--==Chapter 15: Keep It Away From Me.--==
I walked up to Maebe. Eyes still followed me but with more curiosity and less fear than when I'd first appeared. Denis was the exception. He was still peering out at me from the waiting room. I decided that room was as good a place as any to use as a spawn point. With my furry hands on the chair, I wheeled Maebe toward the closed door.
"Oberon?" Nia asked. I considered trying for a chuff of amusement, but now wasn't the time to try new emotes, so I stuck to my open-mouthed grin and reached past Maebe to open the door.
"No, stop. You stay out there!" Denis yelled at me through the door, going so far as to smack the glass to scare me off. I don't know if there was a lock on the door, but if there was, he didn't think to use the lock. Maybe he didn't know I could open doors.
Turning the handle and giving the door a hefty push, I walked into the room, pushing Maebe ahead of me. Nia, Jessica, Alice, and Anderson filed in after me. It was a small waiting room, complete with a vending machine, bathroom, chairs, and an old man lying on a gurney. I assumed that was the surgery patient Alice had mentioned. They'd apparently been huddled up in this room for safety when we'd showed up.
"This is the most bizarre day. But I guess I'm here for it." Anderson said, following in behind me.
"Not me," Denis said, slipping back into the hallway.
I held a memory crystal in each hand. It was time to find out if I could do this. I focused on the center of my brow, on connecting through that point out to the crystal in my right hand, the smaller of the two crystals, and imagined pressing my intent into the crystal. I wasn't even visualizing anything; I was just focused on connecting to the crystal.
I could feel the draw increase. When it felt about right, I relaxed my efforts with a huff of expelled breath.
The crystal snapped, and a crack spiderwebbed across its surface; a pulse like an all-sensory squeal echoed through me, making me shiver and sneeze.
"What is it doing?" Denis called from outside the room, the door once again closed.
Had I broken it somehow? Tentatively I focused on the crystal again. That squeal hadn't felt painful; it just felt very "loud." Once again, I felt the draw increase, but I could tell the crystal wanted to snap closed.
Do I have to hold the crystal in this "open" state? There was maybe a better way, but I had to be careful. This crystal was smaller than Hands's. I wasn't sure how much abuse it could take; I could experiment more when it wouldn't risk lives. For now, I maintained my focus of intent on the crystal.
The crystal was humming to my senses. I wasn't sure if this would work on Maebe in her catatonic state. I was more concerned about Nia's spawn anyway, so I tossed the crystal to her, expecting her to catch it reflexively like I had.
She did not. She screamed and backed away as it got close, startling everyone and taking me aback. Eyes followed the crystal, and Anderson started walking toward it. It had been stupid to toss it; there was no way I would get there before him, at least not without creating a panic. Trying not to let it snap closed, I eased back the mental pressure I'd been applying. I would have to play with it more; the sensations were still clumsy and uncertain. Thankfully it was enough, and the crystal didn't crack again or overload my senses.
Anderson picked up the crystal. "Strange, for a second, it was like this was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It is pretty, though. Nia, you didn't want it?" he asked, holding it out to her.
"Stop, keep it away!" She shrieked, backing up more.
Strange.
"Nia? What's wrong?" Alice asked.
"It's wrong. Hateful. Keep it away from me." She said, half-hiding behind Alice.
Did she know it was from Tickles? Was that why?
I focused on Slender Hopper's memory crystal until it hummed with invitation. This time I just held it out toward Nia. I felt the eyes of everyone on it.
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"How are you doing that?" I heard Jessica ask.
Nia was tentative as she reached for the crystal, but there was none of the repulsion she'd been showing toward Tickles's memory crystal.
There was a snap, and my mind was suddenly pushing against nothing, leaving me dazed for a second. Ok, something to be careful about.
"What was that?" Nia asked, looking at the crystal with awe. Gently I took it back from her. If something happened to the crystals, her spawn point could still be reset.
Taking the crystal from Anderson as well, I once again pressed my intent into it. I was about to put it in Maebe's hands when I hesitated. I wasn't sure what would happen when she respawned. My mask had come with me, but I couldn't be sure the wheelchair would. So, before anyone could stop me, I picked her up and moved her to one of the waiting room chairs.
"Oberon. Please, put Maebe down." Alice said, sounding a little panicked. I already was, but clearly, it was too early in our relationship to do startling actions like that. With Maebe situated, I placed Tickles's memory crystal in her hand, which produced another snap as it made contact.
With that, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. That was a huge responsibility off my shoulders. Well almost. After all, Hands also showed me that a spawn point would be reset if the associated crystal was destroyed.
"Oberon, what is it? What are you doing? Can you draw it?" Nia asked.
I could wrap the crystals in the blanket and pack them in my backpack, but I could only imagine the hospital had safer places.
I considered for a second what I could draw that would convey everything I needed. I needed them to understand they'd spawn in this room if the crystals were kept safe, but if the crystal broke, their spawn would reset. I had a pretty good idea too. I took a notebook from my backpack and drew a few rough sketches. The whole time Alice and crew watched and whispered amongst each other. My ears picked up some of it, but I was focused on what I was doing. It wasn't my best work, but I didn't want to spend a ton of time on it anyway. I'd been leaning against a reception desk while I drew.
