a wooden box with some heat being emitted from it.

“Jonathan hadn’t put the horses away yet. Can you bring your horse over to the back of my tent? I’m gonna one back there and load up Tuba with a few of the droids on his wagon after I cook up this, and then I’ll get the rest of the clankers on the back of the other wagon your horse will have.” He said, Andrew nodded as he stood up. His head already began to throb as he did.

“Ok? But why are we hiding this so much?” Andrew asked, Sylas looked at him and lowered his head in shame.

“Because I always feel like I am the weak link in the tribe. I feel like I am always failing at what I need to do. And if I reveal that I did it again. I feel like they’ll be disappointed in me.” Sylas said, Andrew looked pity on him. He understood. He felt he was holding them back, that he didn’t belong. Maybe if he helped someone who felt the same way but was obvious to be respected and appreciated, they would treat him similarly. Andrew smiled softly.

“Alright, I’ll meet you over there.”

Andrew walked off back towards the outside of the building. Everything was quiet, he didn’t see anyone. However, he was having trouble with his hearing and sight a little bit. He still was dizzy, and it was getting hard to remember what he was thinking about earlier before Sylas started talking to him. What was he even bringing up when he first started talking to him? He was getting fuzzy on that too. He just knew he had to meet Sylas in front of his tent, or was it behind? Andrew paused in his thinking for a moment. Stopping in his movement as he did so. What was wrong with him? Why was he having this trouble? Andrew ran his gauntlets over his head and through his hair, his gauntlet so smooth, hard but soothing. He squatted for a moment while rubbing his head with his hands.

It felt good, he slowed down his breathing as he sat there. It was rare to have these moments, even when he had Reuben. Life was getting so much harder for him. The deer were getting scarce around his home. Which would push him further out, but rounds of ammunition were just as scarce for him. Andrew didn’t know how long he would keep himself alive, let alone Reuben. Andrew had lost twenty pounds in the last four months as he tried to keep Reuben as healthy as possible. Reuben was all he had left in this world. But looking back, was it possible what happened was some sort of mercy? He wasn’t entirely sure. Heck, it happened a week ago and he acted like it happened years ago. Tears came down his cheeks, in total remorse. It was no one's fault but his, and there was no mercy in his death. He regretted spending his time hunting the raptor out of anger instead of not spending his time with the last few moments he had... Andrew’s self-pampering to aid him only began to make him worse. Andrew opened his eyes, realizing he had gotten sidetracked within his mind. He needed to help Sylas now. This mattered, not the past. He got up and trotted as best he could to the entrance of the building.

Andrew finally got to the entrance and saw the creatures that had been tamed up by this crew of almost superhuman people. He saw the horses as he walked through the creatures. He looked around through all the creatures. He saw the Rex once again and saw the creatures he walked alongside when he first met them. Then he saw the horses. He walked up closer and saw the one that he chose. Its black and grey coloring made it look older, yet it was young and strong. He stood with his head raised in confidence, the animal itself stood a foot or so taller at the shoulder than the other next to it. And stood up to Andrew’s eyes at the horse’s shoulders. He was unsaddled as was the other one. From what the others said. It was one of the largest stallions in the herd. Maybe he should’ve heeded their warnings, then he wouldn’t be in such a painful predicament.

“Now, how does Sylas expect me to get on this thing?” He said to himself.

The animal was quite tall and he didn’t know how to get on this thing from this point. Although he could do what he did before, he squatted down and jumped up high onto the horse. It was startled at first but immediately calmed back down after realizing what was going on. Andrew however was in agony, his headache began to feel like he was getting run over by a car from exerting himself with the jump. He laid himself against the horse’s neck as he tried to figure out how to make the animal move.

Once he got the horse to move, he had a rough time trying to figure out how to control it, he was having as much control over it as he did when he first was taming it. However, it was only walking or at most trotting as it grazed on the grass coming from the abandoned streets. Nonetheless, his stress of having no control wasn’t helping his head.

“Come on, go into the building.” He said quietly, but the horse did nothing. It just continued to graze on the grass. Andrew growled and yanked the animal's mane towards the entrance of the building and he made small kicks against the animal’s sides in frustration. But to his surprise, the animal stopped and stood to attention. Andrew was surprised for a moment. He tried yanking the mane again—Nothing. He was confused now, how did he stop now? Was it the kicking? He kicked again lightly, and then the horse started moving forward in a walk.

‘Okay, so that’s how.’ Andrew thought. He kicked again and the animal stopped, he then got the horse back to moving. He tried yanking the mane again in the direction he wanted to go. But again the animal didn’t go that way.

‘What if I try this—’ he kicked his left leg only and the animal turned left.

