Chapter Text
The wind was harsh, ruffling your hair from side to side as you waited alone at the top of a building adjacent to Nimth Landfill for several hours now. The coolness of the night that was beginning to set in almost made you shiver, but your fur, since you had decided to take on your feline form, kept you warm. You'd arrived at the building early in the morning, a little before the official opening of the landfill, and brought along a few things, a bottle of water and several light meals, so you could get through the day without having to move from the roof of the building, which gave you a perfect view of the landfill entrance. Your eyes, reduced to slits, attentively watched the comings and goings of people entering the dump, scanning the cars to try and spot one with a pharmaceutical company logo.
The vibration reverberating in the wall you were standing on and also in your body made you turn your head towards your phone, which you had put down not far from you, the screen lighting up to reveal a message notification from Moon. You let a feline sigh leave your nostrils before straightening up, partially transforming yourself to grasp the phone between your two hands, unlocking it to open the conversation with the nocturnal animatronic he'd started at least a few hours ago when the two detectives had had to leave for an emergency, leaving you alone to keep watch.
- "If you see anything suspicious, don't hesitate to contact us." -
You rolled your eyes at Moon's message, switching off your phone to place it once more on the edge of the building with a sigh. You swung your legs over, bending over to rest your elbows on your knees and then resting your face in your hands. The two animatronics had been contacted by the police station to help manage a robbery in a remote part of town. The two metal policemen responded almost immediately to the call for reinforcements, but not without hesitation to leave you alone. So you urged them to leave, telling them you wouldn't do anything, or at least if you did intend to do something you'd let them know first. You didn't understand how Moon could still be wasting his time sending you this kind of message when he was supposedly busy.
Sun and Moon had arrived at the same time as you at the building where you'd decided to set up shop so as to be able to observe the dump and the customers, and they'd also stayed with you for most of the day, setting up the three of you so as to keep a constant eye on the dump. As you sat there, you chatted about everything and anything, drowning out the distant noise of the cars below and the machines working inside the landfill. It was a mundane and pointless conversation, but it allowed you to learn a little more about the two animatronics.
It wasn't that you wanted to learn more than they did, but things had to be fair, they'd met important people in your life, and you had to be something of an equal in terms of information.
So you asked them questions about their science-fiction culture, who and what their parents were like, where they'd 'grown up', and you used these words rather loosely since you'd indirectly been entitled to the 'Science and Life of Animatronics' course you had voluntarily missed while in junior high school. They taught you that, to age, Animatronics, which were Artificial Intelligences placed in receptacles, simply had to change bodies. You also learned that their personality wasn't something they were born with, but rather a parameter that changed with time and experience, almost like other living beings.
It had all been... pleasantly instructive. Yeah, not pleasantly enjoyable. You'd gotten to know your colleagues, you'd learned that Sun was the older of the two, by just a few seconds according to Moon, but that didn't stop the walking sun from bragging about it. Their parents were both animatronics, their mother having worked in the police force and passed on to them her passion for justice. They'd asked you questions about your own life, but you didn't really have anything interesting to talk about, or you just didn't want to talk about it. At least not in front of the two detectives who would probably add more crimes to your criminal record.
You were also able to tease them a little, the rubbish dump in front of you being a perfect catalyst for all the jokes and other cliché mockery that crossed your mind, such as asking them if for them seeing all those electronic machines at the dump was more like a horror movie or a graveyard. In any case, even if what you had exchanged didn't exactly advance your investigation, it did help you avoid the boredom of waiting for something to happen and nothing to happen in the end.
And now that the two animatronics were no longer there for you to keep them company, you were feeling lonely. The distant sounds of the city couldn't drown out the silence buzzing in your ears nor the strange emptiness that had formed in the hollow of your heart. It was strange, you'd always been inhabited by solitude, you'd always sought isolation and silence, you'd conditioned yourself to the absence of company because of your condition as a Shapeshifter, but now you almost missed the two animatronics. And you knew it was a bad feeling, the beginning of an attachment that you shouldn't have, that you couldn't have, Moon and Sun were colleagues only for a time, only for the duration of the investigation, which as long as it seemed was bound to end one day, like the contract that tied you to the two detectives.
