I know this kind of seems weird to be in here, but bear with me. I wanted to publish it as a separate story, but it's meant to be read at the same time with the main story. So, I'm just going to put shorter chapters in throughout. Hope it doesn't throw you off too much. Enjoy.

"Wha…? Where?" I open my eyes only to see a foreign land. Trees spread as far as I can see. The humidity is already starting to make droplets of sweat drip down my arms.

I put one arm under me and pushed myself up. Once I was on my feet, I could see the ground under me was mud. Luckily, I'm on a harder patch, so I'm not covered in it. But the question still remains: where am I?

Actually, more importantly, who am I? My name, my family, friends… I can't remember anything. My head started to spin whenever I pushed it too hard to remember, so I just gave up.

A stinging on my right hand brought my attention to it. Who knows what kind of bugs might be in this place? I hope I'm not about to get eaten alive.

Instead of a bite though, there's a strange series of red marks on my hand. I've never seen these before and I can't even begin to decipher what they mean, if anything at all.

As I'm pondering this, I notice the sound of rushing water nearby. My throat feels like it's been through a rough time, so I walk into the trees in the direction of the water. It's so humid, it's almost unbelievable. Am I in a rainforest or something? My hair is beginning to stick to my forehead from the sweat, but this just feels like all the more reason to find this source of water. Hopefully, it'll be clean enough to drink.

I push through some low-hanging branches and find myself on the bank of a river. The water nearest to me is calm, but I can see not even a hundred feet away the water begins flowing substantially faster, seemingly out of nowhere.

Maybe it's dumb to just drink straight out of a river, but I'm parched. And the river looks almost crystal clear. I can see the bottom from where I'm standing, though I don't see any fish or anything swimming around.

I cup my hands and dip it in. Despite the humidity and relative heat of the area, the water is freezing cold. I bring the water to my lips and drink. Instantly my throat feels better as the cold water slides down it. I splash some of the water in my face to wash away the sweat.

As I'm doing this, I finally look down at myself and notice my attire.

I'm wearing a dark navy sailor uniform and a similarly colored skirt. A red ribbon wraps around the neck of my uniform and is neatly tied in the front. A symbol rests on the left side, but I don't recognize the crest from anywhere. I think the name of the school used to be under the crest, but that area is the only area on the entire uniform that was somehow damaged, and I can't read it.

I look back at the water, but nothing is reflected back at me. I can just see straight through it. So much for using that to check my appearance.

Instead I check the pockets of the skirt and, sure enough, I find what looks like a school ID. This might be my key to getting any information about myself. My expectations were too high, it seems though. Most of the information is unreadable due to water damage. The only thing I can make out is the name at the top: Fujimaru Ritsuka. Even the picture is missing, so I still have no way to find out what I look like.

That makes me uncomfortable, but I shake it off. I take one more big gulp from the river before starting to walk alongside it. After all, if worse comes to worst, I might need to camp out for the night and what better place to do so than by a source of water?

"Hello? Is anyone there?" I call out as I walk, hoping that I'm not the only person stranded out here and that someone else will answer my call.

Unfortunately, I hear nothing in return. Even stranger, I notice that I don't hear anything besides the river. No birds, no insects, nothing. That's unsettling to say the least.

There is nothing around. It's as if I was just dropped into the middle of a rainforest and left to fend for myself. And, well, for all I know, maybe that's exactly what happened.

I look up at the sky, trying to find the sun, but I don't see it, just a clear blue sky. It must be morning or getting late then. And since the light didn't look like sunset, I assume it's morning.

After what felt like a couple hours of walking along this river, taking periodic breaks and drinking from it, I finally spot something I can call a destination. A large black obelisk rose far above the trees in the distance. Honestly, it's so tall I can't believe that I didn't see it before now.

The river seems to head straight towards it, which is good for me. If I have to wander away from this river, who knows how long it might be until I find another source of water. However, my stomach soon reminds me that water isn't the only thing humans need to live. I don't know when the last time I ate something was, but I'm suddenly overcome with hunger.

I look around, hoping to find some fruit or something, but all the trees are bare besides their leaves. I consider trying to fish, but for all this time I've been walking along this clear river, I haven't seen a single fish.

Due to my lack of food, I decide to conserve some energy and take a break. If I wear myself out without any access to food, then I'll just die here. Even without my memories, I know what comes first in survival situations.

Once again, I cup my hands and brink some of the river water to my mouth. Even though I took several breaks, my arms and face are still covered in sweat from the humidity. The cold river water feels amazing and I splash my face with it and even dip my arms up to my sleeves into the water.

Since I'm taking a break, I might as well enjoy it. I slip my shoes and socks off and dip my feet into the water. Reflexively, I pull back at first, like when you're checking the temperature of the water in a pool and it's too cold. But I push through and leg my legs dip into the water.

"Ah… So good…"

I'm not sure if I ever went to a spa in my life, but this river didn't lose to any spa. My fatigue was wiped away instantly and I felt like I could keep walking on for miles. Being in this water makes me forget about my hunger for now.

I look forward towards the obelisk. Honestly, it doesn't look like I've made much progress, but I'm hoping that's not true. Either way, even if I am making little progress, it's not like I have any other indication of where to head.

A sigh escapes my mouth, but I smile afterwards. I haven't lost hope, so there really is nothing left but to continue forward. I absentmindedly kick at the water. I'll have to get moving soon and I don't like the thought of having to take my feet out.

I finally decide that it's time to get moving. I'd like to find a slightly better spot to camp out, so I need to make it there before sundown. As I stand and stretch though, I look down the river and see something heading towards me.

