"Hey, kid." Graverobber said when he heard Shilo shift to see who was in her room. He spoke quietly as if he was trying to hold on to the silence of the early morning. "What are you doing here?" Shilo asked, wondering for a moment how she got back to her dad's house, then she began to remember the night before. "Are you alright, kid?" "Yeah, I remember now. It's that damned medicine! It makes me forgetful. Did you stay here last night?" She inquired, sitting up in bed. "No, I had to make a run for some Z. I got back an hour ago and I…well I didn't want to wake you but I didn't want you to wake up dazed so I waited." "What time is it?" "Ten something, did you sleep?" He asked, eyeing her. "Like a brick, but I had weird dreams," Shilo confessed. She had nearly screamed when she woke up and saw someone else in her room, and she'd hoped he hadn't seen her shock.
Graverobber got up from the window and crossed the room to Shilo's bedside. He handed her a glass of water off her bedside table and Shilo took it with shaky hands. There was a time that her dad did this very thing for her, every morning. The monitors he used when she was sick still sat, silent and useless, on the left side of her bed. Graverobber leaned into her on her right side and touched her shoulder. "Kid, what's on your mind? What did you dream about?" She turned away and looked behind Graverobber off into the glare of the city. It was a mass of poison smog and burnt orange light, which sputtered out from the dying sun.
The orange glow bathed Shilo's face and cast a deep shadow over Graverobber's exaggerated features. " I dreamt of my dad", she breathed. "I dreamt of him giving me my medication." As she looked up into Graverobber's white face her eyes pierced him like darts tipped with shards of ice. He was taken back by the subtle silver of Shilo's tears, which welled up into pools in her tired eyes. " He was dressed as a Repo man. There was blood everywhere!" She began to cry then, slow trickling droplets that felt cool as Graverobber hesitantly wiped at them. "It was only a dream, kid it's…" Shilo turned away as he spoke. "It was my blood" she interjected. " It was my blood! I tried to back away from him and he…" Shilo coughed as she sobbed, and beads of sweat rose up on her forehead. "He was holding my intestines and pulling them towards him!" She mimed pulling Graverobber's intestines out and he stood up. Graverobber backed away from her and she continued to cough as though she might vomit. " He was killing me!"
She convulsed, hard, and her eyes went glassy. "Blood pressure warning, blood pressure warning. Medicate immediately! Medicate immediately!" Her wristband began its usual alarm and Shilo clutched at her stomach. "Help!" Shilo pleaded. "It hurts!" Graverobber rushed to her side and placed his hand under her neck as she began to seep into unconsciousness. "Kid, hold on! Hey! Wake up. Shilo please wake up!" Graverobber begged. It was too late though. Shilo had passed out and lay limply in his arms. "Jeese, kid." Graverobber leaned Shilo against his elbow and began to brush her hair away from her face with his other hand. When her wig came away from her baldhead he jumped. He looked around the room in a panic, embarrassed that he had managed such shenanigans at her weakest moment.
In his search around Shilo's room he found a porcelain head. He laid Shilo down and placed her fallen wig onto the head with as much respect as he could muster, then turned to the little white mass that lay folded on the bed. Shilo was a pale little flower, blending in with her white sheets. He covered her up, pulled her piano bench to the side of her bed, and waited.