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Warnings: mild horror elements (ER scenario involves life and death) Author's note: Chapter 2 of Nazely's regular evening on the PTMC Night Shift. The witching hour has struck, and Nazely finds herself quickly undone by an encounter with a beautiful young woman. WC: 3,247 Read or comment on AO3

Chapter 2: Sophie & the Horsemen

Nazely knocked a kink out of her neck as she wove her way through chairs behind Shen. It was almost one in the morning and the witching hour was settling around the Emergency Department like an orange cat curling around its prey. But then the curiosity that first got her into medicine pulled her attention away from her attending. She peeled away from Shen’s lead, saying to herself, “Is that the Thinking Chair?” She walked toward a petite, young, blonde woman with pink and blue streaks in her hair sitting in an overstuffed low-slung red armchair amid the shit plastic and metal chairs in the waiting room.

“Doctor?” The young woman asked, sitting up with an expectant smile. She had that artistic look that spoke to someone with a confident and unusual style. Her pants were denim blue corduroy and she wore a felted white vest over bare skin. Nazely’s gaze brushed along the exposed skin–no visible injuries. She was missing her left incisor–possibly the presenting issue–but somehow the gap made her more charming. Nazely reached out to introduce herself with a handshake.

“Yes, I’m Dr Nazely Toomarian—did you bring this chair with you—? What the…”

“Oh! Shucks!” The young woman said, snatching her hand back, “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry!”

“Woah,” Dr John Shen said from a few paces off, turning back to see Nazely. He put out hands, warning others in the waiting room to stay where they were. Then he took a brisk jog over to Nazely, looking her up and down in surprise, “You’re a muppet!”

“What?” Said Nazely Muppet, holding out felt hands in front of her that appeared to be attached to stiff guide wires. “I’m a Muppet?”

“A puppet,” the woman apologized, “Muppets™ are trademarked. Gosh, I didn’t think it would work on people.”

“We need a quarantine,” Shen said, snapping into action. He waved away the persistently curious onlookers, squaring himself between Nazely Muppet™ and the young woman. “Ma’am,” he addressed Sophie, standing just out of her reach, “if Dr Toomarian assists you will that further degrade her reality?’

“What?” Asked the woman.

“Will I become more puppety?” Nazely Puppet asked, adrenaline pushing away panic as she took in her new body. The ends of the guide wires were just out of focus and if she tried to follow them with her fingers they weren’t there at all—like an irritating loose hair tickling her rib. She only had four fingers, but had no apparent limitation in dexterity.

“Oh, no I don’t think so. Everything I touch turns to felt,” the young woman shrugged, speaking with a relaxed slur that Nazely took in as both a potential symptom or something else distressingly attractive. “I’m Sophie by the way. Real sorry about that.”

“Okay, Sophie,” Nazely took a deep breath, reaching her hand back out to help Sophie out of the low-slung chair, “you can follow me. Let’s find you a room.”

Nazely did not become more puppety after touching Sophie again, but she also didn’t turn back to her usual flesh and blood. She couldn’t see her own legs unless she concentrated, and then they moved underneath her in a goofy clip-clop of sneakers and scrubs. She lead Sophie to the psych hold as a temporary quarantine and Shen pulled Ellis onto the case.

“It does not appear to be contagious,” Nazely was explaining to Ellis, “see?” Dr Ellis leapt backward before Nazely could touch her, but instead Nazely just picked up a pen she had been experimenting with. She gave the pen a deft twirl before she handed it to Sophie but nothing happened.

“What—”

“Oh, only certain things turn into felt,” Sophie apologized, as if she had forgotten to go over the rules in the two minutes that they’d known each other. “I think it has to be over a certain size maybe? I turn most of my food into felt but it still tastes the same. It’s terrible when it becomes sentient, though.”

“That’s… none of this makes sense,” Dr Ellis said. “Sophie, have you tried wearing gloves?”

“Um, it turns them into these cute Minnie Mouse gloves, but I still turn everything into felt. I think it’s only in the hands though. Like, when I sat in the waiting chair nothing happened until my hands touched it.” She had a bad habit of gesturing with her hands and patted her hand for emphasis on the gurney as she spoke. Dr Ellis and Dr Nazely Puppet Toomarian watched as nothing happened to the gurney bed.

“Why didn’t the bed change?” Ellis asked.

“Um,” Guessed Sophie, “Because it’s not that cute? My bed at home is felt now. Some things aren’t worth the magic.”

Nazely felt a slight thrill that the magic in Sophie’s fingers considered her better than a hospital bed. But she cleared her throat to stay on task.

