“Is the seat belt too tight?”

“I-I guess not. I just gotta… hug my… tail… it’s not that bad. Your car’s not that wide.”

“Geez, don’t ask for so much. Having a car in New Singapura is hard enough.” He paused, thinking of something to say during the silence of the red light. WIthout the car engine running, it was a little awkward. “Do you, uh, want music? Any preferences?”

“Um… do you like showtunes?”

“I’d rather die, I think. Uh, no… pun…? Intended?”

“Jeez! Okay, whatever, let’s just… drive…”

Okay, let’s take a step back. Set the scene, I’m currently in the car of the man who I saved from himself: Gabriel, who is currently driving me to the hospital in his family’s car, which has a tiny dent in the front bumper. On my little excursion to escape existing for a moment, I ended up at a familiar HDB flat, sensing a familiar heat signature, on a very familiar roof. Frenetically, I raced back to that roof, to find him waving to me.

“Uh, I thought… I’d find you if I sat out here.”

“That’s ridiculous! What if I didn’t come this way?”

Silence. He did not think that far.

“Anyways, I just wanted to talk to you. And it’s not like you have an Instagram or a TikTok or a Salamander symbol to shine.”

He knew I’d come and save him again if he needed it. That’s how much faith I had (possibly wrongfully) instilled in him. He had a bashful smile on his face, contrasted to his bulky body. Man, did he put on more muscle? There was pride by proxy that coursed through my veins, like watching your child run around after being down with a flu for a day or so.

“You didn’t do it. Right?” He asked, walking a little closer to me. There was no way he thought otherwise, or he’d be running off. I shook my head and put my hands in the air as if to signal my innocence.

“Okay, great. Because, uh, I got… uh… a favour to ask.”

“Um, if you don’t mind me asking, why do you… smell like that.” The oddity of the question snapped me right out of my reverie. Like a feral beast I sniffed my armpits, noticing nothing. Then again, boys in secondary school did and said the same things before being forced to deodorise.

‘Oh God, do we smell?’

‘Of course we can smell.’

‘Sol!’

‘I jest. It is possible we do. It’s hard to smell yourself, isn’t it?’

“What… do I smell like…?” My voice shook with a tremor unlike any other I’ve had. After all this wasn’t a Salamander issue, this was a Rose one. Look, smell is a big part of impressions, and my ego cannot handle smelling like an amphibian.

“...like pepper?”

‘Huh.’ Sol made us sniff again. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem a lie.

“That’s weird.”

We hit a red light, and immediately he pulled out his iPhone, a few generations old with a small crack on the screen.

“Ah, dude, that’s what…giant chinese salamanders smell like, apparently.”

“Really?”

“I guess you fit… well, I’m not going to assume anything, at least two of those.” It was like talking to a friend instead of a possible war criminal. Trees and street lamps watched over us and traffic rules were obeyed by all parties. It was like an everyday, mundane occurrence.

“Ugh. Three.”

“Seriously? I mean, it’s statistically likely… but you don’t sound…”

“I have two voices coming out of my mouth at once, Gabriel. I’d be surprised if I sounded like anything you know.” I replied snarkily as my tail gently flopped back down onto the other passenger seats.

A bit of idle chatter passed until the car came to a slow halt, pulling over into the New Singapura General Hospital. What are we doing here?

“So you want me to see her.”

“I’m not lying to my mum, Salamander. She wants to meet the person who saved me after I talked to her about it. If nanay does not see you, she will kill me.” No, the irony in that last bit is not lost on me in the slightest. Nor him, judging from the mischief in his voice. I can’t help but smile a bit, he’s really doing better.

“Fine, but I can’t see her like,” I gesture to my everything, “this. Let me change out, I’ll be back here in fifteen.”

And so here we are, the alleged war criminal and person they saved from throwing themselves off a building. An odd pair we made.

“Alright, I’m gonna transform into my regular civilian outfit.” He nods downwards but doesn’t unlock the door, waiting for me to make the switch. In his car.

“Uh, maybe let me out to a more secluded, non-precious area first.”

