Escape from Exploding Waiting Rooms and the Fashionably Fatal Entrance of a Crimson-Haired Conundrum (Seriously, What Is She Wearing?)
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Author Note: Just when Sawyer thought his night couldn't get any weirder, BAM! Enter a mysterious woman with killer style and even kill-ier control over nightmare creatures. Things are about to get a whole lot more complicated, and possibly a little bit… fabulous? Stay tuned!
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He sprinted down the corridor, his breath ragged, each inhale scraping like broken glass against the raw lining of his throat. His legs screamed beneath him, muscles locking and trembling with exhaustion, but he didn't dare stop. Panic propelled him forward—blind, choking panic that dulled everything except the primal need to keep moving. Every heartbeat was a gunshot in his chest.
He reached the double doors ahead and crashed through them with the full momentum of his sprint. The heavy metal hinges groaned in protest as they swung wide, giving way to the reception area—and what he saw brought his steps to a stunned halt.
It was as though he had stepped into a completely different world.
People were sitting in neat rows of plastic chairs, scrolling through their phones, chatting quietly, flipping through magazines. The fluorescent lights above buzzed softly, their pale white glow undisturbed. A woman laughed at something a man beside her said, and two children in school uniforms played with a worn deck of cards on the floor. The atmosphere was painfully ordinary.
Too ordinary.
Sawyer's breath caught in his chest—not from exertion, but confusion. The contrast between the nightmare behind him and the calm before him was so extreme it felt cruel, like he had passed through a tear in reality. The receptionists looked up from their desk, blinking in mild surprise at the filthy, wild-eyed man who had just stumbled in like a wounded animal.
He stood in the center of the room, hunched and trembling, his chest heaving as he tried to form words. His clothes were in tatters, torn and blackened with soot and blood. Ash clung to his skin in streaks, sticking to the sweat and grime that coated his face. One eye was beginning to swell shut from some earlier impact, and a cut across his brow oozed a thin trail of blood. He looked like a survivor pulled from a collapsed building—or a war zone.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
He opened his mouth, voice barely a whisper at first. "Run…"
Then louder. Rawer. Desperate.
"Run!"
But before anyone could react, before comprehension could register in their calm, unknowing faces, the doors behind him exploded.
The blast was violent and immediate—wood, metal, and fire bursting outward in a chaotic storm. Debris tore through the air like shrapnel. The shockwave hit him like a truck, lifting him off his feet and hurling him across the room. He slammed into the wall behind the receptionist's desk with a sickening crunch, his vision going white with pain, the breath ripped from his lungs like a vacuum had sucked it out.
He crumpled to the floor, groaning, barely conscious.
And then… it entered.
The creature crawled through the torn opening, its massive frame hunched low, moving on all fours like some grotesque fusion of dog and beast. Bones cracked with every motion, its form twitching and adjusting in ways that defied human anatomy. There was no rush in its steps, no panic—only that cold, calculating stillness of a predator that knew it could not be outrun.
Sawyer, gasping, blood pooling in his mouth, watched helplessly as it slithered into the room with fluid, bone-chilling grace.
It paused.
Its head turned slowly, its glowing crimson eyes scanning the faces of the reception area like a butcher surveying his next cut of meat. The people were frozen now—every single one of them—finally recognizing the presence of something alien. Something wrong. But they were too late.
The creature inhaled through flared nostrils. It tilted its head slightly, as though processing a scent. Then its eyes locked onto a young woman seated near the vending machine. She was still holding her magazine, unmoving—paralyzed by confusion or fear or both.
Sawyer tried to scream. To warn her. But no sound came.
The monster began to move.
Sawyer struggled to his feet, every movement heavy and disjointed, as if his limbs no longer belonged to him. Pain lanced through his side where he had hit the wall, and his legs wobbled beneath him like they might give way at any moment. His breath came in shallow, uneven pulls, each inhale a struggle, each exhale laced with panic. Sweat clung to his brow, mingling with the soot and blood, stinging his eyes. But his gaze—raw, terrified, unblinking—remained fixed on the creature.
The monster hadn't moved yet. It loomed, hunched and waiting, its crimson eyes glowing like twin embers in the sterile hospital light. A horrifying patience radiated from it, like it enjoyed the stillness before the kill. Something in its posture screamed intelligence, the calculating kind, the kind that knew exactly what it was doing.