Finished, I walked over to Alice. As I got close, I saw she was fighting an instinct to step back; I held out my pen.
She reached out to take it. "What?" She asked, looking between my eyes and the pen. I gestured at the notecard she was still carrying. She looked at it again. It was a count, though incomplete. "Number of time loops I've counted:" There were several lines of crossed-out numbers on the notecard; the last line had "71, 72, 73". She looked at the card and then the pen and then understood.
"Oh, you want me to write 74?" She shrugged and updated the card before handing both the card and pen back to me.
This was going well. I walked back into the hall, followed by everyone except Maebe and Alice's patient. The hospital map was on the wall across from the elevators, right on the corner; I walked up to it and waited for the others to join me.
I ignored Denis slipping back into the waiting room. It was interesting that—as scared as he clearly was—he was still sticking nearby. I wasn't sure if that was from fear of being on his own or from concern for his friends. Likely it was motivated by both. Out in the hall, I walked up to the map and waited until everyone could see what I was doing.
It was interesting to see the different reactions I was getting from Alice's group. Denis was clearly scared. Alice herself seemed to remember me, or at least my name, which was interesting since I couldn't remember meeting her. Anderson seemed more intrigued than anything, like he wanted to find out what would happen next; not that he wasn't also nervous, but his curiosity was winning out for the moment. The only ones that weren't nervous were Nia and Jessica. Nia had obviously been hesitant to trust me, but after she was sure I wouldn't bite, she warmed up to me fairly quickly. Jessica seemed alternately puzzled and interested—like I was an illusion to be pierced, not feared.
I held up a picture I'd drawn of Nia. I was a cartoonist, not a realist, so the resemblance was there, but it was far from a mirror. I then put Alice's card on top of Nia's portrait and covered 72, 73, and 74, so only 71 showed. I pressed her picture onto the map where I'd previously drawn Tickles and the patrol car and held it there for a moment. Then I pulled it away and pressed it back against the car twice more, displaying the subsequent number each time. Then, I took out the memory crystal Nia had touched and placed it, the notecard, and her portrait at the "you are here" mark on the map and pointed to the now-revealed '74'.
I was starting to get the hang of communicating. That 74 had almost tripped me up—because I blanked on what it actually meant for a second—then I remembered I just needed to point to the last spot. Still, people don't wake up expecting to play charades with a werewolf during the apocalypse, so I repeated the whole thing several times, counting with the card, 71,72,73, and then on 74, adding the memory crystal and moving Nia's portrait.
"I think I get it," Anderson said.
I repeated my actions with a drawing of Maebe sitting in a wheelchair, first positioning her in the lobby near my Slender-Hopper monster icon and then moving her to the 'You are here' spot with her memory crystal.
"He's saying the next time we do this day, Nia and Maebe will start right here?" Alice started.
"Or maybe in the waiting room, where they touched the crystals?" Jessica asked. I looked at her and grinned my confirmation as best as I could.
I then took out a drawing of a safe, I was running out of hands, so I placed it on the ground and put both memory crystals in it. And placed Nia's and Maebe's portraits in their new spawn points with the notecard displaying 74. Then I put a drawing of shattered crystals on the floor and moved the crystals onto that drawing. I put the portraits back in their original spawn points and gave them a meaningful look.
My ears twitched; I'd heard a quiet thud from the hall to my right, the one Nia and I had come down. I stepped backward to get a better view down the hall but didn't see anything.
"We have to keep the crystals safe, or we'll end up being attacked by the monsters again," Nia said quietly, returning my attention to my goal.
"We have lockers right over there," Anderson said. "We can lock them up in there."
"We can lock them up... in the lockers, huh?" Jessica teased him.
"Shut up-" Shots rang out, interrupting Anderson and sending everyone ducking and running. My body slammed backward into the elevator door as I registered that I'd been shot again.
Shit. Hands's goons? Everything happened fast, and I could hardly orient myself through the screaming sensation radiating from my arm and blinding all other senses. So I wasn't looking around for answers in that moment, but I was pretty sure I saw two men at the end of the hall to my right.
Alice, Nia, and the others ran toward the closest open door, which was surprisingly the waiting room. Inexplicably, Dennis had opened the door when the shots rang out. He was hissing and waving people to hurry inside. Jessica and Anderson pushed Nia and Alice forward, but they all made it inside in moments. Dennis began to close the door, and I heard Nia's voice shout a protest, but she was cut off as it slammed shut and a lock engaged.
I guess there was a lock.
I wasn't far behind them, but it was for the best. Whether these were Hands's goons or intrepid monster hunters, they apparently didn't care about collateral damage. That, or they were confident in their aim. In our panic, we'd abandoned the memory crystals. I could only hope they'd remember what I said; otherwise, I'd be doing this all over again next loop.
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