Chapter 22: "Not really, no."

Lemmy shut the door to the bathroom. "What's my doctor doing here?" He murmured, glancing back at Aldon who was currently pulling at Parkers shoulders. Something about the question caught Aldon's attention.

"Your doctor? Lemmy, who is your doctor?" He asked, letting Parker go and pulling Lemmy aside.

"Oh, uh, doctor Valez. Big Tar-Khali guy. Real nice. I bet he'd help us out if we asked." Lemmy responded, absentmindedly glancing at Parker and Harvel.

"I bet he would." Aldon agreed, leaning out of the door and scanning for Yiddek. He spotted him walking around and asking the wait staff questions while showing them something on his implant. He managed to grab his attention by slamming the door a few times in rapid succession.

Yiddek quickly shuffled back to the bathroom and squeezed in through the door. "Sorry, took a while to go around. Thanks for the text, I would have been lost otherwise." He apologized as he noticed the atmosphere.

"You might still be lost. I know I am." Aldon said, pulling him around the stall and into full view of Harvel and Parker.

"Oh my, you'd be correct. Where's Parker?" Yiddek asked, carefully inspecting the round egg-like formation protruding from the side of the original growth.

"Here... A little help maybe?" Parkers voice seeped out from a space still left between her fingers, poking through the side of the formation. The mound of Harvel forming around her had left her nearly invisible. Yiddek produced a travel size trauma kit and pulled out the small scalpel inside. As he positioned himself to begin cutting Aldon reacted.

"I wouldn't do that if I were-" Was all he got out before a tendril shot across the room and planted itself on the bathroom mirror. "You." He finished, watching Yiddek struggle to get his hand free.

Parker, struggled against the fungus holding her in place against the stall to no avail. She was about to resign herself to waiting out the storm, but as she did she saw something. Harvel, whom at this point had barely moved in nearly five minutes, began to twitch. She watched as his mouth creaked open, a tendril working it's way up his throat and past his teeth.

It moved about, little fingers twitching back and forth as they seemed to sample the air. The twitching stopped for a moment as they became focused on Parker. Every breath she exhaled seemed to pause the twitching before it resumed again with added fervor.

'You've got to be fucking kidding me.' She thought, saving the breath the words would have taken.

She began struggling again, keeping her mouth shut tight in an attempt to slow the advance of the fungus. Parker wasn't generally one to panic but she also had a severe dislike of any and all movies, books, and stories that could be remotely filed under horror. This experience as a whole had taken a distinctly 'For the love of god change the channel.' type of turn.

She could see Harvels eyes peeking out from behind the fungus, twitching and shifting back and forth as she struggled against the tendrils. The appendage that was hanging from his mouth was advancing, feeling the air between them for more CO2 to home in on. It groped around fruitlessly trying to latch onto something organic.

'If you don't wake the fuck up Harvel goddamn it! I'm gonna...' She thought, pausing for a moment. What was she going to do? Shoot him? Punch him? No, she was going to die. At least she was pretty sure she was. It wasn't like the thing coming out of his mouth was going to serve her tea and ask her how her day had been.

'I don't know! But whatever it is I'm going to do it angrily!' Parker screamed from inside of her head. She shifted her weight as best she could and the tendril spasmed before resuming its search through the air. Noticing the change she shifted again, and again it recoiled a bit. She glanced down.

'Oh, I forgot about you.' Parker thought, pressing her weight against the knife again, achieving the same result as before. It could feel, whatever it was it could feel if Harvel was in pain as if it were it's own. She pushed harder this time, causing the tendril to whip wildly around in front of her face. She pushed as hard as she could, squinting and gritting her teeth as the tendril connected with her forehead and cheek. She could feel warm blood beginning to run down her forehead and into her eyebrow as the knife plunged further.

Suddenly, with a shiver, all movement stopped. The tendril froze in place but a hairs length from Parkers eye. Just past it she could see that Harvels eyes had stopped twitching and darting around, instead rolling up behind his eyelids. A roar, like a great dam giving way started to seep from Harvels throat. Louder and louder it grew until Parkers ears were so overwhelmed by the sound all she could hear were her own eardrums compressing.

As if in unison the fungus began to loosen around her. The tendrils shaking violently as they seemingly pulled back into Harvels body. Harvels pupils dropped back down below his eyelids, shifting through different emotions as they refocused. First rage, then surprise, then panic, then back to rage again.

Parker realized the scream had become muffled and saw that Harvel was biting down, violently gnashing his teeth on the tendril extending from his throat. After a moment of initial horror at the sight, Parker pulled herself free of the loosening fungus and shuffled as far from him as she could, slamming her head into a drain pipe under the sink. She watched, as the rest of the tendrils retreated violently back into Harvels body, leaving him leaning limply against the now dented side of the stall.

Yiddek grabbed him and began looking him over as Aldon helped Parker back onto her feet. "Damn, did a bit of a number on you, huh? What happened?" Aldon asked, inspecting the open wound on Parkers forehead. For a moment Parker just stared blankly at Yiddek and Harvel before her brain caught back up to what he had said.

"I don't really know. This thing was coming out of his mouth and I just struggled. I think he woke up when I stabbed him. I should be fine though." Parker answered, avoiding as much eye contact with Aldon as she could. She tried to look away but her gaze kept drifting back to Harvels face.

Something about the way it had crawled its way out of his mouth was stuck in her head. Every time he opened it to breathe she could swear it was going to slither out onto his chest again. Parker had seen plenty of nastiness in her time working with her uncle, but it was a human type of nastiness. It made sense in a way.

This wasn't human. Harvel wasn't human. At least, he couldn't be as far as she could tell. This thought was only reinforced as she watched Yiddek pull out the knife, not a single drop of blood left on it. Even his clothes were dry save for his own sweat.

Humans bleed. Tar-Khal bleed. Even Davisians bleed. Things don't, and Harvel wasn't bleeding.

"You sure you're alright?" Aldon asked, pulling Parker away from her own thoughts. She could tell from the lines on his face that he could tell. Parker looked down at her hands, still resting on the sink. They were shaking in a way that they hadn't since her first run with Aldon.

"Not really, no." Parker answered. She could tell she was going to have nightmares about this for quite a long time. It was going to be another Blood Summer 4 situation for sure.