Just a few feet away from it sat a young woman, completely unaware of the horror standing within arm's reach. She was leaning back comfortably in a plastic waiting chair, flipping casually through a beauty magazine, her fingers moving in slow, unhurried motions as she turned the pages. Bright lipstick ads and celebrity gossip filled her vision—an artificial world far removed from the living nightmare just beside her.
Sawyer's chest constricted as he took in the absurdity of it. The air around him was thick with the stench of scorched debris, blood, and something darker—like decay and smoke—but she didn't seem to notice any of it. She was engrossed in something as simple, as normal, as the price of a new mascara line or who wore what on the red carpet. The stark contrast made his skin crawl.
This is what fear was supposed to protect—the illusion of peace, the safety of the ordinary. And she was living in it, blind and blissful, moments away from death.
"Hey…" he croaked, his voice strained and hoarse, almost lost beneath the fluorescent hum of the overhead lights. He swallowed and tried again, louder this time, urgency thick in his tone. "Hey, miss?!"
His voice cracked under the weight of desperation. It wasn't just a warning—it was a cry, a frantic plea for connection, for someone to see what he saw, for someone to break the spell of ignorance that had turned this moment into a slow, waking death.
The woman lifted her head.
Her eyes found him across the room, and for a split second, Sawyer thought she understood. But then her expression soured. Her brows knit together in irritation, not fear. She looked him up and down—saw the torn clothes, the dirt and blood smeared across his face—and rolled her eyes with an audible sigh, as if he were just another madman interrupting her morning peace.
She clicked her tongue and returned to her magazine, her fingers brushing against the glossy paper like nothing had happened. The world, in her eyes, was still intact.
But it wasn't.
The creature stirred.
It shifted slightly, its large frame straightening, joints clicking with unnatural motion. The sound of Sawyer's voice had broken whatever veil of passivity it had held. Its head turned toward him with slow, deliberate focus, and the crimson light in its eyes flared brighter.
Sawyer's breath caught.
Those eyes—glowing, merciless, ancient—locked onto him with terrifying clarity. They didn't just see him. They marked him.
He was no longer an observer to a nightmare. He was the target.
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For a moment—a fleeting, terrifying moment—Sawyer could have sworn the creature smiled.
It wasn't the kind of smile that brought warmth or familiarity. It was a grotesque, predatory grin that split its face like a wound, stretching its thin, pallid lips to reveal rows of jagged, oversized teeth. They weren't just sharp—they gleamed like polished blades, perfectly aligned tools of destruction, built not for intimidation but for tearing flesh from bone. There was something disturbingly intentional in that expression, something that spoke of pleasure… of hunger.
Before he could process the sight, the creature lunged.
It moved with horrifying speed, a blur of distorted limbs and bone-snapping motion. Its long, clawed arms sliced through the air with eerie precision, its entire body launching forward like a coiled spring. There was no warning, no sound before the attack—only a rush of air and a sickening crack of joints moving far too fluidly for something that size.
Sawyer's instincts screamed louder than thought. He twisted his body to the side, the motion fueled by pure adrenaline and blind terror. His muscles stretched painfully as he flung himself away from the creature's grasp, barely avoiding the full brunt of its strike.
But he wasn't fast enough.
One of the creature's claws caught him—just barely—but it was enough. The talon carved into his shoulder, slicing through fabric and flesh in one effortless swipe.
A sharp, searing pain exploded across his upper body, so intense it stole the breath from his lungs. The agony was instant and raw, like someone had poured fire directly into the wound. He screamed—an involuntary, guttural sound that tore out of his throat and echoed violently through the reception hall. It wasn't just pain. It was panic, disbelief, and the dawning realization that he might not survive this.
Clutching his shoulder, blood already soaking through the torn fabric, Sawyer turned and stumbled forward, his legs kicking into motion before his mind could catch up. Every nerve in his body screamed for escape. His feet slammed against the tiled floor as he bolted down the hallway, the sharp sting of the wound radiating with each stride.
Behind him, the creature roared, its fury no longer contained. It barreled after him, its massive limbs crashing into walls and furniture, leaving destruction in its wake. Every impact was like thunder—loud, jarring, impossible to ignore.
