--=-Chapter 14: There's Not That Many Chips.--=-

There was a hospital map on the wall across from the elevators. It would work for my purposes. Or a least, it would work for my purposes if I could get my backpack. When Maebe had been wheeled toward the rest of the group, my bag had gone with her.

I tried to move slowly and smoothly to not alarm anyone. Alice and Nia were holding each other and just getting through the moment. I heard Alice say. "I'm so Sorry, Nia. I knew, somehow. As soon as I saw you, I knew something had happened to him."

"Hey, Alice." Pointy chin man said, weaponizing his chin to gesture my way.

Alice looked up and saw me slowly walking toward them, looking at my backpack. With a doctor's professionalism, she asked, "Oberon? Thank you for protecting Nia and getting her to me, safe," But even then, she took a step back, pulling Nia with her.

Nia looked over her shoulder at me. "It's ok, Alice. He really is nice. He was in the car with me when the other monster attacked. He saved me. Look, he's just going for the backpack; you can tell from his eyes."

I gave a doggy grin to back up what she said and acted friendly but kept moving toward the chair. I tried to telegraph my movements hoping they wouldn't run away with my bag.

"Alice." Pointy chin said again as I got closer to the group.

"I know, Denis. 'Oberon,' I recognize your name. Nia loved that dog, and it broke her heart that it died hard like it did. I don't know if it's a good sign that she chose the name for you, but she thought the world of that dog, so she's showing a lot of goodwill, a lot of trust. I'm going to try to do the same."

Pointy-Chin, Denis, didn't seem to agree. He retreated back into the waiting room they'd all been in when we arrived, closing the door behind him.

My plan had two parts. The second part was to get my bag and use a marker to draw on the hospital map. First, however, I crouched and picked up the note card that Nia had dropped as she and Alice came to terms with their loss. I needed them to understand that this was a time loop and the danger wasn't yet over. With smooth movements, I extended the card to her. I guess they weren't the only ones who were nervous.

Cautiously, Alice reached out and took the card.

"It says we're in a time loop, like Groundhog's Day," Nia said, emotion still evident in her voice.

"That's my handwriting. I don't remember writing this. And that bit of crystal," and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a memory crystal at least as large as Slender Hoppers. "This one's whole, but they're definitely the same, right?"

"Anderson was talking about having Deja Vu," the blonde woman said, getting closer to read the note.

"Yeah, and you and Denis were terrified right before the spider monster appeared. It was like you knew something was going to happen." the graying man said. I assumed he was Anderson, but it was technically possible Anderson was someone I hadn't seen yet.

"Yeah, but we didn't know why. Something about how you looked around put me on edge." The woman said.

"I didn't know what was coming either. I just suddenly felt like I was in a scary movie, and the monster was right behind me. I wasn't even scared, really; I just knew something was going to happen."

"Personally, I was terrified." The blonde woman said. "It was like waking up, terrified, from a nightmare you can't remember. Then that giant spider showed up, and I knew I was going to die. And I don't think it was any different for Denis."

"What about you, Nia? Do you have any weird memories?" Alice asked.

Nia shivered. "I don't know. Sometimes things seem familiar, but I don't know."

While they were talking, I eased my backpack off the chair. None of them took their eyes off me for long, but they also didn't try to stop me. Maebe sat unmoving. I hadn't been sure before, but compared to Alice and her crew, let alone Nia, Maebe had no green glow.

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The first time I'd seen an aura on a person was when Nia showed up with horns and bat wings. That possibility didn't seem as unlikely now as it did then, but even the aura Nia had now was nothing compared to what she had in that form. And none of them had anything close to the glow of Tickles and Slender Hopper. Instead, it was a barely perceptible aura that surrounded everyone faintly. Not that I had any idea if there was any significance to it; it was interesting, though.

Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out my notebook, a Sharpie, and the memory crystals. I also pulled out the bag of open chips. I Might as well be neighborly. I popped one in my mouth and offered the bag to the woman with the strawberry-blond hair. Apart from Nia, she'd been most willing to approach me, even if it was just to retreat with Maebe.

Hesitantly she took a few steps forward and took the bag. "Uh, thanks, Oberon," She said, helping herself to a few chips before passing the bag to Anderson.

"Jesus, Jessica," Denis's voice said from the other side of the door. He was peering through the glass but didn't look willing to come back out. Well, at least I knew all their names now.

"It's fine," Jessica said. "Stay in there, though; there's not that many chips."

I opened my mouth in a grin and pulled out another snack-sized bag of chips, and raised it up so Denis could see it.

"Fuck, he really does understand, doesn't he? This is beyond strange." Anderson said.

"What, no Deja Vu about the chips?" Alice asked.

"No. I mean, not really. It does feel familiar—like I've been here before, but I couldn't tell you what will happen next. What about you, Alice? You didn't have the same sixth sense about the giant spider as the rest of us, but you knew something would come through the vent before any of us did."

Bingo. Or, well, close enough to Bingo. I was developing a better idea of where it would be safe to set Maebe and Nia's spawn points.

That brought me to the other part of my plan. I went over to the map and pulled out my marker. It wouldn't be to scale, but I drew a picture of a car on the building map. The parking lot wasn't part of the map, but I estimated and hoped Nia could piece it together for them. I drew two stick-figure faces inside the car, then added ears and a snout to mine after a moment of uncertainty.

"What's he doing?" Anderson asked.

"I don't know," Alice said, "Nia?"

Nia walked over beside me and watched me draw. Unlike the others, she'd gotten over most of her fear.

"I think that's the car I was in. We crashed right by the back door like that."

I needed to make sure I didn't set their spawn points where there would be monsters. Part of me knew that, even if I messed up, time would just loop and give me a chance to fix it. But that kind of thinking took a heartlessness I neither possessed nor envied, so I drew on the map. I drew a picture of a generic-looking monster face with jagged teeth and black eyes. It didn't look anything like Tickles or Slender Hopper, but it just needed to be recognizable as a monster.

I drew a second monster face in the rear lobby.

"He's drawing where the monsters were."

"Why?" Anderson asked.

Nia shrugged. "I don't know."

When my doodles were finished, I offered the marker to Alice. She hesitated momentarily, her eyes flickering to Nia standing next to me. Then she took a deep breath and walked forward to take the marker.

"We, the four of us and some others, were in surgery when the Vortex lowered on Forest Lake. It was too dangerous to move the patient, so we volunteered to stay and finish up. That was in this room." Alice said, circling the surgical suit toward the front of the building. It—the monster, whatever it was—came from the vent in the ceiling. It's the only one we've seen."

"Which is actually just that room right over there. We've not done much exploring." Anderson said, pointing at a room just down the hall.

It would have to be enough. I could easily change Maebe and Nia's spawn points to this hallway, but using the waiting room or one of the locker rooms would be better. Even an elevator would probably be a decent spawn point, so long as the elevator wasn't in a different spot when the day looped.

No matter where I set it, when the day looped, Nia, at least, would be disoriented. Maebe would be too, assuming she wasn't catatonic again. Someplace recognizable and enclosed would hopefully give them a chance to orient themselves.

Changing their spawn would make the beginning of my loop easier, but it would also come at the cost of ignorance. Nia wouldn't necessarily know what happened to her dad or that monsters were wondering about. If I tried to join their group again in later loops, I wouldn't be bringing any lost lambs with me; I'd just be another monster. Memories did seem to be seeping through the loops or something, so—with a smidgen of luck—one of them would recognize me. It didn't really matter, though. If Hands or someone else managed to trap me and change my spawn point, they'd both be helpless against their attackers.

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