"Take care of yourself, I'll come in a few days"
-'Those were the last words I heard from my brother that day.'
Those words said by Nesbit's brother, Robert Neist, were the last words he had heard coming directly from his mouth.
That day, when his brother had gone out, Nesbit had gone to check on his mother and the small delicate wooden artifact which had protected them all these years. After that day, everything changed.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Nesbit took a small and soft piece of cotton and slowly wiped the dust from the wooden artifact which was bigger than his palm.
The artifact had a handle and scabbard which were both made with wood, shaped like a wakizashi sword and was placed on a beautiful wooden stand that had been made from dark oak.
The artifact which was just a bit dusty had sparkles coming out as he dusted and wiped it with such care that it put a professional antique to shame.
He took the bamboo and slowly put it back on a dark wooden holder, which held it perfectly vertically.
He stared at it for a while before picking up the now dirty cotton and putting them in a small cardboard box filled with dirty cotton.
It seemed like they kept their trash and items organised.
"I should probably clean up mother" Nesbit said as he took 2 empty buckets, one in his left and one in his right. "I hope my brother can find something to wake her up quickly."
He took the bucket and opened the door, walking forward and then taking a left, right into the forest.
Despite being in the forest one could not hear any noises of bugs you would hear from a forest. It was quiet, too quiet.
Yet despite this obviously strange phenomenon, he didn't seem to notice anything unusual.
Eventually a sound of a river could be heard. It was Nesbit's destination.
Upon arriving there, he washed his face with the water and took a few sips of it before filling up his buckets. With his buckets filled, He sat on a nearby rock for a while before standing up. He tidyin himself and stood carrying the water buckets on each of his arms.
He slowly and steadily navigated through his way to the forest. He walked for a while until he saw a nice and large rock to sit on. He put the bucket on the ground and looked at his hand.
His hand or more specifically, his fingers were turning a bit red from carrying the buckets. It left a numbing feeling on his hand for a while and then returned back to normal.
"I Wonder why I am still not used to this." He said as he stood up "I know that I shouldn't be this weak but at least I can get the job done."
When he reached home, he looked at the mechanical clock and realised that it was 11:27 AM and considering that he had left at 8:56 AM, he had spent 2 hours and 31 minutes getting the water. This time was 7 minutes faster than his fastest time. This was a new record.
'It's nice to know that I'm doing better' he thought with a slight smirk on his face 'It's good that my efforts are slowing paying off'
He put the water from one bucket in a large wooden like tank or large looking bucket.
He took a clean towel, a pair of surgical scissors, some cotton, bandages, some antibiotics that his brother had found last trip and also a plastic bag that had a paper labeling it as a nutrition bag.
He put all this in a small bag and carried it with his left hand. He then carried the still full bucket of water in his right arm and went to the room.
He walked and approached a door, putting the bucket of water down and knocking on it before waiting. After receiving no response, he sighed and then opened the door, carrying his bucket of water and entering in.
In the room later a woman with bandages on her left arm, neck and on her right eye and on her head.
She laid on a bed next to the window. A somewhat transparent tube going through her chest. On the surface of the place where the extremely thin tube was entering through her chest was a few white tape-like things probably along to make sure that the tube didn't get misplaced.
Beside her was a tall pole-like thing with 3 bags attached to it. One of the bags was filled with water, one almost empty bag had the label, nutrition on it and the third one had a light yellowish liquid which turned out to be piss.
He took the yellow bag and replaced it with an empty but clean bag. He added some water to the water bag and the nutrition bag.
He took a chair and placed it on the side of her bed and took a deep breath and with trembling arms, took off the bandages from her arm. The unbandaged arm was covered with a lot of small cuts and one large cut. It still looked fresh as blood began to slowly bleed from it.
Nesbit with his shaking arms took the cotton dipped in the antibiotic and slowly and gently cleaned the wound one by one. Slowly and steadily. His arm began to slowly shake more and more as he almost fully cleaned it up. After cleaning it up nicely, he took the new bandages and wrapped it around the arm. After it was done, Nesbit got off his chair and fell to his knees breathing heavily. He slowly and humiliatingly crawled his way out of the room and completely laid down on the wall.
He held his chest as he tried to calm his rapid heartbeat. With sweat forming from his forehead, Nesbit who had mostly calmed himself looked at his trembling hands and then stood up finally catching his breath.