The pounding of Sawyer's footsteps was now joined by a deeper, heavier rhythm: the relentless, closing stride of the monster hunting him. The sound alone was enough to unravel him—like death had found a shape, a voice, and it was chasing him down.
The hallway stretched endlessly ahead, a blur of flickering lights and sterile white walls, but all Sawyer could feel was the heat of blood soaking his clothes and the cold breath of death breathing down his neck.
He had to find the back door. The emergency exit. Anything. Any way out of this waking nightmare.
Panic clawed at his throat as he staggered forward, every breath shallow and labored, every step dragging with a weight his body could barely carry. The fluorescent lights above flickered erratically, casting distorted shadows on the walls like ghosts waiting to pounce. He turned sharply at each corner, eyes darting, searching for a glowing red sign, a door slightly ajar, even a shattered window—anything that promised escape.
This wasn't a dream. That truth finally landed in his chest like a stone dropped into deep water. The pain in his shoulder—god, the pain—was too sharp, too hot, too real. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a constant burn that made his stomach churn and his vision tilt.
"I should have woken up by now," he muttered under his breath, barely recognizing the voice that came out of his mouth. It was dry, hoarse—cracked like the voice of a man who hadn't spoken in years. The words weren't a prayer, just a desperate gasp for reason, a whispered plea to make sense of the madness. But reality didn't care.
"Fuck… the pain hurts," he thought bitterly, almost childishly, but it was all he could manage. The agony wasn't just physical—it was emotional. It reminded him that he wasn't invincible. That he could bleed. That he could die.
A thousand thoughts stormed his mind, overlapping and fraying like wires in a burning circuit. His hands trembled violently, slick with sweat and blood, and his legs barely held him upright. He felt disconnected, as if he were watching himself stumble down the corridor from above, his figure hunched and limping, a man caught between survival and surrender.
Then, suddenly—impact.
He slammed into something. Hard. Unforgiving. A wall?
No—a body.
He hit the floor with a sickening thud, the breath knocked clean from his lungs. His shoulder screamed in protest, the pain so sharp it drew a strangled gasp from his throat. Dazed, Sawyer blinked up through blurred vision, the ceiling above spinning like a carousel of dull hospital lights.
Then he saw it.
The silhouette that towered over him wasn't human. Its outline was wrong—too tall, too narrow in some places, too broad in others. Limbs crooked at unnatural angles, flesh pulled taut over impossible joints. Sawyer's eyes widened in horror, his breath freezing in his chest.
It was the creature.
No. His heart sank.
It was another one.
His blood turned to ice as he turned his head slowly, dread crawling like insects under his skin. Behind him, the first creature was still coming, its massive form galloping with grotesque speed, its crimson eyes glowing with deadly hunger.
Trapped.
He was trapped—caught between two monsters that didn't know mercy, didn't understand fear, and certainly didn't care about his pain. The hallway that moments ago had offered a chance of escape now looked like a closing coffin, its walls squeezing in around him.
There was no time to think. Only react.
"You should watch where you're going, boy," a voice called out.
It was smooth—too smooth. Alluring, almost intoxicating. Each syllable carried a rhythm that felt like a gentle caress against his ears, a melodic whisper that seemed both distant and impossibly close. There was no panic in it, no urgency—only calm. That kind of calm that didn't belong in a place like this.
Sawyer froze.
The voice didn't match the chaos around him. It felt safe. Warm. Like a familiar lullaby playing in the heart of a war zone. And in that single moment, that fragile heartbeat of stillness, he wanted to believe in it. He wanted to run toward it, to wrap himself in the arms of whoever owned that voice, to bury himself in their presence and forget the monsters, the blood, the pain.
His eyes slowly lifted.
And there she was.
Stepping from behind the towering creature like she belonged there—as if the horror was just another part of her stage. Her movement was fluid, measured, like a cat gliding across polished glass. She wasn't rushing. She didn't flinch. Every step seemed calculated, like she controlled not just her body, but the very air around her.
For a split second, the hallway didn't feel like a death trap. It felt… enchanted.
Sawyer blinked, unsure if what he was seeing was real or some new level of his fear-induced hallucination. But she kept coming, and her image sharpened with every step.
Then he saw her hair.
