Jack's Diary - The Pungent Maze - Day 52

     After Mike rejoined us, we continued onward to the Valor's base. A few things happened on the way, but I don't really feel like talking about them. There was nothing really significant about them except that Mike referred to Julie as Lexi. It's a mistake I would expect considering how much Julie and Lexi are alike. However, it occurred to me that if Julie did stay with us, it may help Mike, but it would also hurt him. He hasn't completely gotten over Lexi's death and keeping Julie around would just mean that she would take Lexi's place and Mike would never truly deal with Lexi's death. Grief can't be rushed; it needs to be worked through and I don't know what would happen if Julie did stay with us and she died too.
     Anyways, Mike told us that we need to go through a sewer to reach the base. Honestly, I don't care (I've smelled worse things), but it sure seems strange that we have to go through it to advance. Mike ended up messing up his shirt with "stuff" and spraining his ankle. I offered to help him, but I made him change out of the shirt (I don't want to mess my clothes up). Still, that's the least of Mike's problems now. He's come down with a fever and we're not moving on until he's better. I checked through his things to see if he had any route mapped out for the sewer, but I didn't find anything so Victor and I walked on ahead. There were multiple passages; it was just like a maze and ironically and fitting enough, there were rats in the sewer. We walked on the side ledges on the tunnels. In the center of each tunnel was a canal that would have originally been flowing with sewage, but due to the water being shut off and hardly anyone flushing a toilet anymore, the canals were nearly dry. Even with the vast amount of tunnels and turns we could have taken, I decided not to get us lost and I followed the wall to the left of me. We never came across a single soulless (then again, why would we unless one fell through a manhole or someone tried to flush one down a toilet?) There were also some passageways that were being blocked with iron bars, but these could easily be passed if necessary. After about an hour of walking, we walked the hour back to where everyone had set up camp. Upon returning, Jess ran up to us, "Do either of you have any medicine? Mike is getting worse."
     "No. Victor?" I looked back to Victor who shook his head no.
     "I don't know what we should do," Jess said worriedly.
     "Even if we did have any medicine, I doubt it would help. It would only treat the symptoms temporarily and it wouldn't cure it. Besides, a lot of the medicine that could help him is probably already running close to its expiration date."
     Jess looked at me, as if hoping I'd come up with something.
     "Is Mike still conscious?" I asked.
     "Yah."
     We all went over to him. I knelt down.
     "Hey Mike, exactly where are we heading in the sewer? Are we meeting up with someone, going in a certain direction?"
     Mike appeared very tired and loopy. "Northwest," he said.
     "That's it?"
     He drifted off back to sleep. I started shaking him.
     "Let him go. He probably won't wake up for another few hours," Jess said.
     "Alright." Looked over at her and Victor, "Here's what we do. I'm going off into the tunnels toward the direction he gave. I'll see if I can find something like a manhole opening or exit. At the least, I'll open up some of the closed off paths to make traversing the tunnels easier. Jess, you are the only one that goes in and out of this tent from now on. We don't need anyone else getting sick.  We'll give Mike a day or two to recover, but if he continues to get worse, we'll carry him out of here and look for help. Alright?"
     They both agreed. Victor stood guard and I headed back into the tunnels. Julie and Ann were talking with one another. I considered stopping to see what they were discussing, but I chose not to. I'm just hoping that it is something good.
     There are a lot of shiny things to end up in the sewer. Since most of the water is gone, all that is left is semi-water waste and garbage. If I wasn't so opposed to touching human waste, I might have check to see if anything was valuable. Well, one thing that was of value to me was one of the iron bars I managed to break off with my raw strength (that was already loose thanks to cracked stones). I decided to keep it; it would make a great weapon. I also managed to get pass two more passages blocked off by iron bars: I bent one out of shape and the other, I broke the nearby stone wall that was crumbling and squeezed through there. I found a few manhole covers, but nothing was as interesting as the people I came across. While walking down one of the tunnels, I saw two people turn the corner in the opposite direction and I quickly hid. They chatted idly about food and girls. I don't they are Valors; why would Valors live down here? I traveled back to camp and told the others. Tomorrow, someone will be coming with me to see who these people are. Hopefully, Mike will have come around to shed some light on the questions I still have.

- Jack's Diary