When I come back with the equipment, I see that Moon had jumped in the bed, under the covers beside the guy, staring at his face in a trance.

I ignore the situation and grab his arm as another, smaller looking girl rushes in to put a thick doona over them both before flitting away like I was threatening her with the needles.

“You said he needed warmth,” Moon states defensively.

“Did I say anything?” I ask without looking up from the tray, locating a needle. After a while, I ask, “What is his name?” distracting myself as I clean the inside of his elbow with alcohol wipes, prepping him for the drip.

“Liam.” Moon’s voice was soft.

Doesn’t explain why her name is ‘Moon’. As I hook him up, I decide to re check the wound. The bandage only had a few spots of red, which meant that at least the bleeding slowed down. “I’m going to need to change this again in about an hour,” I mutter more to myself than to anyone else in the room as I tuck both the leg and his arm under the blankets. I dump the rubbish I made back into the tray and move to sit down, leaning against the bed, my head resting on the mattress as I look at the dull ceiling.

With that we remained in silence as the rain continued. I took to looking outside the large area, shielded by the glass windows that looked out over an overgrown lawn with a large pond filled with lily-pads and water plants. The water was almost flooding out onto the lawn, turning it into a swamp.

I was also monitoring his breathing. Shallow, as expected but it wasn’t irregular. I then had to wonder, “Did he lose consciousness or was he knocked unconscious?” I ask out to the thin air.

Shirtless wonder, River answered after a few seconds, “He was hit in the head but he slipped into sleep while we tried to drag him back.”

I look over at him, “So he might have concussion as well…” Let’s add to the list of complications. I rub my face with my hand, “I want my bag back.”

Moon must have nod at River as I saw him turn around and head out the door. Moments later, my bag lands on the floor in front of me and it sounded way too light. I checked it’s insides and sure enough my bag was empty. Well, aren’t these assholes clever.

“The contents as well. You can keep the food, but I want my stuff back.”

“You don’t need the knife.” River grumbles.

I hold in my rising irritation, “Yes I do. The maps, pens and my books as well.” He met me with an immoveable wall of silence and I was grinding my teeth, knowing that they wanted to get a rise out of me. I let out a breath. “Moon, I need my maps at the very least.”

“We’ll see,” she responds.

I frown but let it slide, I chucked my bag back at River, who caught it easily and disappeared with it. What good will arguing with them do? I was the one with the disadvantage the moment I ran into Horror. I am outnumbered and outstripped when it comes to resources. I was caught in a trap and now suffer the consequences. I am the outsider and the unknown factor. They are used to a system where they all serve a specific role and I’m upsetting it.

It would be interesting to observe but I’m stuck in the middle of it and as someone who enjoys playing from the shadows, it’s an uncomfortable place to be.

“…Luke…” Moon’s somewhat rushed voice broke me out of my reverie.

I look back and see that Liam was waking up and it wasn’t in a calm fashion either.

His eyes open wide in shock and began thrashing around in a panic. He took a blind swipe at me that I dodged as I try to hold him down. “Don’t just stand there,” I snap at everyone around me. “Hold him down before he rips open the stiches!” But I knew that what said was useless since I could see blood staining through the blankets, heavily. Fucking hell!

Liam was screaming in pain and panic, “Get away!”

“Liam! Liam, it’s ok! We’re in the hotel, you’re safe,” Moon tries to reason with him as I let River and shirtless boy two try to pin him down while I try to restrain his legs, looking at how much damage he caused. It wasn’t good. It was gushing heavily, I bite my lip while forcing another random body to help me hold the leg while I try to re-stitch it. I was half glad that I brought over more sutra wire and needles but pissed that I actually had to use them so soon. Fucking-Fuck-Fuck! Does he want to die? I grab another saline bag, ribbing it open and over the wound to clean it while I’m straddling this dumb-shithead and toss it away while restitching the wound, I shouted at my assistant to bring me a gauze but to keep pressure on his leg. After I finished cleaning out and resewing the wound, I slap the gauze on and re-wrapped it tightly with a new bandage and told the person to keep a hold on him for a while and to shove pillows under his feet. But I noticed that Liam was still trying to thrash around.

“Luke, can you do anything?” Moon calls over while holding onto Liam’s face, trying to calm him down.

I grimly look over Liam as I see that he was getting weaker even with the adrenaline pumping through his system, “…He’s gone into shock.” Fucking hell. I turn my hold, my knee restraining his chest while I order River to hold his arm open. Taking the saline drip out of his arm while trying to prep the dopamine, I quickly deplete it into his system before hooking the saline drip back into his arm.

