--==Chapter 45: Oberon. Sam.--==

I walked behind and to the side of Alice as she led me back to the hospital's rear entrance. When we got to the lobby by my spawn point, she turned, as though to be sure I was still following, and gestured toward the exit. "After you."

She had gotten quiet after bandaging my wounds, and the walk had been kind of tense. I still didn't have a weapon, but Alice carried a club like she was ready to use it. It was understandable, considering we still didn't know where Crowdent came from. I kept my own eyes open as I crossed the lobby. I hadn't seen any sign of Denis or Anderson and wondered where they'd gone to look for Nia.

Then again, Alice might have already sent them to wherever we were going.

Walking through the automatic double doors, I almost felt nostalgic. For once, it had been more than a couple hours since I'd seen this place. I'd actually got a nap in since I was here last. The multiple assaults set aside, I'd had worse days. With Alice's help and some luck, Jon and I could get caught up and devise a plan for future loops.

If we were all meeting up outside, there might already be a plan, but whatever we did, I wanted to make sure Jon got a copy of the comic explaining my change. I needed a memory crystal or two to ensure the comic would persist at the start of the next loop. It was dumb not to take care of that earlier, but since I hadn't killed Tickles or Slender Hopper, I hadn't had a memory crystal I could use.

Leaving the hospital made sense as a first step. Between Hands, Crowseph, and all the demons, it wasn't exactly a safe place to be.

The drawback was that visibility was shit outside. The Haze was present inside the hospital, but it was less noticeable. If you've ever looked up from cooking and realized the room had filled with smoke without noticing, you understand what I mean. Inside, the Haze was forgettable; outdoors was a different story.

The shadowy shapes of cars and buildings disappeared altogether less than fifty yards out, but that wasn't my main concern. The trauma monsters were all pale with a green glow. They would blend in almost perfectly in the luminous green fog.

That said, if the monsters were caused by traumas, the hospital would only get more dangerous as terrified and injured people showed up. I'd say it was a miracle that we didn't have more trauma monsters running around the hospital, but then the why of it hit me.

Most people coming to the hospital would automatically go to the ER. How many had come looking for help, only to stumble onto Crowseph and become part of their swarm? That wasn't likely to change as long as Crowseph haunted the hospital.

I wanted to help.

The hospital would be worth fighting for if it were just the trauma monsters like Tickles and Slender Hopper. It might be worth the struggle, even with Hands and the drone mystery. I wasn't an expert in emergency response, but hospitals seemed like a natural rallying point. People would keep showing up here, feeding themselves to Crowseph.

I didn't have the shadow, though, so there wasn't much we could do to permanently stop them. On top of that, Crowseph could shift into a behemoth or split into a large flock of crows. Even if we managed to gang up on them and use guns or something to hurt them, they could just turn into a flock and swarm us or scatter in retreat. Without my shadow to make it permanent, it would be a lesson in futility.

But then, while I didn't know who had my shadow, I could be reasonably sure it was nearby. Someone here was making drones, after all.

Leaving Crowseph behind us would let them grow uncontested until they spread through the entire city. Potentially anyway. They were also after the shadow, and I couldn't imagine that would result in anything but disaster.

It might be safer to leave, and even knowing all this, I wasn't entirely against the idea. Who knew what resources might be out there that could help us. For that matter, even if I didn't have the shadow, someone was making use of it. There was no reason they couldn't use it to defeat Crowseph.

Then again, they were apparently using the shadow to steal people's free will, so they weren't much different from Crowseph when it came down to it, just less overtly dangerous.

Either way, I understood why Alice and company would want to pack up and go. I was right there with them.

Alice was hanging back for some reason, and I couldn't see well enough through the Haze to tell where we were going. Looking back over my shoulder, she pointed toward the patrol car. It seemed like the Haze was getting worse. I was pretty sure I'd been able to see that far through the Haze before, but now it was just a shadowy splotch.

As I walked across the parking lot, Jon and Anderson started to come into view next to the patrol car. My mouth automatically fell open in a doggy grin, and I sped up.

Finally.

For some reason, Anderson was in just an undershirt rather than wearing his scrubs top.

"He doesn't believe you're Sam," Alice said from behind me.

It took me a second to realize she meant Jon and not Anderson.

It made me hesitate, but only for a moment. I could see why Jon would find it hard to believe, but I would just have to draw something that would only have meaning to the two of us. Maybe the layout of our apartment or some moment from our childhood. It shouldn't be hard, at least not harder than what I'd already done, plus I wasn't alone this time.

As I got closer, Jon drew his pistol, and my doggy grin lessened. He didn't point it at me, but he watched me with disgust on his face.

Ok, he really doesn't believe it's me, I thought.

"Oberon," Alice said. I winced at her dropping my real name for Jon's sake. "I told you I had more questions. Can you explain why we found Maebe here, where you spawn?"

"You forgot to mention, naked and covered in this creature's fur," Jon said, anger evident in his voice. "Demon, what did you do?" Jon growled as he and Anderson stepped aside so I could see Maebe propped up in the driver's seat, wearing Anderson's too-large scrubs top.

Caught completely off guard, my mouth fell open.

"Look at it, it's smiling," Jon sneered.

"Or he's surprised," Anderson said, looking embarrassed.

I closed my mouth. Why the hell am I the suspect? Ok. She had some blue fur on her. That was weird, but she could have picked it up anywhere. I wasn't exactly hypoallergenic. As far as her being naked and in my spawn point? I had only one idea: I was being set up.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I raised the notepad I'd stolen from the OR and pulled out my pen, trying to think of what I could draw to express my innocence.

