“Damage detected, user!”

My very own starfish, to the rescue. I scrambled backward in my own blood, only slipping once on my way to the door. A tendril from the armor cauterized my gushing artery with a laser burst, and I felt more of that lovely painkiller flood my system.

Still, having my arm snatched off hurt.

The ball of ceramic pain and lightning followed me into the garage and lashed the floor and ceiling behind me. Molls slammed the door as soon as I was through and gaped at my arm. A tendril was delivering a new bone from the compartment on my chest, and another was ready to spray flesh foam into the site, like wet concrete.

“What is that? Is this from your planet?”

I tried to answer, but the pain of it forced out a long and horrid groan.

As we both gaped at my wound, the starfish repair suit fixed it with brutal efficiency. When it was done a few seconds later, my new arm worked perfectly, but had no hair at all.

Molls shuddered. “Effective but brutal. BuyMort will have something better.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and moved away from the door. Something bashed into it, and we left, heading through the entryway to the kitchen. Beyond that was the main staircase that led to the second floor. As we entered the kitchen, the sliding glass doors shattered and blew inward.

“Shit. Molls, watch out!” I yelled, putting myself between her and the window.

Molls slithered over the broken glass and winced but kept moving to the stairs. I tried to continue covering her from behind as a ceramic tentacle tore a chunk out of the stairway beside me.

Then we were on the landing, and the thick black fog rose no higher. The lethal ceramic tentacle balls awaited below, writhing and cracking their limbs as they struggled to reach their desired victims.

I looked out. There were more of them bunched up behind the already present monsters, forming a crowd of agitated destruction. Eight feet seemed to be a hard rule.

I leaned against the landing rail and took a few deep breaths. That had been rough, I think. I couldn’t really tell, with the painkillers rattling around in me. I just stared at a bright red smear of blood on the landing, the edges of my vision wavy and dreamlike in my haze. We’d made it.

Molls was moving in a sort of limp now that we were clear of immediate danger. She held a portion of her body aloft and moved without setting it down. It made her significantly slower. We climbed the rest of the stairs to the second floor and every few steps, the section of her tail that she held aloft pattered a few drops of blood to the wood flooring. I cringed when I looked at it, and then I slipped past the large snake woman in the hall to the bathroom. One of Mr. Sada’s extra-large bath towels made a nice bandage, and she thanked me for it after I tied it snug.

Then Doofus came plodding down the hall toward me, waving his nude tail. He peered behind me down the stairs and growled, but immediately warmed to Molls and rubbed up against her side after a quick sniff and lick. She smiled and ran her hand across his back. Then she turned back and frowned at me. “Are not dogs meant to have hair? He is the first I have met, I expected them to look different.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Most dogs have hair, yes, and Doofus here is supposed to.” I leaned forward and got Doofus to focus on me, so he was listening. “In fact, dogs like him need their coats, and it’s bad that he shaved it off.”

Doofus huffed and sighed, so I looked back to Molls to continue. “He dream-bought a razor drone and shaved it all off this morning.” Doofus head-butted my hands and I started scrubbing at his ears the way he liked. Then he tried to push past me to the stairway, and I shoved back at him. “Doofus, no. Not safe. Go back.”

“Don’t call my fuckin’ dog that!” Mr. Sada shouted from his bedroom at the end of the hall. I headed that way with a grimace, and Doofus plodded past me to flop on the floor at the foot of the bed. Hobb was standing just in the doorway, and he held up a hand as we approached. I stopped and glared at the tall gray man, but Molls seemed to ignore him.

She entered the room, ducking her head to fit, and turned on her robe’s heater. I noticed as I followed her in the room that she was shuddering from the cold. Mr. Sada somehow had power still, during all of this, and had the air conditioning running. The man was stretched out on his bed, watching psychic television, and clearly basking in the AC. I made a mental note to remember to find out how he had power when the rest of the camp had gone down, but he gave us all much more pressing concerns the instant he laid eyes on Molls.

“Woah! Snake-tits!” He sat up in the bed and openly gaped at Molls, even when she raised her arms and covered herself. She flushed a hot pink color that slowly built to red.

“Boss, she doesn’t like it when people stare,” I said, diplomatically.

“So what? She’s in my house,” Mr. Sada shot back. He waved at me to stand aside when I moved in front of Molls and blocked his view.

“It’s her body. Don’t be an asshole.” I turned to face her and nodded to the door again, a tight frown on my face. Molls quickly nodded and turned around. I raised my middle finger to Hobb and closed the door on my way out.