You shook your face, pulling yourself out of your thoughts, your ears twitching in a single movement with a slight crinkle before they returned to their original position on the top of your skull, while your tail, which had curled slightly, fell back down onto the low wall beside you. You scanned the landfill once more, letting a sigh of annoyance and boredom leave your lips as you realized that there wasn't much time left before closing time and that you still hadn't seen anything resembling medical equipment being thrown away, perhaps the medical materials had been thrown elsewhere, or maybe even Silvio Notaga had noticed that you'd stolen the document and had had the date of the equipment's disposal moved. You shuddered slightly at this last thought, your stomach turning in on itself.
When you saw two of the dwarves in charge of the dump come up to the wire gate to close it, you let out a sigh of disappointment. You'd done the right thing in pushing Moon and Sun to help manage the heist, if they'd stayed with you, it would have been a waste of time for them, and a waste of time for you too, as you hadn't seen anything that might have interested you. You got up from the edge of the building, starting to pick up your belongings that you'd scattered across the roof and placed them carelessly in your bag, which you threw over your shoulder. You picked up your phone, stopping for a second to start typing a message to send to Moon, telling him you'd come home since you hadn't seen anything. As your finger was just above the send button, your gaze fell one last time on the discharge and you frowned.
The ambient light had dimmed considerably, but the streetlamps framing the dump were bright enough for you to see that the two dwarves were still standing by the wire gate, as if guarding the entrance, waiting for something. They seemed to be talking to each other, but you couldn't tell what they were saying, their expressions unreadable because you were standing too far away. Your tail wagged slightly as your ears twitched, your instinct telling you to wait, to watch, to be patient a little longer. You let your bag slip from your shoulder, your finger abandoning the send button to embrace your phone and place it back on the edge of the wall, your eyes dilating to adjust to the darkness. You waited a few more minutes before finally seeing a van arrive.
It was a classic black van, with no logo and an illegible license plate, not only because you were so far away, but also because the lettering was too faded to be legal. You tried to reach for your phone to take some pictures, but in the dark the sensors couldn't focus, so everything looked like a big pile of dark pixels. You swore silently, watching as the two dwarves opened the gate to the rubbish dump, approaching the van to exchange a few words with the people in the car before motioning for the van to move forward, which it did. Your nails dug into the concrete you'd been leaning on, your heart pounding in your chest as your instincts and logic told you there was something suspicious about the van arriving after the landfill had closed.
Your eyes followed the van as it drove deeper into the landfill, coming to a particular pile of garbage. There was a certain organization in the different piles of garbage, the one next to which the van stopped seemed to be dedicated to household appliances, you could make out washing machines and other types of oven. Your gaze focused on the two people leaving the van, you didn't want to rely on clichés, but they clearly didn't look like scientists, not good ones at any rate. You couldn't see it clearly, but one seemed taller than the other, and more bearded too, while the second was slightly punier, with blond hair. The two dwarves had left their post at the entrance, closing the fence behind the car to head back towards the depths of the dump where you knew their repair warehouse was.
The two men who had left the van had approached the rear of the van to open the double doors, revealing the numerous items of equipment inside. You then watched as the two men removed each piece of equipment one by one and threw it on the household equipment pile. You could see a lot of scientific machines, microscopes, centrifuges, things that reminded you of printers. Gradually, the truck became almost entirely empty, and one of the men, the blond man, grabbed what looked like a garbage bag. You made him grab the bag along with everything else with little care, but he didn't go and throw it away with the rest. The blond turned towards his comrade, who grabbed a strange pile of fabric, the two of them wandering through the rubbish dump to reach a new pile of garbage that seemed to bring together all kinds of unsalvageable waste.
The bearded man who wasn't carrying the bag approached the pile of garbage, and you saw him start to rummage through the garbage, lifting up several layers of dirt before giving way to his colleague who was carrying the bag. You saw him put the garbage bag on the ground for a few seconds, and then you thought you saw the garbage bag make a barely perceptible movement. You weren't sure whether it was your imagination, a movement caused by the wind or a possible displacement caused by the two men standing next to the bag, but you didn't have the chance to wonder for very long. The blond man kicked the garbage bag violently, pushing it into the void created by his comrade in the garbage. The bearded man then began to cover the bag with the surrounding garbage he'd moved, so that when the two men set off again, the rubbish bag he'd brought along was now invisible, hidden behind all the other garbage.
