Was There Someone Else?

Elmo wasn't sure what was going on anymore. Not only was there someone he didn't remember missing, that he wasn't in his own world anymore and couldn't remember how that had happened, that there was something called a system or systems that he didn't know anything about, and lastly that when he came to the realization about all of that, that he had a rather bad reaction to that.

Where he had a seizure.

When he got up from that, he felt like he was going to throw up, but was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. Or at least not right away.

He could see the sky starting to lighten up, which meant that he'd missed his entire watch. Though, he got the impression that he wasn't going to get any grief over that. Not with how everyone seemed concerned about him and him having seized like that.

To be honest, he felt a little worried about it himself. He hadn't had that happen before, so he couldn't say for certain what exactly caused it. Although, he did wonder if all the things that were happening about what he couldn't remember might somehow be related to that. He wasn't sure how they could be, but it was all he had at the moment.

"You know, Heather? I didn't know you had any medical knowledge," Bart remarked quietly, a little past Elmo's field of vision as he looked straight up.

"I didn't either," Heather admitted just as quietly. "It felt like the knowledge of what to do just came to my mind. I'm not sure how, just that it did."

"Think this might have something to do with that girl the others mentioned? Uh, Elin, I think?"

"I'm not sure. It might be, or it might be something else altogether. Though, I'm not sure how all of us could forget a person so completely like that."

"Well, if everything I remember about this world is accurate, I'm sure it's possible. I mean, I helped fight a dragon that was made out of pure fire. Then I was able to fight it without any trouble, even though I don't remember ever learning how to fight with a staff of any kind."

"The dragon you mentioned, it wasn't like Sonya, was it?" she asked, sounding a little worried.

"No, not even close like Sonya. That dragon merely attacked us and didn't say anything. It'd disappear on us after a little bit and then appear out of nowhere sometime later, catching us off guard, no matter what we were doing."

Heather sighed. "Does the word 'Hypnocharm' mean anything to you?"

"Hypno- what?" Bart asked, sounding rather confused, which Elmo could relate.

Elmo couldn't say that it meant anything to him, but it somehow felt familiar. Even though he couldn't explain why. Although, he also wasn't sure where Heather was going with this.

"Hynocharm," Heather repeated. "I don't know what it is, but I remember hearing someone talk to me about it. I don't know who it was, since the others hadn't gotten her by then and I know it wasn't you, Elmo, Sonya, or Grisha. So, that might only mean-"

"Elin," Bart interrupted, sounding a little surprised himself.

"Exactly. If she was the one who talked to me about whatever a hypnocharm is, then it might be related to why we don't remember her."

Elmo wanted to sit up so he could move over and join the conversation, but as he tried to move, a wave of vertigo nearly made him actually throw up as it struck, removing all interest he had in moving right then.

He wasn't sure if it was merely an aftereffect of what had happened to him earlier, but it was clear to him that he wasn't going to be able to do anything about it. At least not for the moment. He hoped that it wouldn't be like that for very long, because he was pretty sure that, if nothing else, it would get rather boring staying in this kind of position. Not to mention the aches and pains it would cause.

"Did you hear something?" Heather asked suddenly, and Elmo suspected that his small movements was what she heard.

"No, and don't change the subject. You're the one who brought this up, so you're not going to be able to back out just like that. Though, I get why you might associate that with this mysterious 'Elin' and all, but what if it was someone else who mentioned it to you?"

"Huh?" Heather blurted, a louder than they had been talking, making Elmo wonder if she might accidentally wake anyone up. "Why would it be from someone else?"

"Simply because if we don't remember this 'Elin,' why couldn't we also not have forgotten about someone else? Someone that might have been the one to mention… whatever it was that you said."

While Elmo knew that he couldn't move without a wave of vertigo and nausea striking, He still wanted to share his thoughts about this subject with Heather and Bart.

"If there was someone else that we met, why wouldn't the others not know about them?" Elmo asked, wondering if they'll move over to him to let him join in the conversation or to just pretty much ignore him altogether. "I mean, it's not like they were gone for that long. So, why wouldn't they also have known about anyone else if there was another person?"

"It's simple," Bart replied, sounding like he was annoyed by the question. "Grisha showed up before the others got back and if he did, someone else could have done that as well. Until we know what happened and why we can't remember Elin, we can't be sure that there couldn't be someone else that showed up after the others left us here and disappeared like this Elin."

"You might want to get a hobby," Heather remarked. "You sound a little too intense there."

Elmo was pretty sure that while they were willing to respond to his question, that they weren't going to move closer to him. Which, while a little annoying to him, was something he couldn't really find a reason to argue with. It wasn't like they had planned on discussing this with him anyway.

"What's wrong with how I said it?" Bart asked defensively, sounding a little offended.

"It's just that you sounded almost like you were thinking things a little too thoroughly on that. Like you've been working on that for a while," Heather replied, sounding like she was teasing him more than serious about the matter.

"What do you mean 'that I've been working on the for a while?!'" Bart yelled, his words echoing off the mountains around then.

While Elmo was confident that Bart didn't mean to be so loud, with the sounds of angry movements around them, Bart's words woke up anyone who hadn't already woken up. Which, for some, Elmo was confident that they weren't going to be happy to have been woken up like that.

"What the hell!" Elwin screamed after a minute of everyone having gotten up, making Elmo wonder if he'd had the watch before the current watch. "What is so important that you have to wake us up when there's nothing going on!?"

Elmo wished that he could turn his head at least to see around him, but worried that it'd cause him to have another bout of vertigo and nausea. He wasn't sure what he might have done to have to endure that, or if there was some kind of medical condition he'd contracted since being in this world. For whatever reason he'd been brought here.

"Sorry," Heather apologized. "I guess we got a little carried away."

"Maybe, but you're not the one who screamed, making it sound like something was wrong. Like there was something that needed our attention. Like Kim did with Elmo last night."

Elmo wasn't sure he remembered Kim being there last night before things went south for him, but he wasn't going to argue. Especially since he couldn't really stand, or even move, at the moment either. Maybe he was just forgetting something simple, much like when he'd be playing a video game, lose a battle and realize that he'd missed something completely simple that he should have been able to do but had forgotten about it instead.

Not that he planned on saying anything about that, though.

"Still, I shouldn't have provoked Bart like that. It wasn't necessary and quite possibly woke up everyone in these mountains for at least a mile," Heather pressed.

"Hey, I wasn't that loud!" Bart protested.

"So, you should blame me for that as well, regardless of Bart being the one who screamed," Heather continued, clearly ignoring Bart.

Elwin sighed. "Fine, both of you will need to help me when I go hunting later. It's not an option, okay?"

Elmo had a feeling that the trip wouldn't just include hunting. But rather would have something else going on as well. He wasn't sure what it'd be, but he just couldn't help but be glad that he wasn't getting pulled in on it.

Especially since he didn't really want to know exactly what it was that Elwin had planned for those two.