Hometown - Chapter 4: Nightmare

Hometown – Chapter Four: Nightmare

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	Susie was searching for supplies in the van and swearing whenever she bumped her head against something. She had found a black backpack with a yellow smiley face under one of the seats, and she filled it with whatever she could get her hands on: the radio, the gun, some old clothes, a water bottle, a first-aid kit, and a small flashlight. Susie even discovered a crowbar in the back of the van that she eagerly stowed in her bag.

	“Grrrrr…”

	The draconic monster doubled over and clutched her growling stomach. She was starving, and she swore again for not finding a single pack of chips or roll of cookies in the van. She’d give up her backpack and everything inside it for a fat, thick steak that was seeped in delicious sauce that…

	“Grrrrrrrrrrr…”

	Her stomach ached again, barking at her to find some food fast before she starved. Susie was used to going without a meal, but it never got easier like some of the other luxuries that she could go on without. She could barely suppress a pained moan or whimper as she held her stomach.

	‘I could maybe find something to eat in the woods? I’m no stranger to looking for berries or something if the hunger gets too bad…’

	Susie got out of the van and looked up into the sky. Even here the fog was ever-present, bringing in a cold air that nipped at her cheeks. Susie thought about pulling out some of the old shirts she snagged and putting them on, but she remembered how small they were and figured she’d have better luck wearing them around her arms than around her torso.

	‘I should really take this out,’ Susie thought as she pulled her backpack down and grabbed the revolver from within. ‘It might be empty, but nobody else knows that.’

	Holding the gun in her hand made her feel like less of a cowboy this time. Susie was shivering, on the brink of collapsing from exhaustion, and more scared than she ever had been in her life. She wanted out of this hell, and she was going to do everything in her power to return things back to normal, but she knew she couldn’t do it alone either.

	Kris. She needed to find Kris, and she’d better hurry. Susie wasted enough time looking for food when she should have been looking for her friend the moment she made sure Mother was out of action, but she decided that maybe he might need some medicine, and then more clothes in case he was cold, and then she thought she might need a weapon in case she stumbled into something again. By the time Susie had finished up with the van almost half-an-hour had passed.

	‘I’m such an idiot, no wonder I keep screwing up.’

	Susie looked around at the clearing. Mother was gone, too. Almost like she evaporated into thin air, leaving not even a pile of ash in her wake. Much to the unease of Susie, Mother must be around somewhere else.

	Susie began her adventure towards the treeline, leaving the van behind. “Kris, I promise that I’ll find you. I’ll never leave you alone, no matter what…”

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	Kris opened his eyes and gasped. There was a sharp pain coming from his chest, and when he looked down, he saw a knife embedded hilt-deep in his heart.

	Blood poured from his wound like a punctured soda can, puddling on the floor bellow him. Kris panicked, grabbing at his wound, but all he managed to do was get his hands covered in blood. He was going cold. He could feel his life literally leaving his body.

	As sudden as someone turning up a stereo’s volume, Kris could hear laughter all around him. It was a horrible, tormenting laughter that, for whatever reason, curdled the blood he had left in his body with a rage so fierce it was like a thousand burning suns. And like a star floating in space, everything in the room but him was getting dark, then even darker, like a blackhole consuming a moonless night sky.

	The teen had never experienced a turbulent whorl of emotions like this before. It was an addictive rush of adrenaline injected straight into his veins, but it was soon replaced with terror as his body succumbed to its wound.

	Kris tried fighting against his injuries, but his body was too weak, and he collapsed onto the floor like a sack of meat. He groaned and rolled over to his side, watching his blood continue to seep out of him and his vision fading away.

	“M-Mom… help…” Kris moaned, although it was no more than whisper. He didn’t want to die like this. He didn’t know it was going to be so painful and lonely.

	As if on queue, Kris heard footsteps tapping louder and louder as they approached him. Kris turned his head towards the noise, and his eyes opened wide when he saw a human coming through the black abyss. He was a human not much older than he was, and he wore a green sweater and had chocolate brown hair just like his own.

