-Christine Adler

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!"

I couldn't fully process what was happening, but I could say one thing with complete confidence:

My body had become completely see-through.

This didn't seem to be a hallucination, as the nurse, who was still standing beside the bed, also appeared to share my confusion. A second had passed when I realized that I was sitting upright. The shock and adrenaline must have forced me up -Not that I wasn't already starting to feel the backlash from such a sudden movement in my current state. But these thoughts weren't important right now, I had to figure out what was happening with my body. Turning to the nurse I pleaded for help.

"I...I don't know what's happening!" I said, holding back tears.

That's when I finally looked at the nurse's face. Her gentle smile had returned. I'd expect for her to be freaking out like me, but no. After that initial scare, she was once again completely calm. I couldn't tell why, but something didn't feel right.

She reached towards me, not giving me the time to react. She gently stroked my hair, as a mother would do to their child. A chill went down my spine as she said:

"It's ok Christine, this is all going to be over soon. don't worry." Behind her comforting words, There was a hint of something dark.

That's when I noticed.

First I assumed it was because my senses were still messed up, but since I woke up, I couldn't hear anyone outside since she came into the room, no voices, no walking, nothing. It wasn't impossible to believe they were being quiet, this being a hospital, but even after the loud crash of the pitcher hitting the floor, and me screaming, not a single person came to check on us.

my instincts were screaming at me to run away. I'm still invisible, if I can leave the room I might be able to get away. So I slowly started moving away so I could stand up and make a run for it, but she quickly grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back down.

"L-let me go!" I let out."

"I can't let you, miss Christine. you are still recovering." She responded coldly.

"Recovering from what?!"

"Ooh? Do you not remember? I suppose this does happen from time to time." She gave a mocking laugh, as she let go of me.

There's my chance! or so I thought.

At some point during this interaction, I had become visible again. I looked at my hands, opening and closing them just to make sure they were there. While overjoyed at the fact I was opaque again, this also meant I lost my greatest advantage when it came to running away.

Turning my attention towards the door, I needed to come up with a plan on how I'd escape. Even if I could go past the door, I was still pretty weak from waking up. How far could I go in this state?

Interrupting my train of thought, the nurse stepped over the broken glass and then stopped by the door.

"I'll go get the doctor, please stay put Miss Christine." She waved me goodbye before stopping again as if she forgot something. "Ah right. here, Catch!"

She pulled something small out of her pocket and tossed it at me from across the room in a tall but pretty accurate arc. It fell right in my open palm. It was a ...marble? Like the kind kids used to play with some years ago.

Then my hand got sliced open.

"Guh?!" I winced as I fell out of the now broken bed. A clean line between where my hand was and the still smiling nurse.

Did she attack me with a knife from all the way across? No, that can't be it. I would have seen something!

I hid behind the broken frame for cover.

"What do you want?!" My blood, now dripping from my arm, started to coat my surroundings.

Behind me, another marble hit the floor with a quiet "tap" followed by a loud crash. In a single instant, an unseen force began to sink deep into my shoulder. I screamed in pain as I fell to the floor. a second gash, going in the same direction the last marble had fallen, was now visible on the bed and floor.

"Haha! I was sure that one was gonna do you in." She laughed mockingly. "Come on, let's see how long you last!" And she casually threw another marble right above my head.

My body moved before I could think. Lunging out of the marble's trajectory it hit the ground right next to me. Another loud crash reverberated across the small room -The unseen force came crashing down with full force again, but at that same moment, my back was also struck.

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Another one?!

She must have thrown the first one right within my range to distract me, then threw a second one as soon as I turned!

Turning back to face my aggressor, a devilish smile painted her features as threw the third marble. Launching out of the way I escaped the slash by a hair.

"You figured it out didn't you?" The nurse casually put her hands in her pockets. "This is proving to be pretty fun. So let me make it a little easier for you." She pulled out her hand holding another marble.

"Imagine the area right under my hand, is point A," she said pointing down. "...and where the marble hits the floor, point B." my blood froze when she started the motion to throw the marble my way, but changed it in the last second to the opposite side, causing the same attack as all the other ones." So anything between these two points... gets Cleaved." She chucked. "Fascinating, right? Not a lot of people can handle more than one of these slashes through." she then pulled her other hand out of her pocket.

A fist-full of marbles.

