Conspiracy

When the man sat in the car, Mystril became immediately aware of two things. First of all, the fact that she had a tail. She had sat down on it hard, and the pain was rather sharp. When she finally found the appendage, and its base where it seemed to protrude from the aptly named bone, it also stirred nausea. Secondarily she noted that her sense of smell had been supercharged. She could smell the dried sweat on the man sitting beside her, the ghost of the deodorant he had used in the morning, the stale laundry he wore, and even the cheeseburger he apparently ate as his last meal. That was despite the breath mint he had afterwards. He closed the door, cracked the window, put on his seatbelt, and then put the car in drive. The headlights weren’t turned on until they were on the road again, and at speed.

There was a long bout of awkward silence before he looked to Mystril, who was sitting with her legs crossed awkwardly holding her fuzzy black appendage like a pet snake on its way to the vet. He met her eyes for only a moment, but Mystril could see the incredible anxiety in the man. When he spoke, it wasn’t to her, but the windshield. He introduced himself, "My name's Aiden. You?" Mystril took a moment, considering the strangeness of what the man had said, "Mystril." The man raised his right brow, "Like, Starwars?" Mystril watched him carefully, head tilting to the side, "What?" "It's a thing in the comics..." Aiden said, almost defensively. That was enough to lighten the mood somewhat. It was a nice segway to the next perfectly inappropriate statement, "Sorry, it's just kinda awkward. Not sure how you introduce yourself to a stranger you effectively **** off a hospital floor." At this Mystril nodded, and replied casually, "Goes both ways, imagine being the Abductee." She sighed, turning her attention to the road in front of her.

It was damn awkward. So awkward infact that the air was tense enough to cut through with a knife. They at least had comradery in that. Mystril assessed that the man was also out of his element, which was comforting. She attempted to break the ice, three fun facts, "So, I'm a computer science major over at UNR, I was about to celebrate my 21st birthday, and I'm pretty sure they botched the tonsillectomy." The attempt at comedy wasn’t met with any laughter, but thankfully he matched it. Aiden nodded, "I am... Or, was a nurse at Saint Mary's. Today I found a medical anomaly passed out on the floor in a quarantined wing of the hospital, and I am trying to cross state lines now." He paused, seeming to weigh the statement against his comedic description of it. Mystril felt his stress palpably, and empathized.

It was clear that Aiden had been alone with his own thoughts for too long, because he practically burst, "Listen, so I signed onto the hospital staff about a year ago. Decent pay, so on so forth. About six seven months ago, they closed off most of the west wing on the basement floor, which is normally our surgery center. Apparently there was some sort of outbreak there, CDC was investigating, but no one came in or out." He scratched his left brow, then continued his story, "There's no investigators, just every few weeks or so there's like six or seven people who come in suited up in full hazmat. No markings, no badges. They don't say anything. Show up in a van, spend about 9-12 hours, then leave like they came in. It's all super weird. Staffing got changed, residents were advised to operate away from the area..."

He shook his head, "I thought it was weird, but didn't really pay much attention. On the earlier schedules before they removed the mentions two nurses were still scheduled to work the wing. One night one day. Apparently they were getting paid extra. Well, then I hear a flatline in that wing." He shook his head, and Mystril just watched him as he paused. He seemed like maybe he was going through something, so she gave him adequate time to figure out what he wanted to say. "So, I run in there, whole area seems fine. No lab equipment, no other shit. I went through all the operating theaters one by one until I found you passed out on the floor. The craziest plastic surgery I've ever seen, like. You don't look like an organism who should exist. So I grabbed you. I figured something shady was going on. I read your charts, made sure you were good to go, and then I smuggled you out through the cargo area."

He took a deep breath after his violent explanation, and Mystril asked, "So, what. A weird disease shrank me?" Aiden shook his head, "No, not at all. I read your charts. Like I said, plastic surgery. Hormone treatments, and then some stuff that was written in code. Not like medical jargon. I mean codenames. They had some notes on how to 'handle you'..." Mystril realized she was gripping her tail tightly, and that wasn't the most comfortable.She cut him off, distress audibly creeping into her voice, "What do you mean handle me? Am I terminally ill or something?" Aiden shook his head, speaking in a measured tone like he'd given worse news. "Listen, I don't know exactly what they mean. Just that they had you on some really crazy meds. They were dosing every twelve hours, and it's been about nine now. Anesthetic, the stuff that puts you out for surgery, and some stuff I've never even heard of."

The silence that followed the statement was pregnant as Mystril let it set in. The man who had apparently stolen her had also just told her that something was horribly wrong with her, and she had a tail. Once again, she felt the familiar spin of her stomach as she considered what had been done to her. A tail, a ‘tail.’ Humans didn’t have tails. She shouldn’t have a tail. She shouldn’t sound like she does. Was she like a fucking werewolf now or something?

Mystril took a deep breath, and nodded to herself. She needed to get back to the real world. What was she supposed to do about this, how were they supposed to fix this? "You got any smokes, or a vape or something?" Aiden looked at her quizzically. She gave him the same eyes a dog begging for scraps at the table does.