Harvels eyelids felt as if they were made of sand paper, his eyes an unfinished wood floor. He could see the white, occasionally yellow stained, ceiling of the pump station infirmary above him. Indistinct shapes of people, their faces blurred like an amateur watercolor painting, were moving around at the foot of his bed.

His back felt like someone had pounded on it with a hammer. The ribs on his left side weren't much better off it seemed. Every breath felt like he was pulling his ribcage open, then letting it snap back into place when he was done. His options were between being in pain or being in slightly less pain. Not a lot of variety there, but the false sense of personal choice was nice to have.

After shining his eyeballs until they practically gleamed, he tried to speak. The anesthetic he was on must have been good because all he got out was: "fughing thenibeeb." before he gave up and concentrated on breathing again. 'Fucking centipede' He finished, allowing his thoughts to include every drop of extra venom his tongue had denied him.

Through the haze, he allowed the uninhibited portions of his brain to meander along. This was a fine mess he'd gotten himself into this time. He had insurance, he knew, but it wasn't very good by any measure of the word. He was still paying off the bills from the solvent incident last year.

He could only imagine just how large the bill was going to be. How long had he been out? Just how fucked was his back? Would he even be able to go back to work at all? He heard the EKG machine begin to speed up as he let the possibilities swirl around in his brain.

The largest of the shadowy forms which had been previously shifting around the room, came into focus as it approached the machine. It didn't take more than the hint of yellowish orange skin for Harvel to know who it was. He was suddenly in much better spirits.

"Iddech!" Harvel flubbed, a goofy smile spreading across his face. He tried to shift his head using his limited motor skills, putting a little too much force into it and whipping his temple into the handrail. As things were this left him somewhat unfazed.

"Ok bud. Aaaalrighty then, lets just, uh huh, yep, just uh. There you go." Yiddek said, using his claws to gently shift Harvels head back onto his pillow. Harvel immediately undid all of his work, grabbing Yiddeks arms and pulling himself up.

"Buggy! Buggy? Bubby?... Waiy, no... Uh... Buddy! Thas duh won... I kiwd... a zenipeeb." He gibbered, spraying spittle on Yiddeks fingers.

"Yeah bud, you did didn't you?! You got that centipede well and good! Now, just lay down and stop giving me an impromptu shower." Yiddek replied, peeling Harvels hands away carefully and lowering him back onto the bed.

Harvel didn't quite understand his aversion. Personally, he would have really enjoyed a shower right about now. He had the sneaking suspicion that he was well overdue.

"I'm gonna lower your anesthetic a bit so you can talk. You gonna be alright with that?" Yiddek said, patiently waiting for his response.

"Huh? Oh... Oh yeh I guesh." Harvel replied, giving an exaggerated nod. As much pain as he was in, he was starting to get annoyed with the feeling of being a set of eyeballs floating through the cosmos. Yiddek promptly started tapping away on the little console. As Yiddek was throttling his happy juice, another shadowy form entered at the far end of the room.

"Doctor Valez, Mr. Gillis' insurance agent wishes to talk to you." Said a voice that must have been one of the nurses.

"I'll be right there." He replied, pushing up the tiny reading glasses he wore on the tip of his snout. As he turned to leave Harvel gave him a noodle armed salute.

"Goob lunk Docker!" He barked, his hand flopping back down onto the bed. Yiddek tried to hide a smile and failed.

"I'm gonna need it too. You've got a persistent one this time. She's from Central." Yiddek said, lumbering out through the doorway.

At this point Harvel was, for the most part, mentally functional. He just found his new partial speech impediment to be somewhat comical. But, seeing as the numb mouthed idiot shtick had pretty much run its course, he decided to settle down.

It had been long enough that he'd nearly forgotten Yiddek was now his primary doctor. He'd nearly torn Harvels head off when he had learned about the acid thing. The truth was, Harvel wasn't the smartest and had never asked if Yiddek could even take him on as a patient without the sufficient number of zeroes behind his yearly salary.

Being a member of a private care group, Yiddek primarily catered to the city's wealthier residents. Him coming down to patch up a seemingly random waste-walker was very out of the ordinary. Insurance agents didn't like out of the ordinary very much. It always meant extra paperwork.

After about an hour, Harvel was finally starting to feel his face again. He tried to let his mind wander, but his thoughts kept coming back to what had been watching him in the tunnel. He'd known it was there, but he knew he hadn't seen it. He'd felt it. In his mind he'd felt it, almost as much as he couldn't feel his face at the moment.

