Ah, so there were the dinosaurs. I could only muster the distant thought. There was so much blood, so much blood, everything stains red. I was being mauled by a giant ancient raptor, a terrifying beast, its flesh between my teeth. My hot, sticky blood drenched my already tattered clothes. A pack of them, tugging and pulling, dragging me. The pain was a warm blanket, smoothing everything out. The damage numbers rolling through my head were indecipherable.
Yet something broke through.
“Do something! You are being eaten!” Candy was screeching.
I tugged my arm, the raptor tugged back, teeth sunk through my hand. I pulled harder. The raptor twisted something, my arm popped, and suddenly, I couldn’t pull it anymore.
Oh… how funny.
“Pamela!” Candy continued, bouncing around my head. “Do something! Fight them! Eat them! Whatever humans do!”
I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t say that my limbs weren't working or that my head was too full of numbness and clouds to think. The dinosaurs were very silly, snapping and barking at each other. I was very popular. They all wanted to eat me. Hah, bird brains.
“Pamela…” Candy pleaded. I really did want to explain, but I could barely remember how to breathe.
One of the raptors yelped, tumbling to the ground and rolling frantically. An arrow was embedded in its thick muscular neck. Almost as fast as they had appeared, they all disappeared back into the grass, leaving me behind.
Alive? Pretty sure I was alive. Fuck, this was going to be so bad if I lived long enough for the shock to wear off.
People were chattering. Voices, with words and stuff, all the communicating things. It was entirely gibberish. Prodding hands, faces, a blinding blue heat which seemed to chase the cotton balls from my head with agonized scream as I was forced to inhabit my body again.
“Just breathe,” Frida told me firmly. I sucked in a stuttering, pained breath.
“Ow,” I whimpered.
“I know, I know,” she murmured. “But let’s make sure you don’t die, hmm?”
Her forced positivity made me feel worse. Which, given my situation, didn’t remotely make any sense.
“They’re gone,” Kimrel said, sliding his sword back into its sheath.
“Hungry fuckers,” Martrix sighed before crouching down beside me. “How is she?”
“She got mauled, Martrix, it’s not good,” Frida snapped. “Sorry,” she immediately mumbled.
Martrix said nothing, turning to look down at me. “Heyy,” she offered weekly.
I grunted.
“That's good, right?” Martrix perked up.
“She’ll live,” Frida nodded. “But she’s lost a lot of blood, and her arm is…”
Petven peered down at me before turning away with a gag. Yeah, I figured. It was easiest to just do nothing. I was too tired to remotely consider more, drowsy despite the pain.
“I don’t think I can save the arm,” Frida added quietly.
That snapped me right back awake. “What?” I demanded. Though it didn’t come out a word, and I didn’t really snap awake. I just distantly imagined it happening. Fuck, I was totally out of it.
“Shit,” Martrix grimaced. “Really?”
“The bone’s been crushed, the arteries are unsalvageable. I can seal it all up to stop the bleeding, but her arm will necrotize. I’m a field healer, not a surgeon,” Frida sighed.
“Could she make it to Agocester?” Martrix asked.
Frida just grimaced. “The risk of clots… bone fragments. No.”
“Wait,” I mumbled weakly, feeling dizzy despite lying down. “We’re… my arm?”
“It’s okay,” Frida told me
It didn’t sound fucking okay!
“We need to set up camp,” Frida told Martrix. “This is going to take time.”
Martrix nodded, resigning herself to something. “Boys,” she snapped. “Let's make sure those raptors don’t come back, huh? And we’ll be sleeping here tonight.”
“Here,” Frida told me, pressing a vial to my lips. “This will help you sleep. You don’t need to be conscious for this.”
I eagerly opened my mouth and swallowed every drop of the foul liquid.
I couldn’t pinpoint the moment I slipped into unconsciousness, but I certainly became aware the moment I was in… nothing. Literally a void, all dark space and nothingness. I was supposed to be unconscious. I actually rather welcomed the premise, so why was I still thinking? Why was I still… here?
