07: The Doctor will see you now

David felt a strange and indescribable sensation, as if he were floating weightlessly, the pains and his aches left forgotten on the floor somewhere far below. His thoughts were all fuzzy, as though they were wrapped in soft cotton. The bandages tightly wound around his head only emphasized the surreal experience. Although they made his head itch, he didn't give in to the urge to scratch them. He barely felt them anyways. Hell, he hardly felt anything at all in that moment. Instead, his attention was fixated upward, his eyes locked onto the flickering EXIT sign that struggled to pierce through the dimness of the worn-out hallway.

The feeble light emitted by the sign battled against the encroaching darkness, barely illuminating the decaying walls. It held a mysterious allure to the shell-shocked teen, as if it held the key to unraveling the chaos of the past few hours or offered a glimmer of hope amidst the gloom. David couldn't help but be captivated by its intermittent glow. It seemed to promise answers, a way out, and in his fragile state, he couldn't resist its enchanting pull.

And so, he remained there, suspended between reality and imagination, caught in the dance of the flickering light and the eerie silence of the abandoned hallway. Time seemed to stretch endlessly, each passing moment pregnant with anticipation. Until it was rudely interrupted by the doctor standing by his side holding a clipboard and sounding utterly uninterested.

"Surgery was a success. She hasn't come to yet, but she's stable."

The doctor's words barely registered with David, as if they were distant echoes floating through a fog. Despite the fact that the stout man stood merely two feet away from the bewildered teenager, his voice seemed muffled and far-off. To be fair, referring to him as a doctor might be a stretch. The man's appearance hardly inspired confidence, dressed in faded sweatpants and donning a mismatched ensemble of thick rubber gloves, an apron (with no shirt underneath, for… some reason, he supposed), and a peculiar combination of a mask and what appeared to be a shower cap covering a significant portion of his head, leaving David to question the legitimacy of the dude's medical degree.

Maybe he won one in a box of cereal? David remembered his Mom practically going on the warpath when she found out about NC's General Hospital's latest marketing strat.

All in all, the fat gonk looked more like a butcher than a doctor. Unsurprisingly, the thought of the chubby, shirtless man having his mother's life in his gloved hands was hardly comforting to the shaken teen.

"We'll keep her a few more nights to observe." The man (partially) clad in scrubs continued, either unaware or uncaring of how the teen in front of him clearly wasn't paying him any attention, unseeing eyes roaming his dilapidated surroundings instead.

The hallway stretched before him, enveloped in a somber gloom that permeated the air. Its dimness and dampness seemed oddly familiar, almost reminiscent of his own Megabuilding if it weren't for the overwhelming stench of despair that clung to the walls even more intensely than back in his own dwelling. The place unsettled him, and the people who worked there even more so. Even as he was led through the squat building located on Sequoia Street, passing through a worn-down entrance hall and ascending a flight of even more dilapidated concrete stairs, he couldn't escape the biting and malicious apathy that seemed to hang heavily in the air, casting a dark shadow over every interaction and encounter. The indifference displayed by those around him felt sharp and penetrating, leaving him with a sense of disquiet and an unshakeable feeling of being an outsider here, someone unwelcomed.

Less a visitor and more an interloper.

It should've set him on edge. It should've made him want to hug his mother's jacket closer to himself. It should've sent his whole circs blazing with red flags, it should've made him question why his mom was admitted to a Psychiatric Hospital for physical injuries.

Scratch that, he shouldn't even have asked any questions at all, just bust the orderly's nose, find his mom and delta the fuck out of this creepy hellhole.

Should've… but he didn't. Couldn't. He didn't have the energy left to notice the warning signs.

All he felt was… unsure. Of everything. Of himself. Of his mother's condition. Of what would come after all… this. Was there even an after? The doctor said his mom was stable, but how should David know what that meant when he wasn't allowed to even see her?

Dead people are pretty stable too, right?

His thoughts kept tumbling until they unexpectedly latched onto the doctor's last words, causing a jolt of realization to course through the teenager's veins. Like sticking a fork in a toaster and feeling the current run through your circs. The sheer strangeness statement only now really hit the teen and he almost felt like the disgusting creep had suddenly decided to pour a bucket of ice-water down his veins, as if the fat guy was some sadistic ripperdoc short on anaesthetics and low on common sense.

"You'll keep her… can't I see her?"