He could still feel it now, watching him, waiting for him to slip up. On what he wasn't exactly sure. He couldn't even walk at the moment. He still didn't know if it had wanted him dead, or hurt, or just plain terrified. Whatever it was, he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't done with him. Not by a long shot.

He knew that he wasn't done with it either. Whatever it was it must have had something do to with the giant centipede. 'And another thing.' He thought, 'That god damn centipede was huge. Most are the size of a couple davy ants at best, but that fucker must have been the size of one of those little trains my mum let me ride at the mall as a kid.'

He recalled it being a pleasant memory, until he'd soiled himself the same day. His mother had told him that, if he soiled his new Rat-Man underpants, he would come out of the nearest sewer to scold him. Her only mistake was underestimating just how much Harvel had wanted to meet Rat-Man. To Harvels dismay, she had decided to play the part of Rat-Man in his absence.

Two years ago, he'd almost fantasized that he would become Rat-Man himself down in the sewers. This obviously wasn't the case, but it had been a little dream of his either way. Rat-Man stood for justice and honor. He fought sentient and overtly sexual ant queens with big burly warrior ants for henchmen.

Harvel very well knew that this wasn't the reality. He'd helped exterminate a queen's nest in his first year and there had been a distinct lack of nearly exposed breasts and gogo boots. He'd mostly remembered the horrific smell and screeching noises she'd made when they'd melted her.

'And what have I fought in the last two years huh?' He thought, 'A big fuck off centipede, and the increasing urge to spray a can of solvent in my mouth. Some super-hero I turned out to be.'

As this last thought passed through Harvels mind, Dibbuk peeked her head around the doorway. Noticing that he was conscious she let the rest of her body follow.

"Good, you're somewhat among the living again." She said, arms wide in feigned surprise. Her smile slowly faded.

"You look sad. Why do you look sad? You just beat a centipede and death itself, why aren't you happier?" She asked, noticing his downtrodden expression.

"Uh, nothing, just some stuff I was thinking about. Did you say death itself? What's that supposed to mean?" He replied, looking around, slightly hunted.

"Well, you did. Medics said you flatlined on the way up. Yiddek said it happened again an hour after you got here. You just sort of stopped living for a minute, and then you were back. Like a switch flipping on and off or something. At least, that's what Yiddek said about it." She explained, watching his face for any sort of change.

There was an odd tone she was using that Harvel didn't particularly like. Whenever he shifted his weight her eyes would follow him, searching for some sort of irregularity. She had the same stern, focused, look as his 4th grade teacher had when she'd caught him looking at naughty photos, and knew he wasn't the one who'd brought them.

Harvel tried not to eye her too suspiciously given the circumstances. She knew something. Something about the incident he wasn't aware of. He knew he would have to coax it out of her somehow. He shot for over the top.

"I'm sorry, do you think I'm possessed or something?" He asked, calling on a few real fears of his involving elderly people and water aerobics, to carry him through the act. It wasn't what anyone would have called convincing, but he did his best.

Dibbuk relaxed a bit. 'What sort of ghost would have to be desperate enough to possess Harvel?' She thought, slumping back down in the two chairs she was currently occupying. This was all giving her a headache. She was far too tired for this.

"Shut up. I'm serious, there is something else down there. Something that's-"

"Watching me?" Harvel finished, giving her a knowing look.

"You, you know about it?" She asked, fumbling a bit. "You know about the thing in the dark?"

Harvel had assumed he was the only one who had noticed. "Yeah, kind of. I never saw it though. Only felt it. Like it was waiting for me or something. How do you know about it?" He asked, a grave look passing over his face. If it wasn't just him then it couldn't be pipe madness, the thought of which he'd previously entertained multiple times on his trek back through the tunnel.

Dibbuk recounted all the events that had taken place after the medics had carted him away. Harvel listened, stone faced until she had finished. There was something about her story that felt more out of place than the rest of it.

"Was it really that polite? When you heard it staring at you, I mean, did it really say; 'thank you very much'?" He asked, genuinely puzzled. He hadn't remembered it feeling very polite when it was trying to kill him.

"Well, it stared it at me quite... politely, alright?" She replied, a little confused herself. Had she heard it? No, she remembered feeling it or seeing it. It was less like a sound than it was a feeling, but she'd remembered the words. Somehow, she had remembered the words.

As Dibbuk wrestled with the reality of her experience, Harvel tried to figure out what, within his scope of knowledge, could have been the cause of the events. He'd always tried to tell Dibbuk that the monsters in all of the old books she read weren't real. But now? He was quickly becoming unsure of the validity of that sentiment.

"Have you told anyone else? The team? Yiddek?" Harvel asked, the concern leaking into his normally steady voice.

