As I regained the feeling in my fingers and toes, I slowly opened my groggy eyelids and rolled my head around a few times. I heard the slowly beat of a heart monitor, as well as the stifled tears of a few people. I let out a breath that I felt like I'd been holding for days and couched up some black fluid onto the sheets I was wrapped in.
"Someone get her a towel, she's sweating like a pig." A kind, familiar voice slowly became apparent as well as the person it was attached to. Susan's blurry figure came into view as I squinted and tried to make sense of my surroundings.
"That shit is nasty!" I heard Link's gruff voice scowl.
"Do us all the pleasure Link, and shut up!" I heard Dr. Cockroach spat with the sound of him hitting Link on the arm.
"Ow! Geez Doc!" He said frowning.
"She's waking up," Susan said calmly. I sat up slowly and Susan pulled my messy hair back out of my face. A nurse handed her a large bed pan and Susan positioned it at just the right time. I felt the chunks begin to rise in my throat and I slumped over the pan hurling into it once or twice.
"Rise and shine! We brought you sprinkles!" Bob sang. Upon raising my head, with the drool hanging from my mouth and my hair in disarray, it made Link and Doc wince in disgust.
"Why…?" I asked still trying to make sense of my surroundings. Bob laughed and handed me a large bowl of rainbow assorted sprinkles. I took it weakly.
"Because sprinkles make everything better, duh!" He said with his hands on his hips.
"What—what happened?" I handed Susan the bowl. They all looked at each other and remained silent. "Am I cured?" I asked my head still pounding.
"Not quite." A calm voice emerged from the four monsters that crowded around me. He was a tall, handsome figure with a kind smile and jet black hair slicked back in a rather pompous fashion. Something about him seemed all too familiar but being in my state, I couldn't differentiate an orange from an apple. He put a gentle hand to my forehead and smiled.
"Still running a fever I see,"
"Doctor Wilson," Susan flushed and giggled a few times before clearing her throat and patting my hand slowly.
"Susan, always lovely to see you." He smiled at Susan and she almost lost all her composure. Link gave her a look and shook his head. He stood up and extended his hand for a bro-hug.
"Doc Will!" He said with a fake tone of subtle sarcasm.
"Link," He said bringing him in. "Oh, losing a little muscle tone are we?" Link blew a raspberry and waved his hand. "Bet I could still beat you at arm wrestling, eh?" Link chuckled and dropped it like a temperature change
"In your dreams." He sat back down and grunted as he extended his arms behind his head.
"Wilson." Dr. Cockroach stood hesitantly and nodded his head but kept his hand behind his back and in a tight knot with his other fingers. "Always nice to see a fellow," He cleared his throat. "Doctor." He said under his breath. Wilson smiled and nodded.
"Always a pleasure, Dr. Cockroach." Doc sat down and squinted, wiggling his antennas out of annoyance and crossed his arms with a small huff, eyeing Susan's lovestruck gaze.
"Nice to see you again as well Bob. How's that hemorrhoid problem?"
"You know Doc, it's actually gone? But there is this really weird thing under my folds that I just cant seem to pop—"
"Excsue me, but can you please tell me what's going on?" I interrupted not wanting to hear of Bob's untold treasures beneath his folds. Wilson knelt down and looked at me with penetratingly blue eyes. Hard to forget ones like that.
"Molly, I'm Doctor Wilson, Doctor Collin's assistant." He said warmly. "How are you feeling?"
"My head is killing me." I said laying back down with hesitation.
"Molly, you did a very brave thing back there. And rest assured nothing you did was your fault." I sat up quickly.
"My fault? What happened?" I sat up abruptly and a pounding in my head immediately followed as him and Susan guided me back into a relaxed position.
"Nothing that can't be fixed." His smile was warm and reassuring, and his dimples made me forget my throbbing temples momentarily.
"You didn't answer my question," I insisted. Wilson chucked and smiled again. "Where's Collins? Am I cured? How did the test go? What happened?" The heart monitor began to beep rapidly and Wilson put his hand on mine.
"Molly, Molly. Relax. Collins is reviewing your test results, gathering data. She sent me to be sure you're alright." He said.
"And the test?" I said. Wilson took a deep breath.
"Fortunately when you went under, we were able to gather a few blood samples as well as a few saliva samples. We measured all kinds of this and that, etcetera, etcetera." He waved his hand. "However there were a few consequences as I warned Charlotte there would be with forcing you to turn." I felt a turn in my stomach and threw up violently in the pan again. It felt like the ultimate hangover from hell.
"Like that." He said. Susan untied her ponytail and tied up my hair into a messy bun. I smiled weakly at her and lay back down. "I've never had this bad of a 'morning after' before Doc." I said twisting my face.
"Well, induced transformation can result in some pretty nasty after effects, as we figured out today." I laughed weakly. "Unfortunately, there were a few injuries after your escape. The bars proved," He thought for a moment. "Inferior to your strength. No one died, thank god, but there were, however, a large set of injuries." I bumped my head against the bed angrily and cursed under my breath. "Like I said, they're being taken care of in the infirmary as we speak. I'm sure Bob can tell you that we are equipped with some of the finest medicine that America has to offer.
"That's right! They have the cute little plastic cups in the bathrooms for, refreshments," He said elbowing Link. "And after every check up you get a big lollipop, for being a big kid!" He smiled and looked quite content with himself.
"Hey! I never get lollipops! Just those dumb old stickers with kittens on them." Link crossed his arms and sulked.
