I woke up to the sound of Stupid banging two ladles together.

  “WAKE UP, BEEG. YOU MIGHT BE DEAD~”

  I wasn’t.

  But I was close enough to consider it.

  My head throbbed, my joints ached, and the cursed mop bucket in the corner was whispering again.

  Probably just fever dreams.

  Probably.

  I didn’t remember falling asleep.

  But there I was in Aisle Three, leaning against a shelf—one of the errant tentacles holding me up.

  I patted it in gratitude.

  It patted me back.

  Which would have freaked me out any other day.

  Today…I just didn’t feel good.

  Vaarg stood at the end of the aisle, arms crossed, clipboard in hand.

  He didn’t speak - just judged.

  “I’m fine,” I croaked, blinking at him.

  “You look like spoiled jam,” he replied. “Take the day.”

  I straightened slightly. “Didn’t you say we don’t get sick days?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “No,” he responded, “I said I was the manager and could do whatever I wanted.”

  I sighed.

  Which turned into a cough.

  Which evolved into a hack.

  Which devolved into a full on fit - with me ending up sitting weakly on the floor.

  “Go home,” a voice hissed near my ear.

  In my fever haze, it sounded like a spider I once knew.

  Good thing that spider was gone. Stupided into oblivion.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I groaned, seeing myself to the door.

  “No, you will be back when there is no risk of you getting me sick, Beeg,” Vaarg called after me.

  Ah, that made more sense. He was worried about me getting him sick, not about my being sick.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  —-

  I didn’t make it far.

  The world was tilting sideways, and I was tilting with it.

  “Beeg?” Stupid asked, suddenly beside me. “You need escorting.”

  “I’m fine,” I muttered, staggering into a lamppost.

  She reached up on tiptoes to grab my hand.

  “Nope. Beeg eez squishy. Sick-squishy.”

  I didn’t have the strength to argue.

  “Don’t you live in the store?” I asked, half-delirious. I don’t think I had ever seen her outside.

  “Whaaat?” She looked up at me, horrified. “Stupid haz house! Stupid lives on Smarty Pants Boulevard!”

  She beamed.

  I sighed, coughing a little.

  We left at a slow walk, making our way through the non-human quarter. The clouds overhead made the world dark enough to match my mood. The streets glowed faintly beneath the blue lamplight, bits of glass set in the cobbles softly pulsing. A few trollish merchants invited us to their shops—probably to eat us—and a pair of tiny fairies zipped overhead, arguing about soup.

  “IT EEZ LEMON! THE SOUP! IT NEEDZ LEEEEMON!” she shrieked after the fairies.

  They glared at her as they left, offended at the interruption.

  “It does need lemon,” she whispered to me. “Lemon will be good for the sicks Beeg, too! We haz it tomorrow,” she finished happily.

  The rain hadn’t started yet, but the air smelled like it was thinking about it. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled like a sleepy yawn.

  It was quieter than usual.

  The kind of quiet that makes you realize how loud everything usually is.

  It was almost… peaceful.

  Until a flock of winged messenger toads dive-bombed us near the postbox.

  Stupid swatted one away with the ladle she still hadn’t put down. “Out of the wayz! Beeg eez INFIRM!”

  The toads croaked apologies and scattered.

  I blinked. “Did they just… apologize?”

  “Stupid eez scary when she needs to be,” she said proudly.

  I smiled a bit.

  I don’t think she realized how often that was.

  We kept walking. I leaned on her more than I wanted to admit.

  Which was horrible. Because she was short.

  She was practically a cane. A cane I had to hunch over to use.

  And she happily let me.

  We passed a small shop with glowing eggs in the window. A lizardman inside waved with three fingers and went back to polishing a wand made of what looked suspiciously like bone. A centaur nodded to us from his porch. A kobold offered us tea from a window box, and a housecat in a top hat glared at us from a rooftop for no discernible reason.

  I actually knew the cat as Mr. Mekopolis.

  Someone was singing an old sea shanty down by the canal—off-key, but with feeling.

  Horribly off-key. The notes echoed down the alley after us, discordant but oddly fitting.

  A roll of thunder washed over us just as we reached my building, the smell of rain turning from hint to reality.

  Stupid fished a key from somewhere in her vest and unlocked the door.

  “…How did you get my—?”

  She shoved me gently toward the bed.

  “No questions. Sick Beeg sleeps.”

  I collapsed gratefully.

  She pulled the covers over me with surprising care, then vanished under the bed like it was the most normal thing in the world.

  “Stupid watching for monsters,” her voice echoed from the shadows.

  I idly thought that she was probably one of the monsters people were scared to have under the bed.

  But not me.

  “Thanks,” I sighed.

  And then I was asleep.