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Katie knew this would happen. She knew that Mr. J wouldn't enjoy having her house on his island, let alone her face plastered on the side of her wonky house.
However, what she didn't expect was Schlatt to make her move out.
She tried to stay, of course, but her endless pleading, “Mr. Giggles, please let me stay, it's not even in the way of your land,” didn't work.
So here she was, again, a nomad. Her only place that could hardly be considered shelter was her KFC. Which was accompanied by her batshit crazy besties (on a good day), Żabka, which just so happened to be right next door.
Which brings us to now, where Katie is scavenging for food in the middle of the night, in the woods. Katie wouldn't say she's terrible at operating on her own. But it was nice when Schlatt would “allow” her to “borrow” some food from his chests.
She wasn’t scared, no, of course not. Just the constant moaning and groaning of the nearby zombies chasing her was a little unsettling. But it was fine, she just kept running, occasionally tripping over her own feet.
“Everything's fine, Katie…” She repeated over and over in her head as the sound of zombies chasing her increased more and more as she passed through the woods. But, to top it all off, just as she turned her head around to get a rough estimate of the number of zombies behind her, she heard a familiar hissing sound.
A creeper is standing right in front of her, getting ready to explode. With a yelp, Katie attempted to dodge the creeper, but just her luck, she fell. Into a ravine. In the middle of absolutely nowhere.
The fall wasn't pretty at all. She got knocked into a few protruding cliffs and got stabbed with a few pointed dripstones. And then she finally hit the floor, slowly losing consciousness.
With a pounding headache, she slowly regained her senses, feeling the cold, hard floor digging into her aching back.
With her vision spinning, she slowly dragged herself up into a seating position, giving herself a quick once-over to assess her injuries. However, her vision was blurry, and her entire body was shaking with adrenaline; all she could recognize was a few large blotches of blood scattered all across her pink suit.
With a pained moan, she hoisted herself up using the stone walls as a support. With a glance at her map, she recognized the food chain district. Making it her mission to get to her beloved KFC, and just lie down in her office without any more problems arising.
As she dragged herself out of the ravine, heaving for air and blissfully unaware of how extensive her injuries were, she finally made it back to the forest floor, collapsing with swimming vision and a churning stomach. She figured this might be a good time to check up on her injuries in detail again. As she lifted her head up to look at her body, she made eye contact with an enderman, suddenly enraged by the eye contact between the two.
With a sudden burst of adrenaline, she bolted away, knowing she didn't have the skills to protect herself at the moment. With a quick look at her map again, she began to head in the direction of her KFC.
But as usual, her day was poisoned with unfortunate events, and she tripped over a protruding root of a nearby tree, falling onto the floor. Lucky for her, the enderman finally gave up chasing her at that point. Leaving her heaving on the ground, fighting off nausea and the occasional blackout of her vision.
But she was Katie Motherfucking B, so she made it her goal, even if it killed her, to make it to KFC. So with a groan, she pushed herself up and slowly made it towards her red and white steps leading to her KFC.
Just as she almost made it to the top, she collapsed, the adrenaline finally exiting her body, leaving her shaking and in an intense pain she's never felt before. Grabbing her pounding skull and shutting her eyes to prevent her spinning vision, increasing her nausea. With a pained sob, her head hit the concrete at the top of her stairs, finally giving up and just allowing whatever cruel fate she was destined with to have its way.
Ewroon was attending to his Żabka, for once not spamming the chat liege wie. He hasn't heard from Katie in… a while. But he chose not to think too much about it, he knew his bestie would probably stop by eventually, or maybe she had some business to take care of at her “Therapee”.
As he was organizing his inventory and adjusting the prices of the goods he was selling, he heard loud, heavy breathing coming from KFC’s direction. But he just blamed it on the zombies. But, after a while, the noise became excessive and a little obnoxious. So Ewroon equipped his sword and decided to take matters into his own hands.
As he stepped out of Żabka, he heard a loud sob, then another, and then another. Stepping out of the fencing surrounding his store, he scanned the area searching for the mob that was making this noise.
And then he heard a thud, and the sobs stopped. Cautiously making his way towards KFC, he spotted a familiar pink suit, tainted with blood.
“Bestie? What are you doing?” He spoke as he approached her. As he closed the distance between the two, Ewroon began to make out several spots of blood tainting her suit. Kneeling next to her, he gave her a little judge, thinking this was another one of her April Fools pranks, or another scheme for a little bit of attention.
As soon as his hand made contact with her shoulder, Katie shot up from where she collapsed, looking terrified and pale.
“Kate, is everything all right?” He spoke, lowering his voice.
Katie opened her mouth, preparing herself for a loud greeting, preparing herself for another day filled with fooling around with her bestie. But all that came out was a shaky wheeze, and her face fell. She felt her chest tightening, her lungs not expanding as they should have been. Her vision began to spin, being the cherry on top of her excessive hyperventilating.
“Ewroon,” she sobbed, gasping for air and tugging on the front of her suit. “I d-don't know w-what happened.” She gasped once more, her hands scrambling for some support, and her stomach aggressively churning along with her painful injuries that seemed to take over her entire body.
Ewroon didn’t know what to do; he just watched for a few seconds, as his energetic, fearless bestie completely broke down in front of him, sobbing and covered in blood.
