There was darkness. Silence, too- well, not quite.
It wasn't silence, it was just that Reca, caught in the darkness, hadn't noticed any noise.
Now, rising slowly back into reality, she begun to recognize the incessant, slow beeping of a heart monitor, and she could hear- but not understand- the murmurs of two nearby voices. It was as if an elevator was pulling her away from her slumber and back into the waking world. It was slow at first, but as it rose, the noises got louder, and her body felt heavier, and things seemed altogether more real.
With a sudden upward spasm, the elevator jerked Reca into reality, and the darkness shattered, giving way to a decrepit stucco ceiling. She lurched upwards into a sitting position.
"She's awake," said a deep voice with a throaty tinge to it. Reca whipped her head- which she now noticed was pounding- over to the source of the words. Her jaw nearly dropped when she saw him: a demon, surely, five times as tall as Reca, with ramlike horns and scaly crimson skin, wearing a yellowed lab coat and a surgical mask. There was another demon- much smaller and less humanoid, with too many eyes and a sharp single horn on the top of her head- at a computer next to him.
"Okay, bear with me here," said the small one in the deep voice from earlier, disorienting Reca. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
She held up three fingers and kept the other four down. The other four? Perhaps she wasn't fit to answer the question. Time would tell.
"Three," gulped Reca.
"Okay. What's next... oh, here. Rate your pain on a scale of 0 to 10-"
"1 to 10," corrected the larger one in a disconcertingly bland voice.
"1 to 10," continued the smaller one. "With 1 being no pain, and 10 being... let's say... 10 is being stabbed with a hundred knives at once."
Reca, who had never been stabbed with a hundred knives at once, tried to conceptualize the dull pain that radiated out from her chest. She didn't want the doctors- were they doctors?- to worry, but she also didn't want to let a potential injury go untreated. As she thought about how to rate the pain, other questions wandered into her mind- what had happened to her? How long had she been asleep? What became of Rivergal? For that matter, what was Rivergal doing on the outcropping in the first place?
"Uh... well, maybe... a four point one."
"Okay. What does that mean, again?" The smaller one tried to disguise her words by holding a hand over her mouth, but her voice was loud enough that it didn't really help. Reca wondered what kind of medical school she'd gone to.
"Ask the rest of the questions," replied the larger one.
"Okay." She turned to Reca. "Could you take a deep breath for us, please?"
Reca obliged.
"Any trouble with that?"
"...No."
"Great. You're discharged."
Reca nearly choked on her own spit. Surely that wasn't all, right? Had the hospital stories from Andistronica been false after all?
"Wait," she mumbled, head still pounding. "I have questions."
The little demon doctor groaned and rolled her eyes, but made no effort to otherwise dissuade Reca from asking.
"One- what happened to me? How did I get here?"
"Hm, are you an amnesiac or something? What's your last memory?"
"I was walking towards town, and then everything started turning red..."
"Sounds about right. Your friend said you passed out on the beach, and then she brought you here."
Reca wondered how Deca had told the doctor all that, but realized after a few seconds that she was probably talking about Rivergal. A friend, huh?
"And do you know why exactly I passed out?"
"Look, that's above my pay grade. Your heartbeat was super slow. Chances are you just overexerted yourself."
That explanation didn't sit right with Reca. She had also exerted herself back at the electric fence, and she hadn't passed out then. Maybe it was the emotional exertion of tearing off Deca's ladder-
"Deca!" Reca pushed the blankets off of the bed and pushed the other questions out of her mind. She had intended to find a mechanic before she'd passed out! Now it was almost like she had let her friend down a second time. When she left the room, she expected to come out into a hallway or a lobby, but found that the one room was all there was of the hospital... and Deca was parked outside. Her ladder was still detatched. Rivergal was nowhere in sight.
As Reca approached, Deca didn't offer a greeting. It was only fair.
There was a little piece of scrap paper taped to Deca near where the ladder used to be. The writing was, like Rivergal's graffiti, in a script that Reca could understand, but the handwriting was so messy it seemed at times like a different language.
OFF 2 GET WATER ADN HOUSING
GO FIX VAN IN SHOP MARKED ON BACK. WILL COME 2 HSOPITAL WHNE EVENIGN COMES 2 CHECK ON U
IOU 1
Shop marked on back?
When Reca flipped the paper over, she found that there was a map printed on the backside. It represented the twisting city with its serpentine alleys as a grid of straight lines. In a red pen that, judging by the strokes, was nearly out of ink, Rivergal had marked the hospital with 'U R HERE' and another building, further up the road, as 'THIS 1'. She was immensely relieved- not only did she have a map of part of the city, but she had a way to earn back Deca's friendship!
"Look at this," she said, holding it up in front of Deca. She was never really sure what parts of the van served as her eyes, but she figured the headlights were a plausible option. "If we get you fixed up, will you forgive me?"
After a moment of revving and contemplation, Deca flashed the interior lights once, quicker than she'd ever done it before. It seemed somehow half-hearted, and as the pounding in Reca's head faded, the pit in her stomach opened up again. She thought about what her future would look like all the way to the mechanic's shop.
Deca pulled up outside.