It was the first thing to burn into his memory—a cascade of red, not just any red, but a deep, fiery crimson that danced like it held embers within. It wasn't dyed. It didn't look artificial. It looked alive. Like every curl flickered with energy, like if you touched it, it might burn your skin.
In this sterile hospital hallway, with its chipped tiles and sickly fluorescent lights, her hair looked like a flame in the dark—a beacon and a warning all at once.
She was beautiful. But not in the way models were. No, this was something otherworldly. Her beauty wasn't passive—it commanded the space around her, made the monsters seem like shadows compared to the spotlight of her presence.
And despite everything—the blood, the monsters, the gaping pain in his shoulder—Sawyer found himself staring.
Not in fear.
But in awe.
Her attire screamed of gothic rebellion—loud, unapologetic, and deliberate. It wasn't just fashion; it was a statement, a sharp rejection of society's expectations, and a mirror of something deeper and far darker within her. Everything about her look felt intentional, layered with a quiet rage and a self-awareness that bordered on unnerving. She didn't just wear black; she embodied it.
She wore a long-sleeved black shirt, the fabric smooth and tight against her slender frame, outlining her figure with subtle restraint. Beneath it, a flash of soft pink peeked through the neckline of a fitted black T-shirt—an odd, almost mocking whisper of innocence buried under so many layers of darkness. It wasn't flashy, but it stood out like a hidden scar, reminding anyone who looked too closely that even rebellion had its roots in something lost or broken.
A short black skirt, pleated and sharp, hung just above her knees, the edges swaying ever so slightly as she moved. It clung to her hips with a precision that made her presence feel calculated, yet effortlessly powerful. The skirt gave way to sleek black leggings, their surface matte and unyielding, leading down to heavy, lace-up boots that seemed to carry the weight of authority with every step. Each quiet thud they made on the tiled floor was like a soft threat—controlled, restrained, yet undeniably dangerous.
Nothing about her was accidental.
Her nails, long and smooth, glistened with jet-black polish. They were glossy like obsidian, sharp like claws if they needed to be. Her makeup was bold but precise—thick eyeliner arched dramatically at the corners of her eyes, blending into a smoky shadow that drew attention without effort. Her lashes, long and coated in mascara, fluttered just once as she turned her head, giving Sawyer a glimpse of her stare—piercing, direct, and without apology. There was no warmth in her gaze, but there was something far more potent: control.
She didn't need to raise her voice, didn't need to gesture or posture. Her entire being spoke for her—her stance, her clothing, the tilt of her chin. There was an unshakable confidence in her walk, a knowledge that she had nothing to prove and everything to command. She wasn't just someone who walked alongside monsters.
She was the kind of woman who made monsters fall in line.
"What in the world are you wearing?" Sawyer asked, his voice cracking slightly—a strange blend of genuine bewilderment and shaky amusement. His eyes lingered on her, scanning her from head to toe, trying to make sense of her surreal appearance amidst the chaos. She didn't belong here—not in the clinical sterility of the hospital, not in the middle of monsters. She looked like something that had stepped straight out of a fever dream or a dark, twisted fairytale.
He pushed himself up from the cold, unforgiving floor, his palms trembling as they pressed against the tiles. The pain in his shoulder screamed with every movement, but his mind barely registered it. Every inch of his body ached from adrenaline and tension, yet all his senses were magnetized to her. His knees buckled slightly as he stood, blood thumping in his ears, and for a brief, reckless moment, he forgot the creature—forgot the threat, the nightmare, the pain. The only thing that existed was her. The question, silly as it was, spilled from his lips in a desperate attempt to reclaim something—anything—that felt remotely normal.
"STOP!"
The word hit the air like a gunshot—sharp, commanding, and impossible to ignore. Her voice cut through the tension like a blade, slicing through the madness and forcing the hallway into stunned silence. The creature, caught mid-charge, jerked violently, its massive body skidding across the tile as it tried to halt its momentum. With a deafening crash, it slammed into the far wall, dazed and disoriented, its limbs flailing like a beast yanked backward by invisible chains.
Sawyer's breath caught in his throat. The way she had spoken—so casually, so confidently—and how the monster had obeyed… it chilled him. It wasn't just that she had power. It was the way she wore it, like a second skin, like it had always belonged to her.
