Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Taylor’s first thoughts just as thin beams of light washed over her eyes were, ‘Shit, my alarm didn’t go off.’ 

With a groan, she fell off her bed with lethargic limbs that tried their best to fail her. In fact, her knee crumpled when she tried to stand, forcing her to lean off her nearby drawer. 

Taylor knew she probably overdid her training last night, desperate to get into shape ever since the Trio grew bolder in harassing her after school hours, but she didn’t think it’d make her whole body sore like this. That much burning after a few hours of running and light weight lifting didn’t feel very healthy, but every source she got about muscle training told her burning was normal. 

Taylor stretched her arms. The resultant cracks and groans she made turned her ears red. “Yup, overdid it.”

Soon enough, her stretches brought life back into her legs, and she was able to grab a towel before walking into her bathroom. If she really had to go to school after waking up so late, she was going to take her time. 

She flicked the lights on, and… Taylor eyed the switch. Then she eyed the dead lightbulb above her head. She flicked it again, and nothing happened. Taylor shrugged it off, because while unused to showering in the dark, she could manage. Then she turned the knobs of her shower, and while waiting for the boiler in their basement to act up, she… Taylor paused at her sink, toothbrush in hand and a glint in her eye. 

She opened the curtain, and tapped at the showerhead. There was no water, not even a drop, falling off its face. 

Taylor leaned out of the bathroom, and flicked the light switch for the hallway. Once again, nothing. Taylor sighed, and went towards her father’s room. “Hey, Dad. I don’t know if you're here, but…”

Taylor let her sentence run off as she eyed lightly tossed sheets. But her concern only grew when she spotted her father’s work boots still by his bedside. “Huh. Guess we’re both having off days?”

Taylor opened her father’s bathroom to find nothing in there. Neither the lights nor the water worked either. ‘Damn. We aren’t behind on bills, not yet. Is it everyone on the block then?’

Taylor walked downstairs and through the living room, and nearly reached her front door before something assaulted her nose. She coughed hard, and covered her mouth and nose with her shirt before looking into the kitchen. 

Somewhat clean, despite a lot of dust hanging visible in the sun’s beams through the windows. There were no dishes, mainly because she did them yesterday, but the source of the smell wasn’t clear until she opened their refrigerator. 

Rancid food and drink stared back at her, and Taylor gagged, slamming the no-longer cold appliance shut. 

“What the fuck?” Taylor muttered. She steadied herself and, her shirt still sitting over her nose, slipped on her shoes before walking outside. 

The air was warm and lacking the smell of her kitchen, but also felt… still. Hardly anything outright looked like it had lost power, but it was also still late morning. At least, Taylor thought so. She hadn’t checked her alarm clock, and she left her watch on her drawer. 

Left of her house looked as normal as it did, and if the grass was a little taller, then Taylor wasn’t going to mention it to the neighbors. Then she looked right and…

Her father’s truck was still here. An older two-seater, it always looked to Taylor like more dent than car, given the wear and tear her father and his father had thrown it through. Now, it had deflated tires, peeling paint, and fogged glass. 

Taylor grabbed the keys that sat at the counter in the kitchen, and went to unlock her father’s truck. The key slid in fairly easily, though Taylor had to jiggle the lock before it could open. Inside, nothing but dust and her father’s car stuff bounced around. 

Taylor pulled her head out and started walking to the house across the street. Keys still in her hand, she knocked loudly, a three-note rap, and waited for a moment. 

Three moments passed before Taylor knocked again, this time with a loud, “Hello? Anybody?”

Still nothing. In fact, when she peered through the one window without blinds, she saw no lights on. Taylor walked to the next house and tried again. 

Taylor walked to the next house, and tried again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Taylor stood on her father’s truck bed, hands cupping her mouth, and shouted, “Anybody!? Answer me!”

Nobody did. 

---

Taylor sat on the step above the broken one of her front porch, head in her hands. ‘Is this a dream? A nightmare? I don’t remember being able to smell in nightmares.’

Taylor looked at her father’s truck. It sat there, unassuming and old. Every other car she found was similar, with deflated tires and old paint. 

‘Maybe an attack? The Simurgh, or Slaughterhouse 9?’ Taylor shook her head. As likely as that was, Ziz and the S9 would’ve had everyone driven insane than just simply… vanished them. And that itself didn't even hold up, because Taylor was still here. Alive, awake, and endlessly confused. Maybe a little paranoid. 

Definitely scared. Her father’s clothes were still in his room, untouched. Her father’s truck was here, old and near useless. But her father was nowhere to be found. When she went to use their home phone, there wasn’t even a dead tone. 

Taylor was pretty sure she wasn’t desperate enough to break into someone’s house on the off chance they were in bed with a shotgun, but she hasn’t even heard any cars from deeper in Brockton. No gunshots, or distant sights of figures hopping rooftops. 

There was just no one.

But Taylor was getting hungry, and none of the food in her house was edible anymore. The sun hung just overhead, which meant she had time before nightfall. ‘Maybe this really is a dream. When the day ends, I’ll wake up in bed, take a shower, go to school. Some weird, after-workout nightmare.’

She didn’t ever remember feeling hungry in a dream. 

Taylor pulled on her normal shoes, slightly baggy pants, and a sweater alongside maybe a bit too much deodorant. She went to bed without a shower after sweating for a few hours, she needed something to help her feel clean. 

While her muscles were still somewhat sore, she had recovered enough that she was capable of jogging over to the nearest convenience store just outside her neighborhood. It was surrounded by high-rise apartments and was shielded from would-be muggers with some wrought iron bars over their windows, but was otherwise still open, as their dead 24-hour sign suggested. 

Taylor was glad that the smell of rotten food wasn’t nearly so prominent, but she did avoid the hot and ready hotdogs that sat along and wilted in their rolling grill. 

There was no one at the counter, despite the singular car outside that was parked. In fact, no sign of anyone having been here at all. The pull-open doors seemed to serve well in keeping animals out. 

Taylor grabbed at something random on a shelf, and then winced when she felt out for her wallet. 

‘Wait. No money, but no people.’ The thought helped calm Taylor’s nerves a little, but the sight of a security camera on the wall shot them back up. 

At least, until she noticed that its red light was dead. And the lights in the ceiling as well. She looked at the counter, then at the camera. “Screw it,” she whispered, and tore open the random bag she grabbed. Jerky fell out, and she chewed on it before going behind the counter. 

None of the computers for the two registers were on. While the light from outside helped her see, it didn’t do much for the space hidden underneath the counter. Taylor looked up, and grabbed a small and cheap looking flashlight. It was a little dim when she clicked it on, but it served its purpose as she found a normal looking silver button sitting on the underside of the counter. 

“Thank you television,” Taylor whispered, and she clicked it. When she rose back up, she noticed once more the lights were still off, and wilted. ‘Right, no power.’

Annoyed and still hungry, Taylor eyed the candy and other not-yet rotten food before finding the plastic bags. 

---

Taylor was subsisting off M&Ms, several packs of licorice, and a lot of jerky by the time night started to fall. And fall it did, rather quickly. Taylor was just a few houses away from her own before she heard bushes rustling around her.

She turned carefully, her plastic bag of sealed food and other items in her off hand. “Hello?”

