Content Warning
This chapter mentions parasitism and contains depictions of vomit and the act of vomiting.
It was a calm summer evening at the corner store. The air conditioner groaned as it struggled against the damp heat infiltrating the shop through the ill-fitting doors. A familiar stale funk permeated the air and embedded a musty stench of sour rot in the porous, scratchy work shirt of the one employee on duty. Danny Suárez struggled to stay awake behind the counter as the lack of activity and warm summer air lulled him into a trance.
As much as he appreciated the peace, things were unnaturally calm for a Monday evening at the tail end of rush hour. The store had a single customer, currently browsing drinks in the back, and before that, it had been completely empty for over half an hour. Never in his adult life had he worked somewhere that had such abysmal foot traffic, but it hadn’t always been like this.
About six months ago started a steady decline in customers. Lucia, the owner, figured it was simply a below-average month, until the next month was even lower, with each month performing less and less until the store was actually losing money. By that time, employees began dropping, too. Many quit without notice, while others took unpaid sick leave and never came back. Migraines and stomach troubles seemed to be the ailments of choice, but for some reason, Danny hadn’t caught whatever was going around, and he quickly became the only responsive employee on the roster.
Different people had different theories about the store’s sudden turn. The most popular theory was that it had been cursed, perhaps by a disgruntled employee or someone who was mad they stopped carrying the Jarritos lime soda. In that same vein, others speculated it was haunted, which would have explained the general feeling of unease that almost everyone seemed to notice, except Danny.
He figured there was no sense in trying to unlock the secrets of why things were the way they were. As far as he was concerned, it was a fact of life that sometimes things simply sucked, and as long as he still had a paycheck, he didn’t pay it much mind. This was far from the first place he worked that had business and staffing issues.
He tried not to think about it too much. For one, it wasn’t necessarily productive, but if he so much as considered wanting things to be a bit more exciting, a certain something always seemed to happen—“something”being an event that he would rather not speak into existence. As if he had that sort of control over his circumstances. If he did, he certainly wouldn’t have been spending his single, precious life between a checkout counter and a wall of flavored vapes.
He watched as the lone customer aimlessly sauntered along the back aisle and fanned at his flushed face. Despite the air conditioner’s best efforts, the store was being swallowed by the late-summer humidity. The customer took his time studying the drinks behind the glass doors, moving from one panel to the other. He slowed as time ticked by, eventually coming to a complete stop in the middle of the aisle, still no drinks in hand. Danny drew in a deep breath as his eyes grew heavy.
He nearly jumped out of his skin as the door suddenly flew open and sent the bell above it into a clamor. “Guess who!” announced the lively character as they leapt across the threshold. Their scruffy mane of fire-red hair settled around the bulky olive jacket as they wiggled their thick eyebrows in anticipation of his response.
His shoulders fell. “Emory,” he muttered with begrudging acknowledgment. He had tried so hard not to jinx his quiet evening, too, but even if he did have that sort of control, Emory Torres went wherever they pleased. And much to his chagrin, wherever they pleased was often the corner store. He found he liked Emory more when they were running around getting into trouble literally anywhere else. Their excursions made for good drinking stories, but when their antics involved him, he wanted to wring them by the neck.
They sauntered over to a brightly-colored end cap and pocketed a bag of hot chips. “What? No reaction to me winding up here again?”
It drove him crazy how they always talked like they were summoned to the store by some mystical, otherworldly force. But Emory truly believed they were led there by fate. They claimed to have a sixth sense when it came to Vices—the fleshy, parasitic creatures embedded in roughly 72% of the population’s innards. The phenomenon known as a “Branch” was the disorienting and occasionally deadly side effect of having this sentient tumor throbbing in your viscera. Allegedly, Emory could “sense” these Branches before they began and intervene before they got out of hand.
Or, as Danny believed, there had been an uptick in Branches at the corner store, and Emory just so happened to be nearby for every one of them. After they were there when the first Branch happened six months ago, the store became a regular stop for them, like a dog repeatedly returning to the bush where it once found a discarded, half-eaten bagel.