"Do you think I'm insane?" She replied, drawing a spiral around her head. "I'd never be that stupid. That's more your thing if I remember correctly."

Harvel gave her an accusing look. "What's that supposed to mean? You're the one not-exactly-but-kind-of hearing voices in your head." He barked, defiantly crossing his arms. Before their sibling spat could play out any further Yiddek waltzed in holding a rather large false leather binder.

"Ah, Bukky! Great news, you've been cleared for duty. Harvel, on the other hand will be hanging out with me for a little while." He said, unzipping the binder and removing a touch tablet.

"What exactly is a li-" Harvel began, but Yiddek cut him off.

"That means, you're gonna be laid up for a few weeks at the least. And you're coming with me back to my office." He said, handing Harvel the now powered up tablet. It displayed a wall of text dense enough to produce its own gravitational pull.

Harvel took the tablet and looked for a page to sign, this being the customary way he dealt with all the paperwork he came across. From the page count at the bottom, four hundred and seventy-three to be exact, he knew he was going to be searching for a while. From the few words he recognized it looked like transfer of care papers. As he scanned the lines and lines of litigation speak, his brain caught up with his ears.

"Wait. Did you say I was going to your office?" He asked, his mouth hanging open a bit.

"Ah, yes. I can't stay down here for the whole time you're laid up in bed so I'm having you transferred to the central office. Gotta get back to dome sweet dome as it were." Yiddek replied, slipping the tablet out of Harvels hands and furiously swiping through the pages.

He handed the tablet back, Harvels mouth still agape. "You're gonna want to sign that one. It says we can't use your body for explosives testing if you die." He said, tapping a claw at a line now in the middle of the screen.

Harvel drew an x with his finger on the box that read: "Explosive or concussive testing op out." He signed his name next to it on the little dotted line. He was sure he'd seen something about acid earlier too. He tried to put this to the side in his mind for the time being.

"Wait, wait, wait, the dome? You're sending me to the dome?" Harvel asked, shaking his head in apt disapproval. Yiddek looked a little taken aback.

"What's wrong with the dome? I live in the dome you know." He asked, a little sheepishly.

"Well, its just, that place kind of creeps me out man. Too clean. It gives me goosebumps just looking at the damn thing." Harvel said, taking a moment to glance out of the window at an imposing silhouette off in the distance.

The Dome was the common term for the Tilio Dome. It was a large, cone shaped structure that enclosed the center of Boris-Valka, open at the top to allow the remnants of the first capital ships to crest the horizon.

It was clean, too clean by Harvels standards. Apartments and offices lined the inner walls of the massive, stark white, eyesore. It was the type of place that didn't have any real rules denying anyone entry, but anyone who felt they didn't belong there avoided the building like a pineapple enema.

He'd had to visit the dome when Yiddek graduated from the medical academy. He'd put on his best suit and done his hair, but it had only taken a second for him to know he didn't belong. He had felt every eye in a five-mile radius peering down their perfectly sculpted noses at him. To them, the people outside of the dome weren't "proper folk".

The dome sense of style changed nearly every month, but they all managed to wear the same clothes almost all the time. They all owned the same expensive air vehicles, just in slightly different shades of black and gray. And what irked Harvel the most was the food. It was colorful and pretty, well laid out and neat, but the moment it touched your tongue, you realized it tasted as if someone had only mildly suggested spices as an ingredient.

'Why spend all of your time working your ass off to live there if all of the good food was miles away where all of the poor bastards lived? Maybe that's why they drink Bullrutters. By comparison, all of their alcohol must taste like weak breakfast tea.' He thought, a slight shiver running down his spine.

Harvel looked at Yiddek, who was giving him that "I know what's best for you and you know it." Doctors stare he'd developed in recent years. He sighed and sucked his teeth in annoyance. He hated that stare. His little brother wasn't so little anymore and all of a sudden he actually did know better. There was really no helping it.

"Fine." He said, allowing himself to pout a bit.

"Wonderful, just wonderful." Yiddek agreed, realizing he'd won out.

"But I'm not wearing any of their stupid clothes. They'd only make me look like a shaved bear in a clown suit anyways." Harvel commented, miming the action of said bear happily juggling chainsaws.

"That's fine." Yiddek replied, arms wide with reluctant acceptance, his excited tone slightly diminished. "You'll be in a hospital gown the whole time anyways. Plus, we can eat together. I know you hate the food around there and the stuff the hospital serves is the same with even less flavor. We can catch up a little too. I feel like I barely know what you do anymore." He continued, eyes hopeful.

