I don't quite know what goes through my head in the next few fractions of a second other than fear that still holds a really freaking tight grip in my mind even as the light seems to come back into the world. Is it terror? Is it hatred? Is it more than that, or is it none of that? Or heck, is it even all of that?
I don't know, all I know is that my knees have suddenly gone from rock solid to jello and my legs from supporting me strongly to shaking uncontrollably to the point where I'm desperately hanging on to Jason to support me as best as I can even though we're both not really in the kinds of states where either of us should be hanging on each other, no no no no no…
But then again, what the heck are you supposed to expect when the mammal who'd be better know as the star of all your nightmares, especially about the ones where you see him dying, walks into your room- alive, of course, as much as this feels like he's coming back from the dead there has to be another explanation, has to be something, has to be, it's got to be that he has an identical twin or something like that, has to be because there's no way that you can reasonably explain any of this-
-and by this I mean a very much alive Wolford standing in the doorway of this hospital room…
I mean no, that can't be possible, right? That's just- no, I saw him die, as gruesome as that may be to realize, no, he's gone, that's not possible…
But it has to be, because he's standing right here by the doorway to Jason's room and shooting both of us death glares, as if it's somehow our fault that all of this happened, that he'd been kidnapped and drugged and probably- well no, more than probably, definitely experimented on.
Right, yeah, and that absolutely makes sense…
Well, yeah, it makes more sense than what I'm looking at here… and I can see that Jason's thinking the same thing, that his thoughts are probably screaming in the same kind of way that mine are right now, in shock and awe and probably absolute terror.
They're here and alive, that's all that my brain can figure out. I'm staring, Jason's staring, we're all staring.
Somehow I feel like that's totally a thing that his dad would have said…
And ya know, knowing Nick, it would have been something that'd come out of his mouth under pressure… like when he was chasing my parents down.
Either way, whatever the case may be, the deja vu that it makes me feel doesn't stop the feeling that we've just been going around and around and around in circles and every time the spiral gets tighter and eventually, sooner rather than later- I know that for sure at the very least- it's gonna come and snap my tail right up and that'll be the end.
Either way, as afraid as I am right now, as scared and chilled to the bone, well, there's still a little bit of a wannabe detective in me. Honestly, being that detective might be my only shot of getting the freaking hell out of here… so I've gotta calm down and think about this…
First question: how did nobody stop him? How did nobody realize that there's a supposedly dead wolf in here?
Or is it more that they don't care to check whether visitors are alive or not? And speaking of that, given how long it's only been since either of us have seen a nurse or a doctor or anyone else like that around here, it doesn't really seem like they care about their patients being alive either… but that's beside the point here, Mary…
"Sir, Cap- Lie- Wolford, sir," Jason says, the first one of us to get our senses back enough to be able to say anything that makes any sort of sense, "I thought you were dead, I thought you died, didn't we see you die, no, was it Mary who saw you die I don't know it doesn't matter-"
He's shaking in the bed so hard that it's making the metal clank and clink and maybe my brain's just dreaming things up because it's under pressure here but that bed is probably going to break pretty soon if it keeps going how it's going and things aren't going well and I really really really don't need to have them go from bad to worse on me-
Or well, small correction, seeing as that's kinda already done gone and happened, I don't need things to go from worse to even worse and then to absolutely abysmal from there… seems like that's where things are heading if I'm reading this right but either way-
Yeah okay Mary you need to stop trying to think so hard because you're terrified, we're terrified and it's not going to get any better so this just needs to stop and we need to wait and watch and just find out what's going to happen next without trying to interfere in any of it too much so that way too many good mammals don't end up dead.
"Hmm, did you see me die? Are you sure?" the wolf who, at the very least, looks and sounds like the wolf who's more or less tormented mine- and Jason's, definitely Jason's- very existences for what's felt like forever, the wolf who's led us on a wild goose chase that basically led to both of us almost being killed… more than once, I might add.
"Yeah, I did, yeah, I am," Jason manages to get out, ears digging rents in the top of his head, tail thrashing so hard that it's threatening to rip the sheets right off of this bed…
It's making a scatton of noise, I can't imagine that there's still nobody who's heard the commotion- so yeah, that just makes the fact that STILL NOBODY'S COME IN HERE TO CHECK ON US all the more suspicious- or would that be suspect?
I don't know, it doesn't matter, I just know that this is really just me trying to keep my mind off of the fear that's swelling in the back of my mind so that way I'm actually able to still function.
"Think again, Jason," the wolf says- I'm not going to refer to him as Wolford in my head, I can't, that scares me too much. Maybe I can convince myself that this isn't him, that this isn't the wolf I saw die and that someway somehow he has this identical twin brother or a cousin who just so happens to look like a dead ringer for a certain Zootopia police officer? Yeah, that's what I've gotta do, there's no way, this just has to be a coincidence….
I mean, that would explain how he could just get in here, but then, don't places like this ask for IDs, things like that? This all just feels wrong…
Gotta roll with it though, so that we can get the hell out of here alive and better off than when we came in-
But how the hell would we, we're in a locked and bolted med ward in the middle of one of the most secure prisons in the city, yeah not good. There's no way out of here…
Great, dontcha just love it when your day goes from bad to worse like this?
It's the BEST!
"I'll make you a deal, sir," I say, trying to hide the fear from my voice- and ya know, I think I'm honestly doing a pretty good job of it for once-
Freaking finally, that-
"Hmm?" the wolf- not Wolford, can't call him that, can't call him that even though he looks for the life of me- oof, that wasn't intentional, the dude's dead- like a dead ringer- asks.
-okay, what is it with language and its puns-
-like a dead ringer for a dead police officer-
Geez I need to focus…
"What kind of deal are we talking here?" the wolf asks, and scat, I was just bluffing, now I have to come up with something?
"Well, you tell us what the hell's going on and who the hell you are and what the plot is, that's my demand of you," I say, trying to puff out my chest a little, show a little bravado, maybe get him to back off.
"That's a lot to ask, and what would you be giving me?"
Right, the ball's in my court again and I have service, if I don't rally it back over the net then I'm screwed.
"I didn't think that far ahead, honestly," I admit, and I hear Jason let out a breath behind me, he must've been hoping that I'd be able to talk my way out of this too. Sorry mam, no luck on that front today…
"Alright then, let me send you a counteroffer," he says, and I can feel the tension rise.
"Actually, hang on, I've thought of my part of the deal," I interrupt, and his snout wrinkles up, teeth showing a little bit.
"What?" he spits, teeth bared fully now. "Go on, give it to me."
"Either we get what I've demanded, or I scream as loud as I can," I say, still not hearing any shaking in my voice.
"How about no," the wolf says, reaching down behind them, into a pants pocket. "You're calling the chief now, and both of you are resigning or," they continue, and I see they're holding syringes full of something blue, "I'll let them take you off the force a little more painfully."
A/N: Whoops that took way too long. Sorry everyone!