“Why? You’re disguised already right? Underneath the… thing…? Go ahead lor, I won’t watch. Car’s dark enough.”

“The transformation could set these leather seats ablaze.” I said matter-of-factly. He tilts his head indignantly, wanting to debate me on this hill.

“Leather isn’t flammable.”

“You willing to bet on that?” I asked with a dash of snark. Admittedly, I feel great, despite doing something completely asinine. Defeated, Gabriel turned off the car engine and gestured to me to get out and change. I scuttled over to an area where, presumably, there were no cameras watching, and made the metamorphosis back to Rose.

To my discomfort, I was in a very out of character pink hood, sweatpants, sport shoes, a mask and sunglasses. It may not be a very subtle disguise, but at the bare minimum I wouldn’t be mistaken for the lizard man roaming burning buildings and bombed beaches.

‘We look like-’ Sol starts but I shut them up.

‘Yeah. I know. It sickens me too.’

Not wanting to spend much time in this worse form, I walked back to Gabriel, who looked as if he was seeing a penguin fly. He scanned me, as if trying to overlay the image of the Salamander over the image of Rose.

“You’re a little shorter like this.” He gestured with his hand, doing a faux measurement of his height to mine.

“Not that much shorter.” It was two centimetres. I’ve checked.

‘He’s not much taller than you.’ Sol noted.

‘Astute.’ I’m not sure if I could do it, but I envisioned myself rolling my eyes to Sol, trying to communicate the elusive feeling of ‘ugh’. The chuckle in my head tells me I can do that.

“Alright, Salamander, we’re here.” Moonlight drew our attention to the front entrance of the hospital as we chatted, like we were old friends or siblings visiting our parents. As we entered the smell antiseptic greeted my senses. I clenched my fist as if trying to grasp onto something, the low amounts of movement in the lobby made it feel as though time had stopped.

A foreign thought popped into my mind, telling me that I should probably tell my mum I love her more. The follow up thought to that was the fact that I wouldn’t.

Before we could make our way to the front desk, security personnel scanned us. The detectors never beeped scanning my neck, nor the part of my spine where my tail would normally extend from.

“Man, I don’t remember this kind of security…” Gabriel mumbled to no one in particular.

“Did you see Lucky Plaza today?” I asked rhetorically, to which he didn’t respond nor change his expression. Everyone’s on edge right now. Front desk staff eye me suspiciously, for a moment I forget why, till I remember I’m wearing sunglasses indoors and at night.

“Pull down the hood and take off the shades, you’re scaring everyone. You look like uh, those suspicious looking people in Singapura Secure ads.” He wasn’t wrong.

“I know, but won’t that… give away… who I am?” I fidgeted with the hem of my hoodie, head tilted downwards.

“Sal,” he abbreviated my name (without my permission mind you), “no one is going to look at your eyes and hair and be like ‘Walao! That’s Monica Chng’ or whatever your name is. Relax a bit.” He gave a reassuring smile, and with the soundness of logic of his words and how earnestly he talked to me with, I couldn’t dispute. I slipped off the sunglasses and pulled down my hood, keeping the mask on. It is a hospital, after all.

Gabriel gave his personal details to the front staff, whereas I made him go far away as I gave mine. The Indian lady taking my info eyed me carefully, glued to the sight of my hands as I signed the visitation forms and returned it to her. Her eyes squinted with a gleam of paranoia accenting the eyebags beneath. At this point, there’s probably no amount of vigilance too much. I was on constant guard too, mouth dry from the thought of an explosion in a hospital.

‘This is insane. I could give up my identity right here, Sol…’

‘Isn’t it worth it if it means you get to help one more person? The risk here is low. After all, you’re, by all means, just visiting as Rose.’

Still cautious, we followed his lead into the ward where his mum was. The smell of antiseptic strengthened as we entered. The ward had eight patients in total, with Gabriel’s mum at the corner next to the window. Purple flowers had been placed by her bedside, watching over her as she slept.