You stood still for long minutes, your eyes following the two men as they continued to empty their van of the little material that remained. When they had finished, you saw them return to their vehicle and head for the gate, thus leaving the dump. You sniffled slightly, lifting one of your hands to rub your nose as your (e/c) orbs came to rest once more on the spot where that strange garbage bag had been buried, your curiosity and instinct wanting you to go and check what was in the bag so he'd have to hide it like that. Biting your lower lip, you looked down at your phone for a few seconds before quickly grabbing it. You erased the previous message you'd sent Moon, completely changing the content.
- "A van, not badly registered and with no logo, arrived after closing time. Two men were clearing out some medical supplies, including a garbage bag. I'm going to search the garbage bag. I'll be careful. If you don't hear from me in ten minutes, I'm in trouble" -
You sent the message, not waiting for an answer that was unlikely to be positive, you switched off your phone and placed it in your bag, which you abandoned on the roof, as you yourself started to descend the fire escape, putting on your feline form to go faster. Arriving in the alley, you reverted to your human form, moving closer to the edge of the building to contemplate the street leading to the dump. Once you were sure the van was gone, you pulled the hood of your sweater down over your head, concealing your face and hair before sprinting towards the dump. However, you decided to avoid the main gate, skirting the metal fence for several meters before stopping and looking towards the top of the fence, which was several meters high.
Your logic urged you to change your appearance entirely, and your instinct said the same humming softly in the background. You'd been to this dump before, and it was run by Fantastics, so you didn't want to risk the dwarves being able to track you down by your scent. You'd adopted this tactic many a time when you were younger and still finding it difficult to steal unnoticed, or when you knew you were stealing something belonging to a Supernatural. This technique had always worked for you, in fact it was the only advantage you had in being a Shapeshifter. You couldn't help wondering why you hadn't used this technique to escape from Sun and Moon, but you pushed the thought away, shaking your face to concentrate once more on the task in front of you.
After a final inspection of your surroundings, you closed your eyes, feeling the long, characteristic shudder that accompanied your change spread through your body as you adopted your new Skinwalker form. You were still a feline, since that was a species you were used to, but the size of your animal form had changed greatly. You had let only the ears and tail of your new form modify your human appearance, the ears well hidden inside your hood while your tail now sported black spots on a tawny and slightly white background. You could smell your own scent changing, which reassured you and allowed you to turn with determination towards the fence.
You stretched out your hands, gripping the mesh before quickly climbing up and over the fence, letting yourself fall silently to the other side. You immediately dashed towards a pile of garbage, hiding behind it for a second to watch for the slightest noise and make sure that no one inside or outside the dump had seen you. You shivered again, but this time not from the cold. Your heart pounded in your chest, your breathing, that's you tried to regulate, faster and deeper, adrenalin pushing your senses to extremes as you relied a little more on your instincts to decide what to do.
After a few more seconds of confirming that the way was still clear, you made your way into the rubbish dump, heading in the direction of the rubbish bag, your steps silent as you advanced rapidly, always keeping to the shadows and cover of the garbage. Your hearing was slightly impaired by your hood, but your sense of smell was confused by all the smells there were, whether of rubble and other waste, or of the various people who had passed through there in the previous days. You relied mainly on your eyes, and luckily your new form was also nyctalopic, so you didn't have too much trouble seeing where you were going.
After several minutes of cautious walking, you finally arrived at the pile of garbage where the two men had thrown the garbage bag. You let a sigh leave your lips as you began to climb over the garbage, wincing slightly as you felt the various discarded objects move beneath your feet, creaking or making slight noises that might attract the attention of anyone who got a little too close. You stopped, your heart racing as your eyes took in the horizon before coming to rest once more where the garbage bag had been buried, under a strange fabric with a variegated pattern and an ugly wooden sculpture whose shape you were unable to determine. You slowly closed the distance between yourself and the garbage bag, and a few yards away, before you'd moved a muscle, the smell hit you head-on.