"Well duh! They only give the suckers to the special ones." Bob squinted matter of factly towards link and shook his head with a pointed thumb in Link's direction.
"Thank you, Bob." He chuckled.
"They'll be fine, Molly. Just as you will be." He said looking reassuringly towards me and the crew.
"When will we know something?" I said holding my stomach.
"To be perfectly honest with you, it's pretty up in the air. But Charlotte is a very efficient worker. And she means business."
"Oh yeah she does. Now that's a woman." Link nodded like he'd said it to himself in an empty room.
"Link?" Susan squinted and made a grossed out face. He surrendered his hands in the air and chuckled out of embarrassment. Wilson cleared his throat and put a fist to his mouth before he began talking again, clearly uncomfortable with Link's flirtatious comment.
"Any who," He said nervously. "She'll get it done, even if the world collapses."
"Oh I'm sure she will." I said rubbing my head.
"What was that?" He asked.
"Nothing she's just really…"
"Sexy?" Link injected, hands on his knees.
"Link!" Susan snapped.
"Abrupt. Kind of a bitch." I said weakly. Dr. Wilson let out a chuckle and quickly covered his mouth. He nodded slowly and sucked through his teeth.
"She can be a bit — abrasive, but she's the finest forensics doctor I've yet to meet in all my years working here at the base." He got up and scribbled some things on his touch pad. "Trust me, she'll grow on you." I looked at Susan and she shrugged slightly giving me a halfway smile and a glint in her eye. Something about Susan was just, calming.
"What am I supposed to do 'till then?" I asked, making sure I still had all the feeling in my limbs.
"For the time being, Molly you'll need rest to recover properly. Try not to do anything that will stimulate high levels of emotion or endorphins." He ran his finger over his touch pad again. "Your stress levels were especially high this morning and it's one of the reasons your reaction was so drastic."
"I wonder why." I said dryly.
"Tell me, Molly, your predicament, does it usually fluctuate when emotional levels are elevated?" He pressed.
"Increasingly." I folded my hands.
"As I—we feared." He corrected.
"Well for the time being, try and get some rest. I'll find one of the nurses to escort you back to your living quarters, yes?" I nodded.
"Anything but this exam table of doom." I said.
He pulled up a walkie-talkie up to his mouth and pressed down.
"Patient Richardson is ready for relocation." He said cooly. "Very good." He hung up the device and put it into his deep pockets. "Well, I best be going, I hear Squeep is in dire need of my assistance. Says she's been exposed to some foreign earth germ." He scrunched his face into a slight wad. "Now If you'll excuse me." He walked through the exit doors and dashed down the hallway.
"Squeep? Foreign earth germ?" I said making a face.
"Resident alien here at base — working on her school field trip to study planet earth!" Susan said excitedly.
"It's about as much fun as it sounds, kid. And it ain't fun." Link tilted his head back and sighed. "Last week? She made us sit through a lecture of how moss grows. It was worse than Monger's old attempts to educate us about street law back in June." He, Bob and Doc shivered at the mere thought.
"Oh come on, Link. You have to admit, you two have gotten pretty, 'buddy-buddy'."
"I played one game of checkers with the little pip squeak. So what?"
"Because, Link! Checkers is game the official of friendships. Everybody knows that." Bob crossed his arms happily.
"Remind me why I take friendship advice from you. You're the one who made friends with an apple core." Link grunted.
"Oh, Tina? Ha! She and my mother went to college together." He said. Link face palmed and rubbed his large meaty fingers between his eyes. I then took a moment and looked around at all the somber faces — aside from Bob's stupid smile — and felt Susan squeeze my hand. She gave me a kind smile.
"It's gonna be alright." She whispered.
"Why did you guys come again?" I asked scrunching my nose at the headache and nausea. Susan looked around at everyone and smiled. She looked back at me a shrugged.
"We wanted to be sure you were okay." She said.
"You gave us quite a scare, my dear." Doc said softening his large eyes.
"Also could've been the fact that you sent off the 'don't set off this alarm ever, only in case of extreme emergency' alarm that Monger only uses for emergencies." Link said winking in my direction.
"But," Susan said putting up a hand. "Mostly because we were worried." The gang all nodded.
"Did you guys see what happened?" I asked playing with my fingers. They were silent.
"Monger told us to take cover at first," Susan began.
"But we didn't want to miss any piece of action!" Link said excitedly.
"Oh please, you just wanted to see Collins in a state of panic." Susan said.
"The woman never smiles!" Link gestured all wide eyed.
"Anyways," Susan said.
"You threw like three people into that glass door!" Bob pointed to a scene of disarray, with three people cleaning up various pieces of glass that were scattered across the floor.
"So what's the verdict? Permanent state of man-beast?" Link smirked.
"Hey!" I said defiantly. "That's woman beast to you, sir." I said pointing a finger at him. "I mean, if Collins can figure out whats going on with me, she might be able to find a cure. That's about all I know at this point." Susan patted my hand.
"Well what we do know, is that you need some rest. So we'll get out of your hair for now." She smiled and motioned for everyone else to stand. Bob left the bowl of sprinkles back on my bedside table and everyone else trudged out the door, with an occasional wave. I sighed and looked around. There were maintenance workers with mops and water buckets cleaning the blood off the windows and the floor, placing a few precaution signs around the spills. Aside from the door I'd apparently broken, there was glass everywhere and untold liquids streaked across the tile. I'd never seen such a mess before, and worse, it was all because of me. I got a few nasty glances from some of the employees before they jerked their heads back to their dull conversations.
They had every reason to believe I was a monster, and I didn't blame them in the least.