	The stranger gave Kris a big, wide smile that did more to scare him than comfort him—as all smiles should. Kris was terrified, it was like he was staring a demon in the face, but despite these feelings he wished to raise up his arm and beg the stranger to accept his hand, but Kris was too weak to do anything but lie down and die.

	…
	…
	…

	Kris awoke on a stretcher in the middle of a cold room. There was a single dying light bulb that swung back and forth like a pendulum over his head, making it hard for Kris to open his eyes.

	‘What? I’m back here again?’

	Reaching for the side of his head, Kris felt the bandages he had wrapped around his wound earlier. They were where they should be. As he looked down and examined his body, nothing seemed out of the ordinary either. Same clothes, same pants, and not a single tear or gash anywhere on his body that would suggest he was stabbed.

	‘Oh, it was that nightmare again.’ Kris pinched the bridge on his nose and swung his legs over so he was sitting on the stretcher, his feet inches off the floor. ‘What about those… white things? I’m wearing these bandages so I must have been to the infirmary. That wasn’t part of the nightmare, so how did I wind up back here?’

	Kris could feel something off about him. There was an emptiness in him, a hollowness one might say, that he could feel throughout his body. It was like he was drained of his blood, but something more intimate than ever that. It made him feel cold and scared, but that could have been just the room.

	Just like last time, the room was decorated with stuffed monsters that hanged off the ceiling with what looked like fishing line. Kris smiled, even ‘Little Susie’ was here with him, although the stuffed toy looked nothing like his friend. He thought about cutting her down and keeping her around for comfort, but then he remembered that he’d smell like a dumpster behind a butcher’s shop with that thing around.

	Kris was also feeling the sensation of being watched just like last time, and he decided to get off his butt before he started seeing things again. There was an open door near the end of the room that he made his way to, but something was bothering him.

	Looking around one last time before he went through the door, Kris noted that he had been resting on the only stretcher in the room. There used to be a pile of mangled, foul-smelling stretchers in one corner of the room, but instead Susie was standing over there and watching him.

	Kris almost bit his tongue from sheer shock, and had he not instantly identified his friend’s suave mauve scales he’d have booked it out of the room. He rubbed his eyes, still unsure if they were playing a trick on him, but when he opened them again Susie was standing there right before him, looking as calm and composed as ever.

	“Susie?” the teen asked with a hesitant smile, almost too afraid to approach her but just as eager to run in and give her a big hug the moment it seemed safe.

	“Who else but me?” she said, crossing her arms. “Your mom’s not around, so I figured you wouldn’t be comfortable without someone watching you sleep.”

	Kris beamed and ran towards his friend. Susie’s banter was sometimes too much for him, but during a time like this he relished it. ‘Bully me more,’ he thought, but then his mind wandered elsewhere.

	With her crossed arms propping them up, Susie’s breasts were looking quite nice. In fact, the black t-shirt she was wearing had a low enough cut that Kris had a hard time looking away. Susie had never given him such a view before, and he was torn between wanting to burn the image into or out of his memory.

	Susie had a hint of a smirk on her face as Kris continued to stare even lower down her body. She had on a pair of jeans, as she often did, but the thickness of her hips was a lot more apparent thanks to how tightly her black tee hugged her waistline. Kris always thought that Susie looked pretty, in her own unique way, but these feminine features of hers was like an epiphany to the young human. His hormones were going wild.

	“You’re going to pop a boner at this rate, little guy.”

	Kris shot his eyes straight back up towards Susie’s face. He was visibly sweating, and he could only give the draconic monster an awkward smile. “S-Sorry. It’s just the outfit… I, uh, hmm… I like it a lot.”

	“I can see that…” Susie moved towards Kris, her eyes creeping downwards as she licked her lips. “I like what I’m looking at, too.” Her voice was sultry, dripping in an erotic passion that sent a shiver down Kris’s spine.

	“H-Haha…” Kris forced a laugh and took a step back, giving himself some breathing room between him and the lascivious monster.

