The world is ending.

This is a problem.

It is specificially acutely a problem for Lauren because Toronto has been mostly overrun since this morning, she hasn't seen another living human in six hours, she is beginning to think about the pros and cons of preemptive suicide, and she cannot find a working car. She's not going to be precious about stealing from the dead, or even from the living who don't happen to be around; the moment she has functioning transportation, she is out of here. But she doesn't have functioning transportation and it's starting to look like she's not going to get it.

Well. Time to check the next street.

That car over there looks promising; there's a body slumped over the steering wheel, that'll mean that the keys might be with it. The window's broken, but it looks like whatever killed the person has already left. Or hidden.

If there's a body slumped over the steering wheel, the driver's seat is probably not going to be in good condition, but she can't really afford to be precious about that either. She double-checks the immediate vicinity for obviously out-of-place objects, and then, finding none, approaches the car and prods the former driver with the end of her crowbar.

The body doesn't move. Probably safe, then.

There's an obviously out of place object in the car, though. There's an empty drink in the cupholder, and the very same empty drink on the floor of the passenger seat.

She glares at the duplicate items, opens the driver's side door, and hooks the corpse's shirt with her crowbar to pull it out of the car. Not at all incidentally, this involves having a two-handed grip on her crowbar perfect for smashing horrible little aliens if one should suddenly pop out at her.

Gosh, it sure would be unfortunate if a horrible little alien popped out at her. Like that one.

(It was the second cup.)

Smash. One less horrible little alien for the world to worry about.

It is summarily smashed into black goo. Take that, alien mena-

Quick as lighting, a tendril snaps out from under the car, grabs her by the ankle, and yanks.

—she shoves herself backward as best she can, curling her legs up toward her, and brings the crowbar down flat on the ground over the tendril as hard as possible, since it's the only part of the new alien whose location she can clearly discern right away.

The tendril is smashed, and there's a soft hss of discomfort from under the car.

Usually, a Typhon retreats a bit after being hit. This one does not. A second tendril snaps forward and grabs and yanks the crowbar.

That is her crowbar, thank you very much—but she's hardly going to wrestle a Typhon over it—she lets go, scrambles back, heaves herself to her feet and bolts.

It turns out to be pretty fast, and thinks it should introduce itself to her other ankle. Hi, ankle. Yank.

Down she goes again, landing worse this time.

She pulls a mechanical pencil from its home tucked into an exterior pocket of her backpack and attempts to stab the Typhon with it. When you get right down to it, a good mechanical pencil is not that different from a really big needle.

The Typhon catches the hand armed with the mechanical pencil with perfect precision, then twists and adds pressure just so in order to oh-so-delicately break her wrist.

It's bigger than the little shapeshifting aliens, and clearly it's smarter, too. Though she might not be in a position to appreciate that right now.

She hisses with pain, but is undeterred from violent resistance. Kicking it away from her is probably not going to work but at this point it's hardly going to make things any worse.

It doesn't work.

The alien attempts to do the standard 'force mouth open, shove self down throat' trick that the aliens maybe shouldn't be participating in if they want a PG-13 rating.

If the alien has been paying any attention, it should not be surprised to learn that Lauren bites.

It's hard to read surprise on an alien monster, but it doesn't seem particularly surprised. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to win in a direct physical confrontation with a Typhon, even with biting.

It wins.

She was expecting it to be really unpleasant, but wow, it's really unpleasant. It's like—like hitting your funnybone, except everywhere, all at once, nonsense sensations shifting and twisting through her body, and then coming unmoored from her body entirely and existing in a space built out of random sensory noise without structure or location—

With what little control and awareness of her body she still has, she tries to grab the creature and drag it out of her, but it's a lost cause. Probably would be even if she had two functioning hands.

Yep.

The sensations magnify, and then it's probably started messing with her brain, because everything feels very funny and it suddenly becomes much harder to think.

Then darkness swallows her.

Her last thought is well that was awful but at least it's over now.

It is not over.

Consciousness returns, more suddenly than it left. She's standing in a different street in the same city, in the same clothes, in what feels like perfect condition. Her wrist isn't broken anymore.

Her backpack is missing, but she has a familiar crowbar in her hand.

"—there were useful things in that!" she says, annoyed, resettling her shoulders uncomfortably in the absence of the familiar weight. Where is she, how far from where she... did not apparently die... and why, that's also a very good question—

Wherever she is, it's not south of the university anymore. Not downtown at all, in fact. She doesn't recognize any of the available street signs. Looks vaguely suburban, maybe. How long was she out? And, again, why?

It's hard to tell, but if she guesses from the scenery, it doesn't look like she was out too long. Nothing's fallen to pieces or been overgrown. Things are a bit of a mess, on account of the alien invasion, but that's not really indicative of much.

As to why, there is no answer. She's alone in a street. With a crowbar.

...she eyes the crowbar. Having been eaten by a Typhon once, she's really not eager to do it again. But on the other hand, she still doesn't have an answer to the important questions about her continued existence, so maybe she shouldn't try to do anything about it just yet.

She looks around again. Useful objects? Lurking mimics?