I drew a stick figure of a wolfman wearing a blindfold and then another one in which I was lying on a bed with a syringe sticking out of my chest.

"He's not even looking at her. He's just making shit up." Jon said, contempt in his voice. The ass was jumping to conclusions and would make me work to prove my innocence.

He is going to feel so dumb when he finally catches up, I thought as I sketched.

"I've not seen him do anything but be helpful," Anderson said in my defense, bless the man.

"Denis said it was keeping a demon alive. Why was that? You may have only seen it be helpful, but that doesn't mean it's only been helpful. It might just mean you're blind. Wasn't there another woman supposedly watching it? You don't think we'll find her in the same state as Maebe here?" Jon asked.

Normally, he wasn't this much of a jerk. But I could understand why he'd be on edge.

"Alice, didn't you say you would be bringing a patient out with you?" He added.

Alice was quiet for a second, and when she spoke, I winced. "He's dead. Disembowled by something."

"And here's something now. Something covered in blood and bandages. Sounds like a struggle to me. That's what we call 'probable cause' at the station."

I needed to draw something else, something to show him I was who I said I was.

Tearing the top page off the notepad, I handed it to Alice. It seemed straightforward enough. I was blind to what happened because I was drugged unconscious.

I sketched our apartment's floor map quickly, but without being able to label things, I wasn't sure Jon would recognize it as ours.

Flipping the page, I started again.

"What was that?" Anderson said.

Alice shrugged, "It looked like a floor plan for something, but I didn't recognize it."

"No, I mean in your hand," Anderson asked.

"Nothing we didn't know. He's saying he was drugged by Denis. To his point, he was still by the elevators when I found him; he might have just woken up."

"Or it was a ploy to make you doubt the obvious," Jon said before sighing. "Look, I think it's great you guys are willing to see the good in everything. But this is the apocalypse. I'm out here looking for people that I can help. I'm even willing to concede that this demon isn't as violent as the rest. But how long will that last? Even if this was somehow Sam, which I don't believe, that would just mean the Sam I knew was gone. That," he said, pointing at me, "is a demon. They are violent and murderous. It's their nature. If this one is smart, it doesn't make it a person; it just makes it more likely it did that." he said, gesturing at Maebe.

My chest felt tight at how he was talking, and my eyes burned without watering. I wanted to cry. I wanted him to understand. I wanted him to care, to want to care.

As it turns out, it's hard to come up with simple sketches that so perfectly encapsulate a memory that your best friend will immediately recognize you, even if you're mute and monstrous. At least it's hard to do when put on the spot.

I sketched two of the characters from my webcomic. Jon should recognize them, and he knew they were loosely based on us. I gave one of them a police badge and drew them behind the wheel of the patrol car. The other I drew sitting in my seat and grabbing the steering wheel, just like I'd done at the beginning of all this.

When I finally handed it to Jon, he frowned but took it after a moment.

I'd been drawing on the hood of the car and hadn't noticed that Denis had joined the group with an empty wheelchair and Maebe had been loaded up.

Jon quickly scanned the picture, "No. I'm not doing this. Either you were Sam, in which case I've lost my friend already. Or you know something about what happened to them, which seems way more likely. Alice. I'm voting no. I've got to think about more than just one or two lives. There's no way Kay or the others would let one of them in. Demon. Stay out of the hospital. Leave the area. Next time I see you, I'll probably be shooting."

Dude, what the fuck. Truthfully, I shouldn't be surprised. Jon's mind had always been impossible to change once he'd made it.

"Sir, come on, I'm telling you, he's a good guy," Anderson said on my behalf. "Denis over here literally stabbed and poisoned him, and Sam's barely even glanced at him. If it were me, I'd definitely have hit him by now." I'd rarely felt such gratitude for someone.

"And are you going to explain to pastor Kay that she shouldn't worry about the Seven-foot tall werewolf that was the last one to see how many missing persons? One of which, by the way, is her 12-year-old daughter? You're literally asking me to bring a wolf into her flock. As I said. No."

"Alice, come on," Andersons persisted. "We'd be dead without his warning. You'd be dead and a part of Crowseph's Murder."

Anderson was my new favorite person. I looked at Alice with puppy dog eyes.

Alice looked at me with an unreadable expression for a few seconds, but before she could speak, Jon interrupted.

"Yeah. I know I said, 'I vote,' and so you think you also get a vote. That's a right you have to earn. We control almost the entire hospital. So I'm telling you all now, it's not up to you. You're all welcome to come back inside. The demon is welcome to take off, which is pretty generous considering what it's suspected of."

"Oberon. Sam. Do you know where Nia is?" Alice Asked.

I took the picture I'd already drawn out of her hands. Next to the sketch of myself with the syringe sticking from my chest, I drew a smaller person wearing a large backpack and handed it back.

That was the last I'd seen of her.

"Alice. It doesn't matter. You can either stay out here with it or come back inside without it."

Alice glared at Jon but didn't say anything. She instead just turned and started walking back to the hospital, the picture clenched in a fist. Denis followed after, pushing Maebe in the wheelchair. He'd always kept people between us and always kept an eye on me. I was not a fan.

"Sorry, buddy,” Anderson said, patting my shoulder and walking back to the hospital. “And thank you. You saved us. I wish I could do more than wish you good luck."

Jon just raised an eyebrow at me and walked backward, hand on his gun, until he was out of lunging distance. Then he turned and followed the others back inside.

Shit.

--==