Snow and panic swallow up the world, and I don’t dare stop, not even as the bridge fades to a smudge behind me. My chest is on fire—every breath sharp enough to cut, but I force myself forward. The wind claws at my arms, bites at my ears until they're numb. My boots slip and skid on icy asphalt, the last crusts of winter still clinging to the road. Beldum sticks close, a streak of blue against the whiteout. Teddiursa’s pressed to my chest, making these weird noises—somewhere between a growl and a whimper—and every time she shakes, it rattles right through me.

  No clue how long we book it before the snow thins out, patches of slush giving way to brown grass and half-frozen puddles. The river pulls away, ditching us in a mess of fallen trees and slick rocks, where the meltwater collects in shallow pools. My boots give up pretending they can grip anything, now slipping from ice into ankle-deep mud. I'm skating more than running, only sheer adrenaline keeping me upright as the ground goes from frozen to soaked and treacherous. Those grunts chasing us must've decided we weren't worth it or else they're regrouping—either way, I'm not about to look over my shoulder.

  When the river shrinks down to almost nothing and the banks close in tight, the ground turns spongy with thaw. Old ice floats between tufts of reeds. I finally risk slowing down. I drag in air like broken glass—cold, but thick with the smell of wet earth and rot now. Beldum gives this low buzz at my side—no danger anywhere nearby—and I let myself collapse straight into a patch of marshy grass, knees sinking in. Everything between my hip and ankle goes instantly numb. Teddiursa wiggles out of my coat, does this anxious lap around me, then drops on her side to pant like she just ran a marathon. Not sure if she’s proud of herself or mad at me or just plain exhausted—maybe all of it.

  Takes nearly a minute for me to get enough feeling back to stand up again. My legs aren’t even pretending to work—they’re basically wet spaghetti. That’s when I notice my left hand: three nasty cuts across it, blood looking almost black in the fading light, mixed with mud and marsh water. Could be worse; at least it wasn’t my face. My jacket is shredded like someone ran it through a woodchipper but hey—it’s technically still covering what counts, so that’s got to be something.

  Beldum floats in close, eye darting and unsettled, flecked with bits of mud. It’s covered in thin cracks from earlier—a souvenir from the bridge mess. I reach over to check on it but it jerks away fast, trembling like even being touched would make things worse.

  “Alright,” I say quietly—more for both of us than anyone else—“We’ll patch you up later.”

  I unzip my backpack and fish around for Rei’s map. Everything inside is soaked, and the map itself is basically a wad of wrinkled tissue—folded so many times it barely qualifies as paper anymore. Beldum edges in close, bright-eyed, flicking its gaze between my face and the sad mess in my hands like it’s dying for good news. I squint at what used to be a blue marker line—river, cut, then up toward the ranger station—and trace it with a shaky finger. “Almost there,” I tell Beldum, but even I don’t sound convinced. Beldum glows weakly, like that wasn’t quite enough to get it moving.

  The trail out of the marsh is more rumour than road; just an old service road pitted with ruts and streaked with mud. Every step is a fresh round of don’t-fall-on-your-face, made trickier by Teddiursa anchoring herself to my arm and refusing to budge. Her claws poke through my jacket—just enough to remind me she’s still there, but not enough to draw blood. She’s trembling, but it feels more stubborn than scared. Can’t blame her.

  After a while, time just evaporates. My boots fill with swamp water until my toes go numb, hands stiffen up, and the slice across my hand starts veering from irritating to straight-up alarming. It’s not just bleeding; the skin around it is turning puffy and weirdly pale, like it can’t decide if it wants to swell up or vanish entirely. I keep flexing my fingers, hoping the pain will work its way out—but it keeps spreading up my arm into my jaw.

  Beldum catches on before I do. It dips lower, floating next to me like a silent chaperone, its eye scrunched with worry. I try pretending I don’t notice, but ignoring Beldum only makes its buzzing more insistent—the kind that crawls up your spine when you’re trying not to freak out. There’s this crackle between us, some weird feedback loop; every time my heart skips, so does Beldum’s energy.

  By the time we finally break through the trees and spot the ranger station ahead, walking feels like a bad joke. The place isn’t so much a building as a clump of trailers slapped together—orange and white panels barely holding on courtesy of duct tape and wishful thinking. One sad light blinks over the entrance, and for a second I honestly wonder if this place has been abandoned.

  There’s some guy at the gate in red uniform, hat shoved down low enough you can barely see his eyes. He stands there arms folded like he’s done this forever and nothing surprises him anymore. Next to him is his Throh—bulkier than should be legal—its red skin practically lighting up against all that snow. The Throh gives me a slow once-over and cracks its knuckles like it’s hoping for an excuse to toss someone into next week.