“Sure anything’s going on? I mean, business isn’t exactly booming tonight.” He gestured to the single customer, still at the back of the store.
“It doesn’t need to be busy for it to happen. Plus, like we’ve seen, it could be anyone in this building. Could be the owner of the pawn shop next door, could be someone in the back alley, could even be you.” They planted their hands on their hips with a scoff, “I mean, don’t you find it odd I got called here again?”
“You’re talking like this is your job and you got called here on official duty.” He returned their scoff. “You’re delusional. I’m shocked you haven’t been reported yet.”
“For what?”
“Impersonating a Target Hunter.”
“Oh, come on, man. Like you even give a shit.”
That was partially true. He didn’t particularly care if Emory ran around the city like some sort of half-baked vigilante. Their “career” choices were none of his business, even if he didn’t agree with them and thought they were being reckless. The real problem he had was being subjected to the topic of Vices every time Emory “wound up” at the corner store. You couldn’t have a conversation with Emory lately without them bringing up their theories or their disdain for the local Public Deployment teams. There was simply no avoiding it.
As much as talking about Vices annoyed him, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. After all, he used Emory’s presence as a roundabout way of keeping in touch with his good friends, Gen and Rami. It was clear that Emory would at the very least verify his existence to them. He felt a bit guilty for avoiding the two, but he didn’t want them to find out how bad things had gotten, lest he send the two into a panic. Emory’s head was too far up their own ass to even consider asking, let alone realize anything was wrong at all. So it was a good way to tell them he was alive without having to divulge too much.
“I just don’t understand why you’re being so persistent.” Danny began his regular, futile attempt to discourage them, despite knowing how it would end. He just liked to remind Emory that he wasn’t a fan of what they were doing. “I personally don’t think you should be doing this at all, but if you insist on being a public nuisance, you should at least get certified so you know what you’re doing. Rami’s told you he could get you a job with CVRS. That station’s Public Deployment is understaffed anyway, so they’re probably desperate. You’d get paid much better than those wimpy civilian intervention stipends, too. Eli said they had good signing incentives, especially for Public Deployment.”
“It’s not about the money.” They turned their head with an offended huff. “Plus, their incompetence is the whole reason I started doing this in the first place. So CVRS is the last place I wanna work. I think we both know their training program is a load of shit. Still can’t believe Eli gave up bartending to dick around in Public Deployment.”
His jaw tightened. “Either way, Rami said to cut it out. It’d be a shame if he found out you were still running around doing all this after y’all’s last spat.”
“What, are you gonna tell on me? What good does tattling do for you?”
“It’d cut down on your impromptu visits, that’s for sure.”
“They’re not impromptu. I’ve told you a million times; there’s an art to my patrolling! I don’t just show up willy-nilly. Regardless, this store alone has had...” they muttered to themself as they counted on their fingers, “...fourteen rogue Branches in the last six months—fifteen if tonight doesn’t end up being a dud—so something weird’s gotta be going on here. Lucia said y’all hadn’t had a Branch here in years before all this started up, so something about this area keeps triggering them.”
There it was. The unavoidable theory proposal. Danny rolled his eyes. “Keep that to yourself, alright? She’s already stressed about sales and not having anyone to work shifts. The last thing she needs to be worried about is some...” he wiggled his fingers vaguely as he powered through a brief wave of nausea, “...weird Vice bullshit.”
“It’s not uncommon for things like that to be linked, you know.” Emory flipped their hair behind their shoulder. “And I’ve already talked about it with her. She agrees with me! She thinks something’s causing all this, too!”
“Oh, come on. What? Do you think there’s some big scary monster hiding in the closet that tiptoes out to wreak havoc when we’re not looking? What are you, five?”
“Of course I don’t, jackass. But it’s all gotta be connected. I mean, what are the odds Lucia’s barely able to keep the lights on while there have been more Branches in six months than there have been since it opened?”