'Yeah, that's right, I am Hemophobic(fear of blood).' He thought as he tightened his grip. 'But I can't really let that be the cause of my mom's death can I?'
He thought as he resolved himself entering back into the room.
He took off the bandages on her neck where a large burn mark on the right was there and multiple cuts on the left.
He took some water and dipped a compass with it and with the help of the scissors, started to clean the burn mark. He then disinfected and cleaned the cuts on the left side. He then bandaged it. After this, he took off the bandages off the head and right eye. Her right eye was completely covered with a large burn mark and her head was full of cuts which required her to be bald to clean the wound.
Nisbit's heartbeat began to go out of control as he held his chest. His arm began to quiver and he felt dizzy. He stood up and faced the other way before slapping himself and forcing himself to turn back.
And with trembling arms, Nesbit cleaned all the wounds and bandaged it up. After this, he quickly packed all the things and went out of the room and closed the door.
He had once again fallen on the same floor and leaned on the same wall for support. He held his heart and took a deep breath trying to calm his shaking hands. His breathing seemingly grew rapidly.
His vision got blurry and his head was dizzy. He was about to faint.But he managed to stay conscious by dipping his head in the now half full bucket of water.
He stood up and wiped his head with a towel. He looked at the mechanical clock and saw that it was 3:45 PM.
'Well at least I'm getting more used to blood I guess.' He thought as he hung the now wet towel to dry up. 'I'll probably get rid of this fear in a few weeks if I keep this up I guess.'
He thought as went to his room. His room was plain to put it lightly. There was a single window in the room. A shelf full of books and a bed. These were the only things in his room.
Despite the limited space and items, he didn't mind anything and took a book with a bookmark in it.
The book was a bit pale and boring. This book in particular was a book he had read about 6 times already but he read it again because what else was there to do to relieve boredom?
Soon after he finished reading the book, he put it back on the shelf and went out of his room.
As he planned to get out of his house, he saw his mechanical clock which said it was currently 4:36 PM.
'I could probably finish my daily training before it gets dark.' He thought as he left his house. 'I'll probably sleep early today.'
He thought as he started to stretch his body thoroughly and properly. After stretching his body fully and properly, he began to walk and slowly increased his pace until he started to jog at a decent pace.
Breathing in a rhythmic pattern and jogging with proper form. It was simply a repetitive motion with thought being fully occupied with tracking his breath. Eventually, he began to quicken his breathing and sweat started to form. Until eventually she stopped and sat down exhausted.
He looked at the setting sun with a slight feeling of accomplishment. After a few minutes of rest and admiration of the beauty of the sun, he stood up again, did some light stretching and began to jog back to his home.
Unlike when he had gone out and started to jog, he arrived in front of his house quickly. This was due to him just doing a large lap around him instead of going in a straight line resulting in his quick arrival to his house.
He took a bucket of water from the tank and began to clean himself. The water was cold so it was a bit uncomfortable at first but he slowly got used to the cold water.
As he wiped himself and changed himself, he went to a storeroom and opened a decently large box. In the box were a large amount of nutrition biscuits or nutrition bars along with a large amount of dry fruits and meat.
He took 3 nutrition bars and ate them along with some dried meat, dried up apple slices and a cup of water.
"Cheers" he said to one in particular as he held up his cup. "May we always strive to thrive."
After finishing his dinner alone, he went back to his room and laid on his bed.
'Mom's injury is getting worse. No matter how many times we clean the wound and bandage it up, the wound will always eventually become fresh again.' He thought with a sense of grief 'I'll probably have to "clean up" mom again in about 5 days and then brother will come back from his scavenge and take over the mantle of "cleaning her up" and I can be free from my fear.'
He thought as he looked at the ceiling before turning his head
" 'being free from my fears', what a stupid joke. My brother will have to go out again and I have to take the mantle up. All I'm doing is just trying to buy time. Trying to not face my fears. What a stupid comment I thought of.'"
He stared at his desk before closing his eyes trying to sleep.
The night unfolded as he fell asleep soundly.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
[What happened?]
The voice was loud, extremely loud and was comparable to a person screaming right in your ear.
[I-, you-, that-, Just what the f**k happened!?]
The loud voice forced him to close his ears, yet it didn't grow any quieter.
[ What the hell did you do!?]
