Home for Horny Monsters Ch. 021

"I thought a bullet to the brain killed zombies."

"At best, it severs the connection to the body. Have you ever heard of somebody who gets a brain injury and survives?"

"Phineas Gage, right?" An infamous case she had learned about in high school, railroad worker who accidentally blew a hole through his skull with a railroad spike and lived.

"You got it. Imagine that you can't die, that you are trapped inside a decaying mind. You will simply exist, driven insane by a brain that can no longer feel any connection to itself. As long as a single piece of you exists, you will feel eternity pass you by until the universe is eventually eaten up by the Old Ones." Daryl stared wistfully out the window. "And by then, your soul will belong to them."

"Sounds awful." Dana fought the scream of terror inside of her, the thought of an eternity rotting away. Apparently Daryl had left her her sense of fear.

"That's underselling it. Or perhaps you manage to survive until the last human dies, forced to wander the hellscape of Earth until the sun finally burns the place down. You have all sorts of options."

"But I plan on helping you," she said. "Because then you'll let me move on."

"You've got it." Daryl's phone rang. "Excuse me, I must take this." Daryl turned away, sticking a Bluetooth headset in one ear. "Hello? Sebastien, please, you are shouting entirely too much. I am on my way there now. No, I don't know why she wont answer her phone, Kali does what she wants. Oh, tunnel ahead, gonna lose you." Daryl touched a button on the headset, tucking it into his pocket. "Someone is being a drama queen."

"Trouble at the office?" Dana asked.

Daryl ignored her, staring out the window. Dana focused her attention on the clock, running her fingers over its smooth features. This whole nightmare will be over soon, she told herself. She pictured Alex standing before her on the balcony, staring out toward the ocean, the sunlight making her skin glow.

"It's go time." Daryl leaned across Dana, opening her car door. She realized that they were parked at the end of Mike's block - she had gone into a road trance. Stepping out, she held the clock tightly against her chest. Daryl walked behind her, casually assessing the neighborhood.

"Smells like a storm just rolled through here," he said, staring at the sky. Dana smelled it, but she also smelled sand, smoke, and soil. Approaching the Radley house, she smiled at the sight of the roof over the large stone walls. This place had always been cool to look at, a mysterious force all its own. Turning the corner, they walked between the large stone lions perched atop the wall. It was where the driveway and walkway met up, then split apart. The house was quiet, but it looked like some repairs had recently been done.

"Keep going without me," Daryl told her. "I'll watch from here." Nodding, she walked up the driveway, the smell of smoke getting thicker. She was nearly at the door when her brain registered that a car had crashed into the front porch.

How had she not noticed that? Looking across the yard, she saw that a large amount of sand had been spread across the yard, and part of the porch had collapsed. Was she really that out of it?

"Whoa." Looking up, she saw a crack in the sky. There was also a large scorch mark in the middle of the lawn, the grass turned to ash. Turning around to face the door, she saw that the porch was soaking wet. What had happened here?

There was no time to think about it. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door.

What would she say? Would she show him the clock? Convince him to invite her inside, maybe talk about the fact that she had fixed his pet mimic?

No answer. Walking along the porch, she peeked in the window. Nobody was inside, and the furniture had been tossed about.

"Fuck," she whispered. The clock in her hand chimed quietly. She grabbed the doorknob, letting herself in. The inside of the house contained a plethora of smells, too many for her to decipher. She smelled water, sand, and several different musky odors that made her think of sex with Alex after a day-long hike. Walking through the front rooms, she heard several voices speaking to each other in the back. Approaching the back door, she saw a beautiful ornate fountain in the garden. Inside the fountain, a woman with flowing blue and green hair was addressing a few others.

One of the women was all white, from her hair to her feet. She was also floating a few inches off of the ground. The next one looked ordinary - her black and red hair hung loosely around her shoulders.

The last one was a horse. Mouth open, Dana watched the centaur circle the back of the fountain. All four of them were speaking in hushed tones, something about the witch out front. Dana hadn't seen anyone else, but she now felt like she had stepped into an alternate dimension. What was one more anomaly?

"Hold it." The woman in the fountain held up her hands, then looked directly at Dana. "Come out. Don't be afraid." Stunned, Dana stepped through the back door, the clock held tightly to her chest. The others watched her approach.

"Who are you?" The normal woman asked.

"I'm Dana." She couldn't keep her eyes off of the centaur. "I'm looking for Mike."

"How did you get in?" The same woman asked.

"I let myself in," she said, nearing the fountain. Something about the woman in the fountain made her feel at peace. "I brought Mike's clock back." Standing there, she felt a slight pinch at her neck, like a bug had bitten her. Scratching it out of habit, she made eye contact with the red and black haired woman who now stood next to her. "What?"

Everyone else exchanged looks.

"She should be asleep by now," the woman said. "There's no reason she should still be awake, unless..."

"I feel like I'm asleep," Dana said. She set the clock down on the edge of the fountain. "This all feels like a bad dream. I wish I could wake up from it."

"Well, let's see if we can help you wake up." The woman in the fountain sat down on the edge, taking Dana's hand in her own. "My name is Naia. I'm a nymph. Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

To her own surprise, Dana told her everything.

*****

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I loved writing it! I have been dying to write the scene with Sofia for quite some time now, and she's been too nasty to Mike to simply get away with it.

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Be kind to one another, Lit community! Until next time!