“I dunno what to tell ya, man. Shit happens.”
Emory scoffed. “And you made fun of my theory.”
“It’s not a theory, I just think things are cyclical and sometimes life just sucks. It’s a lot more healthy to accept that than think something’s up every time things don’t go your way. The universe is a cold and uncaring place. Sometimes a shitty little corner store ends up with a sharp decline in sales and fourteen Branches in six months. Life’s just unfair like that sometimes.”
“God, you can be such an edgelord.”
He waved them off with a groan. “Go be a public nuisance somewhere else, alright? You’re giving me a headache.”
“So much for being grateful. I don’t have to be here, you know.”
“Grateful? For what?”
“Patrolling the damn store! I’m gonna suspend a Branch any minute now and you’re not even grateful!”
“Why would I be grateful? I don’t think you should even be here! And you know what?” Danny was given an opportunity to rant, and he never passed up an opportunity to rant. “I think what you’re doing is reckless and irresponsible. I know I’ve said I don’t care what you do, but this is getting to be a bit much. You have no idea what you’re doing, and you’re running around acting like you’re the Batman of Vices. You’re probably causing more harm than good for all you know. And you know what else? I actually think you’re parading around as a fake Target Hunter because you have some deep-seated issues you refuse to address. You’re such a fr—are you even listening?”
Emory was busy rummaging through their jacket pockets. “Oh, sorry. Did you say something? I was looking for my gear.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Quit distracting me. I’ve got a job to do.”
They slipped on their fingerless gloves and pulled down the orange-tinted aviation goggles sitting atop their head. Both accessories were CVRS-issued articles given to agents after completing training, though these in particular had been fished out of the dumpster in the shared back alley. The gloves were frayed and the lenses of the goggles were cracked, but Emory cared more about their function than their cosmetic flaws.
Behind their amber lenses, the goggles revealed a previously-invisible field of fuzzy, white particles hanging in the air around them. “See, I told you. Something has to be up. There’s always a lot of these, uh...I forget what they’re called...there’s a lot of these things out before a Branch.”
Simply speaking, the fuzzy, white things—invisible to the naked eye—were Vice spores. He knew this and didn’t want to remember he knew this, so he merely offered a grunt in response.
“Welp, I think I might do a lap and see what all the fuss is about.” They took a single step forward before they froze and whipped their head around their shoulder. “Wait, do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“I, uh...I’m not sure. It’s hard to describe.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s just the funk. Store’s smelled that like for months. I can’t believe you’re just now noticing.”
“No, no, I know the funk. But yeah, you should probably do something about that.”
“I’ll bring an air freshener tomorrow.”
“Wait, no I’m being serious here. Ignore the funk; this is something new.” Emory held up a quieting finger as they sniffed the air curiously. They continued in a hushed tone, “You really don’t smell that?”
His stomach turned as he noted their seriousness. It was a seriousness he had come to recognize, seen only in the moments leading up to an initiated Branch. A wave of dread urged a clammy sweat across his forehead. “Not really,” he lied, now aware of the faintest whiff of sour milk.
A sudden sensation tugged at the soles of his feet. He stumbled forward, catching himself on the counter with a wince as the pressure shifted and a high-pitched ring tore through his ears.
Their face lit up. “Oh! Did you feel something?” The tug at their heels verified their suspicions, and they nearly elevated off the floor in excitement. “Oh, hell yeah! I knew I was in the right place! It’s Branch time, baby!”
“E-Emory, seriously? Don’t make me go through this again.” He looked past them to meet the eyes of the young man at the back of the store. Pupils wide and face pallid, a pointed horn tore through his forehead, and patches of scales erupted from the soft flesh of his arms. His chest hitched erratically as a gurgling liquid in his throat masked a desperate plea.
