Stanley couldn’t help but let his mind wander off to the town of Last Hope. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about his brother, about Freddy, about the many people in the town.

He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about his mother.

He wept silently in the dark as everything that he had ever cared for or loved was now gone.

He didn’t know how long he wept, just that his body was slowly feeling lethargic from all the built-up fatigue.

It hit him all together sometime later when he also fell asleep.

The sleep was a deep one where he didn’t even see any memories as far as he could tell. When he woke up, the day was bright already with the sound of rain pattering everywhere around him.

He could feel the droplets falling on him even from the thick foliage and saw just how large of a storm it was.

"Thats a big storm," he said as he was fully awake now. He heard the thunder roar in the distance and could tell it was going to continue for a while.

"What time is it?" he wondered. "How long have I been asleep for?"

He looked at the sky, but it was hard to tell where the sun was behind all of that cloud. It seemed pretty well hidden.

"Hey, Sheila. We need to leave," he called out to the girl that was still leaning on him. "Sheila?"

He tried to move, but he had been grabbing her by the hand the whole night. So, when he did move, he ended up moving her along with him.

The girl suddenly fell to the wet grass, not in control of her own body. Stanley pulled his hands out of hers when he felt a coolness in his hand that wasn’t natural at all.

"Huh?" he was confused and used his other hand to touch her hand. It was quite hot.

"Sheila?" he called out. He quickly flipped her to her back and saw the red face that struggled to breathe in and out. He quickly place his hand on her forehead and realized that she had a fever.

"Dammit," he thought. "Sheila?"

He tried moving her, but she wouldn’t wake up at all. It was then that he realized that she was in trouble.

"Sheila?" he called out and shook her. When he did so, he felt his left palm slightly wet on the bandage he was grabbing.

He took away his hand and realized that her bandage was soaked in her own blood. Not only had she come up with a fever, but she had also lost a lot of blood.

"Shit, that’s bad," Stanley thought. "What do I do?"

He started panicking, not understanding what it was that he was supposed to do at this stage.

In the town, if they were ever sick, they would either let the person rest or take them to some physician if they were more sick than normal.

Then there was also the mayor, who as it had turned out was just some man with knowledge and technology from the outside world that helped him treat people way more than the physicians in the town did.

However, right now, Stanley had none of these options at all.

Sheila could not rest here in the rain, where she was so heavily wounded, and he had no knowledge to act as a physician at all.

As for the things that the mayor did, he didn’t even understand most of what that was.

’Why isn’t her Varinox healing her’ he wondered for a moment before realizing that it was something she had put into her bloodstream. With the blood all gone, it wouldn’t be a surprise if she had lost it as well.

"Do I give her my blood?" he wondered, but that didn’t sound right. He needs to find something to help her. Something, someone, somewhere.

That was when he remembered the words that Varinox spoke to him all those times when it couldn’t heal him.

"Medical centers," he thought. "It wanted me to visit a nearby medical center. Those would be... in other towns, wouldn’t it?"

Sheila had mentioned that there would be a town to the south that he would have to go towards to reach. So, without any hesitation, Stanley took off his leather armor that was in tatters and placed it over her before carrying her on his shoulders. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

To his surprise, she was lighter than she was yesterday.

Was he less tired today? More strong? Or was it because she had lost an arm?

Either way, Stanley had nothing else to do but run. He ran as fast as he could, not even sure to himself just how fast he was.

He was next to the small stream of water which was flowing to the south as well, so if he remained next to it, he would only be around flat land or downhill land.

There would be no uphill next to it.

He crossed the stream at some point but still stayed next ot it. The rain fell hard on his body, but there was barely anything other than some tingly feeling in his chest.

It barely felt like anything at all.

His running speed was absurd, going faster than the moving stream by nearly 4 times, not to mention, he could improve this time by nearly 40 times.

Stanley ran for a while before realizing that he knew not where he had to go. He was just running blinding in a direction that he wasn’t even fully sure was south.

’I need to find a city first,’ he thought and looked around where he was. Soon, he found a tall mountain from where he could check the entire area.

He ran up the slope of the mountain, reaching the peak of the mountain in less than 5 minutes.

Finally, once he was on the top of the mountain, he looked down below on all sides. It was then he saw a sight that immediately blew his mind away.