After his shower and a change of clothes, Dor patched over Lulu’s window with tin foil. He knew that change would no longer let him see her pink curtain from the parking lot outside, but it was a necessary change. Hell’s a dark place. He’d puked in the monster’s home and she needed a new one. Really, Lulu’s room was the only other option. All the boys’ rooms were a disaster. Especially mine.

For the last touch, he walked back into Claire’s old room and unscrewed her twirling disco ball from the ceiling. The monster wasn’t in here right now. She was taking a shower at Dor’s behest. Savior or not, no monster was going to crawl into Lulu’s bed covered in vomit.

Just as he pulled the fragile ball down, a shrill scream nearly startled him enough to drop it—a shrill, girly scream. The monster! He stood in a daze, unsure of what to do. Shampoo bottles thunked around the tub as he heard the monster flail. A gnarly scrape bore against the wall and Dor’s knees fell weak. The monster was ripping and gashing around in there, and he couldn’t move.

She’d been so docile…I was mistaken. She truly is just a monster. I was wrong to—

Another shrill scream broke his train of thought and then he heard a different kind of wailing. The clamor stopped and a girl cried. Fuck. He gulped hard, found Sargent Berry, and gulped even harder. His rebel forces had already imprisoned Mr. Body and claimed governance. Dor’s uprising was successful, and Mr. Body's sanctions ended. That gave him just enough liquid courage to set the disco ball down and tentatively knock on the bathroom door.

“Is everything alright in there?” He asked. So lame. That was such a lame line.

She answered with her sobbing.

“I’m…I’m coming in,” he said and cracked the door.

Steam rolled out of the bathroom and water sizzled in the tub. Oh, fuck! It was hot in there, likely hotter than hell. Dor scrambled through the mist and reached behind the shower curtain. Scalding water drizzled against his arm, but he blindly cranked the shower knob off. The scalding water dripped to a stop, but the monster continued to sob.

“Is it…hot?” He asked. Stupid, stupid question.

She didn’t answer and he pulled back the curtain. Shampoo bottles scattered everywhere and the monster sat on the floor of the tub, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth, sobbing and wailing all the while. He’d expected to see her skin burning red from the scalding water, but it seemed she had a different concern. She was rubbing her eyes with one hand and squeezing a bottle of shampoo with the other.

Right then it all made sense. His vicious monster got shampoo in her eyes. Scalding temperature? No problem. Pert Plus? Pure poison. Dor struggled to keep a straight face, thankful that he’d set the precedent that led her to believe showers were taken while fully clothed. Other than that day she’d appeared on his doorstep, he’d never seen her out from under that comforter. And right now, seeing her rocking back and forth in sopping wet clothes was…so pathetic.

Just as he reached in to lend a hand, he rescinded his pity. A pathetic monster is still a monster. Four great claw marks ripped a solid streak from the wall to the tub. Worse yet, the tub wasn’t built from plastic. This was an old building, and back in the day, they constructed everything to withstand Hiroshima. The tub was solid cast iron and the wall, thick tiling. She’d ripped through both with razor-sharp claws.

He glanced down at her fingernails. They didn’t appear out of the ordinary, perhaps a little longer than normal but otherwise non-threatening. A sneak attack. Crafty monster. Her sobbing dimmed to a quiet sniffle, and Dor turned around and left her there to cry all alone. His heart stung, but those claws stung worse.

I’m such a piece of shit. He ignored her and went back to redecorating Lulu’s room, or rather, the monster’s new hidey-hole, a room untainted by his filth.

The Donnie Darko comforter was long gone. Dor threw it in the trash. There was no saving it.

In the corner of Lulu’s room, the monster sat on a kitchen chair, drying herself in front of a fan running on high. Every now and then, she rubbed at her eyes, and every time she did, Dor pictured her razor claws gouging them out. But that never happened, just some quiet whimpering in the corner, apparently the trauma of Pert Plus still fresh on her mind.

