Redemptor Adventures - The Heroes' Journey

6 - DEMI - Special Assignment

No, she did not like the hat. She had to wear the hat. All the servers had to wear the hat. To say nothing of the fact that no one, no species, ever looked good in yellow nor red, but these were not options afforded to those enslaved in Tetrapolis to the Takke Guild. And now here she was, poor Demi, clutching that hat to her chest for her own dear life. No matter how she twisted or pulled at it, those stupid yellow and red stripes, that hat of her uniform would not rip, would not break. That's how she would be. That's how she had to be.

Behind the counter Demi sat, knees together, hat to her chest, while all the strange lights and colors flashed outside the Takke Store windows. The massive glastic sheets of the windows made these wretched WHOMP-WHOMP sounds as the winds assailed them.

Out there, there were screams. Running. Explosions. Crashes. Bursts of flame. Debris tumbling down. Flocks of peoples and creatures surging this way, that. The whole stinking skid-box of this city coming down in flames around her. Rainbow flames, but still.

The floor beneath her shook side to side, and she went, "Oh. This isn't good. This is less than good. This is... things could be better." She wasn't talking to herself. No. Of course not. "That would be crazy," she told herself. "I'm just articulating my interior monologue aloud so that I can better get a sense of objective distance and clarity on my present situation. A perfectly sensible thing to do. No sylvas could begrudge me that."

From around the corner of the counter, her manager crawled forward a few paces. He was on all his hands and knees, tears streaming from his eyes, and whimpering. If something bad ever happened, he always figured he would be a real step-up and take-charge and problem-solve kind of hero. But that kind of fantasy is easy to live up to--until the skid goes down, that is.

"Nice night for a boggi invasion, don't you think, sir?" Demi quipped when she saw he saw her. "I'd be willing to stay late to help with clean-up. Inside the store. Because I'm so devoted to my job. Sir. Just so long as I get to stay inside the store. That would just be tops to me, if you please."

 

Her manager scampered over to her, grabbed her with all four of his hands. In her recoiling face he screamed, "Inside? Inside is death! You think this is easy? They've already killed him! They killed everyone! You want to die, too? Are you dead, too?"

Demi kept her composure. "Are you asking my preference? Sir, I just want to grill some crisps is all, would be fine by me. Really." Look at her, begging to please do the one thing she hated to do the most. If only she could be standing at the grill again, those pesky scalding jumping drops of oil at her arms, everything could be normal again. These were strange times, these end times.

He ran his hands down the sides of her face, not even really understanding who she was. But she flinched and sure did not appreciate the contact. But what could she do. But then he was bounding up onto the counter.

"Sir! Don't go out there! It's suicide, I'd recommend to sta--"

But he was kicking the doors until the manual lock flinched and then the doors slid open and out he ran. The door thankfully slid back shut again behind him. Demi peeked up over the counter and through the large red window she could see him running across the Food Court. But then his footsteps were running up into the air and his four arms were swatting at his head until he had run on an invisible arc up into the air, out from view of the window-frame. His warbling scream. A sento later, his body--and then first arm, second arm, third arm, and finally fourth arm--came tumbling down to land in a fast series of wet limp crunches.

Demi felt queasy and returned to hiding behind the counter. "Ah. Okay. Those boggis sure mean business," she said to herself. "And business is booming. And thundering. Annnd screaming. Annnd eviscerating, evidently. At least I'm safe in here, so long as that barrier holds."

When it all went down, when the Winds began, Demi had taken some of the tables and chairs and dragged them over to the one broken window, where that Siren had smashed in earlier, and propped them on their sides to build a modest blockade. To keep the boggis, those wild tormenting spirits, outside, and her in here. She would just wait. Just wait it out. They wouldn't stick around forever. That was the thing about Winds, right? Even malevolent Winds. They blew. They start at one spot, and progress to another spot. There were no ways in nor out except the front sliding entrance. And that broken window. "Totally safe. Totally safe in here."

A metallic jiggling, Demi then heard. "That's a new sound. Is that a I'm-still-totally-safe sound? Or a... different kind?"

The blonde top of Demi's head peeked the counter and looked at the sink. The faucet was the jiggling. Tentative at first, but then...

The faucet burst off the sink, and a tall blast of surging, psychotic water spouted.

"Ooh, light shower. Wouldn't say 'no,'" Demi said. A light drizzle of drops rained over her.

The stream of water bent toward her. As if reaching for her. It seemed to be bending itself. And then it was in a curve from the broken sink to right in front of her.

"Thaaaat looks promising. Not terrifying in the least."

The stream began to shake itself side to side, as if dancing, and then twist into different shapes, different silhouettes, until finally the stream of water was a three-dimensional, life-size figure of a lean, strong woman. The water woman spoke:

"Special Agent. Is that you, there?" The water woman cupped her aqueous hand over the place where her eyes would be and leaned forward toward Demi behind the counter.

Demi gave a little wave. "This is me here."

"The Thulgey Wood. A special assignment. Do you accept?"

"And have to leave here? When everything is going so well? So well!" she screamed. She recovered herself. She cleared her throat and smiled at the water woman. She put her little hat back on and tilted it to the side. "I mean, 'What's the assignment?'"