"Don't you just love Hounds?" she said suddenly, her voice playful and light, as if she were asking him about a favorite dessert or the weather. A smirk curled on her lips, mischievous and a little dangerous, her gaze not on him but on the creature—no, creatures—now standing eerily still behind her.
Sawyer blinked, struggling to process the absurdity of the moment. Was she joking? Was this sarcasm? Or had he officially lost his mind somewhere between running for his life and crashing into monsters?
She tilted her head slightly, watching him with curiosity, almost like he was the odd one here—not the beasts, not her, not the command that had turned killers into statues. No, he was the anomaly, the outsider.
And deep in the pit of his stomach, beneath the fear and confusion, something else stirred—something colder. Because whatever she was… she wasn't afraid.
"Hounds?" Sawyer echoed, his voice low and uncertain, thick with disbelief and confusion. The word sounded so utterly benign, almost laughable, like a pet name for a farm animal or a joke shared between friends. Yet here, in the stark, blood-scented corridor, surrounded by monsters, it felt like the punchline to a nightmare he didn't understand. He glanced from the woman to the towering beasts behind her, trying to make sense of how such a simple word could be used to describe creatures that looked like something dragged out of a hellish myth.
His throat was dry. He swallowed hard, unease rising like bile. The creatures were still—unnervingly so. No snarling, no twitching limbs. Just quiet, obedient stillness. And she stood among them like a conductor in control of a symphony only she could hear. The way she gently ran her fingers along the coarse skin of the nearest beast sent a chill rippling through Sawyer's spine. Her movements weren't cautious or fearful—no, she was comfortable, almost affectionate, as if stroking the head of a beloved dog.
A knot formed in his stomach. Shame trickled in behind the fear—shame for not running when he had the chance. For hesitating. For letting curiosity and awe override common sense. There was something dangerously intoxicating about her—her presence, her power, the way she controlled the chaos with a flick of her wrist or a simple word. It had rooted him to the floor like a fool.
His feet shuffled backward instinctively. His body finally started responding to what his mind had been screaming for several seconds: Run. Get away. Before it's too late.
But just as his heel lifted off the tile, she whistled.
It was a sharp, deliberate sound—clear and commanding, like the crack of a whip in an empty room. The silence shattered. Both creatures snapped their heads toward him in perfect unison, their glowing crimson eyes locking onto his with chilling precision. Their stillness had transformed in an instant into poised alertness, like predators waiting for the signal to strike. His breath caught in his throat.
"I never said you could leave," she said, her voice soft and almost teasing, the kind of voice that might come with a wink and a smirk in another life.
But here, in this place, her words carried a different weight.
There was no warmth in them. Only promise. A subtle but undeniable threat that wrapped itself around his spine like an icy hand. The playful lilt was like the sharp edge of a knife coated in sugar—sweet on the surface, but deadly underneath.
Sawyer didn't move. Couldn't. His heart thundered in his chest, his body paralyzed between fight and flight, his mind screaming in all directions at once. And yet, she just smiled—beautiful, strange, terrifying—and continued stroking the beast's head like none of this was out of the ordinary.
Sawyer swallowed hard, the motion tight and painful, as though his throat were closing in on itself. His mouth was dry—parched like he hadn't had water in days—and every breath felt shallow, ragged. His thoughts spiraled, spinning wildly in his head like a carousel that wouldn't stop, trying and failing to piece together the logic of the moment. Nothing made sense anymore.
The girl tilted her head slightly, her lips curling into a faint smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. There was something dangerous about the way she looked at him, like a cat watching a mouse struggle in a glass jar.
"It's not like you could leave anyway," she said softly, her voice sliding into the hallway like smoke. It was smooth, melodic even—but underneath the surface was something cold. Calculated. It wasn't a statement of fact so much as a sentence.
"You're stuck in my Mundus Fictus until one of us is dead."
The words hung in the air like a curse. Sawyer blinked, stunned, the unfamiliar phrase bouncing around in his mind like a marble in a box. His lips moved before his brain could catch up.
"The what… what?" he stammered, voice barely above a whisper. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, his chest tight with anxiety. He took a half-step back, his hands twitching at his sides.
"Listen, lady," he continued, forcing a shaky chuckle that came out sounding more like a cough. "I don't know what's going on here, but can I just—can I go back? Whatever this is, I'm not supposed to be here. I think I need to seriously cut back on the coffee or something."