The thought of being separated from his mom… the thought that he wouldn't be able to reach her again was sickening enough it finally shook the teen from his stupor.

Almost as if it was matching how he felt on the inside, the flickering EXIT sign unleashed a shower of sparks, their lights causing a wicked gleam to flash over the doctor's goggles.

"No can do, kid. Visitation's not part of your package." The doctor responded with an ease born of familiarity, a rote line he had clearly thrown out without care for thousands of times already.

A part of David was shocked to his very core.

'I have to pay just to see my own Mom…?' he thought, his mouth oddly dry.

Another, more cynical part of David was wondering why he was even surprised anymore after a (brief) lifetime on the streets of NC.

'Of course it's about money. Everything is always about money.' David thought bitterly to himself, his hands clenching.

The memory of the accident surged through David's mind, intruding upon his thoughts like an unstoppable playback of a BD he just couldn't quit. The intense heat of the fire engulfed his senses, imprinted forever onto his memory. He could almost feel the slick sensation blood trickling down his skin, a chilling reminder of the moment when his legs became caught in the twisted wreckage of their old, busted-up vehicle, trapping him within the ruin of their dilapidated car. The acrid smoke swirled menacingly, threatening to suffocate his lungs and casting a shadow of terror over the chaotic scene.

The intensity of the flames, the desperate struggle for breath, and the unsettling sensation of being trapped in a metal tomb of destruction replayed in his thoughts with unwavering clarity. It was as if time stood still, freezing him in that terrifying ordeal, each sensation etching itself deeper into the tapestry of his memory.… and at the centre of it all was his mother, prone and slumped over her steering wheel, lying motionless even as oil began to spill from the old truck they had smashed into, dripping onto their seats.

But, most of all, he remembered the mechanical tones of the Trauma Team responders as they overlooked the carnage, a white helmet suddenly overtaking his view.

"Not a client."

"Neither is she"

"Leave these guys to the city meat wagons."

David closed his eyes, his breath straining and laboured.

'Everything is always about fucking money.'

It'd be difficult. Eddies would be tight, or well, even more tight. For some reason, his thoughts seemingly fixated on their washing machine.

'Well, that shitty thing's straight out at least.'

They'd have to sacrifice other things as well of course, he knew that. They might have to go without electricity at all for a month or two, just to make rent. Food… well, the shit you could pull from vending machines was hardly safe, just marginally better than dumpster diving really (though at least this way you got your slop pre-packaged), but it shouldn't kill them if it was just for a few months.

They could pull through. They had to. They always did before.

'… Except, Mom did that. Took care of it. Us. How the fuck am I gonna do the same for her?'

He could try and sling more XBD's, the little corpo-wannabes at the Academy loved that shit, even as they looked down their noses at him when they wired the eddies. Pocket change for those spoiled brats, but the difference between a hot meal and going hungry for him. Their allowances were fat enough that David should be able to leech enough ennies from the bastards to pull him and his Mom through a couple of months at least.

If he had enough to offer them. Problem was he was just a street-level dealer, meaning his supply was completely dependent on the Doc sending him more of his stock to sell. He could press the guy for more product, but that came with a price tag of its own.

And those are the kinds of debts that can become way too costly to settle, in more ways than one.

Even as David tried to think on the future, his body recognized that there was still the now to deal with, and so without any real input from him, he noticed his mouth opening and words being formed.

"R-right…" was all he managed.

Taking the conformation at face value, completely uncaring of the lost tone the teenager voiced it with, the doctor glanced down at his clipboard again, his own manner completely unbothered.

"Anyway, here's your paperwork and your bill. Brought your Mom's things too." He said, extending a plastic waste bag towards the teen, who glanced at it in surprise.

"Wire us the eddies…"

David wasn't sure what exactly the shirtless man was about to extort from him, as they were suddenly shaken from their conversation by a thunderous crash coming from the level below.

Quite literally in fact, as David fell off his bench and the doctor was sent to his knees with a cry of panic.

"The fuck is going on?!" David yelled out, but hardly stuck around for a response from the flailing creep.

Fuelled purely by instinct and adrenaline, the Santo teen leapt to his feet and started running down the flight of stairs. People don't usually run towards potential danger, but all that really mattered to David in that moment was that his Mom was somewhere on the upper levels, unconscious and defenceless (but stable at least, whatever the fuck that meant), and some shit just went down on the floor below.

So, for David, his path was clear: make sure that whatever just crashed into the building didn't make it to the upper floors.

