Steel Heart

Ch 37 - Milk, Salt, and Ice

Nana raced down the stairwell of the mansion. She skidded to a halt when she heard incoming footsteps. She grabbed her hammer and pressed her back against the wall. The footsteps grew louder and she took a deep breath.

She leapt around the corner with her hammer in the air. "Die, zombie, die!" she screamed.

Brook immediately covered his face with his arms. "Ahhh! Zombie! Where?!" he shrieked.

Nana stopped her hammer just a few inches away from breaking his forearm bone. "Brook?" she asked incredulously, "What are you doing here?"

Brook lowered his arms. "You scared me! I almost jumped out of my skin. AH! Even though-"

"You're already dead so you have no skin. Yes, I get it. Skull joke," Nana huffed as she put her hammer on her back, "Seriously. What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for- Ah! I'm looking for that!" Brook said and he pointed behind Nana.

She turned around and saw a room with a sign that said "Kitchen" dangling over it. "The kitchen?" she asked as Brook went into the room. Curiosity got the better of Nana and she followed him in.

The kitchen was dimly lit and it looked like it had just been ransacked. Cabinet doors were left wide open, some of the shelves have fallen out of place, and there were opened boxes and cans on the floor.

"What are we looking for?" Nana asked. Her foot kicked a bottle forward and the sound of its' rolling caught Brook's attention.

He gasped when he saw it. "There it is! MILK!" He swooped it up and clutched it tightly to his chest, "As I am now, this is the ultimate medicine. Okay. I just need to check the expiration date."

"HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR EXPIRATION DATE LATELY?!" Nana snapped impatiently as the skeleton held the bottle up towards its empty eye socket.

Brook took a deep breath. "This should be okay...I think we're in the clear. I'll drink this for the sake of the others! Bottoms up!"

He opened the bottle and chugged it within seconds. "Whooooahhh!" he cried, "I can feel it! I can feel it!"

"Really?" Nana's eyes widened and she stared at the skeleton.

"I can feel the calcium seeping into every pore of my body," Brook gasped, "...But since I'm a skeleton, I don't have any pores."

"You better pray there's more milk because I'm about to smash your skull in," Nana grunted.

Brook pumped his fists in the air. "I'm aliiiiiiiive!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Then he fell to his knees, "Oh..I screamed too loudly and that made me dizzy."

Nana smacked him hard across the head with her palm. "Stop wasting my time!"

Brook leapt to his feet. "Yes, you're quite right. This is hardly the time to waste energy on such silly nonsense. We must get what I came here for quickly and return to the others."

"We have to find more stuff?" Nana asked.

Brook ignored her and walked towards a heavily chained door in the back. "This looks heavily suspicious don't you think?"

He was about to raise his sword to slash the chains when Nana put her hand on his arm. "Allow me," she said and pulled out a little screwdriver from her pocket. She knelt down and Brook gasped.

"Miss! Your shadow-"

"Ah," Nana said without looking up, "They took it and I haven't had time to get mine back. And call me Nana. No one has called me Miss since...well...Ever."