This was why Miles was so cautious around humans.
"I'm so sorry about this." He wrung his hands together as he apologised once again to the fluffy-eared human twice his size.
His reflexive response, honed by the long weeks fighting in this deadly environment - and Sonic's strict instructions on what to do if a human wearing animal ears ever tried to grab him - had to been to ward off the attack with his palm, just a little too hard, smashing her through the table and leaving deep cracks in the wall beyond.
"Hah! It's fine." The girl grinned despite the blood seeping from between the fingers wrapped around her mangled knee. "Sorry if I scared you, cutie. I guess I should have learned to be more careful around foxes, huh? The last one bit me in like, the same exact place."
"Huh?"
"Oh! Not a fox like you though! Just a regular one." She grinned wider. "Can't help myself, I see something cute and I just wanna…"
Miles recoiled as she extended a bloodstained hand towards him. The whole fox ear thing was uncanny valley enough without the gore. She glanced down and retracted it with a sheepish grin, sharp fangs out of place on her human face.
"Oops. Sorry! Forgot." She laughed again, rubbing the back of her red-maned head with it instead.
Miles winced.
"So, you new? Does that mean we got a new chosen? I'm Maria by the way, you probably heard, huh?" She grinned, extending her bloody hand again, presumably to shake.
"Mi-... Fiona. The guy with the fish gun called me a stray?" Miles stared at the proffered hand until it was once again withdrawn. "Are… you sure you're okay?"
"Huh? In what way?" Maria tilted her ear quizzically. So weird seeing that on a human. Advanced prosthesis? "Oh, my knee?"
Miles had meant her head, but he nodded regardless, prompting the girl to leap to her feet.
"Ta da! Good as new!" She peered down at her leg, pulling a shard of wood out and tossing it aside. "Well, not really, but, like, that'll be fine. So you're a stray? Oh my! We get a whole planet of critters who look like you next?!" She squealed.
"... Yes." Miles had suddenly great empathy for the cat still trying to claw its way through the door to freedom, and another compelling reason to want to spare his world of this fate.
"Like, wow. That is… Oh, sorry it's happening to you and everything, it's just exciting. Maybe you'll even get chosen! Or get a pact! Then we can be besties."
"Sounds great." Miles put on a bright smile.
"Hey! Why don't I show you around town? You're stuck here for a bit anyway, right?"
"I thought you weren't allowed to help me?"
"I won't tell if you won't." Maria shrugged as she reached past him to open the door, freeing the cat to bolt to safety. Miles gazed after it in envy as he followed her onto the street. "They sent you my way to get you checked out anyway, after all."
"Checked out?" Miles quirked an ear.
"Yep. Make sure you're what you seem to be, you know? My pact is like, closest to the Guide's. I know all the critters that show up here in the curves, and I pass that info onto the chosen once they offer 'em."
"Offer them?"
"You know." Maria put a razor sharp claw against her neck and made a swiping motion before flinching and pressing her hand to her now bleeding throat. "Ow! Forgot I had these."
"You forgot you had claws." Miles frowned. Surely there was a limit to how much of an airhead someone could be? Should she be allowed out here on the street?
"Yep. Sorry, they're kinda new." She waggled her ears at him with a laugh. "The fox that bit me? Part of my contract. It turned me into this!"
Miles raised an eyebrow. Wait, those were real? And vulpine traits were contagious? Good thing he'd never bitten anyone.
Or was it?
...No, with his mutant genes non-zero chance they'd end up with four legs or something weird.
"Anyways, the bad stuff doesn't normally show up when we're on our own like this. They're like antibodies y'know? But if you don't belong like we do then they'll come into the curves to get rid of you."
"So the monsters don't attack you?"
"Huh? No, they attack us fine, but they don't show up in the first place if they don't smell something that don't belong. Not that I'm saying you smell! But if there's enough of us around then normally all you'll see are stuff like bugs and bunnies, even if a chosen or two is hanging around."
"But not always, right?"
"That's right! Oh, this all used to be homes, by the way." She pointed to the buildings around her, in neither better nor worse condition than the others Miles had passed previously. "There was Chuck's store. Real fun guy, you'll like him. Likes to mess around with science stuff when he isn't dead."
Clearly the terminology was going to take some getting used to when dealing with people for whom death was a transient state.
"But how'd he die if the monsters don't show up around you?"
Wait, did he accidentally kick one of those dynamite bunnies?
Maria smiled sadly. "Exception numero uno. The real deal can show up anywhere they want, we're just beneath their notice either way. Ahtu, that mean ol' bonehead, came lookin' for the chosen. And they weren't ready to fight him but they tried..."
"And you were caught in the crossfire."
"We've all died at least a few times already." Maria brushed her fingers across a doorway. "We spend all our time in the angles waiting to breathe again, to come back to the curves and be happy for a lil' bit."
Maria stopped suddenly, leaning back against yet another building of pockmarked grey stone - this one slightly taller than the others - as she massaged her knee.
"Well, most of us died this time, but there's a few of us still out there. Can't tell you find the ones that haven't been found, since that would be helping, but Doc's still out there in the jungle doing his thing." She pointed in the same direction they'd been walking. "Could do you some good to look for him while you're looking for Cosmo's miracle, hm?"
"Whah?" Miles froze as a gentle hand laid upon his head. "How did you-?"
"Didn't I tell you? I know about everything that walks the curves here." She raised her lips in a toothy grin, ruffling the fur around his ear. "And I know you best of all, Miles Prower."
She released his head with a sigh, stepping around him with a neat pirouette that showed no sign of injured leg or simple demeanour as she locked her golden eyes with his.
"Come see me when you find her, little guy. You owe me that much." She winked before slipping around the corner and out of sight.
Miles let out a shuddering sigh. Was there one single normal person in this place? The bipolar plant girl who couldn't make up her mind if she wanted him gone, the human with a magic cake and a glitter gun, the angry gunman with a fish… and now some kind of omniscient furry?
Maria popped her head back around the corner, causing him to start in surprise.
"Oh! Forgot. This building was the chosen's workshop. They stored their treasures and tools and stuff in there and there's no door lock. Definitely don't go in it when I leave, okay?"
"Uh… I-"
"Great! Bye!" She disappeared again without waiting for confirmation.
Miles was already reaching for the door.