Her shadow was long as the sky turned orange. Bugs whistled and some cicadas screamed, and the bushes were still rustling. 

Slowly, a dark snout pushed itself out, and a large, dark-coated dog followed. Then another, and another, and Taylor suddenly felt she should’ve waited until morning to look for food. 

The impressively large dogs were a pack of similarly dark coats, and by pure luck, none of them had yet to see Taylor with her bag of food. Taylor herself never had a fear of dogs, but these were large enough she wondered if they might’ve been wolves instead. 

Slowly, she walked away, and not one of them stopped to look at her. They just kept walking along, disappearing into another bush just across the street. 

Taylor felt her lungs burn, and she gulped down a breath before her brain threatened to black out. ‘Big dogs. Way too big dogs. Why haven’t I woken up yet?’

Taylor walked far down the road, and she doesn’t notice the deep black eyes that follow her movement. 

---

If the morning was bad enough for Taylor’s anxiety, the night was worse. 

Oh, sure, the lack of sound was somewhat pleasing, but the pure black that now filled every room in her house alongside the lack of power and water was nerve-racking. 

Any sound that wasn’t made by her could’ve been anything. Those giant black dogs. Another person, insane and raving. Bugs. Did she leave the door unlocked? Has a window been left open? 

Everything about today has left her hanging off the edge, from the shoplifting to the mere fact of isolation. For a short moment, Taylor wished she was nine again, and was capable of hiding from anything under her covers. 

Her watch was digital, and didn’t tick, but every time she looked at it, she felt as though it were mocking her. It was barely twelve after twelve, and she was still far too awake for today to have been a dream. 

Out of patience, Taylor pulled off her covers and grabbed one of the many flashlights she took from the convenience store. She pulled a blanket and pillow off her father’s bed, and walked straight into the garage where she knew they still had that ladder.

Carefully, with pillow and blanket in hand, she climbed up to her roof, and gently laid herself down on top, facing the many, many stars that sat above her. 

‘How have we never seen so many before?’ Taylor knew the answer was light pollution, which Brockton Bay and every other city in the world was known for, but still. If there was one thing she liked about right now, it was the stars. 

…she had to sleep sometime, dammit, so why didn’t she feel tired? Was it the candy? Maybe she overdid it then as well. Too much sugar. Old sugar.

Old. Everything was old now. The sky didn’t feel like it, but the grass, the cars, the big ass dogs. Brockton Bay looks like it’s been aged for years and had some culling involved. Every possible way Taylor imagined just didn’t seem probable. Did Leviathan just dry everything out? Could Behemoth burn away humanity but leave everything else standing? Did the Simurgh just throw everyone into space? Some Slaughterhouse 9 plague? Did the Sleeper become the Awaker? 

Did everyone just leave, and forgot about her? 

Too many possibilities. Too many ideas. Too many thoughts. 

Taylor didn’t feel tired. Instead, she just stared at the infinite stars, and closed her eyes. 

She didn't sleep.

Chapter Text

Taylor woke up bleary eyed and with a stiff back. The sun stared big and bright at her from the east.

Taylor cried. 

After what felt like an hour or two of tears falling down her face, Taylor’s stomach growled intensely. Drying off her face as best as she could, she climbed down off her roof and headed back for her room, where the bag of sealed food sat waiting on her bed. 

Taylor’s hands shook as she looked inside, and something heavy settled in her gut. 

‘It’s not a dream,’ she thought. ‘I’m alone.’

She sniffled, but tears did not fall. Instead, her mouth was dry, and a headache was threatening to emerge. ‘I need more than this.’

She didn’t really want to move, but her stomach growled again, forcing Taylor to sit and root through the plastic bag for something simple to eat. She pulled out a bar, something with chocolate and nuts it said on the wrapper, and stuck it in her mouth while she reached for her backpack. 

Dumping its contents on the floor, she immediately grabbed a pencil and a notebook. It was one of her extras, sealed inside a ziploc bag and not yet filled with her copied notes. Taylor was lucky that the Trio didn’t try anything Monday, it seemed. 

Taylor flipped to a random page close to the cover, and started to write. On top of the first page was ‘Available Food’, and she wrote down the contents of her plastic bag that sat on her bed still. 

Flipping a couple pages later, she wrote down ‘Available Water.’ ‘Something to get to work on soon,’ she thought. Sticking the notebook back in its ziplock baggie, alongside a couple of pencils and pens, she pushed it into her backpack, throwing her bag of snacks on top of it. 

Taylor pulled on more appropriate clothes. Pants and a sweater, shoes, and she went to grab unused gloves that sat in her father’s room from when they used to work in their now dead garden in the backyard. 

Taylor knew Brockton Bay. She lived here all her life, after all. The closest convenience store had nothing else for her, so what she needed was going to be inside the next closest supermarket. Canned foods, sealed water bottles and energy drinks. After that she’d need to visit the hardware store. Alongside the supermarket, she’d be able to find batteries and other equipment. 

Normally, Taylor would take the bus or ask her father for a ride, but neither was clearly an option, she noted as she stepped outside. The sun was still steadily rising, and her watch said it was eighteen until nine. 

Taylor looked down her street. For a moment, it felt endless. She looked down at her feet, and wondered if she was going to need new shoes after such a trek. 

Then Taylor looked at her neighbors’ houses, and spotted a bicycle.

---

The bike itself wasn’t pretty. Entirely steel gray, save for the browning of light rust, it still served its purpose of getting Taylor to the supermarket faster than just her legs could. Considering that slight rattling she heard as she peddled, however, she knew it couldn’t sustain her for more than a few more rides. It was just too… old. 

Taylor found herself hating the word ‘old’.

Every street she rode down was effectively dead. Oh, there were some sights to see. Several old crashes all across the sidewalks that forced her to hop over them on foot. Several cars wound up in houses, blackened from now dead fires. Whole fire hydrants were embedded deep inside of engine blocks, entirely dry after an unknown length of time spewing stale water. Trucks and minivans had found themselves wrapped around telephone poles and lights, but every time Taylor went to check on their insides, they were entirely empty. Some dust, some trash. 

But she spotted not even specks of blood. As though the denizens… phased/faded/fell out, leaving their car to die out on the road. 

“What did this?” She whispered to herself, peeking her head through the broken window of an empty sports car. “What could’ve even tried?”

Eventually, after giving up checking out the eighteenth car in her way, she wound up in front of the supermarket. 

The parking lot was sparingly filled. Some cars had their doors still open, as though people were leaving and just forgot to shut them. Others with trunks wide and a cart of groceries stuck beside them, or slowly wheeled off into another dead car. 

Taylor tried her best to ignore the ghosts. But her hands still shook as she forced open the sliding doors. 

The supermarket was, like everything else, entirely quiet, and dark. Taylor got out one of her cheaper flashlights to illuminate her way, and grabbed a cart. 

The lack of light and music made everything feel… sterile. It was like spending midnight inside a school as a child, or sneaking backstage. Like the environment itself was telling Taylor that she didn’t belong. It brought goosebumps to her skin. 

It was easy to find the canned food aisle. She had no idea the current date, so she hoped a lot of it was still good. Beans, peaches, soup. Everything she could easily scoop into her cart, she got. 