"Eh?"

The object is pretty big, at least my size, floating down the river. It's not moving, so I assume it's not a fish or other animal swimming towards me. Though I had walked in the direction where the river started flowing faster, it was clam where I was now, so the object wasn't travelling particularly quickly. I stop and wait for it to get near since it's the only foreign object I've seen besides the giant obelisk.

"That's…"

As the object gets near me, I realize it's… a person? Yes, a person was floating down the river, their face in the water. As that realization hits, I start to panic. If I leave their face in the water, they'll drown for sure, if they haven't already.

Without giving it much thought I jump into the freezing water and wade my way through so I can intercept his path. And, sure enough, he floats right into me. I quickly wade my way back to the shore and get him up on land. I'm not a very strong person, but he's not that heavy. Then I climb out myself.

I roll him over and have to pause for a second. The boy looked a few years older than me, probably in his early twenties. He has golden blonde hair and his only attire is a long white shirt that goes almost to his feet. It's wet and stuck against him, revealing a fit body underneath. I shake my head and press my ear against his chest. His heart is still beating. Next I press my ear near his mouth… and he's still breathing.

It's unbelievable. I must have saved him only seconds after he fell unconsciousness in the river, but that seemed strange. Before he arrived near me, I didn't hear a splash, so he must have fallen in quite a way down. Either way, I didn't see a need to perform CPR on him, so I just pulled him a bit farther from the shore, under the cover of the trees and sat next to him.

Eventually night did begin to fall. I don't know how long I've been sitting with him, but I haven't done much besides occasionally taking a drink from the river. At some point, I let a bit drip into his mouth, which he swallowed every time without waking up.

The moon never comes overhead, even though I'm sure it's several hours into the night by now. Sleeping is pretty troublesome with my stomach constantly reminding me of its need for food, not to mention I'm sleeping on hard dirt. I try to make some sort of makeshift bed using leaves and small branches, but it isn't much more comfortable. At some point, the temperature drops substantially as well. I have no idea how to make a fire, so that's out of the question.

As the temperature drops, it's a cruel reminder that my clothes are still damp since I haven't been moving around. I didn't take them off in case the boy woke up, but I'm regretting that decision now. I also don't relish the idea of sleeping naked outside anyways.

I cover up the boy in leaves and small branches and hope that that's enough to keep him warm through the night. Then I lay on my makeshift bed and pull small branches over myself. This barely keeps me any warmer, but I just hope it'll keep me from freezing to death during the night.

Even through the cold, I eventually drift off into sleep.

I awake to the sound of a crackling fire. Wait… a fire? I begin to panic and sit up quickly. If a person is here, I have nothing to defend myself with. But I stop as a voice reaches my ears.

"Oh, sorry. Did I wake you?"

I turn towards the fire. The fire illuminates the golden hair and crimson eyes of the boy I saved before. The long shirt he had worn was dry now and tied around his waist. Just like I had thought, he looked like he worked out quite a bit, but somehow still maintained a slimmer frame.

"Ah… yes…"

I awkwardly rub the back of my head as I sit up. The first thing I notice is that my clothes are mostly dry. If that's the case, this fire must have been burning for quite a while. I can feel the warmth of the fire throughout my entire body and for the first time since coming here, I feel relaxed.

"Thank you." The boy speaks up and I jump a bit, having been lost in my thoughts just a second ago. "You saved me, right?"

"Ah, I just pulled you out of the river."

He nodded.

"Surely, I would have died had you not pulled me out, though. For that you have my thanks, um…"

"Ah… To be honest, I'm not quite sure what my name is. But, well… I think it's Fujimaru Ritsuka. So, feel free to call me Ritsuka."

"I see. You also lack your memories. I was hoping you could tell me what exactly is going on. I have a vague memory of falling into that river, but nothing before." He sighs.

"I only have memory of waking up in this place this morning. I was walking along this river for a few hours until I found you and took you out. After that, I've just been resting here with you."

The boy leans back against a tree and lets out another sigh.

"I guess it's convenient that we both speak Japanese at least, huh?" He laughs as if nothing is wrong and I can't help but smile at that.

"Um, do you by chance remember your name?" He shakes his head. So, he really is the same as me then. "I see."

He looks up at the night sky in thought before mumbling something under his breath. Then he looks right at me with that radiant smile.

"Gil. You can call me that. I have some vague memory of somebody who I can no longer remember calling me that. Or maybe I was saying it to them. Well, it doesn't really matter. I need something to be addressed by anyways."

Hearing somebody else speak when I've been alone for the whole day, fearing that I would be alone for who knows how long, really puts me at ease.

"Then, Gil it is." I say and give my best smile back.

"Good. So, Ritsuka, you said you were heading along this river, but if neither of us has any idea about this place… did you have a destination in mind?"

I point out towards where I know the obelisk stands. It's impossible to see its sleek black shape in the dark night, but I just want to give him a general sense.

"There's a large black structure over there. It's the only thing I can see that looks like it might be man-made, so I was heading that way. Luckily, the river looks like it heads straight towards it, so if we continue to follow it, we should arrive there."

"Mm. Sounds good." He nods and throws some more twigs and leaves into the fire. "If that's the case, then we should get some sleep. It looks like we have a long day ahead of us. The fire should last long enough to keep us warm until the sun comes up."

And just like that, our conversation ends there. We both do our best to pull some of the twigs and leaves over ourselves to stave off the cold and soon enough I'm drifting into the blackness of sleep once again.

Let me know if you guys don't like this. I'm not opposed to not doing it like this.

Anyways, each of you have a great day!