Danny swallowed dryly, unable to pull his eyes away. No matter how many times he witnessed it, he couldn’t get used to it. Perhaps it wasn’t something one was supposed to get used to anyway. Seeing a live human body constrained and disarmed by spores from the parasite living inside of it was enough to keep Danny awake at night, and it often did. The intent behind an initiated Branch, knowing the fleshy mass was about to expand throughout the Host’s body, if he thought too much about it, he swore he could feel it pulsing between his guts. His face was as pale as the Host’s as he weakly stammered out, “A-a-are you really sure you should be doing this?”
Emory, on the other hand, reacted to this knowledge with a sort of irreverent excitement rather than disgust. “Oh, I’m so sure. I’ve got this down to a minute. Time me.”
They drove their heel against the floor, and a bright flash of light pulsed from their bandaged knee, shooting a beam into the air above them. It expanded and morphed into a baseball bat in a burst of bright cyan. The details were soft, and its form was fluid, but it was undeniably a baseball bat, eagerly pulsing with light.
Beams of cyan shot from between their fingers as they tightened around the grip. Emory radiated an enviable confidence, their arms stable and breaths controlled. They threw their bat over their shoulder and bolted down the aisle with unwavering conviction.
They lunged toward the Host, their eyes aflame with a wild frenzy, and the pulsing barrel smashed against his cheek in a brilliant burst of light. A clear, viscous goop shot from his mouth and hissed against the linoleum as he stumbled back, clattering against the glass doors.
Now that Emory was closer, their goggles revealed a glorious, pulsing mycelial network that branched from a dense orb wedged beneath his diaphragm. Their eyes sharpened, and their forearms flexed with anticipation. Before the Host could gather himself, they drove the top of the bat into his gut, and a wet, miserable cough heaved dribbles of goop down his chin.
The Host gripped at their bat as his balance wavered. He weakly held up his hand in defense and attempted a plea, but the viscous liquid clogged his throat, and Emory was too enraptured with their quest to see the desperation in his eyes.
They ripped their bat from his grasp and spun it around to jab the grip up into his stomach once more, causing the Host to lurch forward with a gag as the goop cascaded down his neck. His body fell limp and he collapsed to the floor in a shallow puddle of the bubbling slime that oozed from his slack lips and sizzled against the linoleum.
Emory raised a victorious fist, pumping their bat into the air before it warped out of sight in a bright flash of sparkling light. “Danny! How long was that?”
He cautiously emerged from behind the counter, the pressure in his head equalizing as the light tug against his heels faded. The Branch had been suspended. “I-I don’t know. I wasn’t timing.” He covered his mouth to hide his disgust he approached the unconscious Host lying in a puddle of hissing goo. “Hosts in staging can’t do much to fight back, you know,” he remarked, recalling the sedative haze that draped over him when the spores coursed through his body. “The magical bat seems a tad overkill.”
“Listen, I earned this patch. It’s only fair that I use it for its intended purpose. Plus, it makes things quick, and I don’t have to risk accidentally getting pulled in as an Adjunct.”
Never mind that patches most certainly were not intended to be used for another Host’s suspension—they were the last resort of last resorts—but he didn’t feel like arguing with them when a body was laying unconscious in a puddle of acid. The scene reeked of sour milk as the acid’s pungent fumes warped the drink shelves behind them.
Emory gestured toward the man with a nod. "Well? You gonna help me?”
“Help you with what?”
“I only suspended it. Help me get him to Urgent Care so CVRS can do their stupid Branch remediation.”
“I’d really rather not.” He grimaced as he tightened his arms around his uneasy stomach. “You know I can’t stand this stuff. I think I’ve had my share for tonight. Or a month.”
“Ah, yeah? Would you rather me leave him here and wait for it to come back?”
“I don’t see why we can’t just call CVRS to come take care of things.” As much as he preferred to not have an unconscious body on the floor, ignoring it until Public Deployment arrived would come much easier to him than carrying the body down the street and having to maintain his sanity inside a CVRS building.
“Listen man, I don’t know anything about this guy’s Vice. I only suspended it, so who knows how quickly it’ll come back?”