'I get attacked by fucking centipedes and slog through shit.' Harvel thought, but he kept it to himself. It wasn't his brothers fault he worked in a nice, shiny, building. He'd worked hard to get where he was. Harvel knew he didn't deserve to have his embitterment directed towards him.

It wasn't like Yiddek was the one who had decided to descend the ladder of society. Harvel just hated having to look up at the people on the rungs above him. They had much cleaner shoes.

"I don't think that sounds so bad. A couple weeks away from work is probably a good thing for you," Dibbuk interjected, leaning back in her chairs, the remarkably flexible steel giving a little whine. "You can catch up on your reading." She added. Harvel glowered at her.

'She knows I don't read.' He thought. He slid down the slope of the bed a little, attempting to out-relax her.

He realized this was a mistake later than he would've liked. He had to stop himself from doing an impression of the aforementioned chairs, his back becoming a sea of pain. The anesthetic might have worn off more than he'd thought.

"Fine! Fine. Fine, I'll go." He answered, deciding to let out the yelp he'd been keeping in with slightly more finesse. 'You are the big brother, after all. You definitely wouldn't have cried otherwise.' He told himself, attempting to pass his outburst off as a show of authority.

Both Yiddek and Dibbuk raised the scaly crests above their eyes in the universally recognized expression of "Oh really now?".

"Well, that settles it. Sign this." Yiddek announced, passing back the tablet. He'd spent the last few seconds auto-flipping through the last four hundred and twenty two pages of documents while Harvel had been ruminating.

"What about all the other stuff I should have signed?" Harvel asked, a slight quiver of fear in his voice.

"Naaaaah!... Don't worry about it. Mostly stuff about burial rights and who to make checks out to. Stuff we've already got on paper for you." Yiddek answered, waving a claw in a cyclical motion.

Harvels eyes darted from one sibling to the other a few times, before settling back down on the tablet. There were three options, Yes, No, and Other. Harvel decided not to question it.

He traced the little x with his finger next to the yes option, and signed his name on the line below it. He had a slightly bad feeling about this, but it was nothing compared to that feeling of being watched. Maybe Dibbuk was right. He needed some time away from the sewers. It wouldn't do him any good to sit here thinking about whatever the hell was down there.

"Before I go, can I get a quick shower in? I don't normally smell like raw sewage and it's not something I intend to get used to." Harvel asked, passing the tablet back.

"If you say so." Dibbuk interjected, inciting a scowl from Harvel.

"Well, I wouldn't recommend it. Your stitches are still fresh so they could tear." Yiddek answered, ignoring his sisters off-hand comment. "Whether they do or not, I can guarantee it will hurt like a mother fucker." He added, mimicking a pair of scales with his claws.

Harvel thought about this for a moment. He remembered just how much it had hurt to move earlier and wasn't keen on refreshing said memory. But, he was pretty ripe, and though they had definitely gotten most of him cleaned up while he was unconscious, he could tell there were spots they had missed.

"You know what? Just get me a damp towel and some privacy and I should be alright." He said, a little bit embarrassed. He knew that as a professional Yiddek wouldn't dare laugh at him, but there were some things a man just wanted to be alone for. With complete understanding, Yiddek nodded and exited the room. Dibbuk stood up and stretched a bit.

"Well, I've got to get back to the station. They're getting a couple of the teams together to go take care of the burg above the blue line. They already found the centipede and took care of the warriors so I don't think they're going to need to debrief you for a bit. In the meantime I'm going to look into any rumors about whatever that thing was." Dibbuk stated, carrying her chairs back into the corner of the room, and bending them back into their original shape.

"Yeah, I don't know how much luck you'll have with that. As far as I know there have never been any stories of ghosts or anything else down there." Harvel said, a bit dejected. He knew that the wastewalkers were suckers for gossip, but ghost stories? If you work in a place where anything living can kill you, you don't tend to worry too much about the dead. Dibbuk shrugged her shoulders.

"Dunno. Either way I might scrounge up something weird or two. Won't hurt to try." She said as she trundled out of the open doorway.

'Wont hurt to try.' Harvel thought a little skeptically. 'Depends on what you mean by hurt I guess. Walking around the station asking about ghost stories could get plenty of eyes on you that you would rather not.' He continued speculating.

He was sure Dibbuk would be just fine physically. Even though everyone knew the Tar-Khal were pacifists, they still had arms thick as steel beams and claws that could palm a café table. Nobody in their right minds would gamble on whether an overly forceful high five was considered violence to them or not.

No, Harvel was worried she'd draw too much attention to herself for her to be comfortable in the station ever again. Dibbuk had a tendency to be a bit anti-social among the other humans. Of course, she had plenty of reasons. He just didn't want the list to get too long.