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Previous parts(please read first):
Chapter I:
-Part One: Meet the Family
-Part Two: It Comes in Waves
-Part Three: Box of Memories
-Part Four: Do I Know You?
-Part Five: Recovery
-Part Six: The Docks
-Part Seven: Going Up
-Part Eight: Ins and Outbreaks
Chapter II:
-Part Nine: X Lives!


Emilia knocked on the door of the guest bedroom. "Are you hungry? I've made some soup."

On the other side of the door, someone groaned and something crashed on the floor. Emilia took it upon herself to enter. Next to the bed, on the floor, was a shattered ceramic lamp. It had been knocked off the small nightstand where the arm of her guest was still resting. She looked at the arm, still fairly fresh with burns and sighed. "I'm sorry," the guest said weakly, "it's just so dark in here that I couldn't find the lamp to turn it on."

Emilia looked at the broken lamp. The bright, hot bulb was beginning to burn the shade that lay on its side. She stepped over and picked up the working part of the lamp, turning it off before it could start a fire. Placing it back on the stand, she sat down on the bed. On the floor by her feet was a bucket and a bottle. The bottle was a quarter full of water and the bucket needed to be flushed again, but its contents were almost as clear as the water.

"Where am I?," he asked, slowly pulling his hand back from the nightstand. He lay on his stomach, feeling the sting of the burn on his back. Emilia pulled back the cover to get a good look at this nasty burn in the sunlight coming in through the window. The guest winced, "What're you doing?!"

"Sorry," Emilia responded. "I need to look at this burn. It's pretty bad."

"How can you see it in this dark?"

Emilia sighed, "It's not dark in here."


X walked himself out of the warehouse, surrounded by the grunnies. It seemed the green un-dead lagomorphs simply had no intention of leaving his side. The rain had let up a bit and he wondered what time of day it was. He stopped to give a listen. By the sounds of water dripping, splashing waves, and lack of activity, he figured it was still night. Some of the grunnies, as he could hear, were still very interested in what had been left behind. "Leave him alone," X said, "If there's nothing left of him, they won't have any clue I was here." An explosion ripped its way through the warehouse, knocking X to the ground and flinging a few grunnies through the air. "Or, there's that," he said, face in the ground.

Before he could get up off the ground, a grunny hopped onto his head, getting a good grip. X got to his feet and gave the grunny on his head a good pat. "Time to go home."


Emilia sat with the stranger at the kitchen table. She stared at him, while he shivvered under a blanket, still not entirely over three days worth of going crazy in a dark room and yet another of laying, aching, in a bed. Whenever he searched his mind for the reason behind this 'withdrawl' as the man had called it, all he could see was a bright green flash. "Nothing?" Emilia asked.

"No." he frowned, turning his head, "but I could see. I know I could."

"You've got to try."

He gritted his oddly sharp teeth, "I am trying! Like I said, I get nothing! Nothing but a flash. That's it. And I'm sick of seeing it!" He was starting to get up at this point, feeling the edge of the table toward a corner.

"Wait."

He stopped and leaned back into his seat. "I'm done. I just don't want to do this anymore."

"That's fine." She paused for a moment, caught on the thought, "Can I give you a name?"

"Give me a name?"

"Since you can't seem to remember yours."

The front door opened and Paulie stepped in in time to hear his wife say, "Eddie. Can I call you Eddie?"

"Em," Paulie interrupted, "Is that really such a good idea?"

Emilia turned to her husband, "He doesn't even remember who he is, Paulie."

He looked at the stranger in his house, sitting across from his wife and looked over the pathetic, shaking creature. "I guess, since he's going to have to be here for a while."

He smiled a bit to himself at Paulie's words. "Yeah," he said, "You can call me Eddie."