Lorelei awoke with a start, but the sleep had partially taken hold and her mind was really muggy now. One last and final crystal, tiny but with sharp and jagged edges, formed near her feet, dropping softly onto the bed and staying intact, though she didn't seem to notice it. "Wha... oh. Don't scare me...." she yawned- "like that, I thought you were that other guy again, the one was was carrying me."
She squirmed a little, still overly tired, mostly out of it. "He was in the woods when I woke up; I didn't hear his name, but they were calling him bad or evil or something like that as they greeted him, but I didn't really hear his name. Then he was arguing with the assholes about my tattoo that I got because my missing dead family has it when people find them and about all these laws they broke and something about a payment and something like a Crescent Scorpion or something like that....it didn't make any sense to me, and then there was that awful smell like something was rotting and dead and people started screaming and shooting and he picked me up and ran. I was trying to say that earlier but then I saw a daydream of a one-armed neko in the corner. He yelled something about a cat as he was running and made this weird clinking sound, like he was wearing some kind of metal, and he had this weird triangle of chains or something on the side of his face I could feel because it was pressing against me. And then he put me down and made me start running and told me that if the cat catches me she'll kill me, and then-" She stopped all of a sudden and a confused look crossed her face. "Wait. Didn't he...."
She looked confused for a moment. "Wait. When I started running, it was right behind us, wasn't it? That's where somebody was firing a gun, and somebody was yelling something about a color, or making a duck sound, like Black, or Quack, and a woman's voice was calling out 'Lorelei', and when I was running the third guy went back into the woods and...." She stopped, then something else occurred to her. "In the clearing, when I still had my blindfold on and when I was still tied up, those jerks who brought me here, they said that I was a Merrow, and that was interesting to him, and he was yelling something about 'Lori's bloodline' or something like that. When they were harassing me at work, though, I never told them my real name, and they said my tattoo was..."
Lorelei looked at the doctor with a sudden clarity and a touch of excitement as she sat up a little. "They saw my tattoo and they said it was some sort of gang sign where they were from. That's gotta be the Crescent Scorpion that the old guy was yelling at them about, which means they're targeting people with that tattoo the people from my family who disappear get. I thought getting it was just symbolic, I didn't know it actually means something, and oh my god did they really come after me just because of some stupid tattoo, WHAT THE FUCK?"
A guard knocked on the door after fighting his way through the crowd and, shutting the doro behind him, he made his way over to Wong and handed him a note before excusing himself and reading. The note read,
"May or may not be relevant to Unknown: forest ranger Wikd Black just checked into the ranger station, grabbing a first aid kit and leaving. Ranger at station did not know about the situation and let him go after noting Wikd Black appears to have recently been fighting with some sort of large cat and had taken several severe-looking injuries. Wikd Black claimed he had stumbled across a sex slave ring with virgin about to be sold in the forest and was tracking the escaped victim, then left en route to hospital. Ranger at station radioed in the the other officers; Wikd Black's service vehicle found abandoned and whereabouts are presently unknown."
She squirmed a little, still overly tired, mostly out of it. "He was in the woods when I woke up; I didn't hear his name, but they were calling him bad or evil or something like that as they greeted him, but I didn't really hear his name. Then he was arguing with the assholes about my tattoo that I got because my missing dead family has it when people find them and about all these laws they broke and something about a payment and something like a Crescent Scorpion or something like that....it didn't make any sense to me, and then there was that awful smell like something was rotting and dead and people started screaming and shooting and he picked me up and ran. I was trying to say that earlier but then I saw a daydream of a one-armed neko in the corner. He yelled something about a cat as he was running and made this weird clinking sound, like he was wearing some kind of metal, and he had this weird triangle of chains or something on the side of his face I could feel because it was pressing against me. And then he put me down and made me start running and told me that if the cat catches me she'll kill me, and then-" She stopped all of a sudden and a confused look crossed her face. "Wait. Didn't he...."
She looked confused for a moment. "Wait. When I started running, it was right behind us, wasn't it? That's where somebody was firing a gun, and somebody was yelling something about a color, or making a duck sound, like Black, or Quack, and a woman's voice was calling out 'Lorelei', and when I was running the third guy went back into the woods and...." She stopped, then something else occurred to her. "In the clearing, when I still had my blindfold on and when I was still tied up, those jerks who brought me here, they said that I was a Merrow, and that was interesting to him, and he was yelling something about 'Lori's bloodline' or something like that. When they were harassing me at work, though, I never told them my real name, and they said my tattoo was..."
Lorelei looked at the doctor with a sudden clarity and a touch of excitement as she sat up a little. "They saw my tattoo and they said it was some sort of gang sign where they were from. That's gotta be the Crescent Scorpion that the old guy was yelling at them about, which means they're targeting people with that tattoo the people from my family who disappear get. I thought getting it was just symbolic, I didn't know it actually means something, and oh my god did they really come after me just because of some stupid tattoo, WHAT THE FUCK?"
A guard knocked on the door after fighting his way through the crowd and, shutting the doro behind him, he made his way over to Wong and handed him a note before excusing himself and reading. The note read,
"May or may not be relevant to Unknown: forest ranger Wikd Black just checked into the ranger station, grabbing a first aid kit and leaving. Ranger at station did not know about the situation and let him go after noting Wikd Black appears to have recently been fighting with some sort of large cat and had taken several severe-looking injuries. Wikd Black claimed he had stumbled across a sex slave ring with virgin about to be sold in the forest and was tracking the escaped victim, then left en route to hospital. Ranger at station radioed in the the other officers; Wikd Black's service vehicle found abandoned and whereabouts are presently unknown."