"I'm the Guillotine operator." her voice was oozing with confidence.

The situation is not in my favor. It was already a struggle to dodge her simpler attacks, but if she threw all of those, that would mean certain death for me. She's blocking the only exit to the room, and there are no windows, and I don't think she will listen to anything I have to say.

That means one thing. If I want to survive, I need to go through her.

All I had next to me was where the sheets that fell from the bed along with me. Grabbing it, I dashed towards the door in desperation.

"It's useless!" The Guillotine operator, as she called herself, threw all the marbles in her hand towards me. Getting hit by any of those could prove fatal.

At that same moment, I threw the bed sheets on their way in an attempt to stop the barrage with all my might. The motion was so wide that my glasses almost flew out of my face, but I managed to catch it in time.

Large clouds of dust and debris were raised. The marble guillotines made short work of the thin piece of fabric, but it stopped their momentum enough to prevent them from reaching me.

"That was pretty clever. I'll give you that, but I'm not even close to being done!" she had already prepared another volley of marbles… But she stopped herself.

“...tch.” she clicked her tongue and assumed a defensive stance.

surprised by her reaction I looked around to try and ascertain the situation, and sure enough, something had indeed happened.

“!?”

I’d gone invisible again.

This is my chance!

I steadied myself as she threw the second wave before the smoke had time to settle. A deafening cacophony filled the room followed by silence.

“ahhh…….” A loud sigh broke the standstill.

"So, are you dead?" Said the nurse looking at her watch.

There was no response. All the previously noisy machinery inside the small hospital room was now trashed. The floor and the walls too were in a similarly poor state.

She threw a couple guillotine attacks at random directions hoping for a response, but none came. surely a sign of a job concluded, she probably thought as she pulled out a cellphone.

"Job's done. Her power was not suited for combat, but- ” she said to an unknown listener over the line.

But, shouldn't her power have come undone?

The nurse had been standing at the door this whole time, and this room had no windows. I couldn't have possibly exited it without going through her. But the idea of “what if?” crept into her mind.

It was only for a second, but she turned to look out towards the corridor.

That was my moment. After I managed to turn invisible again, I focused entirely on dodging her attacks, hoping for an opening of any kind. This was not to say her attacks were easy to evade. She was clearly underestimating me and that was a blessing. If she was actively trying to kill me with all she had, I would probably have died in the first attack.

When she turned around to look out the door, I ran towards her as fast I could.

I was already feeling weak before we started fighting, but now, with all the damage I'd accumulated during the fight, I don't think I could possibly outrun her. I wasn't sure how, but I needed to restrain the nurse.

Mustering all the strength I could, I launched myself towards her, grabbing a hold of her hands so she couldn't throw any more marbles.

"Guh!" she spat out as her cellphone fell to the ground. Realizing she had been tricked, she tried to break free from my hold as we both hit the ground with a loud thud.

"P-please stop resisting!" All the emotion of what had just happened had finally caught up to me. tears swelling up at the corners of my eyes. "I don't know what's happening but I-I'm gonna call the Royal guard!"

In my crying, it took me a moment to realize she wasn't actually resisting, in fact, she wasn't moving at all; It seems that when we hit the floor, she'd hit her head causing her to pass out.

"O-oh, no..." I turned her face up. Her bun had come undone, letting her golden hair free on the floor.

“She’s not dead, is she?” I pondered in fear.

Her marble guillotine was a fearsome ability that could easily cut a person in half, although, looking at her right now, she seemed no different from an average person.

“Heeeelp! Someone, please help!” I cried out, but there was still no response. There wasn’t a single person in sight on this long corridor.

“Damn it, where is everyone…”

My body hurt all over. I had just been attacked the moment I wake up from an unknown accident or procedure, had a huge gap in my memory prior to it, and to top all that, I was somehow able to turn my body transparent.

“I just want to go home, and see my sister...” I sighed.

Standing up once again, I propped the sleeping nurse against a wall and emptied her pockets of their marbles in case she woke up again. I felt bad about putting them into the portable toilet that was under the ruined bed, but I assumed that would be the ideal place to hide something.

Making my way out of the room, I peered into the corridor. The lack of windows and weak lights made it seem like something out of a horror movie, and I had no choice but to venture aimlessly into it.

However, someone had different plans.

the sounds of calm steps slowly began approaching from the darkness of the corridor.