[Please tell don't tell me that yo-, Did yo-, No did you ████████]
[I-, No you...yeah you, J-just fix this! Just do something to fix it, Anything! Just do anything to fix this shit!"
"Shut up!"
"Just shut up! Just shut up you delusional F**k! I can't fix it! I can't just undo my actions! I can't just ████████████████"
"It's done and can't be changed! I can't change it and neither can you!"
"If you want to haunt me for what I did then I don't care, but stop with this pessimistic nonsense. I did what I felt was right even if it may have been wrong, I did it… I had to do it… I just had to do it, even if I knew that I would regret it, I just couldn't bear it and I did it. I did it…Yeah I did it. I █████████████"
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"████████████████"
[██████████████]
[████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████]
"████████████████████████████████"
[████████████████]
"…"
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
A burning pain could be felt from his head. A headache like no other. As Nesbit stood up from his bed, he fell, his body's aching in pain.
His memories are foggy. Feeling like his a part of memories were gone
"Did I really jog that much yesterday?"
[Uh Can you hear me?]
A loud voice echoed in his head. It was a deep but clam voice, a voice that he had recognised. It was his brother Robert's voice.
"Is that you brother?"
[Wait a second, you're Nesbit!?]
"Uhh yeah" he said as he stood up from the floor. "Can't you recognise my voice?"
[Well I wasn't sure if it was actually you, you know?]
"Well, yeah I understand that but tha-, no the bigger question is how can I hear you?" He asked as he sat at the edge of his bed "Where are you right now? Did you find some artifact that allows us to communicate with each other telepathically?"
[No, I'm dead]
"Huh?" Nesbit's face turned pale as he realised the gravity of this situation "Y-y-you're dead!?"
[Yeah I died on the thirteenth day of the scavenge as I was trying my best to rush back home but unfortu-]
"What do you mean?You literally just went out yesterday. It hasn't been more than a day since you left."
[What are you saying!? Have you gone made]
"No you're the one who has gone mad. It definitely hasn't been more than 1 day since you went on that scavenger hu-" however he stopped speaking as he looked at his room. His window was shattered. His left arm was bandaged and the books he had on his shelf were down on the floor in poor condition with some books even missing. "I…I think I have lost a part of my memories…"
[Huh?]
"That's the most likely possibility in this scenario." He replied as he stood up from his bed "But I think it's better to confirm it first."
[And how do you intend to do that?]
"Just observe and reason things out until I can reach a certain conclusion"He said as he stepped out of his room. He held the handle and opened his door only to find the cabin full of damages. He slowly walked and approached a small cardboard box with much much more dirty cotton than yesterday. "Yeah this is only solidifying my speculation."
[Yeah. You and I had cleaned and thrown all the trash in that cardboard box before I went out on my last scavenger hunt so It probably couldn't have accumulated that much trash.]
[But I wanna know, How is mother doing?]
"Yeah let's do that first." He replied to Robert with the acceptance of his request and walked to her room but something was weird…the door was fully open and inside no one was there. There were only bed sheets covered in blood there and on the side was a cardboard box full of cotton and pieces of cloth covered in blood. 2 empty bottles of antibiotics that laid around the room. "Something is weird"
[Yeah, where is she!?]
"While I'm concerned about that too, I'm also quite concerned and confused. I…I realised that I'm not as afraid of blood as I used to be. Normally my heart would be beating non stop and I would start to get more and more weak"
[O yeah, I forgot about that. My bad]
"No need to feel bad." He reassured him "Let's just say that it has something to do with my gap in memory and focus on finding our mother."
[Yeah let's do that.]
"First let's check the room where the artifact is as that's the only logical place I would put her if she were to be inside the house aside from her room and my room." He said as he opened the door which led to the artifact room, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing there. It seemed that the room hadn't been opened much and that the artifact hadn't been cleaned for a long time. "But we can worry about that later.
"
[Let's go outside and check near our house]
"I think we should check your room first though"
[You literally have no knowledge of where I have kept my keys to my room, how could you have opened that room?"
"Yeah that makes sense" he said as he opened the door. "Let's go first shouldn't we brot-"
However, before he could finish his sentence, he saw it.
His mothers grave
⛧°. ⋆༺♱༻⋆. °⛧
Author's note: I'll try and be consistent in my upload ping but I won't make any promises.