“Cream of mushroom, ravioli, tomatoes… Oh wow, bread.” She didn’t know they had canned bread. 

---

They were angry. This was not uncommon, they were always angry, but this anger burned slowly as they spied their prey.

A pink-skinned creature. Pink! Skin! It was here, living and breathing. Standing on two legs with a spine that wasn’t injured by constant fighting and malnourishment. How dare it. How dare it cart around that wheeled cage like it was shopping for daisies!

They didn’t like it. They breathed heavily, and gently moved without sound, getting closer to the pink skin creature. 

It was tall. Much taller than them. Long, dark, and curly hair. Peh. They did not need such useless fluff. Hid injuries, it did. It also had on those frames on its face, with glass in each hole that hung off its useless ears. So useless it couldn’t even hear them! But they could hear it. They could hear it very well. 

It was moving again, muttering under its breath about ‘freshwater.’ Fresh water? All water is fresh water to them! This pink-skin creature insulted them. Such inferior design. They should hunt it! Kill it! It is only prey for them!

Oh, but they are alone here. The others in the horde refuse to believe them on the creature’s existence. Even when it was sleeping on that house, exposed to the elements without a care in the world. Oh, the creature made them so angry! Their claws draw long black lines on their arms, blood quickly scabbing in place before bleeding could begin. 

Oh, they would kill the creature. It would die under their claws, and it would taste so good in their mouth. They hadn’t fed on such creatures since… well, never, but they could only imagine!

The horde will see. They will make the horde see.

---

Taylor was currently sat with her legs crossed while on top of a conveyor belt meant for moving groceries. As a child, she often thought about what it was like to be on the conveyor, though her parents usually stopped her from doing that, lest she be carried away and stuffed in a plastic bag. 

From her perch, she could see now that she had rather overblown her excitement for such a thing. Currently, she had her notebook unzipped and in her lap, her pen quickly labeling down everything in her cart. 

It was filled with a lot of cans, several packages of even more cans, and at the bottom, populated by packages of water bottles, one of which was already torn open and had its contents picked out by Taylor to fight her thirst. 

“...and that equals about a hundred forty pounds of food, and eighty liters of water to 21 gallons, give or take.” Conversions came easy, and though she felt as though she could get more specific, it would take too long. It already took an hour getting all her stuff, and with as much food as she has compared to the state of the roads, it’ll take longer to bring back. 

And besides, the food wasn’t even the best part of the haul. By her side on the conveyor was an old, battery powered radio. Its age, alongside the fact of being locked inside a supermarket without any way to seal itself from the environment, meant that it was rather unlikely to work, even after Taylor put some d-cell batteries inside. 

Of course, a screwdriver and some digging around its insides, coupled with more radios on the shelf, meant that all Taylor had to do to fix it was replace the corroded components with different ones from similar, but no less damaged radios. 

Though, with this specific radio, Taylor was operating by ear. She lacked the actual tools needed to mess with anything big, like a soldering iron or multimeter, but her next visit to a hardware store should fix that. 

Taylor checked her watch. Almost one on the dot. Assuming she took only two hours to maneuver through Brockton, forward and back, it would still be too deep in the night on the way back from the hardware store; around eight or nine pm. She wasn't sure why, but every part of her said that going out at night was a bad idea.

She bit her lip, looking through her notebook and quickly writing in the upper margins, ‘Day Two.’

On the next page, she titled ‘Physical Supplies’, and wrote down her list. 

---

Taylor grabbed a battery powered hot plate before she left the supermarket. 

She’d be able to actually make something hot to eat, thank goodness. The thought of being forced to rely purely on candy and jerky made Taylor’s head swirl. 

The route back home was rough. Taylor had no ability to move the cars that had piled up and crowded the streets, and her cart was proving to be poorly chosen. A single squeaky wheel was always trying to drive itself to the right, and Taylor found herself wasting energy trying to keep it straight. 

The sun wasn’t entirely set yet, but by the time she would be home it would be close. Taylor kept herself occupied with the thoughts of hot food. Slowly, her mouth moved on its own, and she was singing a shanty into the empty air. 

“Oh, there was a little drummer, and he loved a one-eyed cook…”

It was a nicer calm than the silence. 

It didn’t last very long. 

The large black dogs had returned. Well, not returned. It wasn’t like they were hunting Taylor. But they were back, all of them overly big, darker than the night sky, and plentiful. A couple of them had what used to be a squirrel in their mouth, torn up by large canines and still bleeding. 

Taylor paused in her singing and moving, fear slowly building in her chest. They didn’t seem to notice her just yet. Carefully, Taylor stepped back, and pulled the cart along with her. 

The wheel squeaked, and several heads turned to face Taylor so quickly they blurred. 

Brown, blue, and black eyes stared straight at her, squirrel meal all forgotten. A random fact filled her head, telling her to avoid looking them in the eye. Something about aggressiveness from a predator. 

Taylor wasn’t aggressive. She didn’t want the big dog wolves to be aggressive either. 

One of them, slightly larger than the rest but without a squirrel in their mouth, stepped forward, and Taylor’s mind raced. ‘You should run. They'll kill you, you should run, run, they'll kill you, run, run.'

A second voice said, 'Do not run/flee/hide. You will never vanish/fade/escape alive.’

Another step. Claws extended meant she could hear the *click*, *click*, *click*, of a paw hitting pavement. Taylor refused to look it in the eye, instead focusing her eyes on its thick, ebony pelt, the pavement beneath its long claws, the food in her cart…

The food in her cart. 

Taylor moved slowly, and the wolf dog paused in place. Poking a hole through the shrink wrap, Taylor grabbed a can that read ‘spaghetti and meatballs’, with a soda-like clip at its top. 

‘I should get a knife’, Taylor thought numbly as she thumbed the tab. It slipped a little in her shaking hands, but eventually she got it open, and the sound of the seal breaking had every wolf-dog ear standing up. A couple of them sniffed curiously. It would’ve been cute if it weren’t for the fact that Taylor knew they would eat her if they were desperate enough. 

Taylor didn’t pull the top off all the way, just enough that she kneeled down beside her cart, and could roll it without spilling all its contents, straight towards the wolf-dogs. 

Mostly straight. She aimed enough towards the sidewalk that if they all followed it, Taylor could safely walk by. 

The wolf-dog that got curious enough to walk towards her leaned its head towards the can, caught by the scent of meat sauce rolling by. The wolf-dogs without food in their mouths moved toward it, and quickly the rest of the pack was invited to follow it. 

Taylor zoomed by. Despite her fear telling her not to, she, gently, looked back. Somehow, the wolves had splattered the insides of the can all over the street. Their muzzles were wet with sauce and noodles, all of them licking one another. The big one that walked at Taylor was sat stock still, away from the can’s contents, and staring back with a single green eye. 

Taylor blinked. 'Do not run/flee/hide.' The eye blinked back, but did not move. 'Do not fear/alarm/distress.'

Taylor turned, and killed her fear.

Chapter Text

Never before did Taylor believe that a can of beans could taste so good. In fact, Taylor had a second one come morning, though she waited a bit to clean herself off with a bucket from a gallon and a sponge to get rid of the scent. If this was the best she could get clean in a world without power, she was going to use it, dammit!