There was no plan. There wasn't even any consideration as to what might've caused the crash and what David, an unmodded, scrawny teen could possibly hope to do to halt it in its tracks. All that went through the young Santo kid's head was the image of his mother, lying motionless against the steering wheel that had smashed into her stomach, a pool of blood thickening around her feet.

Heart pounding in his chest and feet thundering against the concrete, David sprinted towards the ground floor, his focus fixed on the grimy double doors leading to the main entrance. Bursting through the doors, a wave of nausea washed over him, jolting him awake and finally forcing him awake from his panic-fuelled thoughts as he took in the dangerous situation unfolding before his very eyes.

The entrance was a scene of utter chaos, marked by a level of carnage that could only come from a cyberpsycho attack. Slaughter, that was the only word for it. Rubble littered the entire hallway, originating from a massive hole where the front doors once stood. In the center of it all, an unexpected sight greeted David—an oddly intact muscle car. The remnants of a labcoat-clad, bloodied arm protruded from beneath one of the car's tires, leaving a haunting streak of blood in its wake. The room was further marred by the presence of several lifeless bodies, dressed in Biotechnica or Militech uniforms, scattered haphazardly across the floor. The extent of the massacre halted even the hardened Militech soldiers who rushed into the room in their tracks, their full assault gear and weapons held at the ready.

Each corpse was a gruesome testament to the sheer violence that had taken place. Some lay in pools of their own blood, their bodies riddled with bullet holes or bearing grotesque slash marks. Others had been violently embedded into the walls or pillars with overwhelming force, causing the unyielding concrete to crumble around their mangled forms. In a macabre display of strength, one Militech soldier, identifiable only by his boots, had been launched into the ceiling, his lower body the only visible evidence of his existence.

The cause behind the sheer brutality of the massacre was revealed as David's gaze was drawn to the far side of the room, where an animalistic roar pierced through the panicked screams of the remaining survivors. And it was indeed an Animalistic roar: the giant that stood over the cowering receptionist could be nothing else but a member of NC's most violent gang, though David had never seen one (or any human being for that matter) that was that big.

The man was huge, towering over the terrified hospital employee, a wild mane of hair nearly brushing the ceiling and he was wider in the shoulders than two David's standing next to each other. Though obviously an Animal, judging by his muscles and heavy-set face ('are those fangs in his mouth!?' David saw in shock), he didn't wear their standard gear of torn-up track suits and sports equipment. It looked more like what David expected of a cyberpunk, looking similar to what the Militech soldiers currently storming the entrance hall were clad in.

The only thing that marked the enormous man as an Animal (besides his size and clear strength) was the flak-jacket embossed with a stylized roaring lion on the back.

"P-please, I don't know-"

"MARTINEZ, GLORIA, ADMITTED TODAY!"

"Halt right there!" the Militech soldier closest to David shouted out.

Some small part of the teen's mind (the only part currently not going "oh my god, what the fuck is fucking happening?!") was surprised that the corpo soldiers even attempted to talk the Animal down, though the tremble in the man's voice probably explained why.

Hardened corpo soldiers they may be, with the chrome and the stims to match, but this was a quiet part of town and it had been a normal day: to go from just chatting with your colleagues around the watercooler to seeing the entrance hall of your workplace turned into a black-market horror BD is not something anyone here expected waking up this morning.

"P-please, p-patient files are c-confidential…" the woman behind the counter tried in a sobbing tone, the same woman who, only a few hours ago, had sneered in annoyance at David just because he had asked to see his mother.

The Animal growled, picking the woman up by engulfing her entire steel-blonde head in a single clawed hand, lifting her up from the ground with ease as he brought her closer to his beastlike face. His lips were peeled back, showing off fearsome pointed fangs as his hot breath washed over the terrified woman's face.

"You really want to protect corpo integrity? Now?" the monster growled, almost sounding incredulous if not for the sheer rage in his deep voice.

The crying woman was spared from answering when the same soldier from before, probably an officer of sorts, took a step forwards, gun at the ready, once again desperately shouting orders at the impossibly huge beast in their midst.

"Drop the woman!" his voice cracking.

Time seemed to stall for a moment, freezing both the onlookers and David himself in the grip of immobilizing fear. Lost amidst the chaos unfolding around him, David found himself pressing his back a little further into the protective embrace of the corridor's corner, all but forgotten by the rest in the room. As the colossal Animal kept his gaze locked with the trembling woman, a pregnant pause lingered in the air, burdened with trepidation.