“Katie, Katie. What happened? Why are you covered in blood?” He questioned, cupping her face in both of his hands, feeling her endless stream of tears soaking his fingertips.
Katie didn’t reply, sobbing and hyperventilating, while rambling something about wanting to go home.
“Bestie,” He squeezed her face tighter to get her attention back on him. “Take a breath, you need to tell me what happened so I can help you, okay?” Ewroon demonstrated one dramatic breath, making sure Katie watches him the entire time he does this. Katie replies with a weak whine and a jerky nod as she attempts to mimic Ewroon's actions, her exhale wracked with another sob.
“Okay. Keep doing that. It's all going to be okay, right, Bestie?” he murmured, keeping a firm, grounding grip on her face.
As Katie continued to regain her breath, she pushed Ewroon’s hands off her face and wiped her tears, the action bringing intense pain to her cheek and her shoulder. Resulting in another whine and a sob to accompany that.
“Oh, Katie…” Ewroon mournfully murmured, smoothing down Katie’s hair, which was caked up with blood.
“Kate, do you think you could stand?” Ewroon asked cautiously, not wanting to spook her any more than she already was.
Katie sniffed and gave a jerky nod as she slowly hoisted herself up. Emitting small winces and whines throughout the process, while heavily clutching onto Ewroon's sleeve. He didn't mind. Once she got to her full height, Ewroon wrapped an arm around her shoulders and slowly guided her into the KFC, towards her office, and near her office chair, where the duo had many, many arguments, along with rekindling.
Ewroon slowly lowered Katie into the chair, being painfully aware of every little wince and groan she tried to muffle. He lowered himself in front of her and gave her a quick once-over, trying to assess her injuries before asking about them.
“Katie? Bestie? Do you think you could tell me where it hurts, or how you got hurt?” Ewroon patiently waited as Katie mumbled a ‘yes’ and began to point towards her stomach, ankle, shoulder, and head.
Ewroon gave her knee a small run and jogged over to his store, where he was bound to find some bandages to help his dear friend.
As Katie sat right where Ewroon left her, she began to doze off. Listen, being a nomad isn't easy, same with being attacked by like 30 different monsters all in one night. Was she embarrassed about having a full breakdown in front of her bestie/rival? Maybe. But she knew that at this moment, Ewroon wouldn't tease her, or he wasn't being insincere; she saw it by the look in his eyes, his pupils showing pure emotion.
As Katie's eyelids began to grow heavy and shut, KFC’s manager's door slammed open, startling Katie awake.
“Eh, sorry Kate, I wanted to get back as soon as possible. Are you doing okay, nothing bothering you, no?” Ewroon questioned her as he kneeled in front of her, preparing to tend to her injuries.
“No, nothing worse than it was 5 minutes ago,” Katie lightly joked, trying to lighten the mood. Ewroon just stared blankly at her as he slowly lifted her pant leg to reveal her swollen ankle. Katie hissed as he applied pressure, trying to figure out whether it was broken. But at the moment, there wasn't much he could do, other than wrap it to keep it stable. And that's exactly what he did, trying to tune out Katie's hisses of pain, not wanting his heart to break for her even more.
Next, he moved onto her stomach, slowly peeling off her suit jacket, which was plastered to her skin from blood and sweat. To say he was shocked was an underestimate, on the left side of her stomach was around a 2-inch gash that seemed to go deep into her stomach, covered with what looked like pebbles and dirt.
Katie closed her eyes, not wanting to look at the mess more and upset her stomach. However, as Ewroon began to poke around and disinfect her stomach gash, she felt nausea rising. Hours of holding this in finally began to backstab her. In a panic, Katie pushed Ewroon's hands off her and stumbled to her shabby bathroom in the room next door, all but collapsing in front of the toilet and painfully puking up whatever food she had left in her system.
Ewroon slowly stood up and headed over to the bathroom, not sure what to do. He ended up holding Katie’s hair that was protruding from her bun back and rubbing small circles around her spine, as he patiently waited for her to finish.
Katie pushed herself away from the toilet with a groan, “Sorry.. I don't know why that happened. Can you try to finish my stomach a little quicker, please?” She all but begged Ewroon, who replied with a nod and hoisted her up back to her office.
Ewroon hastily decided to quickly clean all her gashes and wrap them, considering that he could just ask Graf to take a better, more educated look at Katie in the morning. As Ewroon finished the last wounds that needed to be bandaged, Katie thanked him with a sleepy mumble.
“Katie, do you need help getting back to your home? Or will you be alright?” Ewroon hoped the answer would result in him assisting her; he would feel so guilty if something happened to her on her way home.
But this question made Katie quiet even more, “I don't have a home...” She mumbled, looking away from Ewroon’s eyes.
Ewroon, surprisingly, didn't push. Just offered her a hand and brought her towards the waystone, taking her to the Polish Cave. As he brought her to the array of beds, leading Katie towards his bed (he would just ‘borrow’ Nexe’s or something), he explained to her how she should just stay here, and how Graf would stop by in the morning to properly check up on her.
Ewroon tucked her in, being careful not to poke any sensitive injuries, and gave her a warming smile, which brightened her mood a bit as her eyes began to droop.
“Thanks, Bestie, I love you,” Katie mumbled as she slowly drifted off.
“Of course… Bestie”