“Okay, now we're talking.” He said to himself, he had the horse go to the entrance of the building and move silently through the camp. But from how it sounded, he wouldn’t have to worry. Music blasted through the camp, Andrew looked and saw a dinosaur sitting behind Sylas’ tent. Though it was by no means hiding as it stood above

‘Back of the tent.’ Andrew said remembering where he was supposed to meet. He directed the horse to the back of the tent where a wagon was hooked up to the dinosaur. The wagon itself had a half dozen spheroids on the back and a ramp leading up onto it. The other wagon lay unhooked and resting on the ground as it waited to be hooked up to something.

Sylas then walked out of the tent, he was dancing and singing along with the song. And behind him walked a seven to eight foot metallic giant. And while Sylas danced his way up the ramp, the robot followed. As the music was ending, and the robot aligned itself onto the wagon. Sylas deactivated it, he then turned and saw Andrew sitting on the horse.

“There you are!! Perfect timing, Tuba is at his max of carrying and still being able to run. There’s only a few of them left and it should be easy for your horse to carry them, but you're gonna need a saddle to hook up the wagon.” Sylas said, Andrew nodded as he got the horse to walk up to Sylas.

“Okay, but how do I make a saddle for my horse?”

“Ah it’s easy, I can show you, I made a saddle for a horse’s back on- hey, this is The Hollies playing!!” Sylas said getting distracted as Long Cool Woman played. ‘Whatever that meant’ Andrew thought as he looked at the stereo. Andrew wasn’t concerned about Sylas forgetting what he was going to say. Andrew was honestly feeling the same at this time and wasn’t sure if he could retain this knowledge.

“Alright, then let's get started.” Andrew said trying to get their conversation back to saddle-making. Sylas looked back at Andrew and smiled widely.

“Alrighty!! Come into my natural disaster area I call home.”

~

After he showed Andrew how to make a saddle, hooked up the wagon and got the rest of the droids on the wagon. Sylas and Andrew went on their way out of the camp being unseen or heard. He left his stereo playing in his tent to ease suspicion and reduce the sound of their leaving. No one was outside, everyone was busy preparing to mass tame and figure out the plan to reach their destination. One of their goals was to get these Sir-5rM8s out and harvest resources like Refined Element. But, he kept getting so carried away with other stuff and getting tricked by Jonathan wasn’t much help either. He just would hate for someone else to have to try to clean up the mess that he was supposed to do. He was really glad that Andrew could help him out too. Though, he didn’t look too well, then again if he was kicked in the head by a horse. He wouldn’t feel too good either. But he was a bit worried. He looked back to see him resting against the horse’s neck.

“Hey, you alright?” Sylas asked, the guy turned looked up at him, and smiled holding his right thumb in the air.

“I’m doing alright. Just tired, that’s all.” Andrew said, Sylas smiled. Sylas thought about the case, but still, he wondered if he was alright. He just would leave it at that though. He didn’t want to push him.

“So did you just get Tuba? I don’t remember you having him.” He asked,

“Yeah!! Tuba is a Muttawhatasaurus, I think... But I accidentally ran into him while trying to tame a horse. He honestly is so cool!! Tuba can roar like a Rex or listen to this.” Sylas said as he tapped Tuba, Tuba let out a raptor call with his throat pouch expanding. Sylas looked back at Andrew.

“Cool right!! He can copy calls!! I don’t even know what all he can copy yet!!” He said excitedly, but his excitement died down seeing that Andrew was now sitting straight up. His face flushing out and his eyes wide.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Sylas said, his lip and mouth started moving like he was trying to say something before it finally came out.

“I-… I don’t have a good history with Raptors. And their calls just remind me of the time that I dealt with them.” Andrew said,

“Aw, geez man. I’m really sorry, I probably should’ve-” “No, no. It’s alright. You didn’t know that.” He interrupted, there was a moment of silence. Sylas felt like an idiot, again like usual. He should’ve been more cautious with what actions he did. He didn’t know the guy or what he had been through. He should’ve asked or just said it out loud than rather showing it. He turned back to see Andrew ok, he was relaxed and seemed to be taking in the area around him.

“So you're from the twenty first century? What was it like? Your life I mean?” Andrew asked as he turned and looked at him.

“It was interesting!! You know, I was born a half decade after a global pandemic so it was a bit weird for my early childhood. But you know, it really got better and less weird from there from there. My adulthood was crazy because I became this big shot overnight.”

“Really, oh right. Millionaire thing, how did you become that?”

“Well, a bit of a long story but I was sort of a programmer in my high school, but I was also lazy. And I had poor grades because I didn’t do well in anything but computer class. So I got expelled at sixteen. I held a job for a bit, before a buddy of mine who was in school dared me to do something and have it done by the end of the school year. And if I did, he’d owe me big time.” Sylas said, Andrew seemed really interested in this, especially when he heard he was expelled.