Danny’s jaw tightened. “You know, good point. I think it’s good for you to remind yourself you don’t know anything about these people’s Vices. You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
They blew him off with a scoff. “It’s not like suspension is risky. It’s a perfectly viable way to address a Branch. CVRS does it all the time!”
“They’re suspending Branches for patients they have super in-depth profiles on! They’re not making those decisions on a whim.” Not only were suspensions frowned upon and performed as a last resort by CVRS agents, suspensions had never been particularly easy for him to recover from personally. “You don’t know how these things could retaliate! Not just against you, but against the Host!”
“I stopped the damn thing! What’s your damage?”
“I’m just thinking that if I were in his situation, would—”
“Oh, of course you’re thinking of yourself and not the unconscious guy laying in a puddle of acid.”
“You’re the one who made him unconscious! Jesus, Emory, I really don’t understand why you won’t just leave this to the professionals!”
They threw out their arms and gestured theatrically at the empty store around them. “See any professionals? I suspend the Branches the professionals don’t know about. That’s my whole thing! Better than risking my life and the Host’s by trying to commit it instead! Is that what you want?”
“You don’t think beating them unconscious with a baseball bat is risky?”
“Shit, man! It’s better than the alternative! Would you rather someone smack you around a few times and give you a sore neck for a few days, or are you chill with a sentient alien tumor taking over your body and exploding you into a million billion pieces?” They shrugged their shoulders, awaiting his answer to their rhetorical question.
“Guh—quit! Just stop. I hate thinking about that.” He flailed his hands in disgust. “I’m done talking about this. Just take your suspended Host and get out of here, please!”
They silently gestured to the body again, looking at him like he was stupid.
He threw his hands up in exasperation. “What? What do you want from me?”
“He’s too tall! I can’t carry him!” They gestured to their small, just-barely-above-five-feet frame, and then to Danny’s well-over-six-feet frame.
“What would you do if I wasn’t here?”
“Does that matter? You’re here now!”
“It does matter, because I don’t want to do this!”
Their voices overlapped as their volume grew louder. Arguing with either of them was like arguing with a brick wall. Emory was particularly difficult because they didn’t hear you half the time, and Danny was as stubborn as a mule. Usually. Emory had a grating way of wearing him down, powered by a seemingly endless supply of totally unadulterated absurdity. After a while, he didn’t even know what he was arguing about anymore, so he just gave in. He was stubborn, but more than anything, he was tired.
“God, fine.” He ran his hands down his face with a dramatic groan. “If I take him to CVRS, you owe me a beer. Or actually, I want a bowl of ramen. With extra eggs.” He bent down and inspected the puddle of acid with a crinkled frown. “Is this stuff even okay to touch?”
“Hell if I know.” Emory pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser and handed them to him. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
Emory and Danny and their unconscious patient were met with a wry smile from Kieran, the Urgent Care Intake Coordinator. She was quite familiar with Emory’s antics after having been their primary point of contact for the past six months. Before they approached the counter, she already had the paperwork started, having Emory’s contact info and methods memorized.
She adjusted the orange-tinted bifocals on the bridge of her nose. One brief glance at the unconscious body wrapped in a plastic tarp told her all she needed to know, but she figured Emory wanted to give their spiel. “You sure have been busy this month. What’s it this time?”
They confidently puffed out their chest. “Suspended another Branch with my very own patch just a little over an hour ago. Blights weren’t too crazy. I think I saw some scales and a horn, but the worst was the acid. Can you believe that? I didn’t even know you could have acid as a blight. Talk about inconvenient. He didn’t put up much of a fight, so it was done in just under a minute. Oh, and it was at the corner store down the street again.”
Her brow furrowed, but she kept her eyes on the screen as she typed. “Huh. Wonder what’s going on with that.”
“See!” Emory turned to Danny. “Told you! I’m not the only one that finds this weird.”
