#7 - Medusa

“Robin, quit zoning out,” Jerry said as he pushed the platter closer to her. “Table 35.”

Robin blinked before looking down, reminded that she was at work. She nodded, lifted the platter, and started carrying it through the mostly empty burger joint, avoiding the shiny spots on the floor, unsure of whether she’d slip on them.

Jerry was the coworker she’d most often share shifts with. An equally moody and tired guy with a hunch, curly brown hair and an acne-covered face, an issue he never looked into resolving. Not that he wasn’t insecure about his appearance, but he was just one of those guys that had resigned himself to it.

He was another failure sharing this purgatory with her. With that came that same emptiness, lack of care, and propensity to lash out at the uniformed loser next to you; all traits Robin shared, but couldn’t stand in others.

The mild coworker annoyance Jerry instilled in her, was enough for Robin to spend her days fantasizing what she would do to him if he shrunk.

Throwing him in with the fries and letting him sizzle all-crispy was the first thing to come to mind, but it might cause too much of an outrage if a customer were to bite down on a crusted human body without looking.

Another thing she could do was grab one of the thick paper milkshake straws and put his head inside, before sucking on the other end until either his head would pop off, or his entire body got gored up into the straw. Robin thought he might appreciate getting sucked at least once before his miserable life ended.

She put the platter down on a customer’s table, with a fake smile, and took the location sign with the number 35 back with her, as her mind returned to the same brooding thoughts that had repeated in her mind, before Jerry interrupted them.

Robin had been pondering the worst-case scenario of what would happen once she got home. What if Elias had squeaked. While she was at work, there would be a lot of time for him to say something he shouldn’t. A lot of time for the others to notice he might not be acting like himself, and with repeated checks of concern they would surely drag the answers out of him.

Would he really put his friends in that dangerous position? Maybe he’d do it out of revenge, a last hurrah, as he sacrificed himself and everyone else, just to hurt her, just to leave her with no one.

If he did, she wouldn’t have a choice, they’d all look at her like a monster. Their friendship would be over, and the four of them would be nothing but tiny nuisances that feared her. If that were to happen there would be no reason to stop herself from having some fun getting rid of them. Taking care of cowering pets that had once been her friends would be too confronting for her.

That’s what Elias would be from now on. This small insignificant pest, afraid, and constantly on edge. His mere presence would serve as a constant reminder of what she was, while he’d wear the face of someone, whom she had relied on to forget, to feel normal. Just having him around would be torture.

Had it been stupid to let him live?

She kept going over everything she’d said to him, the way she’d acted and played with him like prey. In that moment, Robin had been more honest with him, than she had ever been to any normie in her entire life. It’s just that easy to be honest with someone, when you’re about to make sure, they’ll take it all to the grave.

Now, there was a living soul out there who knew what she really was, not someone who shared the same demons like Harm or Wr8 did, but someone who’d judge her for it.

Wr8, that psycho lunatic.

Just when she thought she’d found someone she could lean on, who understood her and had the same troubled response to her so-called ‘accidents’. It turned out hers were a bit more intentional than she let on. She didn’t live by the same rules Robin did, she had never tried to keep her monster in check.

All the personal information she’d shared, all those deep-rooted feelings and morbid fantasies they’d discussed, only for Wr8 to try and manipulate her into letting loose, taking the monster’s side under the guise of supporting her ‘true self’.

Robin had finally decided to rid herself of her toxic influence after she had opened up about her friends’ situation, about her insecurities at being a caretaker. Wr8 had spent hours filling her DMs with recommendations on how she should massacre them, before Robin ended up blocking her.

How stupid she had been not to remove her from her PlayStation friend list as well. Now Wr8 had filled Elias’ head with lies that were all too easy to believe, given the truths he’d seen about her.

“Robin!” Jerry shouted. “Table 28…”

Robin closed the door to her apartment. Everything was so much emptier compared to the chaos of the past week. The TV was stuck on an ‘Are you still watching’ screen; a setting she forgot to turn off, which had probably left her friends without entertainment for most of the day, which made them all the more likely to pay attention to each other and talk, more likely for Elias to have blabbered.

As she walked up to the living room table, where her friends had built their encampment of tiny beds, farm-like feeders and water cups, she carefully gauged their reaction to her presence.