The Animal's piercing green gaze gradually shifted from the woman to the jittery Militech officer. Though his fearsome visage remained contorted in a snarl, a bone-chilling transformation began to take hold—a sinister grin that stretched across his altered features, sending shivers down the spines of the everyone still alive in the room.

"Very poor choice of words."

Before David could comprehend what the man meant, he pulled back his massive arm before letting loose with a throw like a pitcher. The woman blurred through the air, her body limp as it flew. Before David could even really comprehend what had happened, the woman impacted the corpo soldier, who just barely managed to get out a choked-off, startled shout, before the woman slammed into him-

"Oh… oh god…" David managed to get out, feeling almost sick.

-and through the soldier, turning both into an explosion of gore and gristle. The rest of the small company of Militech troops stood stunned for a moment as they were doused by their commander's blood, a moment that costed them dearly as the enormous Animal leapt towards them, a teal machine gun held in one hand, the other splayed wide open displaying its wicked claws.

What happened next almost went too fast for David to even really follow, not helped by the fact that he was scrambling down the hallway, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the massacre occurring in the room behind him.

All he knew was that the teal-coloured gun let loose a tremendous spray of bullets that forced the Militech corpos back, it's kick barely even fazing the giant as he descended upon the nearest group of soldiers, who were only just now bringing up their weapons, still shaken by the sudden and violent end of their commander.

The gun kept roaring, seemingly never running out of bullets while the monster's free hand shot forwards faster than David (or the corpo soldiers) could follow. Its claws glinted in the light coming from the dilapidated fixtures in the ceiling and with a violent swipe, the throat of the soldier standing at the front was torn out in a tremendous spray of blood.

That was the last David saw as he allowed the double doors to swing shut behind him as he sprinted back down the hallway he had just crossed. The sheer gore and bloodshed in the entrance hall had shaken him from his foolish first instinct: his body, steered by the most primal and primitive parts of his brain, had recognized a bigger predator when it saw one and had immediately realized that between Fight (read, Get Horribly Torn To Absolute Fucking Shreds) and Flight (read, Possibly Not Get Horribly Torn To Absolute Fucking Shreds), it much preferred the latter option.

Despite his body's instinctual panic, David refused to succumb to its grip. While the beast's gruesome actions had already rattled him, they paled in comparison to the overwhelming dread stirred within him by the creature's bone-chilling words.

Martinez, Gloria. It knew her. It was hunting her. And it was up to David to ensure that it would never find her.

Forget trying to stop the new threat from reaching his mother, there was nothing David had or could do that would halt a monster like that in its tracks for even a moment, save perhaps for the time it'd take to extract his spine from his body and lick its claws clean in the aftermath. But that didn't mean that David's first (and really only) priority couldn't still be achieved.

He needed to keep his Mom safe. That was all that mattered, the only thing that mattered. She wasn't there anymore to take care of the two of them, to protect them, so it fell to him instead. If he couldn't keep the threat from reaching his Mom, he'd keep his Mom away from the threat instead.

Heart hammering in his chest so fast he felt as if it was shattering his ribs, David leapt up the stairs three or four steps at a time. In what both felt like no time at all and an eternity, David slid to a halt next to the cowering 'doctor' that had given him the news on his mother's condition, his sneaker-clad feet skidding over the broken and grimy tiles of the hallway.

"Out of the fucking way!" he heard himself scream, voice cracking and hoarse as he shoved the man aside, too panicked to even really be disgusted as his hands slid against slick, exposed skin, the shirtless man drenched in his own sweat.

Ignoring him, David quickly heaved up the waste bag with his mother's belongings onto his shoulder, thankful that the man's greed had at least led to something beneficial, since he was now already packed.

All that was left was his mother.

"You! Where is she?!"

As David directed his attention to the doctor, who remained huddled against the railing, it became clear that the man had yet to fully register David's presence. His eyes, magnified by his glasses, were wide and transfixed, fixed solely on the closed doors at the far end of the hallway.

And the gunfire and screams that could be heard from the other side.

"Shoot at it!"

"I am shooting at it!"

"Then why is it not dead?!"

David shuddered as the screams of panic turned into the screams of the dying and he refocused on the man trembling on the floor, clutching the railing with thick, yellow latex gloves.

"HEY! ASSHOLE!"

