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Whisper had to see it.
It was in the morgue. Normally, she would have no reason to go such a place in Restoration HQ; she'd seen enough death in her life to satiate even those who hungered most for it. But this? This was different. As much as the thought turned her stomach, she had to see it and make sure it was all over. Call it the dark conclusion to a dark chapter of her life. Call it the excision of a disease that had been wringing the life out of her for years. Call it a confirmation of her crime.
Call it what you wanted to call it, but the only way to bring things to a close was to see it. So she had left Tangle behind in their room, snoozing in that uncomfortable bedside chair, and made her way down the hallway of the Restoration's small medical wing to the room she knew was at the end of the hall.
The uncomfortable hospital gown clung to her body as she moved, and she tried not to watch the shadows dance and swirl on the approach to the double doors. They taunted her and only reinforced the nightmarish thought of finding nothing in there. That was the most likely conclusion to all of this, and the worst, wasn't it? The inevitable one was always the worst one. It wouldn't be there. Why would it? All of this would have been a trick. The great game of death would resume on into infinity, and she would never rest easy, no matter how much she pined for it.
That was what she was entirely expecting, but as she pushed her way in and bare paws touched the icy tile of the morgue, there it was: wheeled into the center of this cold, sterile room against a backdrop of metal cabinets meant to house other things much like it. Shapes beneath a plain white cloth lying still on a metal table; a simple but grotesque display.
Frozen. Watching for signs of movement. A breath, an involuntary twitch. Anything from the lumps below the fabric. A clue, a sign of the dark inevitability to come… Her hands shook. She could see her breaths as the corners of her vision blurred in sheer anticipation of panic-to-be.
Nothing.
Whisper began to make her way across the room. It felt like walking through a dream, like her feet were sinking into the floor below with each step, the world becoming an impeding mire that screamed and begged for her to not do this. It couldn't stop her, though. This was duty. If she took a life, she should have the dignity to view her handiwork, soak in the sin and let it fill her. What came after that? She didn't know. But one thing was certain: "it" could not remain "it" anymore, not if she ever wanted to even flirt with the possibility of healing someday. It had to become a "him." That was the first step.
By the faucets on the table was a smaller table of instruments. Scapels, scissors, other things. Mortuary tools she did not know the purpose of. All was pristine and clean in comparison to what she knew she would find beneath the cloth, which she now stood over. Her heart was slamming against the limits of her chest now, lungs protesting her actions as she slowly raised her hand to pull the sheet away from Mimic's corpse. The claw tips of her fingers came closer and closer to the still, rigid postmortem shapes. Only inches now. They pinched the hem-
When the hand grabbed her wrist, she felt a scream go stillborn in her throat, only moments before it tugged her hard down closer to the table. The other, slimy suction cups and all, grasped her throat and squeezed powerfully. In an instant, every sense was screaming with primal, unimaginable fear. Shrunken stiletto-wound pupils whipped around erratically, falling on the arms that had come from beneath the funerary draping to hold onto her. Milk-white, sickly cream color flesh. Bloodless and covered with a glistening sheen that looked terribly foul. An odor she hadn't noticed before permeated everything suddenly. Burning flesh. Decay. She felt sick.
The sheet was alive with motion now, a haunting wobbling dance both terrifying and tranfixing. Motion without revelation. Slithering shapes that didn’t make sense, rapidly shifting beneath its covering. Her arms weren't working now, no matter how she urged them. The shape was sitting up now, still swathed in white as its hand moved in slow motion, gracefully reached to the table beside it and took a scalpel into its fingers.
"Let me show you," Mimic's voice said as the sheet began to fall away from his face. Two glinting, hate-filled eyes bubbling in dark seas.
"Let me show you how it feels, Whisper." The blade was raised over his head, and-
—
Whisper shot up in the darkness, a hand on her neck and another raised over her head to try and stop an oncoming blow. It took her a few moments to get her bearings and get her breathing under control; when she did and her eyes adjusted to the blackness, she found herself sitting in bed beside a still-snoring Tangle. The rain beat furiously against the window of their bedroom. The alarm clock beside them was flashing 3:15 AM at her in an accusatory red.
She ran a hand across her face and through her long blonde hair; utterly drenched with sweat. Shaking. But she hadn't screamed. This time, she hadn't screamed. Tangle wouldn't have to wake up for it this time.
She sat there for a time but eventually slipped off of the mattress to get up and make herself some tea. There was little possibility she was going to sleep again anytime soon.