“Sophie,” she said, “if you promise not to leave the room we don’t have to lock the door, okay? But we will have individuals monitoring the situation and we need you to stay here. We prefer to not put patients on involuntary hold if we don’t have to.”

“I won’t go anywhere,” Sophie promised, green eyes locking with Nazely. She had dark eyebrows and the worry on her forehead smoothed when she smiled at her. “I came to you, remember? I want to be… safe. I don’t know if I even need a cure.”

The press of the witching hour closed around them and there were raised voices in the waiting room toward the front of the hospital. But Ellis, who had been night shift her entire post-grad, just shook her head, the golden hair cuffs in her locs clicking pleasantly. The moon was waning gibbous, Samhain was far away, it was likely just a typical shouting contest from the frustrated patients waiting to be seen. The doctors’ attention would remain on Sophie.

“How about Dr Toomarian brings some objects to better understand your condition,” Ellis continued to speak to Sophie in her easy low voice, “She is already… inoculated… against your particular… gift.” Nazely didn’t mind this assignment.

The sound of arguing got louder and there were hurried footsteps as nurses and doctors ran to the front. But no code was called.

“What’s going on?” Ellis finally asked with a raised eyebrow, leaning out the psych door to catch Marco as he jogged past them, curls bouncing.

“Abbot is staring down the four horsemen of the apocalypse,” he said with a broad grin.

“This is not Philadelphia!” They could hear Jack Abbot shouting from the front. “You’re five hours west!” Despite the rasp in his voice Nazely had never heard him yell more than an command for a crash cart in the ED. Shen had guessed Abbot either did scream therapy or was part of an underground death metal band to explain his hoarse voice. Both theories were sound, there was nothing quavering in Dr Abbot’s voice as he shouted now. “Go bother those knuckleheads! Or New Jersey! I hear Hoboken is great this time of year—!” A sound of trumpeting cut him off.

“Maybe we should check this out,” Ellis said to Nazely. “Um… you know what? Sophie, do you mind coming with us and just maybe, pocketing those things? Your talents might come in useful in a pinch with some apocalyptic beings.”

“Oh, sure! No problem, boss.” Sophie shoved her hands in her pockets, her wide eyes and curled shoulders making Nazely feel a throb of protectiveness. But she didn’t have time for foolish feelings.

Nazely Puppet made a harrumphing hop-walk to the crowd of people growing around the waiting room, muttering to herself in Armenian. Witching hour peaked just after three. This night was escalating too quickly.

She kept a felt hand on one of Sophie’s elbows, a hand up to make sure people stayed away from them as they split the crowd. Most of the waiting patients recognized Sophie and leapt out of her way as Nazely and she cut through the crowd, giving them quick access to the showdown.

Dr Abbot was standing, arms crossed, stance wide, having a heated discussion in a lowered voice with a much taller crowned skeleton that had to bend down to hear him. Three other skeletons, equally tall and naked save for the bone-and-thorn crowns sprouting from their heads, idled nearby. Nazely knew them all on sight.

“You don’t look too good,” Sophie said to Nazely Puppet. “You’re doing the thing where your face scrunches in like you got a fist for a mouth. Usually a bit of smoke starts happening next.”

“I do have a fist for a mouth,” Nazely said, untwisting the felt of her face. “Don’t worry about me, Sophie.”

“C’mon, man!” Dr Abbot was saying louder now, “You’re not even following your own cosmology.”

“The call has been made,” said the pale skeleton of imperialism, the leader who would be replaced by the antichrist, "we must make way for the one who will come after me."

“The antichrist can’t be born here,” Jack said with a laugh, “we’re a chronically under-funded taxpayer’s hospital! I didn’t think the antichrist dealt in humiliation.”

“𝕋ℍ𝕀𝕊 𝕄𝔸ℕ 𝕀𝕊 𝔾𝕀𝕍𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℙℝ𝔼𝔽𝔼ℝ𝔼ℕ𝕋𝕀𝔸𝕃 𝕋ℝ𝔼𝔸𝕋𝕄𝔼ℕ𝕋 𝕋𝕆 𝕋ℍ𝕆𝕊𝔼 𝕎ℍ𝕆 ℂ𝔸ℕ ℙ𝔸𝕐 𝕋ℍ𝔼 ℍ𝕀𝔾ℍ𝔼𝕊𝕋 𝕊𝕌𝕄,” announced one of the agitated crowned skeletons, straightening to its full height. There was a stain to his crown where the blood had not yet been bleached away.

Nazely guessed their horses must be in the parking lot, which was civil of them.

