SAVE POINT 7
Dormouse
"All the times I've been nice to you, and this is what I get for it?" I lamented at Rosabella, looking down at the very dangerous pill perched on my fingertip. Everyone except me seemed to be fine with the plan—no nervous swallowing, no sweating palms like mine. Goddammit! Why did I have to eat the fucking free donuts laced with trackers?! I knew The Game was technologically advanced, but this was an aspect of that growth I was currently hating. That and this stupid pill. I glanced at it again. Oh, what powers the medical community had over us mere mortals...
"It says here that one should do the trick," Mimi said, turning over the pill box where she'd been squinting at the tiny, black text on the back. The freckles on her nose stood out even more in this lighting—or was I just trying to focus on anything other than the task at hand?
One pill.
"Good," I whispered, "'Cause I'm not taking two."
"Dormouse, you know why we have to do this—" Rosabella started. Her eyes held a warning and gravity I didn't want to mirror back at her.
I squinted, pretending not to understand, but it was part of the joke, "Because I ate too many donuts?"
"And, now, you have to pay the price for it," Sparo dictated, looking more than a little aggravated by how long this entire situation had already taken, "Swallow the damn pill already, will you? If that asshole Goran gets anymore of a head start on us, he'll have lapped us ten times."
And that's why I was here.
In this lose-lose situation.
In an empty church with a bathroom the size of a closet and a pill that was gonna put me in there for at least an hour...probably longer.
All to extradite a tracker.
All of them staring at me in this cramped sacristy—a glorified priest's changing room.
Damn it. Maybe life was better when I wasn't a Game Warden, discontinued or not. ...Whoever invented laxatives was a dick.
The church back room smelled like dust and silence—like nothing had moved in the last ten hours...or ten days. Like each breath in here was too much of a disruption. The walls were mostly carved, wood wainscot with religious symbols dotting every few feet and bookshelves holding enormous tomes with gold-edged pages that I'd totally be into sniffing through if I didn't think some sort of alarm was going to go off when I touched them. A thick, red carpet stretched underfoot, and a mahogany table broke up the space, piled high with pamphlets. It was weird being in a church at night but even weirder being back here. Because I was pretty sure even the most lenient of priests would kick our asses out without a second thought. …Yep, sure of that and that Sparo had already tried to break into the wine cabinet…twice…
"At least it's quiet in here," Mimi murmured.
"—So everyone can hear me scream, oh great?!" I protested, "No thank you."
The girl's freckled face fell, and I watched her tuck the ends of her brown bob behind her ears. I knew she meant well, I just...I just wished I'd eaten less at the diner. This wasn't going to be pretty.
"Pop the damn pill, or I'll leave you here and find Prickgada myself," Sparo threatened testily. Maybe it was the idea that he had to spend the night sleeping in a church...or the fact that he had to face his handful of an ex in the morning after stealing her Creator Magic, but the Vodyaracka was in a sour mood.
I gulped.
And I decided they were right—getting rid of the tracker potentially lounging in my intestines at this very moment was most important.
I popped the dry pill onto my tongue.
"Wather?" I mouthed, the word coming out all garbled around the pill.
Rosabella handed me some sort of glass decanter. "All they have is wine," she told me. The crystal glass was heavy as I peered down at it, seeing maroon liquid which filled the bottom. So, I had been right. Sparo had gotten into the cabinet. Wine it was...
And I chugged it, wincing.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
This mission was tasting sourer by the minute.
[Loading…20 Minutes Later…89%]
I couldn't handle; that much was completely obvious to me. That and I felt like I was going to hurl or faint and—goddamn, why did I agree to do this? I preferred not to get into the gritty details of what was actually happening at this point in time, but it felt like my stomach had consciously agreed to split in two and flush the other half out of my body. Fucking, Grand Dragon.
I'd been whimpering; I couldn't hold it back, really. I could only bite back the screams of pain which I figured would break through eventually. Grand Dragon, one tiny pill and this was what it'd done to me?! Reduced me to a sniveling, whimpering kid clutching at his stomach with his pants around his ankles and far too much air wafting onto his bare legs?!