Theo seemed happy to see her. Oscar was laying down on his bed, arm over his forehead. Elias only glanced her from the corner of his eye before turning his head the other way. Jade approached her side of the table, slowly, as if sensing the tension in her.

“Hey,” she said, “Welcome home, how was work?”

“I work at a burger joint,” Robin said, “how do you think work was?”

Robin stepped around the table, dropped her bag on an Elias-free couch, sat down next to it, and untied her shoes.

Jade lowered her head. “Ok, sorry, didn’t know it was that bad.”

Robin clicked her tongue, “It’s just a stupid question. I don’t get why people ask shit like that.”

“It’s called small talk, Robin,” Theo said, tilting his head. “It’s about starting a conversation.”

Robin looked at Jade, realizing her tone had intimidated her, “Sorry. Maybe just start one with a better question next time.”

“The mask slipping a bit today?” Oscar scoffed.

Robin went pale, “What?”

“The autism, you’re not masking it well today.”

Robin kicked off her shoes and scooted back in the couch, raising her legs, ready to put her feet on the table, as they created a sour wind across her friends’ encampment, before realizing what she’d be subjecting them to and raising them onto the couch instead.

“Sorry,” she said. “I think I’m just a bit of a mess right now.”

“At least things are still normal to you,” Oscar said, as he covered his nose at the sudden stench.

“What do you mean? None of this is normal for me either,” Robin said. “Not used to taking care of little- things…”

“Things?” Oscar repeated.

Theo spread his arms out, “Ok, just stop being so touchy, both of you.”

Robin sat cross-legged, lowered her head and without looking at her friends said, “You guys know I care about you, right?”

“O-Of course!” Theo shouted. “What makes you say that?”

Jade frowned and inspected every freckle on her giant friend’s face, “What’s wrong, Robin?”

“I’m just worried at some point I’ll say something,” Robin said, pressing both her hands onto her ankles, “or do something, that’s gonna make you think I don’t, but I do.”

“Does this have to do with what happened between you and Elias yesterday?” Jade said.

Robin’s eyes scanned each of her tiny friends, “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” Jade said, “Which is exactly what has me so worried.”

“Last night I-” Robin started. “I was pretty pissed off at him abandoning you guys, and pushed him around with my foot a bit, after he shrunk. I said some things. Hurtful things.”

Elias, still with his back turned, commented, “You were just being honest.”

“I could’ve explained myself better.”

“No need, you know me,” Elias said, with a passive-aggressive tone. “Smart enough to read between the lines.”

“I was horrible to you.”

Elias’ head swung over his shoulder to look at her, “We both understand each other now. Just drop it, before you say something we’ll all regret.”

Oscar sat up in his bed, “Jade, I think we should leave this between the two of them.”

Jade looked over at Theo, who seemed to be waiting on her lead, equally ready to back up her attempt at prying more information, as he was to follow her into keeping quiet. Jade chose the latter and walked back to her tiny bed on the table.

Elias could feel his body heat up. He saw Robin’s empty words for what they were, an attempt to erase what she had done to him the night before. If she was going to apologize for gleefully trying to end his life, she could do better than that.

If he hadn’t chosen the right strings to pull, he wouldn’t have made it out alive. He had to present her with a problem his death would cause her, that’s the only thing that worked. If he had wasted his last chance on anything else; begging, relying on her humanity, speaking to their friendship, even confessing his feelings, then he would have been dead now; a murder she’d look back on fondly; a sadistic memento in a cardboard box.

Robin was a monster, a Medusa that reduced tinies to discardable pebbles if looked at for what she really was. They were all living on borrowed time. He was the only one who knew, the only one that could save the friends he couldn’t tell. It was up to him to find a way out of her clutches. For now, he had to bide his time, and be careful to avoid a total party kill.

Robin sat in silence. There was nothing she could say or do to fix what had happened. It was her own fault, if she had just thrown out that box, like Harm had told her to months ago, if she had been thorough about cutting off all contact with Wr8, if she had acted differently upon Elias finding out about her, maybe she could’ve salvaged this.

Their friendship was broken, and with it, one of the four strings that held up her humanity had snapped.