The smell of decomposition, of blood and, in general, of death, managed to find its way to your nostrils despite the surrounding odors. You felt bile rising in your throat, a sudden nausea taking hold of you, threatening to make you lose your balance and vomit everything you'd ingested since morning. You lifted one of your sleeves to your face, a stifled squeak leaving your lips as you felt your eyes sting, a few tears appearing at the corners of your eyes. You hoped it wasn't the contents of the bag that smelled that way, but your instincts immediately contradicted you. You grit your teeth, trying to swallow the bitter taste in your mouth, before plunging your trembling hands into the garbage, slowly beginning to remove it one by one.
You worked slowly, pausing to put your face to your shoulder, coughing silently into your clothes and blinking to try to calm your nausea and the feeling of panic that took hold of you more and more with each layer of garbage you removed. Finally, your gloved hand came to rest on the garbage bag, and you stopped. Now the smell of death and decay was accompanied by that of chemicals and bleach, but there was something behind it, an acrid, diluted odor that made the hairs on your tail stand on end and forced your ears back against your skull, a smell that was both familiar and foreign to you. Your fingers forced your mind not to think too hard as you suddenly reached out with both hands, grabbing the rather heavy bag, pulling it towards you and using one of your fingers to tear the bag open.
Your heart suddenly stopped at the sight of the corpses of small creatures that were partially beginning to decompose. Bodies of rats and mice that weren't really rats and mice. You stumbled slightly sideways, bending double, your hands digging into the detritus as your nausea took hold of you once again, causing you to choke on what was a mixture of saliva and bile, tears escaping from your eyes as your mind refused to accept the fact that you had before you a dozen bodies of Skinwalkers rats. Your logic screamed at you that this was impossible, that Skinwalkers couldn't retain their animal form after death, but along with the smell of putrefaction came the characteristic odor of Skinwalkers and human.
A stifled squeak left your lips as you managed to turn your attention back to the garbage bag and its contents. The corpses had been carelessly tossed together, various wounds smearing their variegated furs, scalpel marks exposing organs, puncture marks on areas that had been shaved, their eyes bulging as they contemplated the infinite emptiness of death. They floated in a liquid, a mixture of blood and bleach used to mitigate odor. Some of those who had died earlier had begun to decompose, their bodies displaying the characteristic swelling of internal putrefaction. The creatures had disarticulated limbs or crushed skulls, but you didn't know whether this was what had caused their death or whether it was due to the lack of care given to their remains.
You couldn't think straight, long shivers running through your body as your eyes remained fixed on the butchery. Your skull felt like it was about to explode, your heartbeat echoing in your ears. You felt your vision darken, forcing you to close your hands into fists, nails digging into your skin through your gloves to keep you conscious as the sensations in the rest of your body seemed to fade. You'd seen dead bodies before, but not in such condition, not in such proportion, because even if what you saw looked like rodents, they weren't just rats, they were people. Beings with a family, a life... You stopped your breathing from faltering, inhaling noisily through your mouth, forcing your mind and logic aside, letting your instincts take over, letting them take the initiative in pushing you to want to leave immediately to warn someone, to warn Sun and Moon.
You started to push off on your trembling legs, ready to take off running, but you stopped again, your breath disappearing again as you saw one of the Skinwalkers in the bag, one of the more puny rats, make an almost imperceptible movement of an inspiration. Your hands immediately plunged into the garbage bag, ignoring the sensation of stiffening bodies, the cold sickening liquid that filled the bag and seeped through your gloves, the smell that would follow you for weeks, concentrating solely on the little Skinwalker. Your two hands closed around him, gently removing him from this macabre pool.
Your hands brought the little creature to your ear, and you turned your face to press your ear against its body, stopping your breathing for a second to allow yourself to hear better. A sigh of relief, surprise and hope left your lips as you heard a slight breathing and a tiny heartbeat. It wasn't much, it was faint, but he was still alive. You pressed the Rat-Walker against your neck, folding your sweater slightly over him to try and keep him warm, wrapping your hands around his body to hold him firmly and gently as you rose to your feet. You lowered your eyes in the direction of the other remains, feeling guilty for leaving them here, but with no other option. You climbed down from the pile of detritus, slipping slightly, using your tail to balance yourself while your two hands were busy keeping the survivor warm.