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“Nanay, hey…” he whispered into her ear, grabbing her hand as though it were a small animal, tenderly stroking the back of it. Her eyes fluttered open, and the moment she recognised Gabriel’s face the corners of her lips curled up.

“Love, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He whispered back, stroking her cheek. It was like trying to imprint the texture of her face on his palms.

I don’t know what I felt watching them. On some primal level of both Sol and I, there was envy. But there was a warmth I’d forever cherish when both of them smiled. When his mum returned the favour and stroked his hand back. I couldn’t have felt more out of place watching this interaction. No one else seemed awake, nor was there anyone else visiting, so I felt like a rotten apple in a barrel of fresh ones.

“And, uh, this is my friend. The one I talked to you about ah.”

“Uh, hi.” I muttered. I put on my stage smile and waved, not daring to move closer to the foot of the bed. With a bit of a heave and grunt, his mum sat up and invited me in for a hug. Her arms spread wide and open, inviting me inward. There was a maternal smile I’ve seen on my mum before, on Ms Tnee before, on the faces of many women in my life whose primary emotion toward me was love.

But my feet are planted to the ground.

“H-hey, don’t scare her eh.” Gabriel laughed nervously, trying to pat his mum’s arms back down.

“What’s your name, dear?” Her arms went back to her sides, they were noticeably thin. Her skin tone was naturally, likely, a bit lighter than her son’s, but then went even lighter still.

“Carissa.” The word came out of my mouth with the same ease an exhalation does. The moment it materialised in the air I wanted nothing more than to take that name and shove it back in my mouth. It was the first name that came to mind, but also a name I didn’t want to sully.

“Thank you, Carissa.” She held Gabriel’s hand tighter as if it were a proxy for mine. “Gabriel told me everything. This stupid boy, try to do something so dangerous… if not for you, this one… thank you.” Moonlight glimmered off the tears in her eyes. I was face to face with another real sign that I’m helping. That I’m doing right in the world.

“It’s… nothing. Just, the right thing.”

“Not everyone can help like you did, dear. You saved my boy.”

I’m terribly stubborn and want to argue back. But it’s very hard when this sweet lady is whispering her heart to me. When I can see proof of my effort sitting next to her, it’s like denying the existence of water.

“How are you feeling?” I tried to pivot the conversation to something I couldn’t change, the Salamander can’t heal illness. It would be an easier conversation than accepting I’ve done any good.

“Better with my son here.” She had a knowing smile. The lady in the bed was frail in the body but not the mind. Gabriel beamed, and I wondered how he could have ever been content not having this extra time with his mum. Turning to me, his eyes softened.

“Alright, I’m gonna use the bathroom and get a snack, do you want anything? I’ll be back real quick!” My ears perked up hearing this, he’s gonna leave me alone with his mother?

I shook my head when he asked. Gabriel shrugged and grinned, taking staccato steps out of the room, quick to leave. I felt like a child tricked into visiting the dentist. His mother watched him leave the room, needing to burn every memory possible of him into her brain.

“Dear, are you Gabriel’s girlfriend?” I almost choked on my spit.

“N-no! It’s not…” I rammed the words back down my throat. Any louder and I’d wake the other patients. I tried to focus on the scent of the flowers on the table, in contrast to the alcohol in the air they’re fragrant and full of life.

“Then, Carissa, who are you to my boy? Very hard to get through to this boy eh… and you managed to break through…” She asked with a wisp in her voice. The gleam in her eye really echoed what Gabriel told me earlier: you really don’t want to lie to her.

Which left me no choice but to answer the question. Of which, it is a good question. A really good question. In the past week or so, the most I’ve felt in my element was Gabriel’s car. Obviously, we are not in love. But were we friends? That part was far more ambiguous, I was doing a favour the way a celebrity meets sick kids. But that’s not entirely accurate either. Conversing with him was far easier than anyone else in my life right now, but that’s also by the nature of not being intimately familiar with him and vice versa.

