A Mortal Called Desolate

When Yaan opened his eyes, he did not know who he was.

'Who am I…?' He thought to himself dazedly.

'Where am I?'

After staring vacantly into space for some time, he spoke his thoughts aloud.

"Why do I have no memories?" The boy wrapped up in bandages muttered to himself.

"Hmm? Oh, you're awake!"

The bandaged boy tried to turn towards the source of the aged yet energetic voice, but found that his head was strapped in place. What's more, it seemed that he had very poor eyesight. Everything just looked like vague and blurred shades of grey. He could only recognise that the person walking towards him was a grown man, based on the size of his blurred figure.

When the middle-aged man examined the bandaged boy, he felt relieved that he had finally woken up, but he also felt pity for the boy.

"You were in a strange accident. Luckily, Flora found you by chance. She carried you back for an entire three miles, all by herself! That girl is far too capable, but that's a hunter's daughter for you!"

"An accident…?" The boy struggled to speak since his mouth was painfully dry. Realising this, the doctor quickly grabbed him a wooden cup filled with water.

"Here, drink this. I'll get you some food, you haven't eaten anything in five days! I know you must be confused, but let's get you back into good health first, ok?"

In the end, the bandaged boy agreed to follow the doctor's instructions.

He remained silent as he listened to the doctor work. The doctor, whom the boy learned was a middle-aged man called Doctor Leah, was working alone right now, but he ran this hospital with his wife. It was not a large facility, with four beds in total. Currently, the doctor was dealing with the boy and another two bed-ridden patients, as well as the occasional visitor from the village.

The doctor was very busy, but he made sure to check up on the boy multiple times each day. The doctor tried to find out more about him, but unfortunately, the boy remembered nothing, not even his own name. His only memory was of having a strange conversation with the girl who found him in the forest, Flora, and he vaguely recalled being carried back to the hospital. Even then, some parts of his conversation with that girl were missing from his memory.

The bandaged boy was quite the unusual patient. His amnesia actually wasn't the strangest matter though…it was the fact that his eye-sight was truly terrible, yet it seemed that he had been wandering through the dangerous forest alone!

This village, Namuh Village, was extremely secluded, to the extent that they didn't know of any other human settlements! Nobody in the village knew anything about the outside world. Visitors from outside were extremely rare, appearing only once every few decades. Because of their lack of understanding regarding the outside world, almost nobody ever left the village, other than venturing into the surrounding forest to hunt and gather food.

The bandaged boy slowly learned all of this during his conversations with the doctor.

Aside from learning about the village, the boy also got to know the doctor and his wife.

Doctor Leah was the only qualified doctor in the village, and his wife was just about good enough to be his assistant. He once had a protege, but that boy tragically died after contracting a patient's contagious disease.

From that incident alone, it was clear why nobody else wanted this job. Thankfully, one doctor and an assistant was just about sufficient, there were only 1,458 residents in the village right now after all. Oh, but with the bandaged boy's arrival, there were now 1,459!

After a few days, the bandaged boy had recovered enough to sit up, talk, eat, drink, and take himself to the toilet. At this point, Doctor Leah finally decided that he needed to be given a name!

Hopefully his memories would return, but it had been a week now, and the boy still remembered nothing. It was likely that his amnesia would last for a long period of time, so until he recalled his real name, they would need to come up with a substitute.

People had a strange, but very clear naming sense in this village.

For example, the village's own name, 'Namuh', was just the word 'human' spelled backwards. It was named as such because many years ago, when the village was first established and named, the founding villagers had believed that they were the only humans in the whole world.

Doctor Leah's father had been a doctor who planned to turn his son into the perfect man of medicine from the moment he was born. As such, his name was the word 'heal' turned backwards.

The doctor's wife, a woman called Cujie, had worried her parents early on in life since she refused to drink milk. They became desperate and tried feeding her other liquid things. After trying juice for the first time, she finally started feeding. As such, her name was an anagram of the word 'juice'.

Then there was Flora, the girl who brought him back to the village. The doctor told him a story…

When she was born, her expression was far too calm. She showed no emotion aside from curiosity, she did not cry or scream a single time. Her expression first changed when she was taken out to the safer region of the forest as a baby, where she became entranced by the flowers, the trees and all of the plants. When she saw the life within the forest, she finally cried. Strangely enough, she had cried whilst smiling.

As such, she was named Flora. Even today, she had a love for plants, and spent the majority of her days exploring the nearby forest and picking fruits for the tribe.

'So even as a baby, she was a strange girl…' The bandaged boy thought.

"So then, bandages, how about that for a name?" The doctor looked at the boy and asked seriously. The boy's eyes widened. When he realised that the doctor was being serious, he quickly shook his head. Somehow, he felt like this name was too strange.

"N-no thanks…perhaps, did Flora suggest a name? Or maybe she would suggest a name if she came to visit me? I still haven't had the chance to thank her properly. Without her help, I probably would have died back there…"

"Well, I also think she saved you, but she insisted that you would have been fine on your own." The doctor laughed, but then sighed and shook his head. He knew that the bandaged boy wanted to meet his saviour, but it wasn't quite so simple.