At the bottom, you took one last look around yourself before heading back towards the fence. You crossed the dump, this time with urgency, your senses watching for the slightest noise as your mind focused on the life you held in your hands. You didn't know how long the Skinwalker Rat was going to be able to stay alive, you weren't a doctor but you knew from the coldness of his body that he was hypothermic, which is why you were trying to keep him warm, you suspected that his wounds weren't making his condition any better and that being locked in a bag full of other corpses, bleach and other chemicals hadn't made his breathing any easier.
Footsteps were heard several meters away, behind a pile of electronic detritus. You froze, your eyes widely dilated to compensate for the lack of light, panicking as you searched for a place to hide, but you'd been caught in a pincer movement, too close to the metal fence, a wall of garbage you clearly couldn't climb noiselessly behind. A silent insult left your lips as you considered scaling the fence, but with the rat with you you'd have to do it much more carefully so as not to risk dropping it or injuring it in any way.
"Hey you ?!"
Your face turned sharply in the direction of the two dwarves who had appeared at the other end of the pile of garbage, their flashlights shining down on you, blinding you. You let a growl leave your lips, turning your face away as your fight-or-flight instinct took over as you saw the two Supernaturals darting in your direction. You delicately but swiftly grabbed the little Skinwalker rat, holding it delicately to your wrist, pinning it with your hand as you suddenly decided to take on your full form, the mottled fur covering your entire body. You lowered your muzzle towards the rat, opening your mouth wide before gently closing it around the little creature's body as you lifted it into your mouth.
In a flash you sprinted towards the fence, and with a leap you leapt over it to more than half its height, your large claws and paws gripping the metal as you pulled yourself up to the top of the metalized fence before leaping off the other side, landing nimbly on the concrete floor as you took particular care that your fangs didn't injure the rat you were holding, All your concentration went into the pressure you exerted with your mouth, which was, in proportion to your size, one of the most powerful in the animal kingdom. Wasting no time, you immediately took off running through the darkened streets of the city, while you could hear the dwarves shouting incomprehensible words that sounded like: "Contact them."
Your paws pounded the ground as you entered a new street, your ears pressed against your skull to keep the wind from whistling inside. Your breathing was heavy and deep, and you could feel your breath reverberating lightly against the Skinwalker's fur that you still held in your mouth even as you tried to breathe through your nostrils, forcing yourself to ignore the foul blow you had against your tongue from the rat's fur, soaked with the filth in which it had bathed. Your mind had set a goal, a destination, the hospital.
The rat needed immediate attention, and even though it would have been all the easier for you to return to the building where your belongings were to call an ambulance, you didn't want to risk staying near the dump and the dwarves. If you'd been trapped on the roof, you clearly wouldn't have been able to do anything to defend yourself other than flee and abandon the Skinwalkers, and that wasn't an option you wanted to take. You furtively lowered your eyes in the direction of the little rodent, the guilt of agitating this poor, already martyred creature wrapping itself around your throat and heart. Judging that you were now far enough away from the dump, you paused slightly on the sidewalk to make sure he was still alive, releasing him from your jaws to place him gently between your two front paws, which you folded against you as you lay back slightly on the ground.
Car headlights appeared at the other end of the alleyway, and at first you paid them no attention, having already passed a few cars which didn't seem to be much interested in the enormous feline you were, wandering the streets in the middle of the night. But when the noise of the engine suddenly intensified, the headlights shining dangerously bright in your direction, you had no option but to look up, only to see the van of the two men who had gotten rid of the medical supplies and Skinwalker's body bag and were heading in your direction. You grabbed the unconscious creature between your jaws once more with terror, leaping backwards, your body much heavier than you were used to, causing you to stumble slightly as the car's wheels screeched on the asphalt, the vehicle jolting violently as it climbed part way up the sidewalk, coming to rest where you had been standing just a few seconds ago.
The car then abruptly started moving again, reversing as the passenger window, the one closest to you, suddenly lowered. You got back on your feet suddenly, jumping out of the way of the window that had started to open as you took off running again, your heart beating even faster and your breathing now uncontrolled as the drivers of the van had clearly just tried to ram you. You crossed the street to the other side, leaving a considerable distance between you and the car as you passed behind it and headed off in the direction of where the car had come from, giving yourself more time by forcing the car to make a U-turn.
