The woman looked at him, her face going pale at how he had doubled over, and imagining what havoc the accident must be wreaking on his insides. The woman quickly gave him all the information he needed so he could clear her name of any wrongdoing and he could get to the hospital faster, and then Joseph headed over to the teenager--whose arm had been broken with the force at which Joseph had pushed him--and called an ambulance. 

Upon arrival, the EMTs ushered both Joseph and the runaway teen into the back and Joseph closed his eyes with a yawn while they frantically began checking both of their pulses and began grilling them for information about what had happened. After that, Joseph rested in the car, falling asleep. 

When he woke up, he was in the hospital, looking at a white ceiling. There was a doctor next to him, and he was greeted to a sound of a heart monitor consistently going beep… beep… beep…

“Morning sunshine,” the human doctor said. “You should make a full recovery thanks to your mutated genome. You had brief internal bleeding and some whiplash, but your internal bleeding ceased relatively quickly, and your faculties seem to be in order now. How do you feel?”

Joseph regarded the woman with a smile. “Well enough to return to work. What time is it?”

“Eight at night. Your shift is most likely over. You can go home.” the woman replied with a friendly, high-pitched voice. An orderly arrived in the doorway with a wheelchair, ready to wheel him out. “You just need to get dressed, sign a few things, and we can send you on your way.”

Joseph nodded wordlessly as the doctor placed a clipboard on his chest. He signed all papers and answered all questions and then headed to the bathroom with his uniform. He removed the hospital gown that he was clothed in--shrugging it off and to the side--and saw stitches lining his stomach. He smiled a little. Something about having stitches made him feel like he had acquired a badge of courage. Afterwards, he grabbed his uniform and got dressed quickly. He thought about using the toilet, due to his bladder feeling exorbitantly full, but there was something he disliked about using public restrooms, so he decided to use the one at home instead. When he left the bathroom, he headed over to the man with the wheelchair and sat down. The man wheeled him out of the building and onto the cement, where Joseph shot to his feet, ready to go home.. 

He was shocked to see Maru’Chi waiting there for him with the most irate face he had ever seen on the face of an Erualnite. “Come here.” she commanded. 

Joseph marched toward her wordlessly, standing by her side. For a moment, he found himself looking up at the sky and briefly admiring the bright, twinkling stars against the black blanket of night, but then, Maru’Chi seized his hand in hers and, in a flash of yellow light, the pair were teleported out of the parking lot and back to Maru’Chi’s house. 

Joseph cleared his throat. “I still had an hour left of work.” 

Maru’Chi crossed her stubby Erulanite arms as well as some of her tentacles. After a moment, she slapped him across the face with one of them. Joseph rubbed his cheek. “I am only doing what my job dictates I do.” 

Maru’Chi glowered. “When you finish your job, you still have to come home and guard our House. Who knows what might happen if you’re incapacitated and one of our enemies come to try and dispose of us.” 

That reminded Joseph of something--he remembered how Dawkins and some of his brothers would be having fun at the Everest that night. There was a blipping impulse buried in the back of his mind to ask Maru’Chi if he could go despite the fact that he wasn’t even very passionate about going and he knew it was a bad idea, considering she looked very angry. 

Joseph hung his head. “Very well. I will patrol the grounds, then.” 

Maru’Chi shook her head and hissed furiously, her slippery face creased with an angry frown, “Get inside and get some rest, you idiot.”

Joseph was about to protest--nothing sounded worse to him then having a good night’s work ripped away from him and being replaced with a night of rest--but Maru’Chi’s scowl told him that he should close his mouth before he got himself further into trouble. 

He followed her indoors and began marching to his room mechanically. Maru’Chi split ways with him at the entryway; she was having dinner with her family, and he realized she had to leave said dinner to go and collect him from the hospital. That’s probably why she’s so angry. 

Joseph strolled through the halls of House Go’Trin silently. He found himself gazing upon the decor; usually, he strolled past it and only recognized it as a blur in his consciousness, but now, it was at the forefront of his brain, and it actually seemed real and touchable rather than something simulated that he could ignore. 

He saw a decorative rug hanging from the wall that depicted the Erulanites descending down from the sky in their flying saucers and humans below them bowing to them and worshipping them. Each stitch seemed to have a thousand details in it, and each human was lovingly posed differently from the next and had different hair colors. Somehow, the artist had even managed to make the saucer look slick and slippery even though the rug was made out of rugged material.