He had clearly tuned them out the second he got there. He awkwardly shifted as he struggled to get a firm hold on the patient’s slippery, plastic-covered body without spilling acid on his shirt. Again. Kieran noticed multiple bandages haphazardly slapped over his hands and around his fingers.
She straightened and pushed her glasses back into place. “Well, I know Emory’s whole routine. I’m curious what your role was in all this?”
He didn’t respond because he didn’t even hear her. He was desperately trying to fend off the swell of emotions. It was getting increasingly difficult to ignore the smell of alcohol swabs that started overpowering the rancid milk fumes coming off the patient. It was the trademark scent of CVRS; no matter what office, no matter what station, the stinging sensation of rubbing alcohol was always there to assault patients’ nostrils.
“Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s just helping me carry the guy.” Emory waved him off, then casually leaned against the counter and cracked their knuckles. “I did all the work.”
“I see,” Kieran smiled to herself as she wrapped up the admission paperwork. “Since we don’t know his Vice’s class, you’ve been bumped up to the top of the queue as a CYA. You know how this goes. The Floor Manager should be out to initiate intake shortly.”
Emory shooed Danny away, and he stumbled over to the waiting room with an acknowledging grunt. He found a chair in the corner of the room and sat down with a huff, the tarp flinging acid onto the wall with a sizzle.
Emory nervously drummed their fingers on the counter. “Hey, so, uh...about that Floor Manager. Is Rami running the floor tonight?”
“I think you know the answer to that. And if I remember correctly, he’s told you multiple times to stop playing Target Hunter. Correct?”
“And? What’s he gonna do?” they laughed. “You really think he’s capable of scolding people? Effectively, I mean. He’s got the backbone of an overcooked spaghetti noodle.”
“Okay, fair. But people are starting to talk around here. PD in particular is kinda pissed about your website.”
“Hah! I can’t believe they actually looked at it. Shouldn’t be surprised, though. They’ve got nothing better to do. You know I made it, right? Coded that baby all by myself.”
“Mmhmm, I can tell.” She smiled. “Cool website, but you might wanna reign it in with all the suspensions. At least for Rami’s sake. You’re kinda running him ragged.”
Emory dismissively rolled their eyes. “Eh, he’d be run ragged regardless. This place is a shit show. No offense.”
“You’re telling me,” she sighed as the doors exuberantly flew open beside her.
In walked a handsomely fat, enthusiastic man with a charmingly fluffy beard and dazzling smile. His white lab coat fluttered behind him as he strolled to the middle of the room, carrying a welcomed wave of bergamot with him. He hurriedly flipped through his clipboard, twirling a pen between his fingers as he skimmed the admission notes.
“Alrighty, we’re ready for a John Doe, peer-admitted by Em—wait...Emory? Again?” He seemed to wind up for a grand gesture of exasperation, but quickly deflated after noting the amount of patients in the room. He instead forced a smile. “We’ll talk about this later. First things first, where’s the patient?”
Emory snapped in Danny’s direction. “Hey, man! That’s your cue!”
He bolted upright with a startled sniff, then awkwardly gathered the patient as he scrambled to his feet.
Rami massaged his forehead. “Danny? Of all people, you brought Danny into this?” He opened the doors and ushered them to follow. “Whatever. We’re packed tonight. I don’t have time to lecture you.”
Emory gave Danny a couple convincing shoves, and he stumbled forward reluctantly.
Rami could see his hesitation, evident by his scrunched eyebrows and pained grimace. He gently guided him across the threshold. “It’ll be quick! Just set him down right here.” He patted the hospital bed and began flipping through his clipboard. “I’ll just need you to fill out a report, and—“
“O-oh, no. No need to do that.” He shed the patient from his arms, and he rolled out of the tarp and onto the bed with a lifeless thud. “I just carried him. Emory handled it, so they should fill it out.”
Rami adjusted the small, round glasses perched atop his strong nose. They were tinted amber, much like Emory’s goggles and Kieran’s bifocals. He wrinkled his nose as he took a deep inhale. “Yeah, that’s an Emory suspension if I’ve ever seen one.”