You crossed the street quickly, setting off for a new fork in the road as you once again heard the vehicle's engine roar and tires screech against the concrete, the van immediately setting off in pursuit. The headlights came on far too quickly in the street you'd started sprinting down, but this time you anticipated the movement, taking an almost 90° turn into an alleyway where the car wouldn't be able to follow you. You continued to run down the alley, your breathing heavy as you had more strength in your cat form, but it was harder to cope with the endurance.
You stopped as you entered a new street, straightening up as your muzzle swiveled from right to left to find your way back to the path you'd lost trying to escape from the van, you cut across the road once more, setting off along the street now that you'd managed to reposition yourself in relation to the nearest hospital. You had time to cross two more streets, every sound you heard making you before the van suddenly reappeared in front of you, cutting you off at an angle. The passenger window was now fully down, the man's face behind it, the blond man, contorted in disgust as you saw him lift something out of the car, a metallic reflex glinting in the darkness as you suddenly leaned forward, jumping out to disappear into an adjacent alleyway, the crack of a rifle shot echoing through the street and into your ears.
A sound somewhere between a grunt and a squeak of pain left your throat, muffled by the little creature you still held between your jaws, as the sharp, burning sensation of a fresh wound suddenly sprang up in the part of your back just before the pelvis. Luckily, the bullet had probably only grazed your skin, but that didn't stop you from disappearing into the alley, hearing the car speeding off again in who knows what direction to try and block your path again. You'd given up on the road to the hospital, the two men in the van seemed to have understood that this was your objective, which enabled them to more or less predict which way you were going, and even if you were progressing little by little it wasn't fast enough, and you could feel the little Skinwalker getting weaker and weaker.
You decided to retrace your steps on some block of flats, abandoning the hospital for the second place where you could find safety : the police station. Ten minutes had now passed, the two animatronics had surely started looking for you and you knew they would probably have warned the Glamrocks and the police station in general of the situation. Panic was beginning to set in and you were slowly running out of steam, just as time was running out for the dying little creature, but you held on to the hope that Sun and Moon represented. Like a shadow you crossed new streets, and narrow lanes, watching for the van whose peculiar engine noise you had now more or less picked up, managing to distinguish it from the other noises of innocent cars.
Arriving in a district where the spaces between the different buildings were now greatly diminished, you abandoned your animal form, concealing yourself between some garbage cans as you once again carefully examined the little Skinwalker. He seemed even weaker than before, his irregular breathing and heartbeat almost imperceptible under your fingers, and this only reinforced your state of panic. You pressed the little Rat-Walker against you, rubbing its brown fur with your hands to give it some form of comfort as you murmured :
"Just a little longer, please, hold on..."
You pressed him into the hollow of your neck, pulling your hood against him to keep him a little warmer as you climbed the steps of a fire escape, arriving on a rooftop with an unobstructed view, you watched the streets below for several long seconds before finally deciding to leap onto the adjacent building, continuing in this way for long minutes, taking advantage of the discretion and safety that rooftops offered you. As you landed on a new roof, your gaze wandered to a street ahead, drawn by a black vehicle. You immediately bent down, hiding your silhouette behind one of the low walls that formed the edge of the building, fingers gently scratching the Rat-Walker's fur as your ears lay back against your skull.
You watched the car pass through several streets on either side of the building you were in, a slight growl leaving your lips as you couldn't help revealing your slightly sharper-than-normal canines. You let the van disappear, waiting another minute for safety before finally setting off again, from rooftop to rooftop, when you finally reached buildings whose distance you couldn't easily leap over you climbed down, doing a bit of climbing this time as you couldn't find any fire escapes, After making sure that the little rat was safely and comfortably ensconced in the hollow of your neck, you used windowsills and gutters to climb back down to solid ground, letting yourself fall for the last few metres, taking care to bend your legs to cushion the shock of the fall.
After a deep breath, you took off running again, abandoning your current appearance for that of Cat-Walker, to enable you to sprint to the police station, which was now not far away. You could see some police lights in the distance, cars leaving the parking lot, and you ran past them, crossing the entrance quickly to reach the waiting room. You decided to ignore the reception desk, running all the way inside the police station to reach the office where a few people turned towards you as they saw you enter in a panic, breathing heavily.
"Y/N !" Monty's voice exclaimed. "Where the f*ck have you been ?! We all started to..."