	Susie took a step forward, meeting Kris face-to-face at the same distance as before. She grabbed one of his arms with a big, purple palm. Her thumb traced circles on his sleeve as she leaned in close, her hot breath puffing on his skin.

	“What’s wrong, Kris? No love for your bestie?” she whispered, bringing her muzzle only a few inches away from Kris’s mouth.

	Kris almost tripped on his own feet as he backed up again, but he managed to get free from the dragon’s grip with a strong tug from his arm. “Y-You’re acting really weird, Susie. How did you even get here anyway?”

	Susie shrugged. Much to Kris’s appreciation, she did not attempt to close the gap between them again. “I dunno,” she said. “Same way you got here, probably. Ha!”

	Kris palmed his forehead and winced. The conversation was going nowhere, and he needed to focus on the bigger picture and figure out where the hell they were.

	“Look, we need to find a way out of here. There’s an elevator down the hall outside that’ll take us to the surface, maybe. We just need to be careful. I think this place is infested with hostile Darkners.” Kris paused and, even with his bangs covering his eyes, there was an obvious expression of disdain on his face as he looked at Susie – who was staring off into the distance. “Are you even listening to me?”

	“Yeah, I getcha’, I getcha’. Find the Darkners, avoid the elevator...”

	“That’s not what I… Wait, is that a gun?”

	Kris pointed to the revolver that Susie was now twirling around in circles. It was nothing like the gun she had back in the van, which looked older and was covered in a dark grease. As the revolver spun around, Kris could make out the silver-plated frame and the long barrel that threatened to fire rounds twice as large as the previous firearm could.

	“Yeah, found this bad boy lying around and replaced my shittier one with it. This thing really packs a punch, y’know?”

	Susie brought her gun spinning to a stop. Holding the weapon up in front of her eyes, she pretended to be staring down the sights at an imaginary enemy and mimicked the recoil of a gun being fired. “Bang…” she whispered before bringing the barrel up to her mouth and blowing away the nonexistent smoke.

	Kris looked at Susie with a raised eyebrow. He shrugged at her, raising both his palms into the air as if to grasp logic he could not find. “What? Why are you acting like this?” the human teenager asked. “You’re not taking this seriously at all.”

	Susie dragged her attention away from her gun and turned to Kris. She looked at him with a scowl, her eyes half-lidded in frustration. “God, why are you such a little faggot today? Learn to loosen up a little, or at least stop whining. Sure, this place is shitty, but look around! No parents! No cops! No responsibilities! We can do anything we want, and you want to go home to mommy?”

	There was an incredulous look on Kris’s face as he stared at Susie, completely stunned and flabbergasted. He was going to tell Susie off, make her eat those words, and chide her for going too far, but instead tears started forming on his eyes. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that before, and it was Susie who said it? It was like someone kneed him in the ribs and spat in his face.

	“Come on, really?” Susie patted Kris on his shoulder. She looked him straight in the eyes when he raised his head up to meet hers, his bangs wet and sticking to his face. “I’m sorry for getting mad at you. Was that good? Is that what you wanted to hear? Are we ready to go now? Just keep that chin up. Nobody likes a crybaby.”

	Snivelling like he had a bad cold, Kris nodded his head while rubbing his face with his sleeve. “I’ll be fine, Susie. It’s just everything that’s happened today. I guess it’s been getting to me.”

	“Yeah. Whatever.” Susie rolled her eyes and walked past Kris. She continued to prattle on as she moved out of the room, much to the human’s annoyance. “Sheesh, and I thought you were kind of hot in the previous Dark World, too. Looks like a little pressure is enough to make you crack, huh?”

	 Susie popped her head back inside the room, noticing that Kris had not moved an inch. She gave him a big grin that made him uncomfortable. “Come on, Kris. I know how to toughen you up.”

	With a deep sigh, Kris followed Susie out of the room. The hall outside had remained mostly unchanged, but the hallway that led down to the infirmary was now blocked off by a grand mass of mangled stretchers. There was no smell of rotten meat emanating from the pile this time but, considering what had happened in the infirmary, he thanked the man upstairs that there was something between him and those white creatures now.

