hospice || e.j.

trois | three's a party

Ear-splitting wails fill the hallway like a mechanical banshee, and red lights close in on them as the emergency system goes off.

"You little shit," the intruder growls quietly, clutching his wounded hand. Needless to say, he looks pissed.

He lunges forward, and a frightened yelp escapes Marli. She scurries under the bed, shuddering as sharp claws dig into her ankles. Willing all her energy into her upper leg muscles - the few capable lower body parts she has left - she slams her entire leg repeatedly into the bed's sharp metal edge and is rewarded with a pained hiss as the creature's hand finally releases.

"I'm going to get you eventually," the creature warns, his nails digging deep welts into the bottom of the bed.

And then he disappears.

Marli clutches her ears. This isn't real, this isn't real, she chants inbetween sobs, the steadfast mantra that has gotten her through many a hallucination episode. But this isn't one of these episodes, and deep down she knows it: the deafening alarm, the dusty, claustrophobic crawlspace, the painful scratches on her limbs, all blood-red illuminated.

Everything is real, and everything is happening all at once.

"Go away," she sobs, pulling on stringy brown hair. "Please go away."

Suddenly the entire bed lifts off, tipping over on its side with a loud thud. Red light burns her corneas, exposing the cowering small girl to the masked, 6 foot 2, fuming humanoid.

"Miss me?" He laughs drily, one leg up against the edge of the capsized bed.

Marli screams at the top of her lung. The creature makes a move to grab her, but stops dead in his tracks.

At that exact moment, the doorknob starts rattling.

They've got company.

The intruder swore under his breath. In an unexpected swoop, he grabs the edge of the metal bed and yanks it down, right side up, sliding underneath the crawlspace with Marli.

"Not. A. Single. Sound," he hisses. Not that it matters anyway: his clawed hand over her mouth's done a pretty good job cutting off her air supply.

Out of a sudden, the rattling stops.

So does the siren. Everything grows completely still once again.

Marli's ears are working overtime. She can hear the lock slowly uncatches, and the door creaking open. Footsteps, heavy and sharp, fall all around them.

Click. Clack. Thunk.

A sharp, pointy edge jabs against her skin. Marli squirms (seriously, how many knives does this guy have?). Then she remembers the butterfly knife she's stolen off of him earlier, and there it is, in plain sight - jutting out halfway from the shadow of the bed, inches away from her feet. If only she can get it -

Clank.

Marli freezes. Before her very eyes, she sees a hand picking up the blade - a metallic hand, silver, glowing green with inner wirings. She stifles a gasp, and notices for the first time the incessant mechanical whirring that has been filling the room like a drove of hornets. The sound reminds her of heavy-duty life support systems in the ICU, generating enough power to sustain a dead horse.

"Mffhh!"

A feeble sound escapes her. Marli's hyperventilating. She's not getting enough oxygen in this enclosed space, and the vicelike grip her captors placed on her mouth doesn't exactly help. She swats weakly at it, taking a deep gasp when the grip begrudgingly loosens.

A mistake.

The first lungful of air she inhales chokes up her nostrils with year-old dust, and she starts breaking out in loud, uncontrollable hacks. It bounces around the room like a pinball made of sound, and she knows they've been made.

As if on cue, the mechanical whirring stops.

"Great," the masked man sighs, hands off her completely. Marli clutches at her own mouth, eyes watering, unable to stop her wheezing fit. Her heart was pounding, a frosty dread digging its nails on both sides of her head. She's made a commotion, and there is no way they'd be able to stay hidden now.

Then a face materializes on her right, grey, skinless with a single glowing eye, and Marli lets out a bloodcurdling shriek.

Next thing she knows, the bed has instantaneously plucks off the ground and, with a powerful kick, knocks the skull-faced entity straight off its feet. It collapses with a cloud of dust, landing on top of whatever it's hit on the other side - whatever monster they've faced with.

"Stop being so dramatic," the masked man says coldly, dusting his now-gloveless hands and dragging her away from the wreck.

He throws Marli effortlessly over his shoulder, and makes directly for the broken window. All the blood in her small body freezes over.

"No!! Are you out of your mind?" She shrieks, biting and scratching like a feral animal, but to no avail. Meanwhile, her abductor's growing impatient. He's already thrown one leg over the ledge, peering out at dizzying and most certainly deadly heights. "Help! Somebody! He-"

Her words are cut short. The bed behind them rattles violently, and with a crash, flies off to the side.

When the dust clears Marli can make out a mountainous form, hulking, half-human, half-metal. The flesh half is scarred and burnt, yet flesh nevertheless. The second half hums with eldritch energy: its left arm, its legs, and - god, its face.

Despite her weak stomach, Marli forces herself to look at the cyborg's face - or what's left of it. Ashen grey metal carved into the shape of a menacing skull, splitting the countenance into two. A singular eyeball glows like a white-hot lump of coal in the hole of its socket. A pale air tube runs the length of its hollowed out cheek down to its esophagus, pulsating like a living python.

"The girl." The cyborg speaks, a rigid, cadenceless tinnitus. "Give us the girl, and leave unharmed."

"When pigs fly, Robocop," said the masked intruder as he flips the bird and plunges, with Marli screaming, from the open window.