Moon was caressing his face, soothing him like a child and I saw and felt him relax a little underneath me, enough that I could get off his chest without him trying to bolt for the door.

I grimly let out an irritating fact, “I can’t give him any pain killers.”

“But he’s in pain!” River growls at me.

“He’s lost too much blood. He has low blood pressure, hence the reason why he went into shock. We are already looking at a lack of blood supply to his organs. It will only complicate it further if we add opioids to the mix. His body needs to take in more fluid before I even think about adding anything else. I don’t know how much blood he’s lost but if we were in a normal scenario, I would suggest a blood transfusion. At best, I can give him fluids, rehydrate him a little and make him take blood producing medication, as well as doses of antibiotics but we’re stuck on this front for a while. I gave him dopamine, so it should make his heart beat stronger but I can’t do much else at the moment.”

It took another twenty minutes for Moon to placated him enough that he drifted back off to sleep, at which I also quickly added antibiotics to his system when the saline bag was empty. I was covered in sweat and started shaking coming off the adrenaline high.

“Is Liam going to be ok?” Moon finally asks after she was sure he went back to sleep.

I stare at her, “I don’t know. But I am trying to keep him alive.” I made sure she knew that I wasn’t joking, that I was dead serious.

But I’ve never dealt with a situation like this before. I’ve only read books and helped with small animals occasionally. I am not a doctor. I let out a breath and look back at Liam for a moment before looking back at Moon, “The bandages need changing in about two hours but if it looks like the bandages are wet, they will need to be changed sooner.” I hook up another drip before going back to sitting on the ground next to him again and felt my eyes were stinging from exhaustion, and it’s still raining.

I lean against the bed, shutting my eyes, listening to the rain and his breathing. I felt the pull of sleep, my body was tired and strained from being on overpowered alert for so long. What a fucking day. Being chased, threatened and conned in a span of a few hours really takes it out of me. Who knew?

But my eyes open again, even though they stung in protest. I couldn’t lower my defences so easily, so I was stuck being mentally alert despite being tired enough that I really wouldn’t care if this lot decided that I needed to be ‘disposed’ of. But instead, I settled for sitting here, almost on guard so that if Liam somehow has another outburst, I was ready to jump again.

Lost in my thoughts, I had to admit I was surprised to see some of their drugs that they were keeping in their storage room. I’m concluding that when they raided a clinic or hospital that they just took everything in sight and didn’t stop to read the labels or how to store them. Luckily though, it seems that the store room was decently cold but I had to wonder what they were hoping for when they grabbed everything. Paracetamol, cold/flu tablets and aspirin were easy enough to understand but things like colchicine is used for gout.

I stopped that thought trail. That’s not my problem.

My problem is how I’m supposed to get to the harbour from here. My maps were missing, so was my knife and I might get them back if Moon ‘feels like it’. I felt my irritation bubbling up again, who thinks it’s a good idea to survive in groups? People are irritating and selfish. I include myself in the selfish part. It means survival, I admit that much and there is nothing wrong with that but contesting against another selfish being, especially a group of them that think because of their size that somehow makes them superior, is ludicrous. Especially since each individual here seems to lack certain skills around first aid of this degree; where you actually have to stich flesh together and actually understand what you’re doing. That is the result of our modern world. I am also a by-product of the technological age and suffer because of it. We are also children brought up on the lack of appreciation of our creature comforts and manufactured rights. Society has made us too dependent and resulted in us into trying to fit their prepared mould. No matter if it’s the Earth or Spero, it’s the same.

Now because of that suppression of fitting into that mould of society, everyone drunk on ‘freedom’ are creating their own mould and worse, inflicting it on everyone else because their way is ‘right’ because it’s ‘freedom’. But in reality, we cling to scraps of what we know is familiar and just twist it our own selfish desires and misconstrued lust and greed. Desire for another being, companionship can be contorted into servitude and power. Weak fall to the strong and the strong misuse the weak. Or kill. In pure fear of being pulled down or ending up alone. Masking the fear of the unknown and loneliness twisting everything even more. Orphans with no guidance…so it’s made up and inflicted until we trick ourselves into thinking that it is ‘truth’.

I couldn’t stop a frustrated sigh slip from my lips as I push my hands over my face. I need to stop thinking. This is why I read, I refocused on something else instead of the mental circular arguments that I keep having with myself. I can’t do anything to change it or go back to the past. This is my world now. All I can do is sleep, eat, shit and learn anything left behind, hoping that it can extend and explain this miserable existence I have to face every time I open my eyes.