Content Warning: Mentions of suicide, mass suicide

I am frozen. All my worst fears about The Other have come to pass in mere seconds.

"Did it get you? Are you one of The Maligned now?" I ask.

My phone vibrates on the hardwood floor behind me as a reminder that there is someone waiting just on the road for us.

"The Other are immune," The Other says, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "We have very strong digestive enzymes."

"Jesus fuck," I put my hand over my mouth to prevent myself from being sick.

Chloe, however, is moving towards the coat rack hanging by the door. There are some forgotten mismatched items hanging there and she quickly selects some. I don't have time to call out before she's stepped beyond the threshold and is directly shoving them into The Other's hands.

"Put these on. We don't have time to get you cleaned up here," she says, shoving a hat over The Other's head.

She helps him shrug into a long camel hair coat, buttoning it up. She then wraps a scarf around The Other's neck that covers half his face, using one end to quickly wipe off his cheeks and around his eyes before tucking it inside the lapels of the coat. Apart from the splatter on his shoes and knees, you wouldn't know that he was covered in gore.

"Pick up your phone. Let them know we're coming!" Chloe hisses at me.

I stare at her. "Did you not just see what he did?!"

Chloe looks back at The Other, then at me again. "He protected us."

"He ate a human! We don't even know if that person was Maligned!" I protest, but Chloe marches past me to pick up my phone from the floor and answer it.

"We'll be right there. Thank you. Just getting our coats now. Yes, yes, there are three of us."

I stare at The Other, who hasn't moved at all. He is wrapped up snugly now, and looks rather ridiculous. With only his soft brown eyes peeking out above a bright pink scarf, he could look human almost.

But he is not.

He just ate someone.

"Move it! Move!" Chloe orders, pushing on my shoulders.

I have at least enough sense to also grab a coat from the hangers as I'm steered through the door. Just a black parka jacket, but at least it'll be warm.

Chloe lets go of me once we're outside and shuts the door to the meeting hall behind her. I don't take my eyes off The Other, but he makes no sudden movements. If I didn't know better, I'd say that he was too full to move. His blinking seems lazy.

Chloe marches down the path towards the road and I wait for The Other to follow her before I do so. Only once he's moving again do I see that he has a slight limp. His hip is twisting awkwardly, even as he tries to walk upright.

The megacab is luckily not a brand new luxury car. I'm glad, as no doubt we're about to traipse in all manner of gore on the bottom of our shoes. Chloe grabs The Other's arm and guides him to the backseat, behind the driver. That's probably for the best, he won't be seen there.

She gives me a very pointed look to tell me that I'm not going to be allowed to call shotgun.

"Yardley Wood Bus Depot?" The cab driver asks me, once I slide in.

"Y-Yeah," I confirm, reaching to put my seatbelt on.

"Your friend looks hurt. You sure you don't want dropping at the hospital? I can drop you off at Heartlands or the QE from here. It's no trouble," the driver says, looking in his rearview mirror at The Other.

"No, the bus depot is fine. Thanks," I say.

When the driver pulls away, a beeping fills the car.

"Can your mate put his seatbelt on?"

I look over at The Other, who looks perplexed at the suggestion. I take a deep, steadying breath, then reach over to grab the seatbelt. As I draw it across The Other's body, I can hear the sound of The Other taking a deep breath of his own, his lungs filling.

"Are you sniffing me?" I whisper, clicking the seatbelt into place.

"You smell like fear, love," The Other replies, voice too loud for the driver not to overhear. "It's intoxicating."

I've never known an indicator sound so loud.

"Has work been good today?" Chloe breaks the silence and draws the driver into conversation away from us.

I'm grateful to her, because honestly, I'm about thirty seconds from throwing myself from this cab and taking my chances with The Maligned.

"Look, you can't say stuff that lets people know what you are," I hiss, turning to The Other so it can see my expression. "And you can't just eat people either!"

"I will watch what I say, love," The Other shrugs, finally getting the hint to match my low tone. "But when it comes to diet, I am what I am. While The Maligned were once human, there is no way back for them once they are like that. What does it matter if I eat them?"

"There's a weird smell. Do you mind if I open a window?" The driver asks.

I glance at Chloe. The weird smell is probably blood from The Other.

"Yeah, sure," she says quickly and tries to draw the driver into a conversation about the weather.

"It matters to me," I whisper hurriedly. "You can't eat people. That makes you no better than The Maligned."

"Did you hear about that tower block last night?"

I abandon reasoning with The Other as the driver glances at me in the rearview mirror.

"What happened?" Chloe asks.

I am cold.

The Other is watching the driver intently.

"Whole load of people went up to the top floor and jumped off. Never heard of anything like it. The police are absolutely swarming up on the Heath right now."

Chloe looks shocked, but she turns to look at me to confirm if it has anything to do with us. I incline my head a little.

"That's awful," she says after a moment. "What do they think caused it?"

"I don't know, but I reckon it was one of those sound attacks. You know the ones they're developing in Russia. Psychological warfare that drives people to do weird shit like that."

The driver indicates to pull over.

Thank god we're almost at the bus depot.

"Just here alright?"

"Yeah, fine," I say, undoing my seatbelt as the driver ends the journey. "Thanks."

"No problem. Have a nice day. It's already been a weird enough one."

I don't respond.

He drives away, leaving me, The Other, and Chloe all stood beside the bus stop. The Other doesn't look too concerned, looking around and taking in the new landscape.

"All those people...?"

"There's nothing we can do. We have to get into town," I say, trying to force my own courage to stick.

"What number do we need?" The Other asks, glancing at the timetable.

I scowl at him. "Why is it you know how buses work, but you can't manage your own seatbelt?"

"Maybe there are buses in The Dark Dimension?" The Other says, eyes crinkling with a smile. When I don't smile back, he clears his throat. "I know what a seatbelt is. I just didn't have a chance to put it on before you started to help, so I thought why not?"

I want to throttle him.

"This one will do," Chloe says, pointing to the distance where a bus is coming round the roundabout. "The timetables are always wrong anyway."

And so the three of us get on the bus, sitting on the back seat with The Other and the weight of the world sat between us.