Hair tied back, lighter clothing for running, and armed with a baseball bat and a kitchen knife in case a wild animal decided to get ideas, Taylor was back inside Brockton with her squeaky wheeled cart for the hardware store. 

She was going to rip that wheel off if she couldn’t fix it. 

She made it there in record time. And by record time, Taylor meant faster than she got to the supermarket. Her bike was left behind at her house, and Taylor had to hop cars after throwing her cart over them, but still quicker. It helped that it was earlier in the day. 

The hardware store was a bit smaller than the supermarket, and had a significantly less haunting parking lot. The inside was thankfully more illuminated thanks to the presence of large windows at the front, iron bars notwithstanding, so Taylor had to rely less on her cheap flashlight. 

Thankfully, a much better flashlight was right in front of her. A foot long, heavy, and solid, it felt like Taylor was holding a baton more than a flashlight. 

She quickly stashed her cart full of equipment. A soldering iron kit, a crowbar, a nice looking knife that seemed appropriately sturdy. Wire, chains, a couple battery powered alarm clocks alongside both analog and digital watches, and ‘oh, that’s an auto-parts store next door.’

Yeah, Taylor was in heaven now. All she’d need after this was information, particularly on how to fix up vehicles/transportation/movement, but that was likely something she’d had to achieve later. For now, she had to get a couple more tools. 

‘Oh, a sports-goods store.’ A lot more tools. 

---

Her day was so much better. Now having made it back home, Taylor was currently going through all her equipment that she had gathered from her shoplifting. 

Coupled with the things she gotten earlier, she now had basic elbow and knee padding, a motorcycle helmet, a respirator that could be coupled with goggles, wrenches and screwdrivers galore, a shovel, a hatchet, a full on two-handed fire axe, arm guards, shin guards, an extra can opener just in case, a larger camp stove that relied on propane to pair with her hot plate, and some smaller batteries for her watches in case they ever died. 

Which, considering how little power a watch needs, feels a bit overkill. Sue her, Taylor’s the last human alive, she can afford a little overkill. 

And she had what she needed to maintain her tools too. Moments before, she had forced her father’s truck into her garage, mostly in an attempt to give her a protected place to fix it up, and now she needed a long, long bath. 

Except, she couldn’t take a bath. Taylor groaned at the thought of another sponge bath, feeling that it was humiliating, but a sniff at her underarms told her she needed one.

Erasing her thoughts of such a horrid process, Taylor stood up from her horde and began to walk up the stairs when she heard something. A curious sound, as though something were… clicking/broken/ticking? It was slow, and out of rhythm. 

Taylor stepped off the stairs and walked into her living room. There. Just on the wall next to the entryway. An old er clock with a large, block-like frame, it had a cartoon mouse displayed on it, his long arms acting as the hands. Not the most complicated thing, but it was something she knew was dear to her parents. She was pretty sure it was older than her. It was rather loose, his hands, and Taylor brought it off the wall and placed it against her ear. 

“It’s off,” She whispered. “Something’s gotten loose?”

Taylor walked over to her desk and turned one of her older flashlights, sticking it in her mouth. With ease, she opened the back of the clock, and gently took it apart. Though the gears were small, she handled them all expertly, righting bends and tightening loose connections before eventually placing them all back in place, closing the back, and standing the clock up in its frame. 

She looked at her watch, and smoothly moved the cartoon mouse’s hands into the correct position , and smiled as it started ticking soundly. 

Taylor got up from her table and placed it back on the wall, and continued upstairs. 

---

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” Taylor yelled in the middle of her sponge bath.

---

The sun was just now setting, and Taylor was back at her table with clean clothes, her hair in a towel, and the clock back in front of her. The mouse didn’t stare directly at her, instead having had his eyes painted slightly to the left of him. Taylor felt like it was mocking her anyway. 

“How did I do it?” She asked herself. She titled the clock up, down, left, right, before turning it around and opening the back again. 

‘Gears are clean, connections nice and tight, no bends or loss of kinetic motion, battery’s been replaced. Systems are all green.’ 

Taylor shut the clock and replaced it on its wall, walking back to the kitchen.

She was half-way in her chair when she cursed, and threw herself back in front of the clock. “How the hell did I do that? Am- am I a cape?”

The clock stared to the right, the mouse’s smile wide and mocking. Taylor let the question echo in her head. 

‘A cape. Am I a cape? I don’t know how to fix clocks! Not unless I just wasn’t paying attention in school, and I doubt that. But, fixing clocks?’

Taylor sat on her couch, and looked at the clock again. 

‘I fix things. Does that mean…’

---

Taylor was now in her garage, her father’s truck wide open in front of her, her mouth slightly agape as in her mind, a perfect copy of every mechanical system in the truck shone like stars.

“I can understand this,” Taylor muttered. She understood the combustion engine, how the aluminum alloy cylinder block design allows for cooling water and valve connections, the ports, coolant jackets, the compression rings, oil control rings, silicon, manganese, nickel, chromium…

Huh. Identifying alloys was new. Idly, Taylor wondered if it did anything for her math skills. She wasn’t entirely sure, but considering that she did conversion calculations without a calculator back in the supermarket, she guessed a solid ‘maybe.’

And, after a closer look, it didn’t seem anything was too wrong with her father’s car. Despite its impressive age, all Taylor really needed was to either refill or replace the tires, get some fresh gas, and probably replace the suspension. She can’t forget about the rust, either, nor the breaks. 

‘Though, it could probably still run/operate/motivate with the gas inside…’

Taylor shook her head, and shut the hood. ‘No, that can wait. Dinner first, then tomorrow, auto-shop raid. Never know what I might need.’

---

They watched as the creature pushed the wheeled metal contraption into the garage. They had invited the horde, and now the horde knew. They showed the horde, hehe, they showed them good . 

They would take the creature in the night. Food, meat so fresh it was still bleeding. It’s been too long. The wolves had grown too strong, too plentiful. 

The horde agreed. The horde wanted to take it in the night as well. They liked that the others agreed, and the horde prepared. They were resting in a bush nearby, waiting for the strange lights inside to go dark. It was taking so long, they stuck a stick in their mouth and chewed. 

Did the creature never sleep!? The sun had long since gone down, and the lights, though dim, were still on. They very desperately wanted to slit the creature's throat, watch it choke on its blood. Oh, oh! The gut would be fun. Would it run away like the deer? Would it grovel and beg like the others that refused the horde?

Their thoughts excited them, and their claws carved divots into the dirt. 

There! There! One of the others in the horde pointed at the window. Yes, there. The lights were off. 

The hunt begins.

---

Taylor woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of scratching. 

Immediately, her tiredness vanished to be replaced with a loud heart. Carefully, she grabbed her baseball bat and her heavy flashlight, and slowly made her way out of her room. 

There was nothing immediately wrong. The normal dirt she had tracked in. The bathroom door was slightly open, and when she looked inside, nothing but her bucket and sponge. 

Hallway cleared out, she pointed herself downstairs. 

The scratching was back, and Taylor raised her bat high. 

The living room was empty. Her bag lay there, most of her supplies still scattered on the floor. They seemed fairly unbothered, considering she just left them there. All that was left was the kitchen.

Taylor was slow to walk inside. She had long since thrown out the old rotten food, and duct taped the trash can shut, but the smell still persisted, even after she sprayed it down with old air fresheners and disinfectant. 

