I wake up but I don't remember falling asleep. It's bright, and before I can move, there's a sharp pain in my side, from my hip to my armpit.
My brain is foggy and for a moment, I can't recall much of anything. But I've been in this state before, and I'm not dying this time, either. I've gone through the steps many times, I just need to wait for the adrenaline to kick in and I'll be back on my feet.
Step one: Orientation. I focus and start to place myself in time and space.
I serve in the Brotherhood of Steel, I am Timberblood. My name is Paladin James Dwyer. My brothers and sisters know me as Lucky. I am 28 years old. It is Wednesday, March 19th, 2275. The vernal equinox. Today marks an important ceremony that my family celebrates with the Chu'mee, Re'mee, Ya'mee, and Chao'mee tribes.
Based on where the sun is, that ceremony should be happening... right now.
Step two: Assessment. I lift my arm and move my hand across my chest to where it hurts on my side. The movement feels floaty and slow, and like my body isn't even mine. My fingers dip into a deep cut, slick with fresh blood. My body locks up as I process the pain washing over me.
Shit.
That's bad. As soon as I can breathe again, I grab the slashed edges of my shirt and draw it over the wound as I sit up to look around.
I'm at the ceremony grounds. There's a large stone and metal archway flanked by trees, and a clearing with a fire pit in the center. Benches and blankets form a circle surrounding the platform I'm resting on. And all around me, people are killing each other.
Across from me, lying face-down on the platform, is Elder Aozin. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is slackly hanging open. The handle of a hatchet sticks out from the back of her head, the blade fully buried. She was dead before she hit the ground.
Scanning the ceremony grounds, now turned into a battlefield, I can hardly tell who's fighting who or why. I watch two of my Brothers force a Chu'mee tribal against a tree and skewer him through with a hunting knife. Across the clearing from me, a Chao'mee and a Yu'mee challenge each other in Kolmabi, then one shouts in English. The Yu'mee lunges past him at a Timberblood propping herself up against an upright rock, and the Chao'mee tackles him to the ground, bludgeoning him with the blunt end of a spear.
"Lucky!" Comes a shout. I turn, and behind me, there stands a man I know who comes from the Re'mee tribe, Red. He's wearing a Timberblood chest plate and has blood splattered across his right side. Hanging tiredly from his fingers is the long, curved, slender blade of the ceremonial dagger. It's meant to be purely ornamental, but seeing as how it's bathed in dark crimson, I don't think he's respecting the sanctity of the blade anymore.
Step three: Action.
Before I can register it, he's sprinting through the fray at me, dodging around Timberbloods and tribesmen, knocking a Sister over as she rushes to help a Chu'mee back to his feet. I struggle for what I’m sure is a split second too long, and then shove off the ground and put my feet underneath me, feeling a river of warm blood immediately begin to rush down my leg and into my boot.
I'm doomed. I can't run in this condition. I drop down on the edge of the platform and slide off, tripping over my feet. Then I look back, and Red's laid out on the ground, bleeding. Above him stands Path-of-Heathers. Tall and lanky, his glasses tied firmly to his head. He holds a Pre-War breach axe, his prized possession, the handle hand-painted with camouflage and tribal colors.
He looks up from Red's body and looks around. For a split second, he scans past me, then snaps back and meets my eyes.
"Lucky!" He shouts and rushes around the side of the platform to my side. Before I can reply or tell him what's going on, he's got an arm around me. He lets out a loud whistle and one of the large shapes among the battle shifts. I immediately recognize the bristly, dull-brown hairs covering her thick, powerful neck and arms. Delta-Omega-Gamma, one of the few dog-mutants among the Timber, turns at the sound of the whistle and comes after it, plowing through a stand-off between a group of tribals and Timbers.
"Path-! James, you're alive!" Gamma says, her deep, warm voice gruff and worried. She takes my weight off of Path and presses her hand firmly against the wound in my side. Her palm is 3 times the size of mine, and she easily applies the pressure to stop the bleeding.
Before I can say a word, Path is gone, back into the thick of it. I watch the striped handle of his axe swing a course through the fighting, and then the battle swallows him up in front of my eyes.
Gamma holds me tight to her chest and stares daggers through the open air and out into the forest.
"Take a deep breath," she tells me. Then, softly, she begins counting down from 5.
I look behind her. At the base of the archway are four tribals. Two are Yu'mee, one is Re'mee, and the last is a Chao'mee woman, being shoved hard against the edge of the platform, her hair yanked back so hard that she can hardly blink.
"4..."
She shrieks. I can see warrior rage and I recognize her as Fields-of-Jasmine-Weed. She was among a party of Chao'mee who saved my life 3 summers ago.
"3..."
Gamma lifts a hand and it blocks my view, and when her palm is lowered again, Fields-of-Jasmine-Weed's eyes are dark. Her throat is silent, and when the man holding her hair releases her, she falls limp and still to the dirt.
"2..."
I look at her killer as he turns away from her. I know him, too. Ashwa, of high standing in the Yu'mee tribe. A gentle man, father to 6 daughters. I've met his daughters.
"What the fuck is going on?!"
"1!"
Gamma bolts from beside the platform and through the crowd, sweeping my feet clean off the ground from the first step and swinging me from one side to the other as she dashes through a brief opening in the fighting. Suddenly we're amongst the trees, bathed in cool shadows, and she's still running.
"Gamma!" I shout. "What's happening?!"
"Somebody messed up!" She explains, unnerved. "Some-... Somebody fucked up, James. Somebody ruined the ceremony and it destroyed everything."
"What- What do you mean 'somebody messed up'? Everybody's killing each other!"
"I know," She says, stopping suddenly and circling the base of a tree before setting me on my feet. Just in front of me is a small opening in the roots, a dark space just large enough for me to fit. "Wait here, okay? Just wait. I'll be back. I promise."
"Don't die," we say, at the same time.
I sit down in the dirt and slide in as she turns and starts heading back towards the shouting and screaming. I work my shoulder beneath a jutting root and sink into the dark mud, catching a final glimpse of her before her hunched, dog-like form disappears into the underbrush, and I duck my head below the forest floor.
I dig through my pockets and the pouches attached to my belt until I find the first aid kit I always keep handy, and the spare Pre-War stimpak I've always kept "just in case the world ends again."
One of its near-magical effects happens to be stopping the bleeding on wounds like the one I've got. I know from experience that it won't outright heal it immediately, not just one. Not if I don't want a massive leathery scar. But it does what I want it to do so I can pry open the first aid kit and immediately start dressing it.
Finally, the wound is covered in bright white sterile bandages and the adrenaline begins to wear off, shock catching up to me, blood loss and exhaustion along with it. I shut my eyes to rest and am bombarded with images of the carnage back in the clearing, my ears hyper-attuned to the sound of screaming and shouting echoing through the trees.
I can feel myself fading a little anyway, a chill shooting through me and shaking me like a leaf. Fainting, fainting, slowly, panic racing in my chest.
I wonder if I’ll wake up this time.85Please respect copyright.PENANAAe3EAxJQFv