Vera laughed.

“And you think Casi here is your promised savior?”

Danton didn’t bother to argue any longer and merely fixed her with a level gaze.

“Suit yourself,” Vera said and shrugged. She spared the last passing glance at Casimir who was still lying sprawled on the floor.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around, Casi,” she said with a smile and left.

As the sound of her footsteps died off, Casimir’s apartment became eerily silent. Only the sickening stench of burnt hair that still lingered in the air hinted at what had transpired.

With the rush of adrenaline subsiding, Casimir began to feel lightheaded. He dragged himself onto a nearby chair and let out a long breath.

“What the hell just happened?”

Danton didn’t answer.

Casimir didn’t seem to mind, as if he wasn’t expecting an answer to begin with. Instead he raised his fingers to the cut on his throat. It was shallow, not much deeper than a cut one might get when shaving. But his fingertips were red and he could also see dark blotches on the collar of his shirt.

He took a queasy gulp as saliva started to overflow in his mouth.

“Vera…” he started, “She really was going to kill me…”

Danton remained silent.

Gingerly, Casimir tried to inspect his face, but even the slightest contact with his freshly burnt skin sent out waves of stinging pain.

“FUCK!”

He turned his head towards the desk where Danton was lying.

“And what about you,” he barked out. “Earlier, you couldn’t shut your mouth for one second and now you have nothing to say?”

“Answer me!”

Something powerful was rising in his chest. He just had a brush with death. He almost died. Murdered, by his own friend. A girl he rode on a bus with. A girl he knew well enough to know which jokes she liked. A future peer in the science community.

She.

Almost.

Murdered him.

The idea that it was all a delusion still floated somewhere in the corner of his mind, but it grew dim. No more relevant than the abstractions like the meaning of life or existence of God. In the face of death all such thoughts were rendered immaterial.

Only the image of the blade on his throat and the vacant expression in Vera’s eyes kept flashing in his mind.

“DANTON!” he finally screamed at the top of his voice.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

He abruptly rose from the chair and marched to his desk, pounding the ground with each step.

He could barely contain the fury in his heart. It was as if all the fear that he didn’t have time to experience before suddenly erupted and caught on fire.

“Answer me, you goddamn rat!”

He had to shout, because as soon as he stopped, the memory of the knife pressing against his throat would return.

Danton, however, remained as still before.

Casimir was momentarily silenced as the state of the creature became gradually apparent to him.

Its body laid limply on the desk, partially covered in the mess of crumpled up papers. The queerily large eyes were now closed, hidden behind a layer of leathery skin. Even its fur became matted and dull.

“Oh no, you don’t! You don’t get to do that now!” Casimir shouted at the unmoving body.

He raised his fists as if planning to beat the rat back into consciousness, but then let them drop helplessly. The tears that he held back for so long finally started to well in his eyes.

“Why…”

“I don’t understand…”

The anxiety that had been building up in his heart had finally found its release. He slumped to the ground with a dull thump, and with his hands wrapped around his knees, fell into an exhausted sleep.

***

“Savior…”

“Savior…”

Casimir blinked his eyes in confusion. His cheek was firmly pressed against the floor of his apartment and in his sleep addled state, it took him a while to reorient himself.

The fresh perspective didn’t offer much in the way of encouragement. Instead, he could witness a veritable fluffle of dust bunnies infesting nearly every available space under his sofa and bookshelves, wherever the vacuum wouldn’t easily reach.

I will have to commit a day to cleaning the apartment...

“Savior, you need to wake up…”

What time is it…?

He tried to reach for the phone in his pocket, but discovered that he couldn’t feel his arm. A sideways glance revealed that the rest of his body seemed to be using it as a cushion.

Oof, that’s gonna hurt when I wake up…, he thought incoherently.

It was already dark, anyways. Whatever he had to do, he could leave it for tomorrow.

“Savior…”

But a voice kept calling him.

“MMfGghhmp--” Casimir muttered in response.

“You need to wake up, Savior…”

The voice had a pleasant cadence to it. And the way it kept repeating after itself made it almost like a lullaby. A gentle smile appeared on Casimir’s lips as he grew relaxed and his breathing instinctively slowed down.

And then a cup crashed on his head.

“Bloody hell!” Casimir screamed, jumping up from the floor. Doing this in one motion proved to be a mistake. His neck grew accustomed to its 30 degrees bent and abruptly straightening it out felt like it came at a cost of at least several vertebrae.

The arm he had used as a cushion was completely paralyzed and unfeeling, but he could already the tingling sensation begin to set in. Soon he would experience what a whole store section worth of pins and needles stabbing into his nerves felt like.

“Fucking hell!” Casimir screamed yet again.

“I’m glad to see you’ve awoken, Savior.”

Casimir stared with bloodshot eyes at the creature sitting on his desk. Suddenly, a flood of memories came rushing back.

“Fuck me...”

Danton didn’t seem to be moved by the unmistakable look of aversion in the eyes of the fated one of his people. Perhaps he wasn’t in a state to.

Whatever had happened to him, his debilitation did not limit itself to the physical. Whereas before there was a great sense of presence to the creature - back when it threatened Vera, Casimir could’ve sworn the chinchilla had grown to the size of a giant - now it had lost its aura of uniqueness.

Alongside with that aura, the creature reverted closer to its animal side. If there was a special expression in its gaze, Casimir was not able to tell.

“We need to talk, Savior…”

Casimir met Danton’s eyes and considered him in silence.

Finally, he answered: “I’ll brew some coffee.“