“I…I’m…” I look around, no one’s awake. No one could hear me as is, I spoke in a calculated diminuendo. She smiled gently, wanting me to find the words for herself. Desperately, I rummaged through my brain for a reasonable excuse, but found nothing. Even if I did, who lies to the terminally ill? Legs shaking, I say all I can.

“Auntie, I’m…” The words choked in my throat before I dragged them out, kicking and screaming. “Look, do you know the Salamander man?”

Her eyes widened a little, scanning me up and down. Her body might have tensed up a bit, but she loosened almost immediately. There’s no need to say the next sentence.

“I met Gabriel one night on the roof, when I was, doing… my thing. Right when he was about to do it. I caught him, barely. H-he almost… almost fell. Hit the ground.” Sometimes I struggle to find the words because of the fear, the guilt that I didn’t do good enough. This time that same guilt made the words come out so easily.

“We sat there and talked. He told me about his life. I listened, I gave him some advice, lor. That’s it. Really. He-he’s not my friend. I don’t really think there’s a word to describe what we are. I’m just- just someone who was there for him at the right time, at the right place” The thought of keeping my identity a secret seemed so laughable right now. Her doe-eyed face was a truth serum.

I waited for a response. Maybe a laugh. A scream for help. Any kind of visceral emotion that would send me flying. Instead she reached out and to my shock, clasped my hand. Her hand was cold.

“Dear, then what they say about you… in the news…”

“Yeah…?”

“All untrue then, lies.” Droplets of conviction were dripping off her words. For a moment, the world went completely silent. The cicadas stopped chirping, people stopped breathing, and my heart stopped pumping. For just a moment.

“What?” I knew what they were saying about me in the news and online. I never even needed to look. So there was some real shock when I’m told that it’s not true, because for a while even I believed I was the threat to national security. The relief of pressure knocked me onto the bed, sitting awkwardly beside her. I adjusted myself as if I still had my tail.

“If you saved my boy, then you can not be a bad person. You saved… so many people’s children, right?”

I was flabbergasted at the simplicity.

“Carissa, how can you even be a bad guy? For fighting the fight today, you are a hero; I know now you wouldn’t have done that to Lucky Plaza. No one who saves lives like you is… some sort of terrorist.” It was so terrifyingly naive and simple, no deep conspiracy or hidden agendas behind those words.

“You know, I used to take Gabriel there all the time as a child. A bit of shopping and then Jollibee lunch, the boy loves his Chickenjoy spaghetti meals.” She reminisced, staring at the dim ceiling light as if it were the moon beyond her window. Like the whiteness of that light was a crystal ball for her to perceive the world through.

“I do too.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “I was about to go shopping there too before… that happened.”

“You’re so young.” She said as if just noticing she was talking to a teenager. “You cannot be much older than my boy, Carissa. And you still save so many people…”

“Not that many. A lot of people… didn’t make it. And, sometimes I think if I didn’t, or wasn’t the Salamander… no one would attack those places.”

“Darling, if you weren’t here, I’d have to attend my own son’s funeral.” She was crying now, as if even the thought of that stabbed her in the chest. It pierced me too.

“You are not responsible for how the world reacts to you, dear. You are only responsible for what you do, and what you do has been excellent. You are a good girl, I know this. Because bad people don’t save sons. Bad people don’t care if they leave a mess. And certainly bad people do not visit old ladies like me in the hospital.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

“Do your parents know about you?”

“No. They don’t.”

“I know… children keep secrets from their parents a lot. Gabriel never told me he had… all that depression… Sometimes we don’t say these things so our parents don’t worry. But no matter what you do, Carissa, you must make sure your parents have a daughter coming home every night. Okay?”

“Okay.” I struggled to get that mousey sound through the ugly tears. I didn’t know how badly I wanted to hear those words or needed to hear them at all. I hunched over her bed, hugging her so tightly. I didn’t even know this woman’s name, she didn’t really know mine either, but we didn’t need to.

The conversation went on for a bit. She talked to me about her son, I talked to her about my own life. The girl I was before the monster. I watched her laugh, try to move before wincing and lying back down, and then try again and succeed. She treated me like her daughter, I treated her like my mother. Or at least, how I should treat my mother. It barely even registered that Gabriel had been gone a while now.

