---=Chapter 7: She must not have seen the cape.---=

I knew I was waking up because the pain of my apparent nightmare vanished abruptly. The wounds suffered back then were utterly gone—so was the blood and gore that had soaked into my fur. Then again, I still had fur, so the situation was still pretty surreal.

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I was lying on a tile floor, half sprawled out, hand clenched as though holding something, but the crystal was gone when I opened my hand. Another dream? Was all of this a dream, some coma I was failing to wake from?

A woman screamed, and I jumped to my feet, looking around for the monster that had killed me twice. I was still in the lobby—or maybe back in the lobby. However it occurred, I found myself in the lobby with someone screaming and looking my way with dread.

I spun around to look for the danger, raising my arms up reflexively to protect my vitals from the jumping bug monster that I was sure was about to pounce.

Nothing happened; there was nothing there.

Oh, right, It's me; I'm the monster. She must not have seen the cape. Somehow, I was still wearing both the cape and the mask I’d made.

I lowered my arms and looked back at the woman. Her scream cut off with a hiccup as she ducked out of sight behind the desk.

I found myself trying to reconcile the different things I’d seen in the last little while, hoping that somewhere I’d find something to ground my grasp on reality. For example, based on her location and green scrubs, I was almost entirely sure that the hiding woman was also the dead woman the grasshopper had been eating before.

My gorge rose as I remembered the sound of her headless body being masticated by that creature.

Unnerved, I looked around for my weapons of choice. The chair had bounced away when I'd brought it down on the bug, but now it was sitting against the wall again. My backpack was nowhere to be seen, though. Maybe Green Scrubs had seen it.

I didn’t know if any of this was really happening. I kept trying to dismiss the inexplicable events as a dream. I had died wearing my cape and mask but here I was wearing them again. If that death was a dream, then so was this. As surreal as this all was, it was also increasingly hard to dismiss. Maybe this was purgatory, or maybe aliens were playing mind games. I didn't know if I had a responsibility to save Nia or her sister, and I didn't know how to find solid footing in this new reality.

For now, my priorities were based on a reluctance to continue being eaten alive, dream or not.

1: don't get killed or eaten

2: find Jon and other allies

The question was: how could I show Alice—assuming Green-Scrubs was Alice—that I wouldn't hurt her while also watching for monsters?

In the middle of reminding myself about the danger, I saw a pale blur flash behind the desk from an adjacent hallway. I heard the woman scream in pain or panic as the grasshopper hit her. It looked like it hit her in the shoulder, though I could only see the top of her head. My heart raced in my chest at the memory of its teeth driving into me and tearing flesh as it leaped away.

I froze, feeling stuck to the spot.

The thing reappeared, effortlessly jumping across the room to land on another wall. It immediately began lining up another attack.

The woman put a hand on the desk to pull herself off the floor. I could hear her whimpering and crying as she peered over the top of the desk. She was looking back and forth between me and the bug with pleading eyes. I was pretty sure that her pleading wasn’t directed at me, but I had a terrible feeling that I was her only hope.

I don't want to be Obi-Wan. I whimpered internally, afraid to feel like this was up to me, but I took a breath and steeled my nerves.

I didn’t have my bag, but I could probably use the chair for the whole fight, especially if the creature were distracted by the woman.

I sprinted to the chairs by the entrance, my toenails clicking on the tile floor as I ran. Grabbing the first chair I reached, I hefted it to head height, positioning it for a powerful swing. I turned and ran back toward the woman, but the bug was already crouching to spring.

I was going to be too slow.

In a panic, I threw the chair.

To my gleeful surprise, the creature slammed into the chair mid-air and I let out a silent 'woop' and through my fist up in the air in celebration at my small victory.

The monster bug was knocked short of its target, and its limbs got tangled up in the chair. Both chair and insect hit the floor, but the creature's momentum made it roll into the back of the woman’s legs, sending her face-first into the desk and knocking her out cold.

Oops

I ran around the side of the desk, hoping to stomp the creature into the ground before it could recover.

It leaped at my face.

I threw out my hands, making a desperate attempt at catching it. My hands snapped closed on a cool carapace, but the force of its leap sent me staggering back a few steps.

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I was still congratulating myself on avoiding any damage—when it began to kick at my arms with its powerful legs.

Its back feet were like sickles, with the blade running along the outer edge. They sliced large divots in my arms as the monster kicked. I threw my head back and let out what ended up being silence—rather than a roar of pain.

It was thoroughly unsatisfying.

I reeled back and chucked the thing at the wall. It flipped in the air and hit the wall feet first; its legs immediately bent and snapped back in a rebound jump at my face.

My eyes widened in surprise, but pure instinct and luck were on my side as I spun in a quick circle.

I brought my arms close to my chest as I spun, imagining myself an ice skater controlling the speed of my spin with my arms. At the last moment, I threw out my monstrous hand in the strongest backhanded smack I could manage.

The spin attack didn’t work nearly as well without my book-filled backpack, but it stopped the thing’s momentum and sent it rag-dolling back toward the hall.

Pain lanced through my hand as if I'd punched a brick wall, but panicked and fueled by adrenaline; I didn't immediately notice. Then, I reached for the fallen chair, and my hand furiously sent death threats coursing through my body. The pain nearly made my legs give out. There was absolutely no way I would be able to do anything with that hand soon.