Lulu’s pillow hadn’t been ruined, only Claire’s comforter, and Dor was extremely grateful for that. There wasn’t another clean pillow to give her. Dor fluffed it up with the proper maintenance procedures and tucked it onto the head of Lulu’s bed. I guess it's the monster's bed now. Disco stars twirled across the room, the window was tin-foiled over, and the monster, albeit traumatized, was nearly dry. Dor had fixed his messy blunder, and they could finally get back to their routine.

Although, the monster would have to hide under a pink Peter Rabbit comforter, now. Lulu’s taste was as childish as Claire’s was tacky.

When transferring rooms, one piece of luggage caught Dor’s eye. Actually, it was the monster’s only piece of luggage, her travel bag. The insides were stuffed with red and yellow yarn, flaps of dried animal hide, and sewing needles. It reminded him of an old lady’s arts and crafts bag. His heart stung once more. The monster hid from the world under a comforter all the time, keeping herself occupied with arts and crafts.

He didn’t know if cross-stitch was her favorite hobby or the only hobby she could do right now.

And then to contrast her old lady activities, the monster seemed so childish and pathetic with her demeanor. Despite not appearing to be much older than Dor himself, barely scratching twenty years old, the monster acted with a childlike innocence. It was like her parents dropped her off at a friend’s house for a sleepover and said, ‘see you later, maybe. We’re going out for a pack of smokes for the rest of your life.’

And left her standing on the stoop with an activity bag and not a clue in the world what to do next.

The monster sat in front of the fan like a statue as her tail swished behind her, occasionally rubbing her eyes with razored claws. Fear of her physical features was the only emotion keeping Dor from going over there and scooping her into a big hug, saying, ‘it’ll be alright.’ Even then, his own self-loathing was slowly working to overcome that fear. She’d been puked on by both Dor and her parents, one literally and the other metaphorically, and he was too scared to comfort her.

Dor tucked Lulu’s Peter Rabbit comforter in extra secure and left the bedroom before his self-loathing won out. That emotion was likely to get him killed if he nurtured it. As he left, he saw her begin to bop her head back and forth, dancing to some internal tune. As long as she’s occupied, I suppose.

He went downstairs and grabbed a handle of Kentucky Gentleman from the crate. How many was that? He couldn’t remember how many bottles he’d started out with. Twenty-five maybe thirty? At the start of the mini-apocalypse, he’d wheeled that crate back from a nearly looted liquor store. Even the hooligans left that vile liquid behind, more content to steal all the Johnny Walker and Ten High. Even their depravity had limits. Fortunately for that lonely crate, Dor’s didn’t. He wheeled it back to the restaurant on a Red-Rider wagon, twisting through the alleyways content that he’d now be able to cope with life.

In the dining room converted office space, four computers played the cut-scene of death. He’d left them on a continual loop, unable to finalize his friends’ departure. They’d vanished. All he knew was that a game and a monster were somehow related. That wasn’t a logic he could prove, but not all beliefs needed to be grounded in fact. In truth, dogmas were better devoid of logic. Even he knew that.

He plopped down in front of the fifth computer. 'Mad Harry 98' slept on a bed in Tuck’s Inn. Level 42 already…almost done with this guy. Most of his time was spent finishing Jimmy’s backlog nowadays. He hadn’t a clue what he’d do once Jimmy’s roadmap reached an end, but that was a problem for later.

Dor scrolled through Spotify. Harsh chords and mewling lyrics filled the room. He uncapped the bottle, taking a harsh pull. Ahh. Behind the monitor, he even found half a joint, the last of Jimmy’s weed. This was all he wanted in life, a simple routine. I wonder if Angel misses me?

A stray dog scratched at the door, and he tuned the world out for another night of cathartic work, however pointless it may be.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a pink Peter Rabbit bundle hiding in the corner of the back stairwell. Dor ignored it. That, too, was a problem for later. He sparked his joint and purified the air, content with the scraps of normalcy he could gather, and the rest of that night was a twisted blur.