It was made worse by the fact that the window was wide open. 

Taylor’s breath quickened, and she leaned forward towards the lock. It looked as though it were torn/mauled/carved open, but with enough care that the window was untouched. With something incredibly sharp/dangerous/deadly as well, judging by the four, deep lines sliced into the wood. 

Taylor frowned. ‘Not a broken window, but one that was opened. Sure, the lock’s busted, but something was smart enough to get in. Another person/para/human, a remarkably intelligent animal/monster/beast? What the hell could’ve-’

Taylor was ripped out of her thoughts when she spotted the small, pale thing standing on her counter. 

Standing about as tall as a toddler with the very proportions of one, it was such a pale white Taylor was sure she could see through it, given enough light. The similarities to a human baby ended there. It was hairless and stood crouched, with legs that were large and digitigrade, ending in claws like a cat/kangaroo. Its spine was massively curved, like that of an ape , and its arms were long, reaching all the way down to its feet. Its hands were thick, with barely visible fingers poking out, and instead replaced by long, bony protrusions that ended in serrated edges. 

Its face was just as hideous with the rest of its body. Its mouth had two openings, whole cheeks that were left unformed, exposing gums and sharp teeth that were far too big for its jaw. It had one large, bat-like ear hanging off the side of its head, while the other was missing entirely, merely a hole in the side of its head. Misshapen eyes, three of them and asymmetrical, were pitch-black and unblinking. 

Taylor did not move. Neither did the creature. Then its mouth opened so wide its teeth pointed straight at Taylor, and it screamed. 

So loud Taylor could feel the windows vibrate , Taylor took her baseball bat, screamed back, and swung hard into its mouth. 

Two cracks, one from its jaw and the other Taylor hoped was its neck. Breathing hard, Taylor shone her light and spied for any more signs of life before stomping on it. 

“Reh?” The sound made Taylor spin towards her stairs, where two more pale white creatures, one with a single large eye in its head, and the other with a stick where its left arm should be, both of them wearing her father’s boots on their heads like hats. 

“Pink-skin! Pink-skin!” The one-eyed beast/mongrel/monster cried out, and the stick-armed creature/hideous/thing threw itself at Taylor. Making good use of her bat, she hit it in its side, flinging it into the kitchen. The cyclops chose to hop as she recovered, and Taylor saved herself by trapping its mouth with her bat. 

The cyclops just bit down as hard as it could, and Taylor could see that it didn’t have a normal mouth; instead it was a jawless hole in its head, like a funnel/drill/lamprey, and slowly the teeth down its throat started to rotate and eat away at her bat. 

Taylor poked it in its massive eye, making it let go of her bat to scream, and threw the whole creature into the kitchen with its brother. 

Diving into the living room, Taylor grabbed the hatchet on the floor. 

“Kill it, kill it!”

Taylor spun with the hatchet in her off-hand, and caught the one-armed one with the head. Pitch dark blood/fluid/ichor spouted out of its wound, and Taylor ripped out the hatchet and swung back down into its head. 

“It killed them! Sparks! Sparks!” Taylor looked up and saw the cyclops, eye reddened, run for the window and hop out. 

Taylor picked up her fire axe, and held it up as she approached the window. Her eyes were still unused to the dark, and her flashlight was dropped killing the first monster. ‘What the fuck? What the fuck!?’

Her mind raced for an answer. While she hoped she wasn’t alone, she didn’t expect something like feral little monsters running around, trying to invade her house. 

Taylor picked up her flashlight when she noticed the monster wasn’t coming back. Shining it into the bushes yielded no results, until she heard something. A rhythm, like a stomp in a song. Steadily, it grew louder, and louder, until she saw sparks fly inside a bush. Fire blazed, so hot she could feel it from inside her house, and she shut off her flashlight. 

Taylor looked out the window in the living room. Fire, blurred by the blinds. By the door, more fire. She had no doubt that if she looked outside through her room, she’d see fire.

With that, a slightly larger creature/monster/kill/it emerged. Colored a dark gray, with specks of black as dark as its eyes along its chest, it roared out, “Burn the pink-skin! We feast bloody meat tonight!”

Cheers echoed at every side of her house, and Taylor nearly dropped her axe and flashlight. “Goblins. I’m going to be burned alive by goblins.”

The dark goblin hefted up its fire, which Taylor could see was a bottle with a flaming swatch stuffed inside, and threw it at the window Taylor stood in. 

Taylor dove, and fire splashed all over her kitchen. 

“Fuck!” She cried out, quickly slapping out the barest of flames that caught on her leg. Her heart hammered in her chest as she ran upstairs to grab the few materials that weren’t in the living room; her hoodie, notebook, and some batteries; and leapt down her stairs to get to the living room. 

The flames in her kitchen had grown, and Taylor could feel the heat of fire start to burn through her front door and against her walls. Stuffing as much stuff as she could into her backpack, she carried the rest of it in her hands while grabbing her father’s keys. 

Throwing it all into the truck bed, Taylor went back only for an armful of food, and pulled herself into the driver's seat. 

“Motherfucker.” Taylor wasn’t sure when exactly she had grown used to such language, but it seemed appropriate here. “You wanna burn me out? Come the fuck on!”

Taylor reached for her respirator in her backpack and fitted it over her face, grabbing the goggles that came with them as well. She pulled on socks, and jammed the key into the ignition. 

For a brief moment, the engine came alive. “Yes!” Taylor cried out, and the engine sputtered before dying out.

“No!” Taylor twisted the key again, forcing the engine to sputter again. She could feel the heat building, and sweat fell down her neck as she noticed flames licking under through the garage door.

“C’mon, you geriatric show pony! Start!” Taylor twisted it again, and the engine flared awake, before falling into a steady, low roar. 

Taylor smiled. “Finally.” Reaching for the garage door opener, she paused for a moment. Looking at the flames slowly creeping in, she eyed the door opener. Then she looked at the car horn. 

Taylor smiled with all her teeth.

---

They thought it was going well, you know? Sure, two of the horde fell according to one of the horde, a one-eyed hordeling they thought was particularly ugly, but the horde leader said the horde and them were going to feast on bloody meat!

Sparks flew, flames rose, and delicious smoke filled the air! It was fantastic, and they were glad they had this idea. No matter what the horde leader said, this was their idea. 

Then something loud hit their ears. All four of them! Not as loud as one of the hordelings that died in the house, but still, very loud. It was annoying. 

They looked around at the other hordelings. All of them stopped throwing sparks, instead confused at the noise. They sighed a contemptuous sigh. Of course, they were the one that had to do all the work. 

They followed where the noise seemed to be coming from. It was such a strange noise too!. Like, *HRRRRRR HRRRRR*. No, that wasn’t quite right. Maybe *HOOOONK HOOOONK* ? They didn’t know, noises were the horde’s problem. 

Their problem was getting to the juicy meatsack pink-skin at the center.

They approached the house, and found themselves on the flat hard side facing a large metal wall. Well, that wouldn’t do. They turned and shouted at the horde, “Break! BREEAAK!”, before pounding on it with their claws. 

The horde followed, all of them pounding and hitting with all sorts of things. Rocks, branches, stick limbs. One of the idiots dropped a spark and lit themselves and some hordelings on fire. 