Danny wasn’t sure what Rami saw, but he was surehe had no interest in finding out. Gen had offered him her glasses in the past, but he had denied, knowing full well if he had a visual for how thoroughly Vices had infested their surroundings, he would never be able to sleep again.
From Danny’s point of view, the patient just looked like he had gotten into a scuffle. It was a wonder those were all the external injuries he left with and not a broken jaw, but the human body was capable of withstanding incredible things when flooded with the spores that coursed through the body during Branches. In any case, he new the real damage could only be seen through orange-tinted Parsing Goggles.
Danny turned on his heel to leave now that his good deed was done, but Rami quickly grabbed him by the sleeve with an apologetic smile. “Ah, please, if you could just give me a few minutes, protocol requires me to gather reports from any available witnesses. It shouldn’t take long since it was a suspension.”
Rami had been tending to the patient as he spoke, dappling his chest with sticky nodes to monitor his vitals. He patiently awaited Danny’s response with a soft smile, though the corners of his mouth were tense.
The familiar beeps of medical monitors and the hurried voices of agents had Danny on edge. It was hard for him to think. Without the pungent fumes of acid dominating his nostrils, the smell of rubbing alcohol was overwhelming. A light flutter in his chest urged beads of sweat on his brow, and dread sat in his gut like a rock. If he stayed in there any longer, even for a few minutes, he feared things would quickly spiral out of control.
“Yeah, no, I can’t do this, Rami. I need to get outta here.”
He relented with a polite sigh. “I promise I’m on your side, Danny. I just want you to be compensated for helping when you didn’t have to. I’ll fill out the form for you so you can at least get a stipend, and I’ll just have you sign it. Feel free to stay in the waiting room, or you can even wait outside, if that would make you feel better. It’ll only be a minute.”
Emory had been busy scribbling away at their form when they perked up with a frown. “Why’s he getting a stipend? I did all the work!”
“I thought you said you weren’t doing this for the stipends!” Rami’s professional facade fell now that they were behind closed doors, and he let out an immature groan of exasperation. His previously bubbly expression had been replaced with one of pure exhaustion. Under the fluorescent lights, you could really see his grays starting to come in.
“I’m not! I just don’t think it’s fair that—”
“Ugh, whatever! I don’t care why you’re doing it, but you promised me you’d stop! This is getting out of hand! And I told you to leave Danny out of this stuff! He’s fragile! How many are you at now? You have to be over 20 since you started assaulting people outside of the store. People are starting to talk around here, you know. And while I’m at it, take your freakin’ website down!”
Their budding argument faded as Danny made a bee-line for the exit. As entertaining as it would’ve been to watch Emory get chewed out, he knew it wouldn’t be anything he hadn’t heard before. He gave Kieran an obligatory nod as he blew through the waiting room, then stepped outside and took a deep breath.
His shoulders slumped with a loud exhale as he melted down in a dramatic flourish to take a seat on the curb. His nausea was catching up with him, and as much as he would’ve preferred to head home, he was afraid any more steps would have urged a very convincing gag.
The stinging scent of rubbing alcohol still lingered in his nostrils, and he dragged his hands down his face with a miserable groan. Just the slightest whiff was able to launch his nervous system into survival mode. He inhaled deeply, hoping the fresh air was enough to fend off the oncoming nausea spell, but the city smells of passing diesel trucks and a nearby dumpster festering in the summer heat made him nauseous for an entirely different reason. He was too nauseous to even prepare himself a cigarette, though that never seemed to help as much as he wanted it to.
There wasn’t much that could help anymore, short of spending hours swaddled under a pile of 3 blankets, at a minimum. He had gotten particularly skilled at warding off these episodes, but only if he had the luxury of being nestled under his covers. And as it turned out, he wasn’t in bed, and even though the humid summer air was smothering him like a wet blanket, he could no longer delay the inevitable.