“What did he dare you to do?”

“Create a code that could access the DOD’s archive.”

“The DOD?” Andrew asked,

“Oh, right, you come from a two-nation world, kinda weird in my opinion. Well DOD was a military research program run by the United States in my time. It was a big old conspiracy theory that they had alien technology, super soldier programs, cryptids, you name it. There was a whole show about it thirty years before me being born. Anyway, he knew I was a good programmer. Winning most of the small computer competitions when I could enter. Anyway, he bet me that I couldn’t get passed the first firewall by the end of the year. I accepted on the terms that he would be my Uber for free if I did. By the first week, I got passed it using an old program I used to bypass my lockouts on those extremely high-security phones when I locked myself out. But I really wanted to show my skills, so I dialed my work on it to eleven and for the next six weeks, I created the most complicated and beautiful program I had ever done. I tested it, and well got through all of the DOD security in less than an hour. The next day I called my friend over and I showed him, even printing up soon to be announced project for DARPA. But, a couple of months later, the CIA arrested me coming home from a summertime job. I was interrogated, threatened, and asked what I knew. Literally told them a half dozen times what I knew, but they thought I was lying.”

“Geez, why did you get yourself into that if you knew that this was a likely outcome?”

“That’s what they said when they finally believed me. I said I needed a challenge, and then they offered me a hundred million with no taxes needing to paid on it for the program, which I agreed to, and quietly held onto the money, but I knew I could do better. A year later after six months of grueling hard work. I debuted a program at the Consumer Science Show ‘42 which was declared the most advanced program in the world at the conference, which to the DOD for 1.8 billion dollars. To which I nearly had a heart attack to. Landing me as one of the youngest stupid billionaires in history.” Sylas said,

“Just like that, what did you do after that? Cure cancer?”

“No, that’s silly. At least I don’t think I did. I moved to Silicone Valley, gave a good amount of my money to charities, invested and saved most of it though, and became a multi-billionaire, made a search browser and online store, learned dancing for two years then became a national sensation for two years. Tried to learn to fence but my instructors quit on me, same with self-defense class teachers. All of them said I couldn’t hit the side of a barn, I tried to prove them wrong by practicing against a barn. But… let’s just not get into that. But what about you? What did you do for fun in the age of apocalypse?”

“Eh, it was alright for my young childhood. Watched a lot of ancient movies, especially Japanese monster movies. Played with my friends when I lived in Arat Prime, read a lot of history when I moved. It’s interesting to me about the world of yours and the world before your world. I still read history when I get the chance, while I try to find guidebooks on survival or what foods are edible for who.”

“Eheh, that would’ve been helpful my first few days with the tribe here. I ate Narcoberries on three occasions because I thought they were blueberries.”

“Hey, this is a perfect location to drop off a couple of these droids!!” Sylas continued, and it was. The area looked like either a futuristic food court or a poorly made colosseum with tables. And the entire area looked like it was made from Element. Sylas dismounted and walked down the back of the Muttaburrasaurus and jumped off the tail to the ground.

“So, how did you get the Tek armor?” Sylas asked, Andrew got off his horse slowly, and a bit sickly. He stumbled and caught himself against the horse for balance.

“My parents… they were high-ranking military. High enough to keep weapons and armor at their homes. This one is my father’s active duty set.” Andrew said as he leaned against the horse.

“So, was it only the five of you?” He asked turning his head. He was pale, he was slurring his words. Something was wrong.

“No, there were more of us at several points. But, they didn’t make it. A lot of them… died helping us get our way here.” He said, he could feel his lip quiver remembering those they lost. He looked back at Andrew, who was not doing okay. He walked over to him, taking a calming yet shaky breath in. Trying to calm his own nerves before putting his hand on Andrew.

“I’ll take it from here, I’ll get the droids off the wagon and you just need to go back to base. I can set up the storage station and the other droid locals.” Sylas said, Andrew looked down to him, he looked like he wanted to say something in objection. But his look became a nod. Sylas helped him back up on the horse. Sylas went back and started turning the droids on and whistled them off the wagon. Andrew looked back and Sylas waved them off. Andrew got his horse to start moving and off did they go back in the direction they came.

“Gosh, I really hope he gets back alright.” Sylas said to himself.

“Keek was, that, a, dir-ective?” A droid asked,

“YES, WOULD YOU LIKE US TO MAKE SURE HE GETS BACK SAFELY?” A deeper, heartless-voiced droid said,

“No, guys. I want you guys to start harvesting. Now get on it while I make you guys a storage area.” Sylas said, all of the droids looked back at him.