"It's not that she doesn't want to meet you, but, she is unable to. Her father was extremely angry that she broke his rule - to not visit my hospital. Don't take it personally, it's just that occasionally, someone with a contagious disease comes here. Sometimes, we don't realise the danger until it's too late. Trust me, knowing that girl, she has definitely tried to visit, but her father will not permit it."

The bandaged boy sighed and nodded. It was disappointing, but he understood her father's worry, he didn't blame the man.

"Hah…" The doctor sighed, scratching his head. "Actually, she did come up with a name, but I ignored it because she put too little thought into it. She told me that she thought of this name the first time the pair of you made eye contact! I don't understand it at all, but, she said that you should be called…Desolate…"

For some reason, the boy's eyes widened. He felt that this name…was very fitting. Even though it sounded even worse than 'bandages' in a sense, it somehow felt right.

"Then my name will be Desolate…" The boy said, but paused after saying this. Whilst he felt that the name was quite fitting, despite not knowing why, it was also a bit too depressing.

"Or just 'Des' for short."

The doctor shrugged. Since the boy liked it, he saw no reason to argue.

Des learned all about the village's history and customs as he recovered in the hospital. He was able to sit up, drink, eat, and walk with assistance within one week. After another week, he could walk by himself. He even started going outside and helping out with some less strenuous chores.

After one month, even though he was still affected by his injuries, Des no longer spent most of everyday in bed. He still needed to sleep for a good portion of the day, but aside from that, he assisted with the household chores which didn't require much exertion or visual acuity.

Doctor Leah informed him that his eyesight was unlikely to get better with time, and it might even get worse.

Des had been living in the hospital for five weeks now. The doctor watched Des as he helped Cujie with the washing up of the bowls, knives and spoons, which were the only eating utensils commonly used in the village.

Cujie took a step back and sat down on a kitchen chair. She watched Des with a proud and satisfied smile, nodding in approval as he completed the household chores without any serious difficulties. His movements were fluid, as if performing a series of precise, memorised actions.

Des was oblivious to the fact that he was being watched by the middle-aged couple.

"I've finished putting everything away, what's next?" Des asked with a bright smile.

For a moment, there was silence. Cujie and Leah looked at once another, marvelling at how well Des had adapted despite his poor eyesight. No, calling his eyesight 'poor' was an understatement; he was practically blind!

He could only see in shades of grey, but even then, the shades he could see were limited, and often misleading depending on the lightning. He was far too capable for someone with eyesight this poor!

Des was able to function so well because he had memorised the house's interior over the past couple of weeks. Now, he was able to picture the layout of every room in his mind. It took him some time to build up this mental image, but he wanted to repay Leah and Cujie for everything they had done for him.

And through it all, he didn't complain a single time. He didn't speak up about his difficulties, he never mentioned the extreme effort that he put into learning how to do these seemingly simple tasks…he just got on with it without a word of complaint.

When Cujie saw Des looking towards her with his ever-hazy eyes, but also a bright smile that showed his heart-felt desire to help out, she felt her eyes tear up.

"Des dear, why don't you relax a little? You're still not well, you should rest…"

"Auntie, you don't need to worry about me. Getting back on my feet is helping my recovery, see?" Des flexed his arms, as if showing off his strength…unfortunately, he was still malnourished, he had no body fat, no muscle, and his arms were like twigs that looked like they might break off at any moment.

Ignoring their expressions which he could not see, Des went on to say:

"And besides, sitting around all day is far too boring. I understand that I need to sleep a lot in order to recover, but I need to get up and move around if I want to feel less useless!"

The husband and wife couldn't help but smile warmly.

Actually, the couple had long since wanted a child of their own. Unfortunately, even after trying for many years, they had failed to conceive. Medicine in the village was too primitive to diagnose such a problem…but perhaps that was for the best. This way, neither of them felt responsible or guilty, and neither blamed the other, they just considered it a problem between the two of them.

They had considered adopting, but right now, there were no orphans in the village. They could wait for a tragedy to occur, but it was too uncommon for a child to be left without any family to rely on.

When they saw Des acting so earnestly, it made the couple feel a sense of warmth in their hearts. For the time being, they were happy to have Des join their household.

Day by day, week by week, Des slowly regained his strength.

He had now been in the village for two whole months. Even though his worst injuries had healed, Des remained somewhat weak, pale and skinny…

In the end, Doctor Leah could only sigh. He realised that Des would not recover from this strange weakness.

Now that he had been in the village for two months, Des started to explore outside. Of course, he could not navigate by himself, so he was always accompanied by either Cujie, Leah, or on occasion, the both of them. It was difficult for them both to leave the hospital at the same time though, so such an outing was rare.

News of Des's arrival in the village had spread by now, but out of their respect for the doctor and his tough schedule, the villagers didn't bother them, for now at least.

When Des ventured outside, Leah and Cujie didn't let him go very far at first, but Des was patient. He spent his time memorising the layout of the places he had been. He learned the positions of the fences, the trees, the herb patches, the vegetable patches, the animal pens, and so on.