“What a horrid man,” Molls whispered. She looked tired, and deeply uncomfortable. The Nah’gh woman tugged at her robe, trying to cover more of her body with its heated interior. I stomped over to the nearest thermostat and killed the air. It was fine in here, and with the downstairs busted open it would run constantly to no effect anyway. The Arizona desert in October can still defeat any air conditioner made by man, but I also didn’t want the house to freeze out when night came. Better to let it build up a little heat first, especially if we were stuck here for a while.

“I am sorry, Molls, he really is.” I nodded and motioned for her to follow me. “We have two options.”

I stopped at the bathroom and showed the interior to her. After cranking on the hot water knob in the tub, I stepped back to let her see the steam.

“Wet heat, with the door closed.”

Then I stepped out of the bathroom and moved to the attic stairs. With a quick tug on the cord, I had the staircase open, and the untended heat in the attic flooded down to greet us.

“Or dry heat.”

While she watched, I stood with my hands on my hips and looked up into the attic. “Up there will have more room, but it’ll be less comfortable overall. Just plywood and planks, with nasty insulation to avoid. It looks like pink stuffing, you can’t miss it.”

Molls nodded seriously as I spoke, and then slid past me up into the attic. “Thank you, Tyson. I would appreciate hot water, and more cloth like this if you can. I must tend to my wound.”

I nodded and went back to the bathroom. Thankfully, Mr. Sada kept a plastic bucket under the sink full of cleaning tools. I know, cause he made me clean his bathroom once when his maid service called out and his wife threw a fit.

So I dumped out the bucket and stuck it in the tub to fill with hot water. Then I grabbed every towel in the bathroom and slung them over my shoulder, one at a time. With my load of fresh white linens and a bucket of steaming water, I went back up the stairs to the attic. Carefully, to avoid spilling.

Molls was at the end of a long hallway made of particle board, in the sunlight pouring through the corner window. She was digging at the scales on her tail with a pair of tweezers and gasped as I approached. The tweezers fell and I heard her stifle a sob. She raised her hands to her face and wiped away a giant tear from her oversized eyes. Molls turned away when she saw me approach, and I hesitated.

In that moment, I gave a lot of thought to just retreating and leaving her be, but it didn’t feel right. It seemed like the kind of thing Phyllis would give me a ton of shit for, and I figured we were both worried about her, so I should do something she would approve of. Don’t look to me for logic, I just explained how my brain made sense of me staying and talking to the massive, beautiful, wounded snake-priest in my bosses attic. Didn’t promise you logic, and that’s not how these things work anyway.

“Hey Molls,” I said softly, looking at her bloodied tail. “Can I help you with that?”

She sniffled and turned her head. I had a clean washcloth in one hand, and the bucket of hot water in the other. Molls nodded gently at me, and then turned her head away again. She was staring out of the window at the campground. “Thank you, Tyson.” Her hands and voice shook, and it was clear she was trying not to cry because I was there.

“Mr. Sada makes me want to cry too, I don’t mind.” I sat down beside her and gently lifted the injured portion of her tail into my lap. “I’m honestly just sorry I keep embarrassing you. I was looking forward to learning about BuyMort from you, and it turned into kind of a nightmare instead.”

A loud laugh erupted from Molls, and she instantly raised a hand to cover her face. I chuckled, and she began laughing again at the sound. For a few seconds, she giggled along with me, scales flushed deep pink, but then the tears came back. Molls choked back a sob and looked away from me again, using her hood to cover her face. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed from behind her hands. “I don’t mean to make this your problem, I just . . .”

I nodded when she trailed off and focused on her tail. It was full of glass shards, I counted at least a dozen large ones. “No, I totally understand, Molls. It’s been a rough few days.”

She snorted. “It really has, hasn’t it?” There she looked out the window again and shook her hanging head. “I don’t understand,” Molls whispered. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”

I applied the tweezers gently to a shard, just gripping it lightly, and then turned to face her. “Molls, this might hurt a little, I’m sorry in advance.”

The tall Nah’gh priest looked down on me from her position and offered a gentle smile. “That’s okay. I don’t have anywhere near as much sensation that low. I just kept slipping and making it worse.” She wrapped her arms around her chest and shuddered again, slipping her tongue out to quickly smell the air.

“I’ll see if I can’t find a space heater or something for you. I think we’re going to be here for a while and you seem really cold,” I said as I turned back to the glass shard I had gripped. I slid the tweezers back and eased the shard out of her tail, setting it aside and grabbing a washcloth.

“You mind if I finish this first, or would you rather I go find the space heater?” I honestly had no idea if Mr. Sada had a space heater. Not much call for them in Arizona, but the nights could get pretty cold sometimes. Seemed worth a shot.

Molls sniffed again. “Keep going if you please. You are being very gentle, which I appreciate.” She smiled softly at me when I glanced at her and I returned it as best I could. I just felt so bad for her.