	Something deep inside told him he didn’t see the last of them, however. ‘One step at a time,’ he thought, turning away from the stretchers.

	In the middle of the hall in front of him was a glowing… light? It almost looked like a twinkling star, and it reminded Kris of something he cherished back in the previous Dark World. Just as Kris was about to reach out and grab the bright light, Susie called his attention with a loud “Kris! Over here!”

	Kris turned around. “What… What are you doing?”

	Much to his surprise, Susie was holding the police officer creature he had seen earlier in a full nelson headlock. She writhed against Susie in a weakened attempt to break free, but the dragon only tightened her grip in response. It was strange for him to see a monster that terrified him earlier so easily dominated by Susie, but he thought back to Susie’s actions in the Dark World from before and realized it wasn’t that strange at all.

	Susie giggled and beckoned Kris to come closer. “Come on, Krissy. I got her spread nice and wide for you.”

	Kris raised an eyebrow and then studied the officer. Her pale-blue skin was covered in dark blotches that made her look sick, and he could smell on her a musk that, while not unpleasant, seemed strange. Besides these off-putting characteristics, the curves on her cleavage were more than appealing, and the way her breasts jiggled as she writhed against Susie’s hold gave Kris a shameful reaction.

	“What do you want me to do with her?” Kris asked, looking up at Susie who was giving him a wide grin.

	“Stick it in her.”

	“Wha-What!?”

	Susie tilted her head over to one side, pointing it towards a gleaming knife that hung off her belt, which was also beside her revolver. Kris swore the blade was calling to him, like a whispering voice in his head. Before the human even realized what he was doing he had reached over and grabbed the knife.

	“Stab her between the tits. Come on, don’t be a bitch.”

	Kris looked back at the officer and saw that Susie was holding her even tighter. He could see her shivering in her blue uniform, and even without eyes, her quivering lips were enough to tell Kris that she was scared.

	“No,” Kris said plainly. “You know I’d never do this.”

	A loud, throaty laugh echoed through the hall. “You don’t deserve a friend like me, Kris.” Susie sneered at him, her brows furrowing in annoyance more so than anger. “I’m giving you a chance to pop that cherry with a hot, warm kill and you’re turning me down?”

	With the blade in his hand, Kris was having a hard time holding back from lunging out and stabbing the officer just to make Susie happy. He knew he’d never do it, but the temptation was there and calling to him.

	Kris gripped the handle of the knife hard, and he gritted his teeth as he looked Susie eye-to-eye. “You’re not the Susie I remember. She’d never do something like this, not after all our time together.”

	Susie scowled, and she aggressively tightened her hold on the officer. “How would you know? You know nothing about me. You only see what you want to see from that perfect little life of yours!” she shouted at Kris, barring her sharp teeth openly at him.

	Kris frowned and lowered his eyes. “Maybe… Maybe that’s true, but I know you don’t want to do this. Just… Just put her down, and then we can look for an escape from—Wait, Susie! Wait!”

	Before Kris could even stop her friend, Susie dropped one of her hands down beside her hip and grabbed her revolver. Without hesitation, Susie brought the barrel of the gun beside the officer’s temple and pulled on the trigger.

	A loud BANG deafened the human’s ears as a wave of warm blood splattered all over his face. Kris was blinded by the liquids, and before he could even complain he had to spit out what he hoped was only blood from his mouth.

	“S-Susie? What did you DO?” Kris stammered, his ears still ringing like his head was up against a ringing bell.

	As he slowly opened his eyes, he could barely make out the shape of the officer’s head anymore, which now looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to a watermelon. Brain matter seeped out of the broken bowl that was her skull, and the rhythmic spasms of her corpse was almost enough to make Kris bend over and vomit, but he’d unfortunately seen enough horrors today.

	Susie dropped the body, letting it land on the hard floor tiles with a wet thud. “God, that would have been so hot if you did that instead of me,” Susie mused, looking at the mess she made before stowing her weapon back under her belt.