They just growled at the flimsy metal wall. Why wouldn’t it just break already!?

Oh, it’s opening. Slowly, the metal wall turned into a metal door, rising above and folding into the roof. Behind sat the red metal cocoon they saw the pink-skin push inside, but instead with such bright light eyes that all they could do was stare. Behind them, the horde had the same idea, some of them going “Oooooh,” while others went “Aaaaaah.”

The cocoon roared, “HOOOOOOONK!” And they could’ve sworn they heard the pink-skin say, “GO TO HELL!”, just as the cocoon rocketed forward on wheels made of metal and rubber.

They couldn’t run. The hordelings were blocking the way. So they jumped, and hit a window that showed the pink-skin ripping something off her face.

A large, terrible grin stared back.

---

Taylor gave no mind to the goblin that threw itself at the windshield. It flew off behind her due to momentum; the same momentum that proceeded to crush the tens of goblins that gathered in her driveway. Just as she left the incline, she hit the brake and turned, forcing the car with its shitty tires to make its way down the road.

Some of the goblins tried to stop her. Jumping in her way or missing with their molotov cocktails. Only one hit her. The dark goblin managed to splash flames up against her passenger window. Taylor couldn’t do much to it except throw up her middle finger and scream in rage/contempt/fury. 

Soon enough, after a couple turns and lack of respect for the ghosted cars and road signs, she managed to escape her neighborhood. It was just as she thought; the goblins' broken physiology couldn’t support them running, only jumping and climbing. Her father’s truck, as old as she was, was more than enough to outrun them all. She laughed.

The engine sputtered again, and eventually Taylor began to lose her mania, replacing it with nervous melancholy. Gentle pitter patters followed her, and Taylor turned on the high beams of her father's truck to reveal the invisible rain falling from the sky. She slowed down, coming to a stop at a crossing to let the soft noise fill her ears.

“I made it.” Taylor said. She stared at herself in the rearview mirror, no longer shaking with adrenaline or anger. “You made it.”

'You made it,' the voice in her head said. Taylor drove off into the night.

A green eye stared at the red truck, and followed.

Chapter Text

The night eventually gave way to day. Taylor knew this because the sky went from black to really really dark gray. 

Rain still fell. Taylor made it to an auto-shop anyway. 

She stood in it more angry and just as tired as she was earlier. On the outside, it was entirely normal, down to the broken ‘a’ in ‘DWAYNE’S GARAGE’ ; but she noticed the E88 markings at the edges of the entrance. Most of the equipment inside was either useless, broken, or meant for breaking. 

She did get a crowbar out of it though. That was about the only recompense she had. 

The goblin that had hopped over her truck when she ran them over. It must’ve been heavier than she thought, because the door to her truck bed was torn off by sheer force. Like a weight that wasn’t tied down. As a result, more than a few of her tools and items had simply… fallen out. So much stuff she had gotten, wasted.

Taylor dealt with her anger/exhaustion with a can of spam and canned bread cooked on her hot plate.

It has seemed her initial plan to wait out the rain was proving futile. Some sort of storm that she had no way of measuring, it was both boon and curse. While the rain was plentiful enough that it dulled the smoke and ash from her burning house, and likely prevented the fires from spreading through the neighborhood, it was also cold. So very cold. 

Taylor wasn’t prepared for it at all. Despite its status as a bay, it rarely ever did rain in Brockton. Hurricanes were rare, often spotted early by tinker technology and came with the wail of sirens, though they weren’t given the same treatment as the Endbringers. She questioned it when she was younger, having thought Brockton Bay was protected by some sort of weather machine Armsmaster or Dragon or someone else might’ve made. Eventually she realized that it was a strange combination of protection from some far-off mountains, and Leviathan somewhere out in the world, drowning out a continent or sleeping in the Bermuda Triangle with his own personal rainstorm. 

Every time she looked to the sky, she knew with that other voice in her head that there was no waiting it out. 

Instead, she kept watch over her remaining items that she stuffed into the semi-burnt passenger seat. She had managed to save her knife, and her fire axe, now dried with neanderthal goblin blood. Her radio, wet and without her extra parts. Her can opener. A single arm guard, one that she had affixed to her dominant right arm. Her helmet was cracked, a single line edging from the top of her visor to the back.

And then there was her food. Taylor wished she had gotten a gun of some sort from that sporting goods store. A deep-planted fear had shone itself whenever she looked at that corner of the store, and it was clear her avoidance had nearly killed her. Flattened cans and splattered meat, soup, and fruits and vegetables lined the edges of her truck bed, only to be sloshed around by the nearly endless rain. 

Taylor was glad this chop-shop had buckets that she could use to wash that out, lest the smell somehow flow through the rainy weather and attract even more dangerous predators. 

‘Goblins.’ Taylor was sitting in the chair of the chop-shop front desk, writing in her notebook by the light of her baton-flashlight, and stopped at the thought. ‘Why are there goblins, but no people? Did they escape and eat everyone? Some sort of plague that turned people into them?’

‘Improbable,’ the voice in her head told her. ‘More information required. Error unidentified.’

Taylor’s eye twitched at the second voice. No matter how much it used her inner voice and her, when she paid attention, actions, to communicate with her, it also… hurt. It was intertwined with her, a lot, whenever she had thoughts toward her own survival. Also when she had thoughts toward her father’s truck , her tools, the goblins, her radio. It made it difficult to…

Just now. Right there. ‘Why signal to me ‘truck’ and ‘radio’, that’s not…’ Taylor’s face scrunched in thought and then straightened. In a single move, she pulled herself from the swivel chair, wrenched open her father’s truck, and pointed a solitary finger at the busted car radio while shouting “YOU!” before slapping a hand to her mouth. 

The car radio was, like her father’s truck, very old. It had broken when she was around eleven, a couple years before her mother died, and her father had simply told them both that it “gave the girl character.”

Her mother had replied, “She’ll have character when she wears a cape.” Taylor let out a chuckle at the old memory. ‘Well mom, she doesn’t have a cape, but she still saved me.’

And it was going to save her again. Taylor looked around the chop shop, clapped her hands together, and understood.

---

Taylor wondered if this was what it was like to have a hangover and a migraine at the same time. She had never had a hangover; alcohol had the same, nightmarish dead end that drugs had in her mind. Also, she had snuck sips of it when she was much younger, and Emma was still her friend. It was not good. 

Migraines, she had gotten used to. By the opposite of coincidence, Emma was also the source of her pain. 

As Taylor laid down on a reclined chair in her father’s truck, she touched her fingers to her lips, her ears, her nose, and her eyes. They all came across clean. She was glad. She’d hate to have gotten nearly a whole week into her urban survival hell only to die by getting brain melted by her own power. 

Her own malfunctioning, barely understood power. She knew she was a Thinker, with some kind of mini-tinker package involved, but beyond those very basic basics, she was operating by the seat of her pants. Taylor felt… tired. Her anger had long dissipated, and her energy to keep going through the day had been sapped by the pain that emerged from the folds of her brain. Neurons misfired, and her skull was dealing with the consequences. 

Taylor chuckled, and winced. “Alright. Tomorrow. I’ll deal with it… tomorrow.”

Darkness came, and Taylor slept.