That is, until David kicked him in the side. Hard.

Wide eyes flitted towards David with a sort of mad panic, void of recognition.

"Wha-?"

"Gloria Martinez! My mom, asshole! Where is she! What room?!"

"I-… I don't…"

"What?! ROOM?!"

"I-…"

The man didn't get to utter another word as right in front of David's disbelieving eyes, he suddenly disappeared in a shower of gore. Feeling how a wave of blood crashed into his form and across his face, David didn't even manage to blink, his feet seemingly glued to the floor.

"…what." Was all he managed, his voice quivering and impossibly small in the gloomy hallway that seemed to loom larger and larger around him, as if to swallow him whole in its darkness, time itself seemingly crawling to a halt.

Slowly, still trembling, David's eyes tracked towards his left, to the wall at his side, where the body of the doctor and what had once been a Militech agent were embedded in a crater, blood and viscera visibly dragging towards the floor. Each drop of blood or spark of chrome seemingly took a day to fall to the floor below to David's shocked mind, coinciding with the slick feeling of beads of matter slowly sliding across his skin and down his shirt.

The worst part was that he could see the Militech soldier was still alive, wide eyes ringed in red looking out at the world in an uncomprehending panic.

David slowly turned back towards where the apron-clad man had been cowering behind the balustrade, only to see that the spokes and metals of said railing had been twisted and torn apart, stretching towards the cratered wall with mangled steel fingers.

David's body only began moving again when a large, clawed hand covered in blood suddenly gripped the remaining parts of the railing, the teen falling away with a scream as he landed prone on the dirtied tiles. Immediately after, the clawed hand clenched, steel slightly deforming underneath its grip, the entire railing groaning as it began to buckle, before an enormous figure attached to said hand was heaved over the crumpling balustrade in a blur, shooting towards the mangled bodies.

A massive knee impacted the still-alive corpo soldier, burying him even further into the wall and reducing the doctor behind him to a pulp. Blood flew from the Militech agent's wide-open mouth, but strangely no sound escaped him. Just a rattling breath that somehow sounded way too loud to David's ears.

The enormous figure let out a low growl, before extracting its knee from the carnage. For a moment it stood there, so large that it seemingly blocked what little light remained in the gloom-lit hallway, before its head turned towards David's prone body. The Santo teen let out an involuntary whimper as the EXIT sign finally gave out in a shower of sparks, the sudden flash of light illuminating the beast's heavy features, caked in blood, though the fury in its brilliant green eyes was unmistakeable.

"W-wait…" David began, unsure of what even he was attempting to say, before the giant began to close in on him with heavy steps.

As the smell of blood and death began to overwhelm his senses, David tried to crawl back over the dirtied tiles, one arm trying to find purchase on the grimy ceramic, the other clutching the waste-bag with his mother's belongings tightly against his heaving chest.

"Waitwaitwait-!" he began screaming as the giant loomed over him, one enormous clawed hand reaching down towards him, the stench of death increasing.

To his surprise, the beast grabbed the bag instead of him, tearing it from his grip with pathetic ease, before it straightened back to its full height.

"NO!"

David tried to leap for the bag, his panic overriding his senses, the loss of his mother's possessions throwing self-preservation out the window. As expected, the giant proved way too fast for the harried teen, easily moving the satchel back out of David's grip.

His hands shot out, his feet hammering against the floor as his breath tore from his throat, but the next leap, and the next, and the next one after that all missed by miles as the beast moved around him, looking completely unhurried, barely even needing to take a step to remain outside of David's flailing reach.

Until it apparently tired of their little game, because without David even really being able to see it, a fist launched forwards, burying itself deep enough in his stomach that his feet briefly left the ground as all breath was forcefully pushed from his body.

He sank to his knees before the giant, completely out of breath and struggling to fill his lungs. A rumbling came from above, but it paled when compared to the ringing in his ears.

"-hear me kid? Kid?"

Slowly, the world and his senses returned to him (and with it, his pain receptors, apparently, because Jesus fuck did his everything hurt!) and David realized the giant was trying to talk to him.

Seeing it only now had his attention, the beast's heavy features settled into a deep frown.

"Did you even hear me kid? This ain't your fight so just give it up already. Stay the fuck down."

David should've. He really should've. Common sense told him so. His aching body was screaming at him to do so. David should've… but all his eyes were really seeing was the black plastic wastebag clutched in the giant's blood-covered fist.