You ignored Monty to focus on Freddy, who had immediately lunged in your direction upon seeing your condition. You met his gaze and as you saw him stretch out his big metal paws in your direction you revealed the little Skinwalker rat, catching it with your trembling hands to show it delicately to Freddy, your voice rising hoarse and your words interspersed with your jerky breathing :
"Freddy he's dying ! Call an ambulance... It's not just a rat, I promise ! It's a Skinwalker. I... found it in the dump with... There were others. Skinwalkers rats. They were in a garbage bag thrown into a pile of garbage near the south side of the dump, on top of some loose trash, but they were... They were dead. I picked this one up, I wanted to take it to hospital but some men, they were the ones who threw the bag away, they attacked me and I panicked..."
"Calm down y/n..." Freddy sighed softly, placing his hands on your shoulders.
"Call the paramedics immediately." Vanessa's voice, which you hadn't noticed coming your way, suddenly ordered. "Freddy is in charge of first aid. Elyose take someone with you and go to the dump to inspect and bring back the trash bag from there. And someone, please let Sun and Moon know they're with us at the police station."
Your eyes met Vanessa's apple-green ones, and she gave you a reassuring shake of the head before turning away, continuing to give instructions. Your attention suddenly returned to Freddy, whose hands had gently closed over yours, urging you to hand over the little creature. You slowly loosened your grip on the little survivor's body, handing him over to Freddy, who grinned at you before immediately turning to take up a position on one of the desks, while other policemen brought him the necessary first-aid equipment.
You remained frozen in place for long minutes, your mind struggling to assimilate the fact that you were safe again, that the Skinwalker rat was in good hands and now had a chance of survival. You breathed deeply, your inhalation causing your body to tremble slightly as you looked down at your gloved hands. Your hands were wet, clammy, soaked with the sickeningly viscous liquid in which the little Supernatural and all his other dead comrades had been bathed. You felt yourself turn pale as you revisited the image of all the corpses in the bag. Suddenly, you became aware of the taste in your mouth, that of the young Skinwalker rat's fur, stained with the taste of death and putrefaction.
Your nausea made you move abruptly, and you dashed towards the police station's toilets, pushing the door brutally open without worrying whether or not there might be someone behind it. In one swift movement, you removed your gloves and sweater, tossing them carelessly into the corner of the room, finding yourself wearing only a tank top as you entered one of the toilets, your nausea finally getting the better of you. After flushing the toilet, you simply sat down on the floor, the cleanliness and hygiene of the floor not being your first concern at that precise moment, you tilted your head back and rested it against one of the walls separating the different toilets, closing your eyelids as you could see the light from the lamp above you filtering through your eyelids.
The sounds were distant and muffled as you concentrated on your breathing and the beating of your heart, which was slowly beginning to return to a normal rhythm. As the panic and adrenalin faded you began to realize how tired you were, your muscles aching and the burn pulsing along the bullet cut you'd received, your hands were sore too, you knew it was because you'd been running on concrete too long and too fast, and you'd probably injured yourself with broken glass without realizing it. A squeak left your lips as you shifted slightly to try and find a more comfortable position, the urge to sleep like this and here slowly creeping into your mind. But you didn't, the distant sound of an ambulance siren keeping your mind out of unconsciousness.
You listened to the siren as if it were a melody, your eyelids still closed. The sound of the toilet door opening abruptly made you frown slightly before you heard hurried footsteps entering the toilet before stopping for a few seconds. The two pairs of footsteps then approached the toilet you were standing in, before a light knock sounded on the wooden door. You opened your eyes with difficulty, seeing through the small gap beneath the door two shadows of pairs of shoes.
"y/n ? Are you in there ?"
"Are you okay ?"
Moon and Sun's voices made you straighten your face, your eyes opening a little wider as you watched one of the shadows under the door stir. You let a sigh leave your lips, if the situation had been any different you would have told them that they already knew perfectly well it was you and that you were indeed there thanks to their strange scanner. But you said nothing. With a grimace and a superhuman effort, you managed to get to your feet, helping yourself to the walls of the toilet. You turned towards the door, opening it with a flick of your wrist, even though you hadn't bothered to lock it behind you.
