For Shits and Giggles [2024]

Chapter 05

"Gracie?"

There were two hands shaking her awake. Why wouldn't they just let her sleep? 

"What happened to you?"

As the fogginess began to clear, she could barely make out a face through the swollen slit of her eye.

"Professor?"

"It's Doctor now," he said, gently pushing aside her bangs. "Who did this to you?"

What a relief. Someone she knew.

The words spilled out of her like vomit. "Vultures," she cried, her throat raw from the earlier screaming, "They were going to take me somewhere but one of them said no and they were arguing about my eyes and the tree and how they're the same and eating them and-and—"

"Slow down, it's alright," said the Doctor softly, examining the gaping socket where her left eye should've been. She stopped to catch her breath between sobs.

"Tell me," he asked, "What was it they said about your eye?"

"I don't know," Gracie continued crying, though she wasn't sure if it was blood or tears leaking from the hole in her head. She could feel her brain swollen, throbbing against her skull. "They said my eyes were changing colors, it reminded them of the Tree..."

Gracie noticed the subtle shift in his posture, "But they've always done that," she added quickly. "Since the first day."

"I see," a heavy moment of silence passed between them. She could tell he was thinking hard, about what? 

"I apologize for what I'm about to do," he said finally. "But my work is very important."

"Please, I want to go home."

The Doctor reached into the largest pocket of his messenger bag, it was the same one he carried around to his lectures, made from old, worn out leather. He pulled out a few metal tools and chose an oblong, round-ish shape.

"What's that for?" Gracie was shaking, trying to figure out how to make her body move again. It felt pointless.

"Don't worry," he ignored her question and reached into a smaller pocket in his bag, snapping on a disposable pair of blue, nitrile gloves. "I'll make sure your body is returned safely to your home. Is your address still the same?"

Gracie didn't mean to, but she laughed in his face, splattering fresh blood all over his cheek and upper lip. It was a sudden, short burst of laughter.

Safely, he'd said. The irony of it was hysterical. 

But as promised, her body was safely in bed by morning. The Sheriff arrived no more than ten minutes later. By that time, however, no one in the alley was still waiting for him. The Sheriff found himself alone, except for the ambulance trailing behind him, and the soulless corpse of a dead girl with two missing eyes.