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8.

    Within an incomprehensible collage of being carted, lifted, and prodded, Dani guessed her location when her skin touched the starchy sheets of a hospital bed. It was difficult to keep her eyes open without becoming dizzy. The voices of the hospital staff were muffled and distant. Something sharp pricked her left arm; the feeling of her blood leaving her body exacerbated her agonizing nausea. A bucket was held up to her face and she vomited involuntarily, it smelled like chocolate macarons, the only thing Dani had eaten all day courtesy of a batch the baker had fucked up. A cold sensation washed through her as the saline drip entered her veins. Intense pain radiated up and down her back. Her attention turned to the needle in her arm. It felt like the meat under her skin was too full. The feeling in her eyes diminished as each of her sense returned; once she was able to talk again her nurse brought in the doctor.

    “I think something is wrong with me.” Dani’s voice was small.

    “Maybe so.” The doctor was a petite, blonde woman in dark blue scrubs. She yawned as she looked over Dani's paperwork.

    She shined a light into both of Dani’s eyes. “Eye strain injury. Signs of dehydration and stress. EKG looks good.”

    “It started about a week ago. It’s just been getting wor-”

    “Should resolve in a few days.”

    The window for getting help was closing. “There’s something else, my eyes keep, like shaking, or something. It makes everything move and I get confused.”

    “Sit up.”

    Dani did as she was told despite the unbearable back pain. The doctor felt up her spine. A second later the inspection was over.

    “Possibly a head injury. Your intake said you hit a wall hard, but there’s no sign of a concussion. You should ice it and if the symptoms come back, give us a call. Your paperwork should have a phone number on it.”

    “Actually, the shaking started a week ago too. I noticed it happens when I get startled or stressed, so I was thinking it might be a heart condition.”

    “Like I said, your EKG looked good, no sign of heart attack or irregularity. Regardless, you’ll need to talk to your primary care about these symptoms. Could be lots of things. As far the tests we ran go, you’re healthy. It’s probably just shock. A more comprehensive look by your provider is the next step.” The doctor left.

    Dani thought to stop her but gave up. The nurse declared that they would be keeping her for a little while longer and injected something into the IV, but Dani wasn’t paying attention anymore. Whatever reprieve was supposed to come from the IV never did. She wondered if the nurse had just filled it with a placebo. Back when she started HRT, she became convinced that the pharmacy was just packaging up a bunch of castor oil and labeling it Estradiol Valerate to humor her. Roxy called her delusional. The memory reminded Dani that she would have to ask Roxy for help. Reluctantly, she opened their text thread.

    xX-Roxx-Xx: When are you going to be home?

    Even if the medicine wasn’t doing anything, seeing that her girlfriend wanted her home did more than enough to calm Dani down. She couldn’t remember the last time she had received a message like this. Maybe doing chores and staying out of Roxy’s way was working? Hopefully whatever goodwill she gained wouldn’t be wiped out by needing to be rescued again.

    Dani: Hey something happened at work and I’m in the ER.

    Dani: I’ll let you know what room once they tell me.

    The nurse came back in to check on her. Dani wondered if she could force her eyes to do the shaking thing again. Then her paperwork would prove she needed help. Anxiety seemed to cause it so, for the first time in her life, she tried to think about something stressful. Dani’s mind enacted her inevitable conversation with Roxy about how this ER visit was too expensive. All it did was make her sad. The nurse informed her she was good to go and went to print out her paperwork.

    Dani: I know this sucks, but I could probably use a ride home. They put something in my drip, and I feel really woozy.

    Dani: Roxx, are you there?

    Dani: Hey, they’re going to be releasing me soon, I could really use a ride.

    Dani: Hello?

    Roxy had her read receipts turned off. She had some lofty explanation about technology creating an unfair social expectation for everyone to be constantly available. It sounded good when she said it, but right now it made Dani feel like she was screaming into the void. As she changed out of the hospital gown into her clothing, she tried to not think about how many people saw her naked body. She called Roxy in the waiting area. After the tenth failed call, the ladies at the front desk noticed and asked if Dani needed them to call a cab. She thanked them but declined. Even though the hospital was just fifteen miles from her apartment, the cost would eat into the little savings that remained for finding out what was wrong. Plus, she still hoped Roxy would come to save her.

    A few more failed calls and the worried expressions of the intake ladies forced Dani to accept her fate. After pantomiming finally getting through to Roxy, she thanked them and headed outside to wait for her “ride”. Once they were out of view, she hurried over to the bus stop. Her horrific red eyes and the bruises covering her arms and neck began to heat up from the stares of the other people waiting for the bus. Quick glances became outright glares, chasing Dani away to the quiet neighborhood back roads. Fifteen miles was a long way to walk, but it was better than being on display for even a second longer.

    The sun had already set. Roxy had once explained to Dani that women talk on the phone whenever they’re forced to walk home alone. That way if they get abducted someone will know where they were and when it happened. Dani scrolled through her recent call log. In the last year, Roxy’s was the only name on it. She tried Sage’s number, and discovered she was blocked. All that remained were old friends. She hovered over a few of their numbers before admitting the anxiety of getting kidnapped was less scary than explaining what was going on to people who hadn’t heard from her in ages. A low battery alert popped up on the screen. At least being too poor to afford a car and taking so many long walks to clear her head had turned Dani into an expert navigator. Rustling leaves and the fluttering of bats on the hunt accompanied Dani as she trudged along the side streets of Northampton that eventually connected with the Connecticut River.