“𝕎ℍ𝕆 ℍ𝔼ℝ𝔼 ℍ𝔸𝕊 𝕎𝔸𝕀𝕋𝔼𝔻 𝕄𝕆ℝ𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔸ℕ 𝔽𝕆𝕌ℝ ℍ𝕆𝕌ℝ𝕊 𝕋𝕆 𝔹𝔼 𝕊𝔼𝔼ℕ?” Hands shot up in the waiting room.

“Hey! That is not how triage works,” Abbot turned his attention away from the imperial skeleton Conquest, “stop trying to start up nonsense, War.”

“Oh,” Ellis shook her head, leaning toward Nazely, “they have history. That’s the one who took his leg.” Then Ellis slid her eyes to the skeleton that had separated from the others and was bending down to listen to Lena, nodding gravely. “That one you probably already know, they are almost an honorary employee by now. But they took Abbot’s wife so they don’t talk much. Not since Lena became a death doula anyway. She’s our best negotiator.”

“I’ve met them,” Nazely said quietly to Ellis.

“H𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔬, N𝔞𝔷𝔢𝔩𝔶 T𝔬𝔬𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔫,” grinned a third crowned skeleton, rising up from a hunched posture to fix its hollow sockets on the puppet doctor. “W𝔢 𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔴 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔴𝔢𝔩𝔩 𝔦𝔫 𝔞𝔫𝔶 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔪. I 𝔠𝔞𝔫 𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔦𝔰𝔱 𝔦𝔫 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯... 𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔤𝔢,” The bones of this skeleton had black pitting. Sometimes known as Famine, sometimes as Pestilence, the horseman of Scarcity was turning its attention to Nazely upon hearing her voice.

“A𝔥, 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔪 𝔦𝔰 𝔫𝔢𝔴,” Scarcity inspected Nazely-puppet and made long, boney steps toward Sophie. The skeletons had esoteric crowns making it difficult to differentiate among them. Unless, like Jack and Nazely, you had already met all four horsemen before.

“Don’t worry, Sophie. They can’t hurt you,” Nazely said quietly pulling the girl away from Scarcity’s inspection to get closer to where Jack was talking to War and Conquest. “Do you trust me?”

Sophie was shivering but nodded bravely, her hand warm in Nazely’s. “Sure thing, boss,” she said shakily.

“War,” Nazely addressed the one trying to stir up the waiting crowd, “I’d like you to meet my dearest friend Sophie.” War hated friendship. Dr Nazely Toomarian extended Sophie’s hand out to shake hands with the grinning skeleton who leaned toward them greedily, eager for any chance to sow discord. But as soon as they touched, the six-foot skeletal horseman shrunk to a three-foot fat felt puppet.

“ᗯᕼᗩT!?” He shrieked in a higher-pitched voice. Upon seeing the transformation, Scarcity let out a horrible moaning keen of terror.

“Oh, that’s new,” Nazely said. He was adorable.

Scarcity and the dog-toy puppet of War recoiled behind Conquest. Dr Abbot held up conciliatory hands, asking Nazely to secure Sophie away from the frightened horsemen.

“Hey,” he turned his attention away and snapped his fingers at Death, who had been talking about a patient with Lena. Death was common enough in the ED that they could have had their own laminated badge, but the other three were the real trouble. “We don’t want to start a fight, right? You would all look pretty bad showing up to herald the endtimes as adorable plushies, right? But listen,” he leaned in to speak with Death and Conquest as if sharing a secret that the entire waiting room and gathered medical team were in on. “You just made a small tactical error. You picked the wrong hospital, guys. You want your antichrist born here? Among the rabble? The common people? All of us striving together with a common goal, spilling our blood and sweat and tears for what? For decency?” Scarcity moaned, clutching the soft plushie of War to its chest with a horrible squeak. “You want the bringer of the end of the world to be one of us? When there is a prestige Catholic hospital just six miles from here across the river? They delight in turning away our kind of folk. They can use rules and religion to deny lifesaving care. And the priests? C’mon,” he made a wanking off gesture.

“Oooh,” Conquest said in a low voice that made Nazely’s felt skin shiver. “We love priests. We go way back.”

“HOW DID YOU DO THIS TO WAR?” Death wanted to know. Until now, the skeleton had seemed the most disinterested of the group, preferring to catch-up with Lena while the other three got into trouble. But then the terrible grin of Death fixed itself on Jack Abbot. Nazely felt her shoulders cave into her little puppet body before reminding herself she was still strong, straightening up and lifting her chin. Death was fixated on Dr Abbot. “IS IT MORE OF YOUR LUCK, JACK?”

“Life is mysterious and full of wonder,” Nazely said flatly, inserting herself between the Senior Attending and the specter. “Do you want your antichrist to look like me?”

