I didn't scream.
I wanted to... really, really, wanted to scream, my throat nearly split trying to swallow the sound, but I didn't scream.
My brain just… froze. Like all the little workers up there just decided to take a coffee break when I needed them most.
A gun. A real one. Pressed cold and firm against the side of my head, like some sick welcome-home gift.
I held my breath, too scared to even blink.
Then...
"Stand down. She's the crazy girl."
The voice came from the couch. Raspy, low, and familiar in a way that shouldn't have been comforting but kind of was. I snapped my eyes toward him, the injured man, still half-laid out on my couch, looking pale and half-dead, but alive. Very much alive.
My couch was drenched in blood. Again.
And my coffee table, oh God, was covered in what looked like actual medical equipment. Scissors. Gauze. A fucking needle. Where the hell did this stuff come from?
The pressure at my temple eased, and I turned slowly, scared out of my mind but needing to see who the hell just almost gave me a heart attack.
And there he was.
The gunman.
He was… younger than I expected. Like, younger-than-me young. Maybe early twenties if I squinted past the attempt at facial hair and the oversized leather jacket. He had on sunglasses, indoors, at night, and his scowl was so deep it almost swallowed his nose.
He was trying so hard to look like a badass. Really. I could practically hear the Linkin Park soundtrack playing in his head.
But honestly?
He looked more like someone who'd aggressively gatekeep vape flavors at a mall kiosk.
Before I could even ask what in the fresh hell was going on, another voice called out from the kitchen.
"We're out of cereal and toilet paper," the voice said, casual. Like it was just a regular Wednesday.
What? Out of cereal? Toilet paper? Mine?
And then he appeared.
Tall. Broad. A little pot bellied. Dressed like a man who used to be in the mafia but retired to teach woodworking and menace small towns.
His coat was long and white, a little stained, like he wanted to look mysterious, and his gloves were latex, soaked in a substance I couldn't decipher yet. He had a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, the smoke curling upward as he stepped into the room like he owned the damn place.
He paused when he saw me. Smiled, slow and crooked. The kind of smile that made me deeply uncomfortable for reasons I didn't want to unpack.
"Welcome home, sweetheart," he said, voice gravelly and rich. "Hope you don't mind a little mess."
My jaw unhinged. Just… what the actual fuck.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then said the only thing that felt appropriate.
"…You finished my cereal?"
Silence.
"Are you people insane?" I asked again, this time louder. Because once clearly wasn't enough.
The man with the cigarette, Cereal thief, burst into laughter. Like actual, belly-deep, cartoon-villain laughter, which immediately made my brain short-circuit harder.
He looked over at the human mall cop still standing way too close to me. "Kyle," he said between wheezes, smoke puffing out of his nose like a dragon on a lunch break. "Did you pull a gun on the lovely lady?"
Kyle, of course his name was Kyle, crossed his arms and puffed up like a defensive cat. "I was just being careful. She came in loud."
"I said hello," I hissed. "I was polite."
The man barked out another laugh, waving his cigarette in the air like a conductor leading a symphony of absolute madness. "Not very gentlemanly, Kyle. I can bet my ass women ghost you. You've got the courtship skills of a haunted mannequin."
Kyle muttered something under his breath that sounded like "shut up, old man," and aggressively put his gun away like a toddler throwing a toy.
That's when the cigarette man turned back to me, his smile stretching impossibly wider like this was a meet-and-greet at a cult mixer.
He walked toward me, arms wide like he was about to shake my hands, or offer me a free trial of hell. "Forgive the theatrics, sweetheart. Name's Rocco. Family-friendly doctor. Licensed-ish. Depends on the state."
He extended a hand toward me.
I stared at it.
The glove was slick. Red-brown. Stained with something that looked an awful lot like...
"Is that blood?" I choked out, backing up so hard I almost tripped over my own feet. "Is that—is that blood on your hand?!"
He paused, glanced at it like he genuinely hadn't noticed, then wiped it on his coat with a shrug that told me yes, he's seen bodies before, and no, this wasn't even in his top ten weird nights.
"Ah. Right. My bad," he said cheerfully. "Bit messy in the operating room. Sorry for scaring you, princess. Didn't mean to. You know how it is—guy bleeds out on your couch, next thing you know you're wrist-deep in his spleen, yelling at a kid to hold the lamp steady."
My lamp.
"I'm not a kid," Kyle snapped.
"You're wearing sunglasses indoors, buddy. You're lucky she didn't smack you on sight."
I stood frozen, somewhere between a mental breakdown and a stroke. Because what was I even supposed to say?
I looked before me again.
There was a couch full of bloody gauze and surgical tools. A living room that looked like a horror movie set. The guy still bleeding out like a gutted fish. Kyle with his off-brand gangster aesthetic. And Rocco, a mafia Santa Claus dipped in a mixture of motor oil and iodine, casually chain-smoking while joking about spleens.
And...
I blinked again, hard.
"You guys ate my cereal," I whispered, voice cracking.
Silence.
Rocco turned to the kitchen, squinting. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. It was the only edible thing in there. Kyle said the rest of your pantry looked like the inside of a sad vending machine."
"It was cinnamon crunch," I croaked. "My comfort cereal. My—my happy place."
Rocco blinked.
Then, softly: "…Shit."
I could feel the spiral beginning. The tiny storm of thoughts crashing through my skull like a wrecking ball in a hoarder's house. What had I done? What had I let in?
I brought home a bleeding stranger like a damn lost cat and now I had three—three!—probably dangerous men casually holding a hospital cosplay in my living room. And now my cereal was gone. And my toilet paper too!
I wrapped my arms around myself and whispered, "I think I need to sit down."
"You can't," Kyle said, deadpan. "That chair's holding a kidney."
"What?!"
Rocco gave him a look. "It's a bag of saline, Kyle."
"Still gross!"
I dropped to the floor and just… sat. Right there. In the middle of my chaos-scented, blood-splattered, cereal-less apartment.
What even was my life.
And then...
"SHUT. UP."
The voice sliced through the noise like a machete to a cake.