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There was mold on the popcorn ceiling. True stared at it a while before it occurred to them that they were alive and in horrific pain. The next step on the agenda was a groan, which did not make the pain any better but did give them an ounce of satisfaction for acknowledging the pain.

Next order of business was to move. They appeared to be in a bathtub with one leg slung over the side, the other halfway up the wall, and their head on the tub floor. They tried to sit up. Emphasis on tried. Two things happened at once then. One, a fountain of molten agony jetted from their gut into every crevice of their body. Two, burn-scarred hands pushed them down.

They found their tongue too dry and heavy to speak, but managed to curl their fingers into a weak approximation of Radio's name. They were weak. Worse, they were vulnerable. The scarred hands found theirs, squeezed.

Okay, okay. They let their eyes slip closed while they processed. Things were starting to seep back into the fat cotton ball that had replaced their brain. Ugh, it even hurt to think. Screeching from a metal hellbeast bent on their destruction—creaky hinges—wreaked havoc on their pounding head.

"I heard noise and I know you didn't make it. Is Sleeping Beauty awake or just gassy?"

True mustered the strength to unfurl their middle finger and aim it at the voice. Probably not the brightest idea, pissing of the person whose bathtub they were recovering in.

They pressed the sorest spot on their aching body. A rough line split their flesh below their ribs and above the wool of their sash. Stitches. Their cotton ball brain began to spit out some more information. A thump rattled the out-facing side of the tub.

"Calm your tits, sis," the unfamiliar voice muttered. True pried their crusty eyes open, hand closing around an imaginary shovel handle. "That woke you up. Come on, sunshine, struggle a little more. There you go."

The voice belonged to a pointy, shadowed face, attached to a spindly body that half draped over Radio.

"Eliza," True said, thin and slow. They'd worked up just enough saliva for it. Eliza flashed a mouthful of yellowed teeth that had been filed into points. The smile, if it could be called a smile, dropped when Radio shoved her off.

"Rude." She flicked a long dark tangle of her shoulder. "Anyway, I was only waiting to make sure Allsaint did what he said he'd do, and he did. He's a real doctor, you know, used to be one of the best. You're welcome. See ya."

"Wait." That was too many words to process at once.

Eliza swung out the open door. "You'll figure it out on your own."

"You... Linc..."

Eliza flopped back into frame. A wide, wide smile stretched her cracked lips apart until they split. Bood trickled over her pointed teeth as she mimed a gun to her head. A roach scurried up the doorframe beside her.

"Linc's dead." She slapped the bug flat under her fist and tossed it into her mouth. Pale yellow slime jetted from behind her teeth with a crunch. "You're not, I don't like owing people. Go away."

She vanished then, hopefully to never be seen again. True shifted their focus to Radio, checking it over for damage. It had its sleeves pulled down over its fingertips and it had sprouted dark eyebags on skin a couple shades paler than True remembered it being. Everything else hid under layers of loose clothing, but it didn't look like it was bleeding or anything. It watched them back, motionless, waiting.

"Where are we?"

It dropped its gaze, tugging at its sleeves. Great sign. Nerves clawed down their spine. Were those bruises on its neck?

The bathroom door hit the wall with a deafening crack. An impossibly bright man burst in, crossed the room in a single stride. Radio barely picked up its legs in time to miss getting bulldozed by a bolt of lightning in platinum hair and pasty skin.

"My star patient!" The man bellowed, plucking True out of the tub as if they weighed nothing. Their vision flashed white. Lava under the stitches. Hot—frigid—hot.

"Buck up!" the man commanded, holding True upright on their watery legs. Their stomach clenched, shunting bile up and not quite out. Their groan morphed into a gag.

"My my oh manners. My bedside is the best!"

The support vanished and True dropped like a brick. Caught themself on the lip of the grimy tub, but it was about as effective as catching a rock with a square of toilet paper. They screamed over the first half of whatever the man said. He kept blathering through True's sudden and thunderous tinnitus.

"...Doctor Allsaint, fantastic to see you're recovering well!" he told the wall.

Yeah, recovering so well. They spit bitter slime and pressed their cheek to the cool edge of the tub. It helped, a smidge... they pretended it helped. The man—Dr. Allsaint, they assumed—bent at the waist like a reticulated doll. Stiff, plastic in the lifelessness of the motion. His eyes lagged, set deep in scraped-out hollows. They were blue, but the lakes surrounding them stained them darker. And they shook, uncontrollably his eyes shook.

"Get up," he said.

True ground their teeth, breathing slow through their nose while their vision swam. They couldn't feel their legs. And they were sure they were making a fatal mistake, not moving quick enough, but they were barely hanging on.

They flexed their fingers, trying to force co-operation from their body. Jammed their arm underneath them for leverage. No luck. Out of the blue, Radio was there, helping them to their feet, pulling their arm over its shoulders. It had to be holding their whole weight because they certainly weren't.

"Good," the doctor all but purred. He drew up their shirt and stuck his nose close to the crooked row of small, tidy stitches. They would have kneed him in the schnozz if they could have. "Lucky you, that bullet only nicked your liver."

Bullet, right. They remembered being shot, remembered Hrōkr, vaguely remembered glimpses of green, fresh air, dizzying motion. Freezing cold.