	“Susie… You killed her!”

	“You bet your ass I fucking did.”

	Just as Kris was about to grab her sleeve and tell her that what she did was wrong, Susie turned around and walked down the hallway. She laughed obnoxiously, her mouth wide open and her eyes closed like she had just been told the funniest joke in her life. Kris was furious. She was making the blood in his veins boil.

	“Hurry the fuck up, Kris!” Susie yelled back at him, wiping a tear from her eye.

	Kris had no intention of following Susie. At the same time, Kris knew it was either that or staying inside the room he had just woken up in. The path back to the elevator was blocked off by a mountain of mangled metal which would take forever to tear down, and so Kris knew he had no choice but to chase after Susie.

	Before he ran off to his questionably ethical friend, something bright in the corner of his eye caught Kris’s attention. It was the twinkling star from earlier. Could Susie not see it? She didn’t seem to notice it when she was here moments ago with him.

	At times, he could see it flickering. The light only he could see. By second nature, he reached out, and…

	A sudden warmth spread throughout his body, making Kris feel whole again. He smiled for the first time in hours, and he clenched both of his fists as his resolve was strengthened.

	Nothing could beat them now.

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	Susie was going to eat her hand. It looked so tasty. She only needed one, right? Maybe a finger or two. Maybe three. Just a little something before she found a proper meal.

	‘What the hell am I even thinking?’ Susie stopped looking at her hand and hid it behind her back. Her stomach was grumbling like a den of lions, all starved and eager to eat anything thrown at them. Susie had never been this hungry before, especially in only a matter of hours. She’s gone without food for times longer than this, and they’ve never been THIS bad.

	“Urrrggh…” Holding her aching stomach, Susie had to draw up all the strength she had to keep pushing forward.

	The woods around her were cold and dark. She could barely make out the ground below her feet, and she often tripped over loose stones and gnarled roots that snagged at her legs.

	Susie grinded her teeth in frustration. She could no longer use the blood trail she had been following to find Kris anymore because of the darkness. She’d need to wait for morning to—

	“I’m such a fucking idiot…”

	Susie pulled down her backpack and rummaged through its contents. She smiled a little when her hand bumped against a small, tube-shaped object, but it was replaced with a frown when she thought about how stupid she was for taking this long to take out her flashlight.

	“Whatever…” Susie slung her bag back onto her back before fiddling with the switch on her flashlight.

	The flashlight flickered on, emitting a strong but small light that pierced through the darkness of the night. She shined the light against the ground. “Not a speck of blood in sight. Figures… Wait, what’s this?”

	There were footprints in the mud, which were smaller than her own feet. “Could these be his?” Susie knelt and examined the prints, although she had no tracking knowledge and could only determine that someone wearing shoes had walked through the area. Kris still knew it was a clue since many monsters did go around barefoot.

	“Are you looking for me?” a male voice said, cutting through the midnight air and startling the monster.

	Susie turned her attention towards the bushes ahead of her, shining her light on the trembling shrubbery as someone short and lanky stepped through into view. Even with the flashlight aimed at him, it was hard to get a good look at the man, but he was most definitely human.

	“There’s no need to be afraid. I’m a friend of monsters.”

	Susie brought the light to his face, causing the man to raise a hand to block the beam, but she was still able to make out his features. His brown hair was unkempt and long enough to cover his eyes, which she thought matched the shape of his round head rather nicely.

	“K-Kris?” Susie asked the human, somewhat unsure whether he was her friend. She’d never seen another human up close before, but he was a spitting image of Kris. Though perhaps all humans looked alike, and the man was wearing what looked like a dark longcoat instead of the green sweater and brown slacks that Kris normally wore.

	“No,” he said. “I’m Martin.”

	Susie held her beam at his face and said nothing. There was a long, awkward pause before the human spoke up again. “Could you shine that lantern away please? It’s dreadfully bright.”