The skeletons gave a rattling shudder and War squeaked like a dog toy. This only alarmed the other horsemen more. Even Death grumbled in distaste.

“Direct your heralds elsewhere,” Jack said. “They won’t see you coming, and they will be ready to accept all your coins. PTMC won’t have you.”

“Not unless you squeak,” Sophie grinned. Nazely took her hand again, giving her a quick shake of the head not to interrupt.

“FINE,” Death decided, speaking as the true leader of the four. “BUT I AM TAKING ONE FOR THE ROAD.”

“Take Jasper, he’s been stuck here long enough,” Ellis offered. Death gave a long glance to a young man in chairs whose attention had turned to the ghost of Jasper floating in to see what the hubbub was about.

“I DON’T THINK I WILL,” Death said, stepping forward and reaching out to touch the young man who was breathing hard at seeing the translucent figure. He only understood the horsemen as a motorcycle gang and the eldritch horror had been an unwashed and unhoused figure. But he newly beheld the ghost. Nazely realized the IEIAIO song-spell had opened his third eye just a smidge, and he was panicking.

“No!” Jack reached forward but Sophie dove first, missing the skeletal finger of Death and wrapping her arms around the young man instead. He instantly turned into a puppet and began screaming.

Death gave a disgruntled sigh, recoiling.

“YUCK. COME ON, BOYS,” Death said. “TO THE HORSES.”

Nazely missed the awesome spectacle of the crowned skeletons mounting their flaming horses with lightening whips and thunderous cracks of hooves. She was trying to get the patient flat as he went into cardiac arrest. Sophie had almost been touched by Death to save this stranger.

“He’s crashing!” Abbot shouted and the team snapped back into action. It was faster to break into the AED kit on the wall than pull in a full crash cart, but when Nazely lined up the pads to the puppet-man’s chest and the machine beeped for clear, an eruption of rainbow pipe cleaners came out of the pads rather than electricity. The pipe cleaners rolled and scattered around the dirty floor of the waiting room and Nazely looked around herself in horror. Sophie had touched the AED—only for a moment, only to move it out of the way of the young man’s head, but enough to turn it into a felt-spitting machine rather than life-saving equipment.

“Fuck!” Nazely began to swear, but then the puppet-man shot up suddenly, his yarn-hair standing straight up and ping-pong eyeballs wide. He gasped, and looked around in wonder and threw up more rainbow pipe-cleaners and yarn. He was shivering and a little smoke came out of his hair.

“Sir? Hello? What is your name?” Nazely tried to ask, but he just coughed up more rainbow yarn.

Abbot and Ellis got him onto the gurney that had been wheeled in, rushing him back to one of the rooms. They held up a hand to signal that Nazely and Sophie should stay behind. Nazely was still kneeling on the linoleum floor, the crowded waiting room avoiding touching her or Sophie. The air seemed to have left the waiting room and the fluorescent lights hummed in the sudden silence.

“All right,” Chantanah clapped her hands, “back in line! Geraldo Diaz Rios?”

Nazely turned to Sophie, a roil of emotions churning through her from anger, to horror, to gratitude. Her stupid puppet face probably made every one of these emotions plain, and she wouldn’t be surprised if her own hair was standing on end, or smoke coming out of her ears. But she calmed herself. Mia would come in to clean up the AED kit and pipe cleaners soon. She stood up. She had to take care of her patient.

“With me. Now,” she said to Sophie, holding her hand out.

“I’m so sorry, boss,” Sophie said quietly, standing.

“I’m not your boss, I’m Dr Toomarian. Let’s get you somewhere safe, okay? We still haven’t figured all this out.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Sophie asked, wrapping her other hand around her midriff to clutch it close to her. Nazely’s felt hand dragged Sophie through the parted sea of the waiting room.

“He’s better now than he was a minute ago. But let’s not risk anything else.” When Nazely got Sophie to her cloistered cell she forcibly closed her puppet eyes and rubbed away the shock and anger that must be on her felt face. With a deep breath she reset. “Sophie, you were very brave just now. Thank you.”

“I only regret not turning one of their dumb stallions into a hobby horse,” Sophie said. “And also almost killing that guy, I regret that. Sorry again.”

“I’m going to get you something to eat from the cafeteria,” Nazely said, needing the walk to calm herself down after seeing the skeletal faces that had haunted her family and homeland. After almost losing a patient to the grinning face of Death. After feeling her heart wedge into her throat watching this strange, cursed young woman risk her life to save a stranger.

“Don’t get nothing bigger than a fist,” Sophie suggested, snapping her out of her momentary reverie. “This morning my apple and sandwich sang to me while I ate them. They were nice enough about it, but I don’t want to do that again if I don’t have to.”

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