“Pamela?”
I spun around searching, and I recognized that voice. Candy. Really, who else would it be?
“I… where am I?” I frowned.
“Oh, um… me,” Candy explained awkwardly, still just a disembodied voice. “I figured I could… stand guard while you are sleeping.”
“Oh,” I muttered, it was… oddly sweet. “Why am I not sleeping then? Why don’t I… why don’t I feel anything?” I frowned, inspecting myself.
It felt like a dream. When I searched for details, it was just a blur, and yet… in the dream, I remained. Fuzzy clocks and all.
“You are sleeping,” Candy confirmed. “I just… wanted to talk to you.”
“You can enter my dreams?” I frowned.
“No,” Candy groaned. “Would you just… It’s just telepathy.”
I squinted into the darkness. “It doesn’t feel like telepathy.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” she scoffed.
I sighed. “Why did you want to talk to me?” I asked weakly. “Because I really would just prefer to be unconscious for a while. Given I was almost mauled to death and my arm is… actively being amputated.” I shuddered before locking all those pesky emotions away and throwing away the key.
Not right now, Pamela. You could break down later.
“Well… I just… um,” Candy stuttered.
“You were worried about me?” I offered flatly.
“Sure, yeah, that,” Candy replied, latching onto that. “Because if you got eaten, then I would get eaten too, and that would be bad,” she quickly added.
“Right,” I sighed. “Just my fucking luck to get pounced on by a fucking dinosaur.”
“Well, I am like uh… a popcorn food, like bite-sized and full of mana,” Candy awkwardly reminded me.
“It attacked me because of you?!” I snapped.
“I don’t know. You’re also totally weak, obviously it would go for you,” she tumbled.
“I am weak because you keep stealing all my experience,” I yelled right back. “So again, all of this is your fault, and now I’m going to wake up missing an arm and… oh fuck,” I muttered, that reality beginning to finally sink in. “Why are you always making my life worse!?” I spat out.
“I…” Candy didn’t have a response,
“That’s what I fucking thought,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” I blinked.
“I am sorry,” Candy repeated.
“Oh,” I muttered. That was…well, honestly, it wasn’t enough. But she seemed to be trying. It was almost confusing,
“Okay,” Candy sighed. “I will let you sleep.”
“Wait,” I blurted. “Why are you sorry?”
“What?”
“Why are you sorry?” I repeated.
“Because… it is unfortunate you got injured, and I did not want that to happen,” she replied after a moment.
“Right,” I nodded. “But why does that make you sorry?”
“Um… well… because uh…” Candy floundered.
“Because you realize you're partially responsible for me getting hurt?” I offered.
“No, it’s not,” Candy scoffed. “I’m not puppeting you. It’s your own fault you didn’t move out of the way in time.”
But I didn’t rise to the challenge, mostly because I was just plain old exhausted. “Alright,” I just sighed. “Then I don’t accept your apology.”
“I wasn’t apologizing!” She snapped. “I was saying the thing humans say when something bad happens. I was just… acknowledging you got hurt.”
Disappointingly, that made more sense.
“Just go away,” I said. “I don’t like you, and I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t like you either!” Candy immediately retorted. “So there,” she huffed.
The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes back in the real world. Oh fuck, everything hurt. Why did everything always fucking hurt? I blinked, trying to clear the pain and fog from my head.
Max HP has decreased by 2.
Well shit.
“Hey,” Martrix smiled down at me awkwardly. I was in a tent lit by lantern light. I blinked and tried to sit up.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t push myself up, I couldn’t— oh.
My dominant arm, my right arm, was gone. Elbow, forearm, hand, nothing. Just a bandaged stump. My remaining hand was shaking. I couldn’t breathe. I fell back against the bedroll I now lay on.
Martrix called out for the others.
I squeezed my eyes shut frantically and sobbed.