Zombies Vs Aliens: Respawn

Chapter 20.2

I didn't answer Princess, not out right. Instead, I pulled the flannel off my shoulder. Since my return, I've only looked in a mirror once. That was enough to conclude I didn't want to look all that often. I knew where the holes were, where skin didn't finish reforming, but I didn't search for scars. I ignored the biggest clues I had to my own death. There it was, a ridged patch of flesh, a deep lavender that looked dark against my ashen skin. To add insult to injury, there was an arrow drawn in black marker pointing to it.

I turned back to my personal pain in the ass. Princess whistled innocently, painting her fingernails with Not-So-Quiet Riot. There was a sharpie tucked behind her ear.

"Who are you?"

Princess finished the nails on her right hand, carefully screwing the cap back on the bottle before she joined me on the bed. She sat with her arms wrapped around her calves, her wet nails spread out to dry, as if we were having girl time. If she asked me 'who I wanted her to be' I would break her nose. The woman missed nothing, reading the impatience on my face with a faint smirk on her lips.

"Olivia Greaves, PhD. candidate for field research of infectious diseases."

I stared at her, from the tips of her hot pink pixie haircut to her elaborately painted toe nails. She'd acquired a fresh t-shirt with an ACDC logo on the front. It fell to her thighs, nearly covering her plaid skirt, softening her hard edges. Likely the same gentlemen who loaned me his spare flannel. Since Wolf Girl relieved her of the other one, both safety pins were gone from her ear lobes. Kohl still lined her eyes, but her lips were a pale pink. The disguise was there, still hiding her, but there were enough cracks to glimpse who she used to be. It didn't matter, Olivia Greaves would always be Princess to me.

"Who are you?" she asked, throwing the question back at me.

I paused, reliving those awful flashes of memory. No, not all were awful. It began with a lovely girl, on a lovely day in sunshine. She was important to me, I could sense that, but who she was, what she was to me, and who I was dangled out of my reach. I could feel the information now, locked away inside, but I couldn't get to it. Not sure I wanted to get to it. Remembering the woman in blue was painful, more painful than my death.

"I don't remember," I sighed, frustrated.

"It will come back in time," she said. There it was again, the feeling she sat on a mine field of information. I wondered if that were true, or if she was really full of bullshit. "Wolf Girl, Fred, the others, what happened!"

"Easy there Ripley, your foundlings are recuperating. Fred passed out about five minutes after you did. Kind of surprised he lasted as long as he did." Princess frowned. "He's like Ginger in a lot of ways."

That was a shuddersome thought. "I can't believe all we needed was sleep." I rubbed at my eyes, expecting the normal crusties. I never thought I would miss eye snot but it was another thing that reminded me how far I was from the girl who died in that stairwell.

Princess clicked her tongue against her teeth. "It's not just sleep. These bodies need rest to catalyze change, to initiate memory recall, to increase regenerative capability, and to strengthen cell structure. You kept putting it off to the point your body demanded it, same as the other idiot. Your soldier friend wizened up and took a couple cat naps on his own." She pointed at me. "Remember to take regular naps so you don't pass out again like a big pussy."

Wow, for a minute there, she actually sounded somewhat professional. "Wolf Girl's okay?" She was the one I was truly worried about.

"I checked her out myself, after she stopped snapping at my fingers. She nearly bit off my index finger you know, little savage. She had a few parasites nesting in her guts, and severe malnourishment, so her bone density was a bit difficult to judge without proper equipment, but with a whole lot of TLC and some multivitamins, I bet she'll start looking like a seventeen year old soon enough."