“Glad I can help,” I said, as I carefully washed the wound and made sure the laceration had no more glass in it. Once it was clear, I began the process again with the next largest chunk of glass embedded in her tail. Her scales felt soft, with small ridges that overlapped one another. The painkillers were wearing off, and my senses were sharpening again. I noticed she smelled faintly clean, but otherwise lacked much of a scent. Her blood was exactly the same as mine, and as I worked I became worried.

She hadn’t stopped bleeding, and the first bath sheet I had used was already soaked completely.

I had to stop working on the glass shards and replace it, and when I did, I just left the blood soaked one in the hamper. Mr. Sada would shit a brick when he found it, but I couldn’t care less. Molls was hurt and that was what mattered.

She was quiet, staring out the window and occasionally wincing while I worked on the rest of the glass shards. When I had plucked out the last of Mr. Sada’s sliding glass door, I washed out the entire wound and wrapped it with folded towels inside of a longer towel to keep the makeshift bandage in place.

I finished, stood, and clapped my hands together. “Well, I don’t trust Mr. Sada on much, but I guarantee those towels are clean. He used to pay a professional service to do it for him.” When she didn’t respond beyond a nod, I left her alone for a while so I could go search for a space heater.

I had to rummage around in Mr. Sada’s closet, and he whined and griped at me the whole time. I mostly ignore him when he does coke, it makes him more annoying than usual. After he calmed down a little, I managed to get him to remember that his wife used to have an electric blanket, from when she lived in New Jersey.

I struggled to find it for a while in Mr. Sada’s walk-in closet, but eventually I discovered it buried behind a stack of boxes. Half of the walk-in closet was empty, and I took a moment to realize that he had been selling his wife’s old clothes for everything, and he was starting to run out already. Whatever, I thought as I left the room. Not my problem. Yet.

The blanket was a lucky find. It had a multi-pronged plug in, so it could fit a house plug, USB, or even a cigarette lighter in a car and was massive. The thing was fitted for a king sized bed, I figured it would be perfect for Molls. She could probably fit all of her body into it if she coiled up. When I approached her again in the attic, she rose up in interest and her eyes went wide at the sight of it.

I found an outlet and plugged it in, then walked it over to her and helped drape it over her body. She cranked the switch up to maximum and soon I saw her physically relax. Molls sunk into the blanket and rubbed it close across her face, and neck. I blushed as I watched her, and looked away to prevent potential embarrassment, or a degradation in her mood. It felt like I had been helping, and she seemed really sweet and vulnerable at times, so I was trying not to mess things up again. After a few minutes of silence, I just asked, “am I alright to turn around now?” and glanced at her for confirmation

Molls nodded softly. “Thank you.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she turned to face me fully. Her eyes were puffy around the edges, and the scales there seemed swollen and irritated. She wiped away another tear and sniffled, but she smiled at me. “I appreciate the kindness you show.”

I smiled back and nodded, moving over to the window. Ceramic lightning tumbleweeds wandered by almost lazily in the dirt road outside, ejaculating inky fog into the afternoon. “I hope Phyllis is doing okay.”

Molls nodded eagerly. “Me as well. I have faith, but this storm is frightening.” Her scales shifted to purple as she spoke, and I started wondering hard what those color shifts meant. Pink and red I was getting a pretty good idea about, but purple was still up in the air. I decided it meant she was genuinely interested in the topic at hand, but left room open for more than that too.

“So, Molls. What can you tell me about this storm?” I asked while looking at her with a small smile, but her scales faded in color a bit and she looked out the window again.

“This is just a dream storm. Natural, but they can be dangerous.” She shrugged and nestled further into the warming blanket.

“The, uh . . . news is saying this is the result of some rich guy up north having a nightmare.” I stared at the bumbling death robots below. “Seems weird to bring this to life.”

Molls scales flashed red, before tempering back to a brighter purple. “BuyMort simply makes the dreams come true. It is not responsible for the content of them.” She gestured to me. “Did you dream? What did BuyMort make come true for you this morning?”

I thought again of the nosebleed anime, and blushed. “Nothing I wanted.”

She nodded in understanding. “A bad dream then.”

I frowned. “Not exactly, just . . . I didn’t mean for it to come true. I didn’t want that.”

Molls flicked her tongue out and shook her head. “Part of you did, or BuyMort would not have sent the dream to you this morning. This.” She gestured out the window. “Is the result of someone’s subconscious desire.” Molls turned and looked me in the eye. “BuyMort is freedom. Honesty. It provides what you want.” Then she looked away. “Even if you do not admit that you want it, whatever it is.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And it’s good to be honest about what we want?”

The snake priest nodded again. “Smart shoppers always are.”