	“S-Sorry.” Susie scrambled to turn off her flashlight. In an instant the white light that filled the woods was replaced with a dull, orange glow coming from a small metal box carried in the human’s hand. Susie looked closely at his light and saw a small flame flickering in the wind.

	“No worries, I suppose I’m just used to my little old lantern.” Martin laughed and carefully approached Susie. When she backed up, the human made sure not to take another step. “I’m not carrying weapons.”

	Susie squinted and looked closer at the human. He seemed ordinary enough compared to everything she’s seen today, barring Kris and Noelle. Maybe she could trust him? He didn’t appear to have weapons on him, not even a knife, and her wrestling matches with Kris told her that she could take him in a bare-knuckle fight.

	Susie cleared her thread. “My friend and I… We were attacked by a monster… or something. I think he’s hurt, and I’ve been looking for him in these woods.”

	Martin gave her an empathetic look. “Ah… I see. Forgive me for being presumptuous, but is your friend a human? I’ve never heard about monsters attacking each other before, but perhaps they’re even closer to humans than I thought.”

	Susie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, he is. Monsters attack each other all the time, though. Have you been living under a rock or something?”

	The human rubbed his chin as gears began turning in his head. “Hmm… We know so little about monsterkind…”

	Susie thought he sounded so much like Kris, too. Had she heard his voice in the dark she would think it was Kris’s without a moment’s hesitation. In fact, she still wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t Kris.

	“Is there something wrong with my face?” Martin asked, noticing that Susie was staring hard at him.

	“N-No, not at all. I think it’s normal for a human’s! I mean… You look just like my friend. Like, completely like him,” Susie stammered out, a blush forming on her cheeks.

	“Ah. What’s his name?”

	“Kris.”

	“Ah. He’s who you thought I was. Is he, uhh, special to you?” Martin looked to the side awkwardly, hoping that his sudden sweating wouldn’t be too obvious.

	“What? Yeah, I guess?” she responded, watching the human rub his chin again. Susie looked at the thinking human, then at the ground, and then to her side as well as she thought deeper about Martin’s question.

	Susie’s eyes opened wide when she discovered what Martin had actually asked her. “W-Wait, I don’t like him that way! I’m just his friend! His best friend!”

	Martin raised his hands up chest-high, his palms facing the draconic monster. “I didn’t mean to pry, I was only curious. I like to study monsters and I’ve never heard of another human that became friends with one before.”

	“Grrrrr…”

	Susie blushed once again as her stomach broke the silence between the two. She refrained from grabbing at her belly, but when it growled loudly a second time she clutched it hard. She hated looking hungry in public, because that meant she’d get unwanted pity and platitudes from strangers. They felt sorry for her, but they didn’t really care about her.

	“You…” Martin spoke up, turning to his side and pointing his lantern to the bushes that were behind him. “Do you want some food? My camp is nearby.”

	“Figures…” Susie murmured under her breath. She knew better than to turn down food when she was famished like this, however. She’d have to swallow her pride if she wanted to swallow good, tasty food.

	“Yeah… Thanks, I guess. I’m starving.”

	Susie dug her hands inside her pockets as she walked through the bushes with Martin. She thought it was weird to be near a human. She never liked them much, at least based on what she heard from her father. Kris was the exception of course, but he was basically an honorary monster. He’s lived in Hometown all his life.

	Susie noted how smoothly the human walked through the woods. It was like second nature to him, and she wondered if he was a tracker of some sort. She decided to save her questions until after she was fed. The big one which was asking Martin if he could help her find Kris. She had to hope that a human would be eager to help one of his own kind.

	“What’s your name, by the way?” Martin asked, moving a tree branch out of the way that Susie was about to walk into.

	The dragon’s ears perked up. “Huh?”

	“Your name. I had forgotten to ask.”

	“Oh… It’s Susie.”

	“That’s a nice name.”

	Martin smiled. Susie smiled back. He really did remind her of Kris. It was hard not to think that Kris was beside her and that everything was okay, but somewhere Kris was scared and alone.

	She’d have nothing to live for if something happened to Kris.

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