---

They hurt. They hurt really bad. 

The cocoon was fast and strong, and the pink-skin had gone mad. They hung under the cocoon, avoiding the hot bits and the spinning bits that sheared off their skin when they tried to hang on. 

They were angry. This was not uncommon. But this anger was deep. Bone deep. When they wanted the pink-skin to hurt, it was because they delighted in the pain. They loved the whimpers and the begging and the bleeding. 

Not this time. The pink-skin hurt them. Killed the hordelings. Made it so that the horde leader would never welcome them back, would be left whimpering and begging and bleeding for food. 

They shivered in the cold water. Black blood pooled around them, now that the cocoon had stopped and they had pulled themselves from it. It was all the pink-skin’s fault, they knew. Oh, they knew down to their bones. The pink-skin will pay. 

They breathed hard, mist and drool falling from their misshapen mouth from the cocoon’s first impact. Their claws on their feet and hands clicked as it crawled through the water that fell from the sky and gently rose. A bright light suddenly flashed from outside, washing over them and the cocoon and then vanishing all the same. 

They saw in the shadow of the cocoon and the flashing light… it. 

Pink skinned and hairy and ugly, it slept in the cocoon as though it had no care in the world. They hated it. The pain, the insults the pink-skin dared to deliver upon themself. They hated that they would not feed on bloody meat, because this pink-skin did not deserve to be eaten! 

The pink-skin only deserved death!

Slowly, they climbed up the cocoon, and stood over the pink-skin. They looked down at the putrid sight, and placed their one good hand against the pink-skin’s throat.

---

Taylor awoke from dreamlessness to pressure, and the glaring need to breathe.

Staring down at her was the putrid glare of pitch-black eyes and alabaster skin, framed by popping black veins and bruises.  

Taylor gasped, and the goblin took that as a sign to push its singular hand harder against her throat. Taylor could hardly move; near no sleep and a crash from her power rendered her body somehow weak. Her arm was pinned beneath her against the car seat, and her other reached for something, anything, to grab.

Nothing was in reach. Taylor made to grab at the goblin’s face, and the goblin, with its broken jaw, bit down against her wrist. 

Taylor could not scream as the teeth impaled themselves against her forearm. Her arm-guard seemed to have worked; it was keeping the goblin’s jaw from pulling and taking a chunk out of her wrist, but she could still feel a warm wetness fall down into her elbow. 

‘Get… off…’ Taylor’s peripheral blurred and blackened, such a similar black to the goblin’s blood it made her struggle more. The goblin’s broken jaw let go and she flailed her body. The goblin stayed hanging on. Eventually, her hand managed to snag something. It wasn't movable, or Taylor would've hit the goblin with it, but as Taylor’s lungs began to fail, she heard the sound of something wailing. Somehow far away but feeling so close to her weakening senses.

Then the goblin’s hand around her throat vanished, and Taylor’s lungs were full again. Her vision returned blurred, and she sat up to find the goblin fell out of the truck, scrambling to cover its deformed ears. 

Her hand was hanging off the car horn. 

Just as quick as the goblin’s painful crawl away, Taylor pulled herself up from her seat and grabbed the closest thing/weapon/knife, and followed the black stains out. 

Her breaths came out in wheezes. Her throat burned, and her lack of air brought her to her own knees fairly quickly. Taylor fell loudly onto wet concrete, and the splashing caught the attention of the goblin, who’s head twitched so loudly Taylor winced at the cracks. 

“You…” Its voice was garbled, like fluid and phlegm sat inside its lungs. One of its arms hung uselessly by its side, bone clearly broken. Its jaw was similarly broken and blackened, and the goblin began to hack up more black ichor as it spoke. Two pitch black eyes stared with all the hatred Taylor was already used to. 

Taylor sat with her back against her truck’s wheel, wet and cold and with her knife pointed straight at the goblin. “Drop… dead,” Taylor breathed out. 

The goblin’s eyes went wide with rage, and it roared, “Kill you! Kill you dead!” And it charged. 

Taylor flinched as it came at her fast… and its weight failed to wind her again. Taylor opened her eyes, and found her knife wet only with water. Taylor’s breath quickened. ‘Where’d it go’, her thoughts raced, and then her head spun at the sound of crunching. 

To her left, deeper in the shadows of the dark auto shop, Taylor could see black blood pooling with the rainwater that had leaked in. Taylor’s eyes strained against the darkness, and a silhouette rose. She pointed her knife at it again and…

A single, stark green eye stared right into hers. 

‘Wolf/dog/animal slayed the goblin/monster/abomination,’ her power spoke in her mind. Taylor winced at its loud words, and the wolfdog tilted its head. 

Slowly, it walked closer. Taylor let it close the distance, and the wolfdog nudged her with its nose before looking outside. 

“I… what?” Taylor asked, and followed the wolfdog’s direction. 

The sight that greeted her was a pitch black sky and still seemingly endless rain. So endless, the streets themselves slowly began to vanish in equally dark water. Taylor now began to feel the cold, the wetness that soaked her current clothes from sitting on the ground. 

“Flooding.” The single word seemed to wake Taylor’s power. ‘ Error identified. Prolonged storm/water/flooding threatens User survival. Seek asylum/shelter/higher ground.’

Her power was quiet and too loud. The wolfdog eyed her as Taylor rubbed her temples, and then winced at her arm. What little light Taylor had let her know that her sleeve was torn, and she could feel the indentations from the goblin’s teeth where it tried to eat her. 

Her hand shook, and she had to force herself to breathe again. ‘Error identified. Injury; abnormal bite to right forearm. Low light. Unsanitary environment. Sanitize. Seal. Survive.’

‘Thanks power, I would’ve never thought of wrapping my arm,’ Taylor thought. 

‘Error identified. User should not personify power. Mental faculties potentially fracturing.’

“I don’t think calling me insane would help either of us,” Taylor deadpanned at it, and the wolfdog nudged her with its nose again, against her cheek. Its single eye seemed to glow in the dark, with a stare that somehow communicated ‘get moving already.’

“Yeah, in a bit. Adrenaline, you know?” The wolfdog did not know, it seemed. Instead it walked right by Taylor, and hopped into her open truck door.

Taylor pulled herself up by her good arm. “Hey, don’t you have a pack or something? Why the hell…”

The wolfdog’s coat was shiny. For a moment, Taylor thought it might’ve been just the rain, but turning on the light in the truck’s cab revealed black blood, and quite a bit of red blood staining it. Along its side, Taylor could see long claw marks along its whole side, and what looked like twisted, oblong bites. 

“Oh. Goblins. Right.” Taylor sat herself in the driver’s seat, and grabbed her keys. Her injured arm in the light of the cab was not better than the wolfdog’s; while her arm guard seemed to have protected her against the worst of the goblin’s bite, she still had a shark-like pattern just all along the outside of her forearm. It was still bleeding a bright crimson compared to the stains of black lining her flesh. 

Taylor found it hard to swallow, she forced herself to look at anything else but her arm as she started the truck.

It took a few tries, but the engine eventually started. Taylor turned on the fan; the heater had broken around the time she started high school, but this wouldn’t be as cold as the AC. At least it would begin to dry her and the wolfdog while they stayed inside. 