"Give me back my mother's stuff." He said. Or, well, wheezed actually, but it got the message across as he forced himself to stand straight (or as straight as he could manage), craning his head to try and look the beast in the eye.

Which the beast then kindly accommodated by shooting out a claw, grabbing David by the front of his 'Saka shirt and lifting him clear off the floor in a single effortless move, dangling the teen at eye-height. Having just seen exactly what happened to those that got caught in its monstrous grip, David damn near pissed himself, his eyes flitting past the Animal's furious expression to the two pulped forms embedded in the crater behind it.

He swallowed, before his eyes instead tracked back towards the giant's other hand. As much as his current situation terrified him, the earlier whirlwind of thoughts and anxieties from before returned in full force when he was reminded of his mother's condition and his duty towards her. Surprisingly, he felt more lost and helpless back when the doctor first gave him the news than right now, even though his feet were literally bungling high off the floor, the thick, burly fingers fisted into his shirt providing an odd sort of centring that kept him focused in the here and now.

Panic and helplessness fused together into an odd cocktail of adrenaline-fuelled stubbornness, a facsimile of determination. David's eyes finally lifted up and locked gazes with the monster's green ones, who for some reason seemed to get even angrier when it saw that the Santo native wasn't backing down.

"Why? You think just 'cause you're scrappy, you can win this fight?"

"I don't fucking care about being scrappy or fighting, I just want my mom's stuff back!" David found himself shouting back, before suddenly being cut off as the beast pulled him in close, lips peeled back in an angry snarl showing off deadly fangs.

"You want your Mom's stuff back? Then fuckin' do as I say and stay! The fuck! Down!"

"I need to help her! Lemme go!"

"Or what?" the beast growled, its voice pitched low and promising danger.

David opened his mouth in reflex, but no sound escaped him. Sure, his panic and worries for his mother had fuelled him on long enough he could look the Animal in the eye and not soil himself ('small victories, David, small victories' he thought to himself) but what could he say? What did he have to offer? What did he have that was threatening? There was nothing he could throw back in the giant's face after such a challenge and both of them knew it.

"I just tore through an entire Militech squad that got in my way, you think you got a better shot? The fuck makes you so fuckin' special?" the blood-drenched gangoon pressed and the last shreds of David's self-preservation snapped.

"I'M NOT!" David roared back in the beast's face, clearly taking it off guard.

It blinked in surprise, and its grip slackened for just a moment. Taking his chance, David lifted up his legs, planting them square in the middle of the beast's chest and pushing off with all his might. The monster was unmoved, but David had expected that at this point: instead, he was moved, his entire body going taut as he extended his legs at full strength, forcing his torso away.

The 'Saka shirt, the clothing he had always resented but worn for his mother's sake, ripped around the beast's large claws, reduced to tatters as David literally tore himself free from the giant's grip. Even as he fell away, he performed an awkward backwards somersault in order to land on his feet (he had always been unusually nimble), pushing off the moment his sneakers hit the grimy tiles.

He leapt towards the bag clutched in the beast's other hand again, only this timehis arms closed around plastic instead of air and he tackled the wastebag away from the towering monster, uncaring of how it tore much like his shirt as he landed heavily on the floor of the hallway, his mother's effects once more clutched tightly against his chest.

For a moment, he and the enormous Animal remained frozen in their positions, the sheer stupidity of what he had just done only now really registering with David, before the giant slowly glanced down at his fists, unclenching them to see the two different scraps of torn-up fabric held in each one.

"I'm not." David spoke up, unsure really of why he even did.

The monster's green eyes flitted from the scraps of fabric to David, a complicated expression on its heavy-set face that the teen couldn't quite place, but it didn't move from his spot, so the Santo teen took that as a good sign.

He worked himself back to his feet, bag still clutched to his chest as he took care not to let his mom's stuff spill from it and onto the dirtied floor. All the while, he kept his gaze locked with the beast as it silently observed him.

"I'm not special." He repeated, clutching the opened bag a little closer to him.

It smelled of his mother. Even underneath the blood from his surroundings, the sheer stench of death coming from the behemoth across from him, even the acrid smoke that clung to his mother's clothes. Underneath it all, there was still the unmistakeable, comforting scent of his mother.

His eyes flitted from the beast towards the bag, determination slowly making him stand taller as he glanced back, jaw set and knuckles white.

"She is." He bit out.