“An affirmative, it is.” A third one said. Many more chimed in as they got immediately to harvesting the area’s resources. While Sylas built a storage center.

~

Andrew was getting worse, his vision was blurry more often than not now. Ringing in his ears was loud and a bit overbearing, his head felt like a skyscraper was sitting in it. He just needed to get back to the camp, he should’ve never taken that walk. Not that he regretted helping Sylas, just that he wished he had let his body recover before he tried to help. Now he felt like he was going to die. He could see the paths that they made on their way out of the camp. He just had the horse follow them back, even if he lost his vision from time to time. The horse knew the way back if he followed. And from the last moment he could properly see. He wasn’t too far away.

The more that time passed around him, the more that Andrew was getting worse. And it was rapidly getting worse now, he just had to keep his mind off of the pain and handicaps he was dealing with. Thinking about those from his past and the Survivors. He laid against the neck of his horse and he stroked him. He had to figure out a name for him. But he wasn’t sure what to name him. He thought for a minute before coming up with a name he thought worked perfectly.

“Knight Sky, that’s your name.” He said quietly, though Knight Sky had heard it too, and snorted. Andrew didn’t know what that meant. He’d have to ask about what the calls meant for a horse. His vision slowly came back, he looked to find himself at the entrance of the base camp. He sat up in excitement, and as the pain struck his head from his movement. He kicked his legs as he directed Knight into the camp.

Andrew heard the music still playing through the camp, it was to a song he had never heard of like with all the songs playing. And it messed with his head even more. He was slowly no longer able to ignore the pain. He heard another noise in the background. Fighting, he looked up to see nothing through his blurry vision. Grunts and thuds he heard. He didn’t know what was going on, and at this point, he couldn’t say anything from the pain and exhaustion.

~

Paul and Freya were in the ring sparring with each other with boxing gloves on. Although Freya disliked the idea of wearing padded gloves as while it doesn’t hurt the hands, but damages the face much more. He though felt that it was a good way for them to practice both restraint, but also encourage them to work harder at blocking and dodging hits. Paul was also quite used to fighting with gloves on. After all, he did place 2nd on the Boxing team for NYU three years out of six, he also held two first-place state titles and a sixth-place national title for his six years on the Boxing team. They two put mouthguards in as Erica had suggested during their first time sparring with each other.

They would swiftly started sparring, juking, or blocking each other’s strikes, jabs, and cuts. This is where Paul held back slightly because he knew she was. Several times before had he seen moments of hesitation, spots he knew were easy positions for her to get if she was fast enough, but she held back. At the time, it was because he was rusty since it had been twenty or so years that he had been in the ring, but still, it was obvious to him that she ignored these. She still would win the sparring matches. Even though she had shown her prowess in combat much greater than his skills. Erica noticed this too, saying she held back significantly. Paul didn’t know what to do, so he held back too. He had been doing it for a while, just to see how she would react. She didn’t seem to react or anything. Paul knew that the first day he held back she on purposely left herself open, and he wasn’t sure if it was a test or just her holding back. For now, he was still doing it until she confronted him.

Thrust, dodge, block, this is all they were doing. Neither of them was going to get a hit on each other for a while. Erica had come out to watch by now, hearing all the thuds of the padded gloves from her tent as the center of the camp became a boxing arena. Paul and Freya fought for what seemed like hours, their endurance was running out, but both kept on strong. Paul was waiting for her to leave herself open and call this sparring match. Paul looked up at Erica, who was watching them for a time, but he watched for a moment as she took a glance away, then did a double take and stared at something else. This caused Paul to pause, and leaving himself open as he then tried to see what she was looking at. Which Freya took as an opportunity and thrust her fist into his gut. The strike was unexpected, though foolish to not expect this. He bent over in pain as the strike concluded their sparring. Freya bent down and helped Paul back to standing straight up.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.” Freya said, she profusely continued apologizing.

“Ah, yer fine Freya, it was just unexpected. That’s all, I got distracted at what-” “Paul!!” Erica interrupted, Paul looked over at her. She pointed over to the other side of the camp. He looked down to see Andrew, riding his Equus with a wagon strapped to its saddle. Paul smiled, before his face filled with dread. Andrew looked like he was on the verge of death. His Equus had stopped about twenty or thirty feet or so.

“Andrew… are ya alright?” Paul asked, Andrew was trying to get off his horse and slipped. Still landing on his feet, but he fell back onto his haunches after his losing his balance.

“No, I don’t think I am…” he said before falling completely over and starting to seize.

“Andrew!!! Erica, get my medical equipment!!” Paul shouted before he and Freya ran over to Andrew.