    Hours passed and Dani stopped near a park to check her progress. The text “3:04 A.M.” appeared as her phone turned on. A little anger accidentally got through as saw that her calls for help went ignored. Her feet ached, her throat called out for water, and she needed to pee. The map affirmed Dani’s ability to navigate the city she grew up in. Thirty more minutes left. As soon as she got all the information she needed, the battery died.

    Dani surveyed the park. A small playground was constructed in the center, built over the skeleton of her childhood wooden castle park. It was never quite as full as she remembered it being. Maybe kids didn’t like playgrounds anymore? Maybe they were similarly uninspired by this poor excuse for a replacement? Most days it was empty, which felt eerie. It was especially so tonight – quiet and still, save for a figure swaying on one of the two swings. Distortions filled her vision. Of course it would return now, hours after she needed it. The longer she stared at the swings, the more the park shuddered. Inexplicably, the figure didn’t move at all. They hung still in the center of Dani’s vision.

    Without breaking line of sight, Dani moved backwards down a side street. She rehearsed what to say if the situation turned dangerous. She could pretend to be homeless. The grime on her clothing and her sweat-matted hair certainly made her look the part. Worst case scenario she would push them and run. The woods were close by, and she could lose anyone in there. As soon as she made it out of view, she turned around and walked faster, stumbling more than a few times as she tried to place her feet on the shifting ground. Six more blocks until she reached the river. The vibrations weren’t bad enough to blind her yet. She pushed forward against the nausea that struck each time her feet found the earth.

    “Six.” She counted down as she reached the first intersection.

    “Help.” A low, raspy voice said to her left.

    Dani panicked and forced herself to defy the years of voice training. “Oh, hey dude. Sorry. I don’t have any money. I am just trying to get home I don’t want any trouble.” She faced the owner of the voice and took a step away, hoping they would think she was a man and leave her alone.

    They stood about a head shorter than Dani and wore an oversized black zip-up hoodie with the hood up. Even up close, the visual mess her twitching and shifting eyes made of the world had no effect on them. If she had any food left in her stomach she would have thrown it up. There would be no running away, now. All she could do was watch as they took off their hood. A strange electric, bubbling sensation filled the air, humming like the power cables sometimes did. The hum filled the air between them and something intangible forced Dani and her would be assailant to open their mouths.

    In unison, they spoke. “You are like me.”

    The voice from Dani’s throat wasn’t just hers. It felt wrong; the vibrations of multiple voices fought for space in the cavity of her mouth. The dissonance they made with each other tingled nerves in her throat that she didn’t know existed. As her brain raced to process the new sensation, she analyzed the face of the person before her. Despite the patchy, light brown facial hair and dirt, they looked feminine. Smudged eyeshadow surrounded their blood-colored eyes. Dani knew her. There was something off about the proportions. Her jaw seemed a little wider and her eyes looked bigger than they should. Dani wondered if she hid all the strange features of her face with photoshop like she did before FFS.

    The words they said together slithered around the inside of Dani’s body, constricting her stomach and heart. Her eyes would get worse. Roxy would abandon her. She wouldn’t have money to afford a place to stay. A vision of her in a dirty red jacket with an unshaved face flashed into her head. Never mind that she already had all her facial hair lasered off. Dani’s stare shifted from the girls face to her body. The left side of her hoodie looked odd. Like she was hiding something large underneath it. The arm hole hung limp, flapping in the wind.

    “Sister...” lylawhyla croaked.

    Dani cringed. “Don’t call me that.”

    This specter of everything Dani didn’t want to be let out a sob. Bile filled Dani’s mouth as she processed what she had just said to this poor girl. She debated resting a comforting hand on lylawhyla until whatever was hidden under her hoodie began to move. A sickening crack broke the awkward silence and, before she could think, her body forced her to flee. Dani bolted into the middle of the street, gambling that it was wide and flat enough that she wouldn’t trip. This had to be the right direction, but Dani had no time to confirm. Pops and moans echoed down the road behind her.

    Dani picked up speed and prayed. “God, please save me.” She felt silly as soon as she let the words leave her lips. Why would God bother with a sick tranny who couldn’t even care for her own kind? At least this time the voice was just hers. Pain radiated up her legs with each heavy step. The smell of the water reached her nose before she could make out the shape of the river. Dani hid herself behind a crop of bushes. After a few deep breaths, enough vision returned to confirm she wasn’t followed.

    The world became quiet again, except for the gentle waves of the river and the occasional shuffling of trees from her forest. Eventually, her aching, dehydrated body made her limp home; her jeans, soaked with piss, pulled at the skin on her thighs with each step. On the other side of her bridge, little red lights floated, motionless in the dark. A constellation of fungus Dani knew wasn’t supposed to be bioluminescent. An enormous shadow obscured some of the lights deeper into the woods. She turned away. The sooner she got home, the better.

    Minutes later she reached her street. A large moving truck was parked just outside the apartment complex. The last thing Dani needed was to meet new neighbors in this condition. She already struggled enough forcing herself to leave the apartment whenever she heard voices outside. At her front door, Dani felt around for her keys; they were missing. She knocked, quietly at first, and then frantically. The door vibrated side to side until suddenly it cracked. A scream echoed down the hallway.

    “What the fuck!” Roxy sounded disoriented.

    Dani limped into the living room mumbling apologies under her breath. The wall interrupted her body’s attempt to collapse. Her vision was still distorted, but she could make out the shape of Roxy hiding behind the couch. Between slurred excuses, Dani attempted to remove her soaked pants. Her leg got caught, and she finished falling to the floor.

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