What's Out There? Part 2

Chapter 9

"G-General!" Johnson stuttered.

"Hello," Maxwell waved at her.

"Hey Maxwell, where's Midnight? And Johnson, where have you been?!" Blood Ruby questioned everything.

"Midnight is in the hospital, and I was showing Johnson Aperture," Maxwell answered her.

"Okay. Well, I need to take Johnson back to my universe, we've got a war to fight!" Blood Ruby said.

"Uh... About that..." Johnson mumbled.

"What?" Blood Ruby turned around. "Speak louder, soldier."

"I...don't...want to fight...anymore," Johnson said very hesitantly. Blood Ruby laughed.

"You're kidding, right?" Her laughter stopped when Johnson shook his head. Her face grew grave and serious. "Johnson, you better have a good reason."

"Well, fighting in a war is one of the hardest and most dangerous things a person could do," Maxwell defended Johnson. Johnson nodded slightly, agreeing with Maxwell.

"That's true, but you've been here since you were fourteen, fighting alongside me since you were fourteen. And your reason is 'I don't wanna anymore'?" Blood Ruby scoffed. "Seems like a weak excuse to me."

"Correction, I have been trying to stop this war without fighting since I was fourteen. And I've been living in it since I was a kid," Johnson corrected her.

Maxwell decided to let Johnson fight his own side, so he went to check on Midnight. He walked through the long halls of offices, past his own office, past a bare office where the head anomaly research should've been but wasn't for some reason. Past test chambers. Past her chamber. Until he finally arrived in the Hospital wing. He walked to where the nurses told him they had Midnight. When he finally reached the hallway, he saw a nurse with light brown hair that faded into a lighter brown, glasses, and a frown waiting in front of Midnight's room. Confused, he approached the room. "Hello there."

"Did you bring in Midnight?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay, She's awake... But... she is super scared of everyone who goes into her room. And we have no idea why," The nurse informed him. Maxwell sighed and walked in.

"Midnight? Are you terrified slash horrified that I'm in here?" Maxwell inquired to see if the nurse's statement was true. Midnight whipped her head around to look at Maxwell, her eyes slightly glowing. She seemed almost... like a wild animal. She began to hiss and scoot as far away from him as she could without leaving the hospital bed. "You okay?"

"She won't talk to anybody. she just seems scared of everyone," The nurse repeated, only slightly offended that Maxwell didn't believe her. Maxwell pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of his pocket, wrote something on it, placed it on Midnight's bedside table, and backed away to the doorway. When Midnight didn't react with anything more than mumbling to herself, the nurse provided a little more information. "That's all she'll do. We've tried to get her to talk to us... but she won't."

"Maybe this'll work," Maxwell closed the door and pulled up the hidden cameras which are in every room, and watched her reaction. Midnight looked around and scurried over to the table to read what the note said.

"How did you know that it would work? I've been trying to get her to do something other than be scared!" The nurse was surprised. Maxwell waited for a response from Midnight. Both of them jumped back a little when Midnight shot and destroyed the camera.

"Come in!" Midnight's voice called from inside the room after a moment. Maxwell slowly entered the room, the nurse behind him, to find Midnight sitting on the bed, looking like an absolute disaster. Her hair was tangled and almost spikey and was just a mess. "What do you want?"