The wolf dog simply curled itself into a sort of ball, closing its eye while facing the nearest fan opening. 

Taylor gave it no mind as she began to peel off her ruined hoodie. With her knife and her off-hand, Taylor cut off the torn sleep and managed to slice it into manageable strips. Putting her seatbelt in her mouth, she took the first strip and started to wrap it around her bleeding arm. 

It stung. Stung like a ten inch wasp with a five inch stinger with one inch barbs. Taylor briefly wondered if the goblin somehow had some pain inflicting venom just as tears began to fall down her face. Thankfully, she was done quickly. 

The bleeding would stop for now, and Taylor began to move her truck down the road. 

---

The roads were filled quickly, she found. 

The rain had not stopped, or even lightened while Taylor slept. Instead, it was pouring waves of droplets like an ocean was leaking from the sky. Clouds were so dark with water Taylor wondered if it were somehow coming from space itself. 

The wolfdog didn’t care. It just made sure its fur was dry and looked out the window with its one good eye. 

“Not exactly one for words, are you?” The wolfdog didn’t so much as wag its tail. Taylor shook her head, turning towards a street that had water running against her truck. “Yeah, I was like you. But, four days seems to be my limit for isolated insanity. You can only cuss out goblins so much.”

‘Error identified.’ Her power seemed to be doing that a lot lately. ‘User should abstain from speaking/mumbling/grumbling/angsting to oneself. Wolfdog does not care.’

“And then there’s the power that comes and goes as it pleases,” Taylor grumbled under her breath.

The road she turned to was an incline, it seemed. Taylor had to fight against a small current, one that if she looked at seemed to nearly reach the top of her tires, but she eventually made it to a flatter, and less flooded, road. 

That road then seemed to lead towards a parking lot, which itself led to a large hospital Taylor grimly recognized as Brockton General. 

Her arm dimly ached, as did her head. Brockton General never held happy memories for her; the first time she broke her arm falling off the roof, Emma’s burst appendix, that time her father had broken his hand in a fight with some skin-heads, her mother… 

Taylor pulled herself from her thoughts as she drove the truck towards the entrance. Shielded from the rain by the hangover, she unlocked the doors and spoke to the wolfdog beside her. “We’ll have to be careful. It should be a safe place, but for all I know, some goblins got inside and fucked with the equipment.”

The wolfdog blinked at her, and Taylor wondered if it was her power that let her notice such an imperceptible nod from the one-eyed animal. Taylor smiled without teeth, and she opened the door. 

Taylor brought with her her backpack, filled with some of her food, her radio parts, and her fire axe. On her belt sat her knife, right under her good arm so that she may grab it with ease. Her right arm, she had wrapped fully in her ruined hoodie. Despite her new location, Taylor wasn’t excited about having to treat herself, let alone anything serious like staples or stitches. She was just glad she wasn’t bleeding. 

The wolfdog walked on her right; Taylor didn’t need her power to understand that it understood her weakness, and was using her to capitalized on its own half-blindness. It was its right eye that shone green, after all. 

Taylor’s flashlight was in her mouth as she pulled open the sliding doors. The wolfdog shook itself, and walked ahead as Taylor shone her light against every wall. 

It looked about the same as she remembered. Long, wide, white, and sterile. The thinnest coating of dust covered near every surface, and some office toys and magazines lay strewn about in random places. Wooden bead mazes, purses, even a couple singular shoes that were somehow left behind. 

“More ghosts,” Taylor muttered. ‘Error unidentified,’ her power whispered and shouted. ‘Understanding: denied.’

The wolfdog obviously didn’t care for any of it. Instead it looked at Taylor, tilted its head in the obvious question of, “Where to now?”

“Now’s the fun part,” Taylor spun the flashlight until she held the emitter flush against her pinky. “The hunt for loot.”

---

It was also the long part, Taylor failed to say. She kept her backpack slung on one shoulder, for ease of access every time she came across a room or cabinet with bandages and light painkillers. She found headache medication, antibiotics, and she broke open some locks with her crowbar to find even heavier stuff. Morphine and heroin. 

Taylor left that alone.

Eventually, she found enough bandages to bury the food in her bag. It was by then that she felt comfortable enough to lead her wolfdog pal into a waiting room and sat herself on a table, her flashlight more than powerful enough to light the room. 

The wolfdog jumped up onto the soft table-bed right beside her, sitting plainly. Taylor chuckled as it nuzzled its nose against her cheek. “Thanks for the moral support.”

Taylor looked at her covered arm. Testily, she moved her fingers. A bit stiff, but that’s probably due to unuse, not any sort of venom or infection. It hadn’t even been a full day yet. 

With shaking hands, Taylor pulled off the hoodie strips of fabric. The outer layers came away fine, but as she got to the strips pressed against her skin, she winced. They were hard, and pain flared whenever she pressed a finger against them. 

“Fuck,” she cursed. Fighting off the quiet shouting of her power, Taylor bit her lip, and ripped the first of them off. Dried blood peeled away with it, and the burn brought tears to the surface. 

Taylor thought she was used to pain. The now reopened, bleeding wound was proof enough that she was lucky the trio never tried anything more than theft and bruises. 

And it was bleeding. As soon as Taylor peeled away the last layer, it began to drip down in a steady stream of red so dark it looked black. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

‘Error identified-’  

“Shut up,” Taylor interrupted her power. “I know there’s a fucking problem, I know-”

Taylor reached over for her flashlight, sticking its stock into her mouth while she rooted for the staple gun she had found earlier. She was decent at needlework even when her mother tried to teach her basic sewing, but she didn’t trust her own hands enough to try it on her own skin. 

Staple gun retrieved, she aimed her flashlight and winced. Some stray threads had worked their way from her hoodie into the oddly-shaped scars the goblin bit open, and it seemed the dark blood she saw earlier wasn’t just a trick of the dark. 

It was black, or so close to it it didn’t matter. While the flesh itself was an angry red, the blood that trailed down her forearm was a watery, dark tint. Like a child used watercolors to finger paint her arm. 

The wolfdog whined at the sight, and Taylor sighed. “Yeah, I know.” 

‘Disinfectant required.’

“Yeah. I know.” Taylor was in a hospital, thankfully, and that meant plenty of bottles of hydrogen peroxide. Opening it with one good hand was difficult, and as carefully as she could with her arm still bleeding, she poured it down her hand into the wound. 

Taylor tasted blood. The wolfdog’s nose scrunched, and it twisted away from the bottle. 

‘Disinfectant applied. WARNING: Error detected.’

“I- what?” Taylor let go of her tongue, and her power let her understand . ‘Error identified; chemical compound H2O2 has an expiration date of three years unopened, six months opened. H2O2 expired; ineffective in killing blood thinning bacterium. Strong bacterium. Tinker made.’

“Expired?” Taylor looked at the bottle, and spotted the expiration; 2014. Taylor should’ve been good. It couldn’t be… three years?

“How?” She asked. 

Her power answered. ‘Error unidentified. Information gained. Destination suspect. Time dilation noted; however improbable, not impossible. Error unidentified.’

Taylor bit her lip, and looked at the staple gun to her side. “Time travel? Any chance I can use that to skip this?”

‘Improbable.’

“Figured.” Taylor pressed the staple gun against her bleeding arm, and pulled the trigger.