Would you believe that I'm not the type to habitually wake up half-naked in an unfamiliar bedroom? Hell, probably not. This entire story seems to have taken place amid either food, confrontation, or me losing consciousness.
Nevertheless, due to the blackouts I'd had my entire life, I wasn't entirely unaccustomed to waking up in unfamiliar circumstances.
My mind quieted to match the room I was in so that it could absorb every detail of my surroundings. It was dark, and though the night had ended, the intruding sunlight did nothing to dispel the shadows lurking in the corners. A blanket that I could only assume had once covered me was now tangled between my legs; I always had been a fitful sleeper. It wasn't quite cold to an uncomfortable degree, but the bite of the air cleared my muddled senses and eased the burning sensation on my skin.
The burning. The burning.
My lip trembled, but the aching in my heart was missing. I was hesitant to believe that I'd entirely dealt with that last night, but perhaps I had efficiently closed myself off from my emotions for now. It felt wrong. It felt inhuman.
But at least it didn't hurt.
The scent of ash was still thick in my nose, clinging to my skin like clothing. I had to wash it off. I had to get away from the smell.
When I tried to stand, my legs gave way and sent me tumbling into the floor, which incited a renewed wave of agony to wash over my body. Before I could decide whether or not to just lie there, the door swung open and the room's darkness gave way to the hallway's abrasive light.
"M-mm..." I tried to speak, but my lips were still quivering. "Mmm-mm..."
Jeff flipped on the lights, taking in the sight of me sprawled across a pile of laundry of questionable cleanliness. With the shadows gone, I could see what a catastrophic mess the room was. Even in perfect health, I doubt I would have made it to the door without tripping.
I was on my feet before I realized, Jeff's hands in mine and the entire room spinning. Stubbornly, I yanked my hands away and would have crashed back into the floor if he hadn't caught me again.
"Hey, cool it," he grunted. I could feel him stumbling with me as I continued to struggle. "Stop fighting! Can you even see straight?"
"Piss-ss off," I managed indignantly, though I finally allowed him to support me.
"Why don't you lay back down for a while?" he suggested, trying to push me towards the bed. "Now that you're awake, the doc needs to-"
I pushed back against him. "I n-I n-need a sh-sh-shower."
"You can't even stand up," he pointed out skeptically. "Or talk."
"I s-I sm-"
"You smell like a burnt chicken?" he finished helpfully. Those would not have been my exact words. "Yeah, I know. But you also look like a burnt chicken, and that's a little more important. Let the doc come in and take a look at you, and I'm sure he'll help you get cleaned up."
I couldn't deny the logic in that, though I detested the feeling of him laying me down like I was a nappy child. "I'll be right back," he promised, prompting me to roll my eyes.
As if I need his assurance.
My vision was beginning to clear, and my vertigo faded away now that I was stationary again. The next head to poke into the doorway was not Jeff's, but it was just as strange, with demonic eyes that seemed to cry blood and a quite familiar green hat.
"Oh, damn," he remarked, those chilling eyes trailing down from my face. "So Jeff does have game."
I looked down at my half-naked, semi-charred body, and then back at the apparition in my doorway. It took me a bit longer than it should have to piece together what he meant by that, which contributed to my newfound assumption that I was in Jeff's room. Was this the safehouse he had described to me all those days ago? Or had it been longer than that? It felt as though it might have been years.
The Link cosplayer was still studying me, so I pulled the blanket over my body and shot him the most venomous scowl I could muster. "What's wrong with-with your eyes?" I asked with surprising clarity. Finally, my brain was properly connecting to my vocal cords, even if I sounded incredibly hoarse.
"Only that they can't stop staring at you, princess." His smile was subtle, laced with amusement. "That's quite the outfit you're not wearing."
I hissed.
Jeff came back just in time to shove the stranger's head into the doorframe. "Get out, dumbass!"
"Ow-hey," objected the boy, pouting quite dramatically. "Just because she's in your bed doesn't mean she's off-limits."
"Okay, first of all, like hell it doesn't," Jeff exclaimed, shoving him again until they were both out of sight. "Second of all, did you not see the burns all over her?"
"Jeff, half of the people we know have weird, ever-present injuries," countered the stranger.
As their bickering grew more distant, another new face appeared and knocked briskly on the open door. He could have been related to Jeff, with his ghostly white skin and unruly black hair. His eyes glowed red behind his large, clunky glasses, but at least he had eyelids. That was a pleasant change of pace.
"You're called Alida, right?" he asked through a plain, white surgical mask. The fact that he was wearing surgery scrubs would have been less unnerving if they weren't splattered with blood.
"Correct," I croaked warily, crossing my arms over my chest. "And you're a physician of some sort?"
"That's right," he replied, shutting the door behind him and setting his bag on Jeff's trainwreck of a desk. A sparkle of amusement danced in his luminescent eyes as he glanced back at me. "At least I used to be. Around here, there isn't much more for me to do than administer first aid."
