It became apparent that something bright and buzzing was hovering behind his closed eyelids.

He blinked a few times and it took him a while to realize he was lying down. Above him hung a single, dying light circled by frantic insects. Beside the light loomed a mounted medigun. He soon pieced together that he was in the infirmary.

Sitting up from the creaking, foldable cot he had been laid upon, Sniper looked around. The makeshift infirmary was crowded and cluttered, shelves of questionable content and medical tools strewn about. In the corner, Medic had set up a curtain to seclude his office from the rest of the room so he could work undisturbed.

The curtain had been clipped to the side, revealing the doctor was not there. He must have gone to bed by this hour, then.

To his left, something hit the ground and Sniper turned around to see a baseball roll by the side of his cot, having dropped from the Scout's slackened hand.

His only company had fallen asleep, positioned precariously low on a plastic chair that he must have pulled in from the back porch. Sniper turned over and kicked one leg out, lightly hitting Scout in the shin and waking him up. "Hey."

Scout snorted and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, "What?"

"Do ya happen to have the time?" Sniper yawned. Scout looked around the infirmary. There were no timepieces in sight besides a small analog clock on Medic's desk. Scout groaned as he pulled himself to his feet and walked over to read it, picking up his ball on the way.

"One twelve in the mornin'" the Bostonian called, blatantly disregarding that there were people asleep in the very next room.

"How long wos I out?"

"Not that long. Maybe two hours? I think it was eleven when I brought you in," Scout half-jogged back to his seat, "You're pretty heavy, by the way."

"Maybe you've just got no muscle. Did Demo respawn yet?"

"We won't know for sure for like, five more hours but I asked Engineer and he said it looks like he's online. Do you know how hard it was to come up with a good excuse for him bein' dead?"

"Ya haven't told anyone about the spycrow or that Zepheniah bloke?"

"I was kinda more concerned about makin' sure you and Demo didn't die on us for good. Should I have?"

"Nah, it'll just make everyone panic for no reason," Sniper looked at his feet, "Say… wot excuse did ya use for us?"

"Booze binge," Scout shrugged, "Engineer says to count him in next time."

Sniper snickered, running a hand through his hair. He stopped halfway when he thought of something.

"Hey, Scout?"

"Yeah?"

"Where'd you find those creepy buttons anyways?"

"Uh, you know dat attic-y room above the stairs? The one only I can reach without a ladder?"

"Oh, that place? Wot's up there?"

"Just a bunch a' old furniture an' hay. Except for dis one coat I found, it was mostly empty. Kinda boring, but a good place ta hide when you're playin' hide an' seek with the enemy Pyro."

"So that's how that bugger always gets lead right to me," Sniper shook his head. He could be pissed about that later. "Did ya get the buttons from the coat?"

"Yeah. I mean, it was either dat or one a' Medic's coats an' I'm not too fond a' havin' all my orpheuses sewn shut again."

"You mean orifices?"

"Dose too."

"Oh, good. You are avake," Medic said as he entered the infirmary, dressed in light blue bird-print pajamas.

"Evenin' Doc," Sniper did a lazy mock salute as the German walked across the room to the small refrigerator adorned with notes held in place with peculiar, body part-shaped magnets. The door opened with a cool hiss and Medic reached inside, withdrawing a nondescript, orange bottle of pills. "Do ya know how long I'm gonna be stuck in here?"

"You are clear to leave vhen you are feeling able. All of zhe injuries you sustained from your fall are more or less minor and do not require my assistance."

"My fall?" Sniper asked. Scout shot him a lock and he instantly got the idea. "Oh! Yeah, my fall."

Medic raised an eyebrow as he took a pill from the bottle and exchanged it for an empty glass.

"Are you suffering from some memory loss, Herr Sniper?"

"No, no, I just forgot for a sec is all," Sniper assured.

"Vell zhen… ja. You are free to return to your van. Good night," Medic downed the pill with a glass of tap water, set the glass on top of the fridge upside-down, and left.

Scout watched him go before turning back to Sniper with an apologetic half-smile.

"Sorry about dat. Guess I should a' told ya what I said you did exactly, huh?"

"It's fine," Sniper got off the cot with a grunt and yawned. "I'm gonna try to get some more shuteye before tomorrow… well I guess it's technically today's battle. See you in the mornin'?"

Scout waved his hand. "See ya."

Sniper crept through the main room where the team had set up their cots for the night, trying not to disturb anyone. He felt guilt curl in the pit of his stomach as he passed Demoman's empty bed, dimly lit by the dying embers in the fireplace. He had a lot of apologizing to do.

The door creaked slightly as Sniper opened it and he nervously looked behind him to see if he had woken anyone. Spy coughed and rolled over, but aside from him, everyone was dead still. The Australian shivered and gingerly closed the door behind him.

The rain had not let up in the least, and the trek to his van was borderline miserable. He unlocked the back door and stepped inside, not bothering to turn any lights on. Shivering, he began to undress, setting his wet clothing in the sink and rubbing the goosebumps on his arms and legs whenever he could to stay warm. He slung himself on the bed and winced when he landed on something hard, his ribs still smarting from the uppercut Zepheniah had floored him with. For a crotchety old ghost, he sure did know how to throw a punch.

Sniper rolled over, briefly pressing his back against the uncomfortably cold wall and window.

Demoman had left behind his journal.

Sniper picked up the plain little tome and flicked on the lamp on the counter closest to the bed. Getting a closer look at the leather-bound book, Sniper found he could trace a small, round imprint shaped like several intertwining vines with his finger.

Curious, he opened the book and was greeted with a smattering of inky, looping text, asymmetrical and jumbled. It was almost as if you had to be piss drunk just to read it.

Sniper couldn't help but smile at the journal's "illustrations" which were about as realistic and frightening as a five year old's art project. Able to decode about every other word, Sniper figured out that the writing was Demoman's own, and it was an encyclopedia-in-the-making of sorts. Many excerpts had been drawn from various named sources, a very small number of which Sniper had ever heard of. Many of the entries read like those of a diary, describing multiple occasions during which Demoman had encountered or tracked some ghoul or another. They sounded sort of exciting, if not wildly exaggerated.

Sniper flipped through to the last entry, not surprise to find it was about the spycrow. Only when he read that Demoman was also simply calling it a scarecrow did Sniper realize he was the only one Scout's stupid pet name for the monster had stuck to. He was almost embarrassed as he read on. It seemed as though Demoman had begun the article before he left to meet up with him and Scout last night, referencing the page regarding the animation of lifeless objects.

The BLU stared at the page a while before deciding on a whim to give the Demoman a hand. He got up to grab a pen, returned to bed, and began to write.