The joke hung in the air, awkward and flat. Not even an echo gave it life. It was the kind of humor that usually helped him deflect anxiety, lighten the tension—but here, in this surreal and oppressive place, it just made the silence more unbearable.
She said nothing at first. Just stared. Her gaze didn't flinch, didn't blink, like she was watching something small and amusing. A tiny, predictable creature trapped in a much bigger game. There was amusement in her eyes, yes—but it was the kind that made his skin crawl.
Sawyer took a step back, then another, his breath quickening. His body screamed to run, but his legs felt like they were wrapped in chains. He closed his eyes tightly.
"It's just a dream," he whispered, the words spilling from his lips like a mantra. "It's just a dream, Sawyer. You're going to wake up. You always wake up."
His hands trembled as he lifted one, slowly, deliberately. He stared at it, counting the fingers one by one. "One, two, three, four, five…" he muttered, and then paused, his voice cracking.
"…Five fingers. Shit."
The final word came out as a breath, nearly lost in the quiet. Panic spread through his chest like ice water. That was the trick, wasn't it? In dreams, you couldn't count right. You couldn't read. That's what all the blogs and videos said. But his fingers were there. All of them. Clear. Solid. Real.
Too real.
His knees weakened beneath him as the weight of that truth hit him like a collapsing ceiling. This wasn't a fleeting nightmare. It wasn't a trick of the mind or a caffeine-fueled hallucination. He was awake—or something terribly close to it.
And whatever this Mundus Fictus was… he was trapped inside it.
"What? You actually believe you're dreaming?" the girl scoffed, her tone sharp, her voice curling with a mixture of amusement and unmistakable disdain. The sarcasm in her words cut through the air like a blade, mockery painted across her face in a wicked smirk.
"You stand before Melinda, the Bone Queen," she declared, the name rolling off her tongue like a curse, like a legacy soaked in blood and dread, "and you dare to dismiss all of this as a mere figment of your imagination?"
There was a shift in her posture, subtle but unmistakable—her chin lifting ever so slightly, her shoulders squaring with a queen's authority, with the cold pride of someone who had lived through unimaginable things and come out even darker on the other side.
Without ceremony, she reached to her side and drew a wand—if it could even be called that. It wasn't wood or crystal, but a smooth, pale bone, about the length of her forearm. Its surface gleamed under the dim hospital light, polished and cold, with ridges along its shaft like vertebrae stacked together. The grotesque elegance of it sent a shiver racing down Sawyer's spine.
The bone wand stood in harsh contrast to the vibrant red of her cascading curls, a flame of life beside a symbol of death. Her fingers wrapped around it with ease, like the weapon belonged in her hand. Like it had always belonged there.
"I could simply kill you," she said, her voice dropping into a calm, clinical register that was somehow more terrifying than shouting. Her eyes were steady. Her tone didn't waver. It was almost… casual. "Snuff you out. Extinguish that little flickering flame you call a life."
She raised the wand, leveling it with his chest. The tip began to glow—an eerie, pulsing red that grew steadily brighter, like blood heating to a boil. "And then I'd resurrect your lifeless husk," she continued, as if describing the weather. "Interrogate your reanimated corpse for the key."
The threat wasn't empty. It didn't feel like an exaggeration or the words of a madwoman. It felt real. Tangible. The hallway seemed to tighten around Sawyer, the air thickening with dread. His body moved before his brain could catch up.
He took a step back. Then another.
His sneakers squeaked faintly on the linoleum floor, each step clumsy, like he had forgotten how to move. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out everything but the harsh rasp of his own breathing and the subtle hum of the wand's glowing tip. The red light was growing stronger, sharper—like it was preparing to cut.
And yet… she didn't advance. She just stood there, watching him. Measuring him.
In that moment, something inside him knew—a primal, wordless certainty that sat heavy in his chest. This wasn't some hallucination. This wasn't a dream that could be shaken off. The woman before him could kill him. Just like that. She wouldn't flinch. She wouldn't regret it.
And worse… she might not even need a reason.
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Notes:Hospital Administration would like to remind all staff and patients that while personal style is encouraged, attracting and commanding otherworldly hounds is strictly against protocol. Please see policy appendix 3.B for further details.