"This must be the wrong place," muttered Reca. It was a workshop, yes, but the windows were boarded up and the sign out front, reading simply 'MECHANIC', had fallen to the ground long ago. The windows were dark and caked in a layer of dust. With a hesitant gulp, Reca decided it was still worth a try and dismounted.
One knock. No response. T-
Before Reca could even knock a second time, the door slid open just a crack and three glowing yellow eyes peered out. Then the door opened a little bit more and an elderly demon, missing one arm and one eye- he originally had four- stepped halfway out into the sunlight.
"You here for a repair?"
"...Yes."
"Got any money, kid?"
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"I-" Reca could see no way out of her predicament. "I mean... no, but..."
"What repair d'you need?"
"Uh, I just need to reattach a ladder to a van."
He laughed.
"Tell'y what- that's no trouble at all for somebody like you. I won't repair 'er, but I'll lend'y my tools and y' can fix 'er y'self," he said, poking her chest and making her stumble backwards. "That sound alright?"
"Wow," said Reca. "I mean... you're sure?"
"See, I charge based on how much my back'd hurt after the repair's done. Y'do the repair, no back pain... no cost. 'Nless you got money...?"
"Actually, we didn't use money where I came from."
"Fine, fine. Where'd that be? What are'ya, anyhow?"
Reca was about to answer that she was just a person when he shook his head and beckoned her into the workshop. It was big and empty and messy, tools strewn about and random across the floor.
"Drive 'er around to those doors," he said, pointing to two large sliding garage doors on the other side of the room. "I'll open'm up."
As they slid upwards, the elderly mechanic- in shock- noticed that Deca was already there. He scratched his head, but said nothing of it, even when she drove in on her own and made her way to the repair platform.
"Y'll want to wear the gloves and mask, seeing as you're no demon."
Reca obliged, but found that the thick welding mask was difficult to see through. She managed to pull the ladder out from the shotgun seat and brought it to the mechanic for inspection.
"These're the... hrm," he grumbled, reaching in to touch the spots where the ladder had come off of the shell. "These... y'see, you weld em 'ere."
"Okay," said Reca, becoming impatient. "And where's the torch?"
"By th'platform."
Sure enough, a welding gun sat in the shadow of the elevated section. Reca scrambled to pick it up.
"...How do I start?"
"Aim't the metal. Draw a sorta line with the fire- keep it in each spot for a few seconds. Then... hrm. Stick't on there."
"And the torch is on?"
"I'dn'know. Try."
Reca set the ladder down and kneeled, holding out the torch at arm's length... and when she pressed the trigger, a jet of flame spurted out. Her shock was enough to keep her petrified as she melted the metal where the ladder had once been attached to the shell.
"Hm. Next... stick't on, I believe."
With the gloves shielding her hands, she wrenched the ladder into place. Deca visibly shivered. Then came the most painful part for both of them- Reca melted the joints between the ladder and the shell down, careful not to have any metal drip onto the ground, steady-handed and intensely focused.
When the metal cooled, Reca's hands suddenly started shaking again. Removing the gloves didn't help. She had to be sure- otherwise, this was all for nothing.
She grabbed the ladder and gave it a steady tug... and it held fast.
She gave it a second tug... and it held fast.
There was no third tug this time. Instead, Reca climbed back onto Deca, heart rate finally slowing, and she found she felt normal. Well, almost. She dreamed of a future where no one ever mentioned the ladder incident again, but knew in her heart that such a future wasn't likely- its effects would stick around, even with the ladder reattached.
Deca finally breathed- she stopped resisting the dull pain near her backside and found that it was nowhere as debilitating as it had been earlier. Talking was the human emotional cure-all, but she was, of course, unable to partake in it, even back before she occupied the van. If the Re-Oracle person NukeCorp mentioned really had all the answers, surely they would be able to help her as well.
"Thank you, sir," said Reca. "But... would you get in trouble if someone found out you let a kid use a welding torch?"
"No rules here," he said, lowering the garage door-
"Wait!"
"Hm?"
He momentarily lifted the door, staring hesitantly up at Reca.
"I'm looking for someone. Do you know your way around this place, or...?"
"Well'nuff."
"They're called..."
With a start, Reca realized she'd entirely forgotten the name NukeCorp had mentioned. Something about the future, right? Or the past? Oracle something? Something oracle?
"Uh... well, if I said, they're like... an oracle, and they know a lot, who would you point me to?"
He fiddled with his shirt collar, lost in thought. Finally, he spoke up.
"Oracle Street," he said. "Noth'n else rings a bell."
"Oracle Street?"
"That's m'help. Ask some'un how't get there. G'day."
Leaving no space for Reca to thank him, he slammed the door shut, and the workshop seemed lifeless once again. The sun was setting to the west...
"Rivergal," said Reca. "Let's go back to the hospital."
Deca obliged. As the duo headed back to their rendezvous point, Reca noticed that the air was warm and wet, and that condensation had formed all over her body. Once she noticed, she was unable to put it out of her mind, and the humidity seemed nearly oppressive the longer she was aware of it.
"Oracle Street tomorrow," Reca said, attempting to make small talk with a partner who couldn't talk back. Would the oracle-ish person NukeCorp mentioned really be that easy to find? Something about the situation seemed off.
"Wake me up when Rivergal comes."
With that, Reca reclined, watched the stars rising for a few minutes, and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.