Cybil (2018) #projectsuper

Chapter 5: Store Showdown

Theme Music: "Dusk Forest" (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers)

Getting the wrappings she needed was easy. Getting out of the weakly guarded pharmacy was another matter. The loose remnants of staff hardly raised an eyebrow at her late-night entrance or her attire.

Needless to say, there had been a time when the idea of a woman walking around in a black cat suit outside of Halloween would have been means to sound the alarm...

Of course, Cybil never really processed this information. From her perspective, it would've been irrelevant anyhow.

Though she could've easily taken down the six store clerks and two guards out with minimal effort, such methods seemed...unnecessary. She waited for an opportunity to quietly slip away into the night.

With a clap of thunder, the already fierce storm raging outside kicked up even further. The store went dark. That was her chance.

A disorganized clamor of annoyed groans and mumbles of discontent were the only sounds amidst the storm. Cameron, a very much bored teenager, took a glance at the storeroom that held the flashlight they would've needed. Not a single one of her fellow workers, mostly old men and women who had no other choice. This was their last stop. She hoped to your-deity-of-choice that it wasn't her last and that medical school application would come through...

She used the tiny light of her phone to fumble along the shelves to get those keys. She'd probably get an earful for being so irresponsible. Then again, what the manager didn't know didn't hurt either of them.

Come on! Where were they? She grew more frustrated in her search until her hands fell upon something... fleshy.

Knowing that it wasn't her own body she felt, she nervously shined a light on the true source: A girl with emotionless, dead eyes that looked rather out of place on her carmel-colored complexion. She began to yelp in shock, but didn't finish before her face suddenly lit up with pain. As she was blacking out, she felt a hand slamming her against something solid.

The store was now in a state of pandemonium. Cybil found herself not only having to fight her way past the clerks that got in her way in the chaos and fear, but as the bodies piled up in her wake, she had to fight an unknown enemy. This strange feeling crept through her, filling her with dread. Illogical. The objective is to escape. I am fulfilling the objective. That thought, though true, didn't soothe the undesirable feeling that dogged her. The groans of pain and suffering made it worse.

She heard a sound as she carefully slipped out of a back window. An alarm. Turn back. There must not be anyone to get help, her mind commanded. Her body, however, would not listen. Her legs took her further and further away from that place. All the while, water soaked her vision that wasn't from the rain. And, drowned out by the typhoon above her, a primal noise erupted unbidden from her throat, try to strangle it as she did.