"Bullet for bullet for bullet for bullet. Ha, fitting. You know, that's a good spot for a kidney surgery." Dr. Allsaint was saying. True squinted at him, struggling to cling to the present.

"What?" they rasped. Dr. Allsaint's expression wavered, sharpened into something less disgustingly cheery.

"You know, you know, you, you." He bit his tongue, dropped their shirt. By the time he straightened he seemed to have regained his train of thought. "You met my darling Eliza before you ever got shot. Smart. Psychic, even. Her bullet, your bullet. Too lucky."

My darling Eliza.

Getting dropped on their nice new bullet wound hadn't woken them up, but that connection certainly did.

"We should go," they said. "Where's my pack?"

Dr. Allsaint paused, looking at them but not really looking. He licked his teeth. For whatever reason, that gesture unnerved True.

"Walking is important for recovery," he said at last, turning to the side in a motion that might have been an invitation to leave, except the room was so small that even sideways he took up all the space between the defunct sink and the mold-speckled wall. He waited politely. Radio's eyes flicked between the two of them, and the three inches of space Allsaint expected them to squeeze through.

"Let's not dilly dally, out you get," Allsaint said.

"Love to," True muttered.

"Great!"

At that, he turned and marched out of the cramped bathroom, ducking to get through the door.

"Buddy's a nutjob," True whispered to Radio as it helped them out of the tub. Their legs were making a slow return to the land of the living. They gripped the sink, stopping to catch their breath. Blink away static. Evaluate. All ten fingers, all nine toes.

Something or someone thumped on the upstairs floor and knocked a spindle-legged beetle out of the rafters. It landed in Radio's hair with an audible plop. True flicked it off, and Radio shuddered.

Time to get out of there.

Wherever there was.

Dismal grey slime seeped from the dismal grey ceiling into spongy fungus-infested walls. A long hall split the house in two, from the front door to a teeming shadowed depth. The swollen walls had grown around a handful of portraits and diplomas. Rusted nails jutted from all the eyes, condensation clouded the glass from the inside, snippets of words peering out.

Allsaint, M.D.

Eliza Schecter, BsN.

Mushrooms shaped like ripples of shelves climbed the hallway walls. Small glass jars teetered precariously on the wider shelves, egg-shaped bulges floating in the cloudy water. True could swear those blobs tracked their hobble toward the decrepit front door. A person-shaped lump shoved in the corner rocked back, forth, bounced off the wall and rocked backwards again.

"Have you been discharged?" Dr. Allsaint's voice reached out of the darkness shrouding the back of the house.

True bit back a groan.

"Yes," they said. The exist was right there, inviting them out, telling them they would be fine if they crossed the threshold. Their gut, however, told them that the swarm behind them was straining at the bit and fully capable of popping their skull off their vertebrae.

"Congratulations on your recovery." Allsaint announced, suddenly much closer. A dweller startled out of the dark, careening down the hall. Radio wrested True out of the way, its grip burrowing in their side.

"Ow," they breathed. A mistake. Radio's death grip softened but not before Allsaint's shivering hand glommed onto True's shoulder.

"If you're in pain you should not leave!" his bellowing was deafening up close. He spun them about. The bullet wound pulled with the motion, shooting fiery gouts up their side. They chomped down on their tongue, swallowing a cry, and forced themself to focus on one of Allsaint's twin swaying faces.

His blond eyebrows knit in seemingly genuine concern. The expression was at odds with all the too-sharp angles of his face, the crooked, healed broken nose, the ghoulishly pale eyes with nothing behind them.

"Let go of me," True demanded, slowly, inhaling very carefully so as not to set off the burning all over again. The hall behind Allsaint writhed with curious shadows. Hungry shadows.

"I'm a doctor, if you show me where it hurts I can help."

"It hurts where you took the fucking bullet out," they bit out. Every fiber of their being screamed to get away. In the next five seconds they were going to nail him in the dick, stitches be damned.

Allsaint let go in snail-paced increments. His face warped around the two dead spots that were his eyes. A poorly molded Claymation of first confusion, then fury, then deeper confusion.

"Ah, I see. I... see," he chewed on his words. True was already scooting out of reach. Radio at their back, half holding them upright, half leading the way.

"Where are you going? It's nearly time for tea." Allsaint sank farther into the confusion, the shadows behind him swelled at the mention of tea. Sharp teeth flashed.

"I don't think so."

"I'm right."

Damn, this dude would not let up. They scraped their fuzzy brain for something, anything, to get them out.

"I can't stay," they started. Come on, think. Think, think. "I told Eliza, I would... not, have tea. Today."

"Eliza!" Allsaint exploded, whirling about with impressive and frightening speed. Some part of him left a dent in the wall with a solid thwack that he didn't acknowledge. "My darling Eliza."

True and Radio ducked out the rotted door before the final, ringing vowel. The hallway shifted, floorboards moaning out a chorus as the shadows surged, suddenly bold. Most bunched around Allsaint. Few snaked into the crevices closer to the door. Reaching, nipping, chasing. A shadow with sharp teeth and a tangle of dark hair stopped in the doorway, grinning at their retreat. Eliza waved, reached out, and slammed the door shut.

"Hurry, before Doctor Crazy jumps out the window," True urged, turning their back on the infested house. Radio folded its arm around his waist again. Onto the cracked street. Into a city much larger than the village they'd been shot in.