Rami hopped out from the revolving door, waving a slip of paper. “Danny! I’ve got your—oh...oh no.” His shoulders withered with pity as he watched Danny brace himself over the trashcan and heave his stomach contents into the bin. “Do I need to check you in?”
Danny offered a dismissive wave before continuing his retching.
“Well, once you’re done, I just need you to sign this so you can get your stipend.”
Emory squeezed their way out the door with a huff. “I still don’t think it’s fair his is the same as mine.”
“It’s not like the stipends are that much to begin with. You’re gonna look at this pathetic wet-paper-towel-of-a-man and deny him even just a little compensation for helping out tonight? Poor guy could’ve just gone home and watched his cooking shows, and now he’s barfing in a public trash can because you looped him into your shenanigans again.”
“I didn’t loop him into anything! The Branch just so happened to had been at the store again! And if I hadn’t done anything, he and the Host would’ve been dead!”
“Oh, puh-lease.” Rami rolled his eyes, but somehow made it a full-body gesture. “It was an adolescent Alpha Vice throwing a little fit. The odds of the patient turning comatose, let alone berserk, were practically zero. He’ll be discharged in a couple hours after an undoubtedly successful Branch remediation. It’s not like you prevented a mass Theta dispersion.”
Danny whipped his head up, fully intending to tell them to shut up, but all he could manage was a scowl. A viscous, tar-like sludge dripped from his chin, causing Rami to defensively grip his clipboard to his chest.
“Y-you sure you don’t want me to check you in? Our Traffic Coordinators can do some Activity Monitoring, a-and Gen’s working late and could get you some Suppressants o-or maybe even an AV Shot to–”
“I’d literally rather–” He completed his response with a final heave over the bin. He straightened and wiped his chin on his sleeve, the black tar sizzling into a fine mist. “I’m going home.”
“A-at least sign this first!” Rami called out as Danny quickly sped down the sidewalk.
“Give the damn thing to Emory, since they wanted it so bad!” he yelled back, throwing his hand in the air with a dismissive flourish that seemed to be enough movement to trigger another wave of nausea.
He leaned over and hacked a wad of sludge into the street, then continued his short walk home. He managed to make it without further incident, but the second he opened his door, a clammy wave of nausea overtook him and propelled him to the bathroom.
He fell to his knees as a ball of muck worked its way up his throat. Pain shot up to his hips as the tile floor ate into his kneecaps. The contortion of his spine threw his upper back into a spasm as he heaved the sticky clot of tar into the commode.
The squishy lump almost looked like a beached jellyfish with the way it clung to the sides of the bowl, hissing and pulsing from deterioration. He made the connection that it used to be inside of him, and there was likely a never-ending fount of muck and sludge seeping out of the sentient tumor in his gut.
A gag urged another up his throat, and his neck ached with fatigue. He squeezed his eyes shut as it tumbled out of his mouth, clinging to his tongue, the back of his teeth, his lips. It splattered against the surface tension of the water and deteriorated with a high-pitched whine. He quickly closed the lid and gave it another flush, draping himself across the lid with an exhausted groan.
He sucked at the tar stuck between his teeth and quickly spit it into the trash before he could process its slimy texture. He lamented the cruelty of his blights, how easy it was to get stuck in a torturous loop, and tears brimmed as he savored the brief reprieve from nausea.
Getting into bed seemed to be an insurmountable task, but the idea of sleeping on the bathroom floor made his joints preemptively ache even more than they already were. Standing up was a monumental achievement, punctuated with various cracking joints as he rose to his feet.
His pile of blankets welcomed him into bed and he sank into the mattress, his bones clicking as they all settled into place. From the clammy film of sweat on his forehead and the tension headache forming at the base of his neck, he knew a restless night of sleep was inevitable, if he slept at all.
After hours of torturous tossing and turning, entangling himself in his blankets, he finally managed to fall asleep, and he dreamed a familiar scene.