  I lift my hand in something that barely qualifies as a wave, but it just kind of flops there, useless. My backpack slides off my shoulder and I lurch forward, landing on one knee in the slush. Teddiursa yelps, thumping her paws against my chest, and Beldum darts down, wedging itself under my arm to hold me up. I squint at the ranger, vision swimming, and see him already striding over with Throh stomping behind.

  “Hey!” the ranger shouts, voice bouncing off the trailers. “You alright?” He doesn’t wait—just grabs my elbow and yanks me upright. Everything goes fuzzy for a second; I almost eat dirt again.

  Throh steps up, giving Beldum and Teddiursa this look like he’s weighing how much effort it’d take to move us out of his way. The ranger’s gaze flicks from my bloody hand to my torn-up jacket and back. “That blood yours?”

  “Seviper,” I croak, wincing as the word scratches its way out.

  Without missing a beat, he murmurs something into his collar mic and gives me another quick scan. “Inside, now,” he orders—definitely not making it optional.

  He hustles me through the gate, past snowmobiles and straight to a trailer marked ‘RANGER HQ.’ The change in temperature inside nearly knocks me over; it’s warm enough that I actually feel my face again, but so dry it stings my nose. I collapse into a plastic chair while Beldum fusses with my coat. Teddiursa scrambles into my lap and glares at anyone who gets too close.

  The ranger kneels down, taking my hand with surprising gentleness. The cut looks worse up close—swollen and oozing, ringed with grime. He lets out a low whistle before snatching a big first aid kit from the desk and blasting my skin with antiseptic that burns like hellfire.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “That’s gonna get ugly,” he says, tone dropping softer but still blunt. “We’re not exactly a full hospital here, but we’ve got antitoxins and a comms drone if things go south. Arm.”

  I stick out my arm without arguing, and he jabs an injector right into the vein. The rush of cold is instant; everything throbs less but heat prickles through me anyway. Beldum hovers in close, its eye wide with worry like it wants to jump in somehow.

  The ranger wraps up my hand fast and tosses the bloody bandages away. He gives the Pokémon next to me a look. “They yours?”

  I shake my head slowly—talking might send me straight to dreamland. “Just… here together.”

  He grunts out a laugh. “Doesn’t make much difference around here.”

  From behind a divider, two older rangers peek in—a clipboard in one hand, coffee in the other—eyeing the whole scene: me half-dead, Pokémon bristling on either side, blood everywhere. They start whispering back and forth; I catch bits—“trainer trouble?” “plasma maybe”—but honestly? I’m beyond caring at this point.

  The ranger hands me a canteen—half full, sharp and sugary, like he keeps it around just for moments like this. I take a swig and let it settle in, burn and all, while my chest tries to remember how to breathe like a normal person. Teddiursa’s already lights out, her nose mashed into my elbow. The station hums with old heaters and someone banging around in the kitchen; it’s quiet, the kind where you don’t have to jump at every sound. For once, I let my eyes close. Beldum’s still there when I drift off, hovering like backup.

  When I wake up, it’s dark out, everything muffled and calm. Teddiursa’s passed out cold, probably dreaming about an all-you-can-eat honey buffet. My hand’s wrapped up tight, far better than anything I could manage. There’s a cot against the wall that wasn’t there before. I try to move, but Beldum blocks me—persistent as always—so I give in.

  The ranger’s scanning my map when I shuffle into the main room. He sees me and jerks his chin at the coffee pot. “Help yourself,” he says, like we aren’t total strangers crashing his office with a floating metal headache for company.

  I pour a cup and sink into a chair. It actually feels possible to exist again.

  The ranger flops down next to me, elbows on his knees. “You know you’re the first person I’ve seen come out of those mountains since the winter snows hit?” he says.

  I nod into my coffee. “Guess I got lucky.”

  He snorts. “Luck means walking away from a bus crash with all your teeth. You didn’t walk out—you crawled through hell.” He pauses, lowering his voice so only I can hear him: “Got a name?”

  The question sits there between us.

  I think of lab walls and the scientist who called me ‘Zero’ because nothing else stuck. That name’s done here—no one needs it but him.

  I shrug. “Still working on that.”

  I look down at my hands, flexing my fingers beneath the fresh bandages. The quiet isn’t awkward; I’m used to people trying to fill silence with labels and categories, desperate to make sense of things. The ranger lets me stew for a few sips of coffee before setting his mug down with a solid thud.