You then came face to face with the facial disks of the two detectives, their expressions dark and distorted with worry. You started to open your mouth to say something, but Sun, who was slightly closer to you, didn't give you the chance, his hands plunging in your direction to pull you sharply towards him. You found your face pressed against his tie, his hands wrapped around your shoulders and slightly under your arms as your body was held firmly against that of Sun's animatronic. A sigh left your lips as you immediately relaxed into Sun's warm, delicate embrace, your eyelids closing once more.
"We were so worried... We went back to the roof and found all your stuff intact, so we assumed you'd left in a hurry. And when we saw the ambulance outside the police station, we thought the worst." Sun murmured in your ear, his arms tightening slightly around you.
"I'm... I'm fine." You finish by saying, pushing Sun away slightly.
"I don't call the wounds on your hands and the cut on your back 'fine', y/n." Moon sighed, placing his hand on your shoulder.
You blinked before looking down at your hands, you hadn't really been paying attention, you'd noticed a slight pain but you hadn't noticed the damage, your palms were skinned, blood had leaked from the few deepest cuts and slightly stained the rest of your hands. You shook your face, letting a new little "It's nothing" leave your lips before turning to one of the sinks there. You gently turned on the water before plunging your hands underneath, grimacing slightly as you began to rub your hands together to remove the dirt that had probably embedded itself in the wounds. You then held out your hands ready to use the handwash, but a hand much larger than yours closed around your wrist, preventing you from using the product. You first observed the long, dark-blue fingers before looking up to meet Moon's reddened eyes in the mirror just above the washbasins.
"Your wounds need disinfecting, not just washing." Moon declared.
"That's what I've always done." You sigh, trying to free your wrist without success.
"That was before you met us. Now we're here, we're not going to leave you without care." Sun continued, placing his hand on the shoulder of the hand Moon wasn't holding.
"There are more urgent things to deal with than simple cuts !"
You had raised your voice slightly your eyes shifting from Moon to Sun who didn't move, holding your gaze. Finally, you let out a sigh, leaning forward to rest your forehead against the edge of the washbasin, the coldness of the surface contrasting with your forehead which felt like it was on fire, your heart having started beating a little faster again. Moon had let go of your wrist to gently grasp your hands, which had begun to tremble, and Sun had decided to place his hand between your shoulders, away from the wound in your lower back. You took up what you'd been saying more softly, your voice barely audible :
"They were people... A bag full of people, Skinwalkers, dead. They were in their animal forms and I don't understand why, it's impossible but it was... I've seen dead people before, but not like this, not in these conditions. If it wasn't for the smell of magical creatures you'd think they were rats, I thought so at first, but they were Skinwalkers..."
"We know you're worried, but everything's fine now. The police are taking care of the rest. You've already done more than you should have, thanks to you at least one of the Skinwalkers could be saved." Moon added gently, tugging lightly on your hands to encourage you to stand up.
"Now you need some care, so come on." Sun declared, giving you a gentle push.
Under the urging of the two animatronics you began to leave the bathroom, Moon lingering slightly, picking up your things that you'd carelessly thrown to the floor and lifting them up as you began to fold them, stopping you only to look over your shoulder at him, shaking your face slightly.
"You can throw it all away. Even when washed, these clothes will retain the smell of death..."
You saw Moon glance down at your clothes before nodding slightly, placing the clothes in the garbage can before exiting the restroom. You crossed the police station, letting them guide you to the office you used to occupy. Once inside, Moon made you sit on the edge of the table, Sun leaving the room momentarily to retrieve a first-aid kit, from what he'd told Moon. You looked down at your hands, which you had placed in your lap, folding your fingers slightly towards your palm before wincing as you felt the scratches sting slightly. You felt Moon's hand gently slide against one of yours, its strange pads barely brushing your scratched skin to come to rest against your fingers and encourage them to stay open.
You looked up at Moon, crescendoing his gaze before seeing his other hand reach out towards your face, his fingers gently touching your cheek before his fingers slid against your skin, his hand cupping your cheek. His thumb delicately caressed the skin just below your eye as you closed your eyes, the gentle contact allowing you to relax a little more, though it also reinforced your fatigue, pushing you to press the weight of your face a little more against Moon's hand, whose eyes hadn't left your face.
"We're sorry we weren't with you."