Touching and running his hands over the stationary objects in the village helped Des to slowly build up a mental image of his surroundings.

After living in the village for three months, Des was finally able to go out on his own, so long as he stayed within the region of the village called 'Namuh Plains'.

Namuh Plains was one of the five regions that made up the village. It was the largest, but most sparsely populated region. The soil in this region was very fertile, so the lands were mostly used to farm foods and herbs.

The hospital was located on the central edge of Namuh Plains, just outside of the village's most bustling region, Namuh Market. The hospital was built on the piece of land with the worst fertility in Namuh Plains, after all, they couldn't just occupy precious farmland with a hospital.

As the name implied, Namuh Market was where people bought and sold their goods. It was located in the centre of the village and was the smallest of the five regions, since very few people actually lived there.

Most people lived in Namuh Common. Property in Namuh Common was extremely cheap compared to the other regions because it sometimes flooded during monsoon season. The commoners who lived in this region made up over half of the village's population.

The most prestigious region in this small village was called Namuh Barracks. Living in this place granted you status beyond almost everyone else in the village, because Namuh Barracks was home to the hunters and their families! Many areas in this well-maintained region had been transformed into training grounds for the guards and hunters.

The final region, Namuh Border, acted as the border around the village. The border was perfectly circular and only the village guards were permitted to enter. The guards were all experienced veteran hunters, but they had gone past their best years and chose to live a more peaceful life whilst still maintaining their prestige.

There were no demonic beasts in the surrounding forest, but there were many dangerous mortal beasts, such as tigers, lions, bears, and so on. The village guards protected the village, preventing these vicious animals from getting in. The guards also patrolled the forest area within two miles of the village, killing anything dangerous that they came across. This allowed the gatherers to venture out into the forest, foraging for wild fruits, berries, nuts and herbs.

Des patiently listened to Cujie as she explained this to him once again. They were currently visiting Namuh Market during the off-peak hours, in a less busy area of the market. She was worried that if she took Des to a busy place, he might bump into people due to his poor eyesight.

Leah and Cujie had already explained the layout of Namuh Village to him five times now…they repeated their explanation every single time that he inquired about meeting Flora.

Des was happy to be outside, but Flora, the girl who carried him back to the village, lingered on his mind…even after three months, he was yet to see her a single time!

Nobody said it explicitly, probably because they didn't want to hurt his feelings, but Des understood the problem; Flora lived in Namuh Barracks. In the eyes of Flora's father, Des was just an injured, penniless orphan, not someone his daughter should be associating with.

Hunters were highly respected in Namuh Village. It was only normal that Flora's father, a man called Tiger, didn't want his daughter to waste her time on someone like Des. He was only looking out for her future.

As far as Tiger was concerned, as soon as Des had recovered from his injuries, he would be sent away from the hospital. In all likelihood, he would move to Namuh Common, then spend the rest of his life paying off his medical debt…

This debt was not owed to Doctor Leah, but to Tiger himself!

Doctor Leah's principle was that he would always intervene and save a person's life if they were on the brink of death; he considered the person first and their finances later on. Of course, he always made his patients pay back their debt to him. He was running a business after all, he couldn't just treat people for free!

But in Des's case, Tiger had already paid for his treatment in full! Flora promised her father that she would not visit Des, so long as her father paid for his full treatment, allowing him to use the best medicines until he was fully recovered.

But even if Tiger had not paid for his treatment, Des would still remain with Leah and Cujie for now, simply because he had nowhere else to go. Leah had actually been tasked with the responsibility of looking after him until the village decided on what to do with him. Of course, the doctor was fairly compensated for taking him in during this period.

But aside from this, neither Leah nor Cujie wanted Des to leave. They found the boy pleasant to have around, and he was actually extremely helpful around the hospital! They had struggled to keep up with business for the longest time now, and these days, they were even forced to increase their prices in order to reduce the number of patients. With Des's help, the couple saved time on the menial tasks, allowing them to treat more people, whilst also finding more free time for themselves.

After walking around the marketplace, which was dwindling in its business now as some street vendors decided to pack up for the day, Cujie and Des decided to head home.

Today, they had purchased Des some new clothes. With these new clothes, these fine red fabrics which seemed to sit on his body very well, Des finally looked like a person who was worthy of working at the hospital.

Cujie felt strange as she walked beside Des. When Flora first brought him in, he was also wearing red robes back then…

And now, when she held up a few good robes for Des to choose from, despite knowing that he was colour blind, he didn't even hesitate to choose the red ones.

"Des, do you know what colour clothes you're wearing right now?" She asked with a smile.

Des laughed bitterly and shook his head.

"How could I? I can't see colours. I chose this one because I felt drawn to it…I can't really explain it. So, what colour is it?"

"It's red…"

"Red, huh…" Des felt dazed for a moment, and without realising it, he smiled.

"Do you like the colour red?" Cujie asked in confusion.

"Huh?" Des blinked, looking equally confused. "I mean, I'm colour blind, how could I like a colour that I can't even see? Somehow, it just sounds right..."

As 'Des' settled into his life in the village, his Life Essence continued to slip away.