The church bathroom, though private, definitely wasn't larger than a closet. The toilet was so close to the sink that my knees almost brushed the cold porcelain there. And whoever had picked out this wallpaper twenty decades ago should have rethought their decision. A shelf holding a crucifix and a bible was jammed on the side wall, near my elbow and a dusty toilet paper holder, like they didn't want you to forget you were in a church when you were making a movement. …Or else they thought you might want to pray to make up for all the times you’d probably taken the Lord’s name in vain while on the seat… Maybe they weren’t wrong about that bit. This might have been a church, but this was the first time I'd prayed in a long time. Dear Jesus God! Fucking Grand Dragon! Let me survive this and, literally, I will do anything! Make this diarrhea stop, and I will kiss some holy relic or be a master of goodness for the rest of my life! Shit…oh shit!!
"Dormouse? Hey, it's just me, Mimi." The girl's soft voice wafted under the door. She sounded...concerned...kind.
I unclenched my fists at my sides, readjusting my sneakers on the tile floor and trying to muster up enough composure in the pain to talk. "Hey Mimi," I finally sputtered.
I heard her shuffle her feet on the other side of the door like she wasn't sure if she should stay or go. "You okay?" she asked finally.
"Definitely not," I hissed; I had to unclench my teeth to answer. I stared at the grout lines in the floor under my feet, tracing the patterns again with my eyes. I cocked my head to the side, straining to hear the sounds of the girl leaving but… But it didn't seem like she was going away. I watched her shadow pause in the middle of the door and, then, sink—getting smaller like she was sitting there on the other side with her back propped up against the wood?
"When I was a kid and didn't feel well," Mimi started, her words muffled by the door, "my mom would sing to me, and it helped. You want me to try?"
"You sing?" The question popped out of my lips without my acknowledgement. Honestly, somehow, already this conversation was helping. Maybe it was her soothing, bird-like voice or the fact that someone actually cared enough to try to help me. I stared at her shifting shadow, moving again where the door didn’t meet the floor.
"Yeah, I sing a little," the girl admitted. It sounded like she was blushing and, for some reason, that made me smile, imagining her freckled cheeks turning rosy.
I fingered the rough edge of my pants zipper. "Oh, I bet you're real good," I said, honestly meaning it. The girl just seemed like she'd have a good voice.
"Well, it makes it easier that you're on the other side of the door," she chuckled softly, "It'll probably make me less embarrassed."
I heard her shift again and tried to imagine her embarrassed. At the coffee shop, the girl had been sitting by herself. She’d looked comfortable with herself—with being alone. Not scared or bashful. Then again, some people would say I looked confident about things like computer programming, but I got stuck in my head and shy all the time...
"I get embarrassed about lots of things," I confessed. The easy way the admission left my tongue was a quandary in and of itself.
"You do?" Her voice—quiet and shy—was dampened by the wood.
"Sure," I offered quickly, picking at my thumb now, "I—well, girls for one. It's actually a small miracle I can talk to you. I usually seize up like a deer in headlights and can't get anything at all intelligent out—"
"You seem too smart for that," she cut me off, surprising me, "I mean, you hacked into The Game Code."
"And you seem like you'd be a good singer," I countered, smiling a little despite the pain in my stomach, "Just talking helps, thanks."
Silence blanketed us like a worn quilt—somehow comfortable. Then, a wobbling soprano voice started, soft and quivering in the tune of an old fable. Mimi—she was…singing…
"The deer on the low bank graze.
As the sun sets its flickering rays.
Goodnight, sweet child, sleep free tonight.
When you wake again, let it be in light."
She was just as good as I’d suspected. The lulling tune entranced me for a moment of beautiful, raw stillness.
...Except my stomach wasn't still. My insides contorted and clenched with agonizing pulses. "It's getting really bad now," I admitted, bending over and heaving for air.
And, something happened, then.
Something...
Strange.
And...beautiful.
An offer.
"If you open the door a little, I can hold your hand. I won't look—" the girl said.
But, I was a little suspicious.
"You won't let the others look?" The thought of being caught holding a girl's hand with my pants around my ankles literally was enough to make me feel sicker. Grand Dragon, could someone evaporate from pain?!
"I swear on it. I'll guard this door with my life," Mimi vowed.
And I…believed her.
I took a gasping breath. Maybe it’d help. Maybe it’d help this terrible pain— "Okay," I conceded. I adjusted myself on the toilet seat nervously, my eyes darting to the door, "When?"
"Now," she told me.
And the door handle turned, and the door creaked open, allowing a white hand to slip through like a silent dove.
And I reached my hand out and grasped hers—soft and cold, squeezing. And, somehow, it felt like God or the Grand Dragon or whatever had answered my prayers even better than I'd thought. ...Because I was smiling thinking of a girl… And it wasn’t Maude.