A few feet away, the bug was trying to get back to its feet. I was pissed and terrified, so I abandoned the chair and jumped on it, stomping the bug repeatedly before it could get back up. Eventually, its pale carapace began to cave, and I found myself covered in a reeking black gore flecked with shards of white exoskeleton once again.

Panting hard, I looked around. The woman was stirring behind me, but she looked in rough shape. I could hear her crying.

Untying my cape with my uninjured hand, I walked slowly over to her, limping slightly as I put weight on my stomping foot. Slender Hopper's sickle legs hadn't taken my attack passively, and I was leaving bloody footsteps behind me. Hopefully, the limp would just make me look more harmless.

The woman I believed to be Alice had a large knot forming on her forehead and a bloody wound on her arm that needed attention. She looked out of it and probably needed a doctor, which I was not.

As I got closer, I could see a name tag that read "Maebe."

So, Maybe—not Alice, I joked with myself.

Maebe's eyes struggled to focus as she looked at me; then they widened, and she whimpered in distress. She tried to stand and run, but her balance failed her. I couldn’t tell if it was from her panic or from knocking her head a couple of times. Either way, she was down.

Unable to get to her feet, she began to scuttle away on her hands and knees as

quickly as possible. Gently, I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. In retrospect, mine was admittedly a terrible plan.

She lost her mind with fear.

Lashing out wildly, she ruined what balance she had and fell on her side. She rolled over onto her back and kicked at me with surprising strength. I made the mistake of trying to grab her foot with my injured hand, and pain shot up my arm.

Wishing I could swear, I Grabbed her foot with my left hand. If she kept it up, she’d end up hurting herself even worse. Sure enough, her eyes rolled up in her head as she struggled, and she fell limply to the floor, her head hitting with a dull thunk that made me wince.

Double oops

At least I'd have a chance to bandage her wound. The embroidered name on her scrubs read 'Maebe,' but she had similar blonde hair to Nia, who had gone to check on her, so there was a chance she actually was Alice. Then again, I didn’t know if Alice was biologically related to Nia or Titus. For now, I'd assume this person knew their own name and wasn't wearing someone else's scrubs.

Even briefly thinking about Titus gave me an unwelcome flashback of his severed and cauterized arm bouncing over the blacktop. Between that, Maebe's headless body, and my own grizzly deaths, I was collecting a lot of nightmare fuel.

I shuddered and tried to focus on what I was doing.

I tore two strips from the blanket with one hand and my teeth. Probably not the most hygienic bandage, but my options were limited. I folded one strip into a pad to act as gauze for the wound on Maebe's arm, then I wrapped and tied the second strip around her arm to hold the pad in place. It wasn't great—or even clean—but we were already in a hospital. I just needed to stop the bleeding until she could find some people to help. That was assuming there were people to help.

By the time I was done, I could see from her shaking that Maebe was awake and playing dead, likely hoping I'd just leave. I'd done what I could, so I decided to back off, but I couldn’t leave yet. This was the most human I'd felt in a while, and I was hoping Maebe would also see the person, not the monster.

I walked back to the entrance, limping slightly from the sliced flesh—and likely some self-inflicted bruising from stomping the bug into the floor. I sat in one of the remaining chairs and used strips of blanket to bind my own wounds. None of them were too bad, and the bleeding was already stopping. After a minute, Maebe peeked around the edge of the desk and saw me wrapping my foot. Both wrists and my right foot were all bandaged. I added some extra strips as padding for my bruised foot and as support for my fractured hand, which used up the rest of my cape, unfortunately.

I was afraid I'd spook Maebe if I made any sudden movements, so I just shrugged my shoulders as she looked at me with fear. It was one of the first times I’d actually gestured as I’d intended.

“Are you… nice?” She asked hesitantly, as though afraid speaking might trigger an attack.

I, of course, couldn't reply.

Moving without thinking, I knocked on the chair in the old familiar pattern. This time, it actually sounded like the melody ‘Shave and a haircut.’

Maebe tapped the two "2 bits" to complete the knock.

I was on a roll.

Slowly she raised herself up from behind the desk and asked hesitantly, “Do you, um... can you talk?"

I knew people shook their heads and nodded, but I couldn't remember which meant what. I was in the middle of nodding before I realized it, and it took an effort to turn it into a shake of the head. Ultimately, the message was mixed enough that Maebe was understandably confused.

“Okay...” She said.

What just happened? I wondered, frustrated at being unable to speak or even gesture with any kind of coherence. It felt like dyslexia, like saying ‘left’ while pointing right. It was not helpful.

There was something else distracting me as well. That bug’s crystal was calling out to me again, exactly as it had when I lay on the ground dying. Grabbing the stone had been instinctual, and I suspected it was somehow related to why I woke up in the same place I’d ‘died.’

The crystal inside the strange creature felt safe somehow, almost familiar. Still, I didn't know what it was and knew better than to let my curiosity get the best of me...again. Letting out a silent sigh, I stood. I needed to get moving.

Maebe took a step back before a hand came up to the makeshift bandage I’d given her. “Thank you. And thank you for killing that demon,” she said, her voice still shaky.

I tried to nod at her in response, but it turned into just a twitch of my head. It must have managed to get the point across, though, because she nodded back. I’d take the win. Mostly I was just glad nobody was screaming.

Despite the fog of improbability surrounding recent events, I had a bad feeling that I might be piecing the facts together. I'd have to go back to the patrol car to check the theory, but if I was right, I was stuck in a time loop. If I was right, Nia was dead again, and it was my fault for not being there. I’d take any win I could get.

--=

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