When he got back, his hands were suspiciously free of snacks. We chatted a little longer before it was time to go. It may have been my eyes, but I could swear colour had returned to her face. Her body heat had increased since I got here too. That one I was sure of.

“Ma, you rest okay? I need to take Carissa home.”

“You better ah. A man must protect the women in his life. Especially if she already saved yours.” She and I shared a look then a giggle. Even if I was the Salamander, to her I was still someone worthy of protection. I bowed awkwardly, like my spine was constructed awfully, and started heading out with Gabriel.

“Ah, I never asked… What's your name?” I asked a bit before I reached the door.

“Oh, yes! Rosa. Auntie Rosa is okay, dear.” She looked so serene with that familiar name coming out of her mouth. I waved to Rosa, maybe I could tell her the connection our names shared. Maybe someday.

“You feeling better?” He asked, digging for his keys in his pockets.

“What do you mean?”

“I heard most of the conversation.”

I fixed my gaze on him, a slight pout apparent on my face. He chuckled but did nothing else, waiting for me to respond.

“How much did you hear?” I asked, a flush in my cheeks making it hard to look him in the eye.

“Okay, that was a lie. I heard you cry and that’s about it. Otherwise, not much.”

“Why?”

He gave me a look of amusement, like watching a bird learn to fly. There wasn’t any further elaboration, sounds of conversation replaced by sweet sounds of humming and singing under his breath. He had a good voice, especially one for singing…

“‘Rent’? I thought you’d rather die than listen to a showtune.” I couldn’t help but ask as the engine whirred and he checked his phone one last time. His eyes widened in the rear view mirror before he put his hands on his face in shame.

“Shit. Super hearing too?”

“Why even lie about that?”

“It’s about trust. I don’t trust that many people these days - wanted to know I could trust you before I showed you my demons.”

“And the demons in question have affection for musicals?”

“Only some musicals.” He stressed the ‘some’ like he had to defend his honour, like a spouse accused of seeing escorts.

“Besides, I wouldn’t be one to talk about lying and trust, ‘Carissa’. I hope whoever's in your life that’s actually important to you gets to know you. I saw all the shit in the news and all, and thought maybe you needed a shoulder too. I’m not good with all the emotion stuff, that’s why I tried to do what I did, but maybe you’re different. So I showed you the only person I knew who’s like, the best at feelings lor. That I know of. And she really did want to see you anyways ah. She was there for me, I was hoping she could be here for you.”

I stewed in his words for a bit, letting them bathe me in kindness. Rosa had done a fantastic job raising her son, he was as empathetic as they came. He reached out to me as I did for him. Perhaps this makes us both heroes in that regard.

It was only when I tried to take out my phone did I realise that I was still in human form. Strangely, I was still comfortable. The seatbelt hugging me was almost comforting, like there was actual risk to me getting into an accident that I needed to be protected from. There was a warmth at the back of my neck.

‘This level of community is fascinating.’ Sol said.

‘How so?’

‘I thought only the salamandra would be capable of such feeling.’

‘And what feeling is that?’

‘Love, unconditional love. Your people are worth fighting for, I hope this reminds you of that.’

I looked out the window, watching the cars go by. It had been a while since I did that instead of checking my phone. The view of the road from profile was a lot more interesting than I remember, I quite liked it in the same way I liked seeing it from a bird’s eye view.

“What’s your favourite musical, then?” I asked. Sighing, he didn’t answer till we came to a red light. Like a child excited to show their mother a good test score, he played the opening to ‘Legally Blonde’ and started to sing. The ridiculousness and absurdity of the whole night had culminated and finally collapsed in on me. I couldn’t help but laugh at it all.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too harsh on him though - I started singing along. And Sol got very good at saying ‘Omigod!’ at some point during the song. The whirr of the car became inaudible, and a giddy dizziness flooded my senses. A strange feeling bubbled in my stomach: happiness.