  “Alright, ‘no-one’. Let’s get some basics out of the way. I’m Lindel” He leans back, palms flat on his thighs. “You’re not tripping any alarms—HQ doesn’t have your face flagged. You’re not one of those League challenge kids, and you don’t look like someone chasing their lost glory days.” He nods toward Beldum and Teddiursa. “But those two? Neither’s local. Beldum’s rare anywhere, and I haven’t seen a Teddiursa this far from Johto in years. So, want to tell me what brings you—and them—to Unova?”

  He keeps his voice steady, but the question lands heavy all the same. His eyes are clear and sharp, letting me know he’s not buying easy answers. My mouth is dry enough to crack, but I manage: “Didn’t exactly sign up for it.”

  He waits me out, but all he gets is me sipping coffee and pretending to study the wall—route maps, snow levels, some battered flyer about a wild Ursaring. I could try to feed him a story, but this guy would see through it before I even got started. So I just shrug. “Found Teddiursa after a cave-in. She was the only thing moving above the snowline.” My voice stays flat—practiced, like I’m reading off a grocery list.

  He doesn’t buy it for a second, but he lets it go. “No sign of her mom?”

  I just shake my head. “Didn’t find much. Avalanche wiped out the cave, brought the whole ravine with it.” Which is true enough, at least as much as anything else lately.

  He taps his mug, then nods at Beldum circling my shoulder, eye locked on him like it’s daring him to ask more. “What about that one?”

  I go quiet and let Beldum do its slow orbit. We’ve only been a team a few days, but it already draws stares—most folks can’t handle a long look from it; even this ranger hesitates before turning back to me.

  He lowers his voice. “Look—I’m not trying to get you in hot water. But that’s not exactly your everyday Pokémon for these parts. You cross paths on the way here too?”

  “Something like that.” I keep my tone calm—no tells—because if Beldum wanted to remodel this place, nobody would stop it. “It keeps to itself unless I ask otherwise.” Not the whole truth, but close enough; Beldum seems content for now just glaring at the wall.

  The ranger mulls that over, then finally eases up a little. “Yeah, out here? You learn fast when not to pry.” He drops his voice again: “But just so you know—the League’s got people asking questions lately. Illegal labs popping up where they shouldn’t be, weird stuff moving through these mountains. Run into anything like that?”

  I keep my face neutral even as my insides twist up. “Didn’t see any labs,” I say quietly. “Just snow and empty space.” I hold his gaze anyway. “What’s going on?”

  The ranger just grunts into his mug, not missing a beat. “If there’s trouble brewing, they keep us in the dark too,” he says. “HQ prefers rangers who don’t ask questions. It keeps things simple—and us out of trouble.” He blows on his coffee, maybe hiding a half-smirk. “Honestly? Suits me fine. I’m not trying to get my name on a plaque.”

  He waits for me to say something, but when I stay quiet, he eyeballs the rim of his cup like it might have answers for him.

  Eventually, he asks, “So—you got any paperwork? Trainer ID, license, something official?” His tone is casual—it’s routine, nothing more.

  I shake my head. “Lost it out there,” I say. “Or maybe I never had one to lose. You guys keep a lost and found around here?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Most people try to feed me some story first—you’re not even working up to it.”

  I shrug. “Didn’t seem worth the effort.”

  He studies me for a second and nods, like he expected as much. “Well, if you’re off the books, you’re not breaking any rules—at least not out here. Could go either way for you.” He glances over at Beldum. “I’m not law enforcement,” he says plainly. “Doesn’t matter to me if you’re dodging League suits or just running from yourself.” Sounds like he’s had this conversation more than once. “So—what’s the plan? Where are you headed?”

  I take my time with the coffee. “Mistralton, maybe. Just west until I hit something that isn’t frozen or falling apart.”

  He looks at the battered map on the table and snorts lightly. “Not much waiting for you in Mistralton but that airport and some greasy spoons best avoided unless you hate yourself. You looking to catch a flight?”

  “No ticket, no ID, no plan,” I say flatly. “Just need to keep moving.”

  He gives me a slow look—measuring, but not unkind. “You realize there’s only one decent path west—and ‘decent’ is being generous. It gets rough.” There’s almost a challenge in his voice, but I don’t blink. He stretches and stands up a bit straighter. “Alright,” he says finally. “You can crash here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll see about scrounging up breakfast and pointing you in the right direction.” He gestures toward the cot nearby. “Just try not to bleed all over my floor, yeah?”

  I raise my mug in a lazy salute. “No guarantees.”

  He laughs—a real one this time—and goes back to refill his coffee. “Perfect. Last thing I need is another dull shift.”