Chapter Text
The four walked through the woods: Micah, Michelle, Shiloh, and Elijah. They were here on a mission; there had been reports of a Magic forest. People were going missing in it, and the few that made it out had no recollection of who they were. Naturally, the park rangers and people in towns near called the M.O.M. agency.
It was late fall, the leaves were brown and falling, the woods were a beautiful sight. Michelle looked around, taking in the sight. A gust of wind went by, and it blew her hair into her face. The wind sent a chill down her spine.
“It’s freezing,” Michelle said, glancing at Micah, hoping he’d offer his jacket.
"Yeah, it is," Micah replied, missing the hint. He walked ahead to Elijah.
Michelle was mildly annoyed; she liked Micah. She wasn’t subtle about it, not like she was trying to be. There was just something about him that drew her to him. Maybe it was the fact that he was tall and had nice hair. Or maybe it was the way he was caring, he was easy to talk to, altogether no one really hated him as far as she knew. Which would normally be good, except when it was too good and led to people like Talia. Talia, just the thought of her put Michelle in a bad mood. Why did Talia butt into everything? Yeah, technically, Micah wasn’t hers to control; she had no say in who he talked to or liked. But did it have to be Talia? Why does he have to talk to Talia and be close to Talia? She tried to divert her thoughts to something, anything else really.
“Michelle! Come on, we think we found something,” Elijah called out. She hadn’t even noticed she’d fallen behind the group. She quickly sped up to the rest of the group.
When she caught up, she saw the others crowded around a guy; he seemed to be passed out on the ground.
“Oh my god, is he dead?” she asked. Micah checked the guy's pulse.
“No, but he seems to be out cold.”
“We need to find a place to camp. We’ll take this guy with us, and when he wakes up, we’ll see what happened,” Shiloh instructed. The group nodded. Elijah was able to pick the guy up; he was on the skinnier side, so he was pretty light.
They found a place to call camp, they placed the guy against a log to rest. Shiloh and Elijah were trying to put him into a sleeping bag they brought. Shiloh looked at Micah and Michelle as she did so.
“Micah, Michelle, find firewood for us. I don’t know how these woods work, but if it’s anything like our past magical forests, nightfall isn’t far away,”
They both nodded and went to find firewood, walking in a random direction not too far from where Shiloh and Elijah were.
“What do you think happened to him?” Michelle asked.
“The ranger said the people who came in left with no memory, whatever monster got to those people probably got to him,” he then winced as he got a splinter from a log he was grabbing, dropping the log. Michelle turned and saw his splinter; his hand was starting to bleed a bit.
She gently took his hand, "That's a big splinter, hold on, I have a first aid kit,” She took out a small first aid kit from her pocket. It was no bigger than a small tin container, but she pulled tweezers from it.
“No, it's fine really,” he tried to take his hand back.
She grabbed his hand back again, firmer this time.
“No, it’ll be quick, I promise, the good thing about big splinters is that they’re easy to take out,” She started to try and take the splinter with the tweezers. Micah winced at the slight sting before she pulled it out quickly. “There, quick and easy,” She pulled out more stuff from her first aid kit. It was surprising how much she could fit in that small tin canister.
“Thank you, Michelle. I’m just a bit clumsy, I guess,” he let out a small, awkward laugh.
“Guess it just adds to your charm,” she paused when she said that, a light blush falling over her cheeks. Embarrassment washing over her quickly, “Charm?” Really? That was so stupid. Who says charm?
Micah looked up from his hand to Michelle after her comment. Michelle also looked up. They made eye contact for a moment before both looking away quickly.
Micah felt weirdly nervous; it was just Michelle, the Michelle who would nag him about turning in his mission paperwork on time. He felt his palm start to sweat slightly. He brushed the feeling off quickly as Michelle finished patching him up.
“Thanks, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said as he picked up the wood he dropped.
“Well, you’d have other people, like Talia,” why did she say that? Now Talia would be on his mind. She felt so stupid, just say the right thing, not whatever she was saying now.
“Yeah, but Talia's not you,” he finished picking up the wood.
The two made eye contact that lasted for a second or two before Micah turned around to walk back to camp. Michelle looked at his back as he walked away, “But Talia’s not you,” that felt special somehow. She knew it probably didn’t mean anything to Micah. Micah normally didn’t put much thought into what he said before it left his mouth. But the way he said that made her chest feel tight. She quickly trailed behind him with her wood, going back to camp. They both got back, putting the firewood down. Elijah looked over at them, quickly getting up and walking over. He pulled them to the side, speaking in a bit of a quieter tone.
“Okay, the dude woke up, he has no idea who he is. We’re assuming that whatever monster caused all the other people's memory losses did the same to him. He doesn’t know where he is, or who he is, altogether he’s pretty disoriented, so just. Maybe just don’t do too much, we don’t want to put more stress on him.”
Michelle and Micah nodded.
“Okay, got it,” Micah nodded, looking over Elijah to see the guy.
“We looked in his bag, we found his wallet, and saw his name was Francois.”
“A French guy?” she asked.
“Well, his last name is Cortezi, isn’t that Italian or something?”
“Do other railos have countries like us?” Micah asked.
‘
“Some do, but I’m not sure if it works like ours do,” Elijah said, looking back at Francois.
No one knew what they were gonna do with the new guy: Francois Cortezi. They couldn’t just leave him. They just had to focus on fixing up the camp, and keeping him alive.