Amaris smells brick, and ozone, and a faint tingle of blood and detergent and sharp, sharp acid. 

And she isn’t quite so distracted by panic that she can’t also smell opportunity.

She walks, calmly, over to the fire door, and she hesitates there, for a moment -

“Amaris! Could you help me, over here, this guy really isn’t calming down and you might be a friendlier face -“

- he knows her name -

She kicks open the fire door, and she runs down its associated alleyway.

At the end of the alleyway, the concrete stops, and there’s a steep, dirt-encrusted slope down into the nearby - construction site? Archaeological dig? 

There’s a woman, at the bottom, with cracks running down her otherwise flawless skin, sitting perfectly still in a cross legged position. Her dress of emerald scales is similarly motionless; the effect is of a statue, rather than a person. 

- no time to go around -

She skids down the slope, pointedly avoids looking at the Woman in Green directly, goes around her -  noting that this sparks no reaction whatsoever - and hears the back door to the laundromat slam open.

Zeke is - fast. She only has a few seconds. Run, hide, stand perfectly still while she panics and come up with some complicated delaying tactic for when he catches up to her and then - people on a couch, television wires writhing around the back of their head, watching something beautiful and grand - a woman shouting ‘give it back!’ like a drug addict deprived of her fix -

She can’t run; she’s still so, so tired, and the dizziness from blood loss isn’t helping, and neither is the way she’s breathing.

(bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz -)

She can’t just stand here and panic.

(bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz -)

So she hides. Easy enough, to dart over to the nearby loader and open the -

No dice. It’s locked.

Zeke seems to have made it to the top of the slope. He hasn’t spotted her, yet, but it’s only a matter of time -

“Amaris! Amaris! It’s - I know this is confusing, but I can explain, please, just come back up here -“

- she darts behind the loader, just in the nick of time.

Okay. Breathe. Breathe in, breathe out; breathe in, breathe out...

She’ll head for the offices - she’ll be in the open, for some of the trip there, but she can probably avoid being seen, and they’ll supply plenty of places to hide.

“Amaris, construction sites are dangerous - I’m not going to hurt you, the Green Lady isn’t going to hurt you, she likes you, she loves everyone but you’re her friend -“

He isn’t really angling for plausibility here, is he.

She brushes her hand against the side of the loader - it’s been flickering, flickering, flickering, flickering, but she’s been ignoring it - 

It’s daylight, for a moment - hazy, dim, thin - and then she startles back, and it’s once again nighttime. 

It’d been her injured hand, the one that’d been pierced by the - tendril - that touched the truck.

She takes a moment to peel back one of her bandages, in a moment of morbid curiosity -

Green. Green light, like there’s a candle in the wound.

She shouldn’t be surprised, should she.

No time to think, no time for the word ‘infection’, no time to panic and feel like worms - flat, with rings of teeth, thin as a needle and just as sharp - are traipsing around her insides and taking delicate little bites as they squirm into her flesh -

She makes a run for it, not bothering to drift down from her tiptoes - she’s always run better like that, however much people made fun of her for it - each step careful and fast and precise - 

He’s faster than her, even still.

Must’ve gotten down the slope, while she was busy panicking over potential parasitism, without a sound. 

He reaches her, grabs her hand, and tugs her towards him, with the hand that isn’t holding a bloodstained shovel.

no no no no no no NO 

It takes him about two seconds to scoop her up into a sort of bridal carry, with her hands and legs both constrained from substantial movement - all the while still holding the shovel.

He lets out a sigh of relief.

”Okay, great, I didn’t - totally screw up everything, again - you okay?”

She vividly imagines responding to that question with rapid-fire series of invectives - why had she used up the last of her verbal energy saying ‘the Botfly’, like it was some sort of profound -

Not a productive line of thought -

She shakes her head, slowly, and makes a show of wincing.

“- gonna have to deal with that back in the laundromat, sorry.”

(He does shift positions a bit - just a little less restraining, although she’s still pretty thoroughly pinned.)

Crazy plans, ridiculous plans, seize on every line of thought and follow it to its conclusion, anything that doesn’t end up with her dead or attached to an extradimensional parasite -

She fiddles with her gauze, one hand just barely in reach of the other -

The gauze slips off, just a little. Green light - brighter now, if still gentle, and lit with a searing, burning sense of not-quite-right - illuminates Zeke’s chest. 

It reveals excellent abdominal muscles.

And a hole in the ground below them, surrounded by jagged, frosted ice, seemingly leading off into the infinite void. That too.

”What the -“

And then he’s falling - the shovel goes down into the void, one arm clings to Amaris, one arm scrambles for purchase and then heaves him up - 

- that was so much less pointless than she expected -

Is this a good time to use her increased freedom of movement to elbow him in the neck, push down on him with her legs, and leap over to the side?

Let’s find out.

He coughs, looses his grip on the side and on her -

Falls.

She scrambles for purchase on the edge, for a few moments -

And then she, too, falls.

She lands.

Earlier.

Not by a large margin. She can hear herself kick open the fire door, a few seconds after landing, hear the alarm start blaring -

‘Do not cross own history’, she remembers reading.

So she - doesn’t run, quite, she’s sort of worn out her ability to run for the next little while - but she briskly walks behind cover, and then commences skedaddling towards the construction site’s offices, using assorted piles of miscellany as cover.

She looks at them, as she passes by - 

Are those body bags?

Those. Those are definitely body bags.

(Flicker flicker flicker flicker -)

“Amaris! Amaris! It’s - I know this is confusing, but I can explain, please, just come back up here -“

What did they find, here? What did they discover? It - it had to be connected to the Woman in Green, had to be connected to the laundromat - 

And were those gas masks?

... she plucks one up, out of an abundant sense of caution, and continues on.

“Amaris, construction sites are dangerous - I’m not going to hurt you, the Green Lady isn’t going to hurt you, she likes you, she loves everyone but you’re her friend -“

She experiences the most justified case of deja vu to ever occur.

And she continues creeping, stealthily, in the dark, towards the offices.

”Okay, great, I didn’t - totally screw up -“