Uneasily, I surveyed him as he pulled on latex gloves. My instinct told me to trust him, because for some incomprehensible reason I had chosen to trust Jeff, but something deep in my gut wished the door was still open. I wasn't preparing for a fight-no, not yet-but I couldn't help the slightest raising of my hackles.
His piercing crimson eyes darted to me as if he could read my thoughts, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "Scared?"
"Apprehensive," I returned carefully, eyeing his hand as it dipped into his medical bag. Thankfully, it was a clear bottle of antiseptic, not a scalpel, that he retrieved.
"I can't blame you." He twisted off the lid, momentarily delving back into the bag for a folded white rag. "But I can tell you that you have nothing to be nervous about. You're not my patient; you're a guest here at the mansion, a resident if you choose to stay." His eyes were earnest, regardless of how unnerving they were. "You're safe. We never hurt each other."
"And why is that?" I demanded, reflexively grabbing his wrist as it brought the rag too close to my skin. Patiently, he waited as I forced myself to relax and release him. "If this is a safe haven for killers, how can any of you trust each other?"
He hesitated, pulling away my blanket. "I'm not sure if that's the best way of putting it, really. Many of us are killers, yes, but...what brings us to this place is that we're creatures of some supernatural variety." He nodded towards my wings. "You of all people should know, Alida West, that the compulsion to kill is a burden. Taking delight in violence is a curse that often afflicts many of us. But that does not mean we blindly murder every person we come into contact with."
It didn't settle well in my stomach, but it was a reasonable enough explanation. And it reeked of honesty.
"What exactly do you mean by supernatural?" Again, I seized his wrist as the cold rag touched the warm flesh of my stomach.
A friendly chuckle escaped his lips. "You can do this yourself, if it'll make you feel better."
"It will." Sitting up properly, I peered down at my body. Jeff may have been crude in his description, but he wasn't inaccurate; I did, in fact, look like a burnt chicken. My skin was black as a moonless night, with intermittent splotches of its regular color peeking through.
"Just be gentle," offered the doctor, joining me in my examination as I took the rag from him. "With this much ash coating you, it's hard to tell where and how badly you're burnt."
I nodded. I didn't feel any pain, but then.
Did that mean anything at all?
"To answer your question, I mean supernatural in the sense that you're used to hearing it," he continued, leaning back in Jeff's desk chair. What did he even need a desk for? Homework? A laughable thought. "Ben is a wraith. Sadie is a poltergeist. Jack is a wendigo, a cannibalistic spirit in human form. I myself am half fae, although I suspect I may be the last of an endangered species."
I cocked my head. "What about Jeff? He seems normal." I paused as the audacity of that sentence sank in. "I mean, deformed. And potentially psychotic. But human, nonetheless."
"Astute," he quipped, his eyes lighting up. Literally. They glowed a bit brighter. "You're intelligent. I like that about you. Jeff is, indeed, human, but he serves a supernatural purpose. He's a proxy."
I raised a brow. "A proxy of what?"
His grin was cheshire in nature. "Oh, you'll see soon enough."
Ominous, but okay.
After that, we fell into silence. As my hands occupied themselves with the mindless task of cleaning my skin, my thoughts wandered through stranger pastures. A wraith. A poltergeist. A wendigo. A fae. The Winchesters would shit bricks.
And what did that make me? I had told James-
Thinking about James was painful.
I had called myself before some sort of human-reptilian hybrid, based on nothing more than my own observation. As much as I'd always known I didn't fit inside the human box, the word supernatural just felt…
Well. Unreal.
"Wait a minute." The doctor's voice snapped me back to the present, where I found him leaning in far too close for comfort. He seemed transfixed by my shoulder, which I had been scrubbing.
Ah, yes. Precisely what the school dress code had warned me about.
"Intriguing," he mused.
"Do enlighten me." Dry. Caustic. Classic. Slowly, I was becoming myself again.
"You aren't burnt. At all."
Blinking, I lifted up my arm to confirm, twisting it over and evaluating both sides. I'd started at my hand and worked my way all the way up to my aforementioned shoulder-quite thoroughly, might I add. And he was right. There wasn't a trace of injury, save for the still healing cut on my palm from my feather experimentation.
"But that doesn't make sense," I murmured almost to myself, furrowing my brows at my perfectly intact skin. "I was practically in the fire."
"And yet, you emerged unscathed." The cheshire grin was back. "That qualifies for further contemplation."
It certainly did. Was I fireproof? Or were my memories just too muddled to make sense of? But then, why would I appear so heavily charred? Intriguing, indeed.
But right now, it was just another missing piece in this infuriatingly incomplete puzzle.
"Doctor," I began, "seeing as how I'm apparently not wounded, might you just direct me to a shower?"
"Of course. There's a bathroom just across the hall." He stood, offering his hand and a wry smile. "You'll want to wash up before dinner."