This is an alternate branch of the storyline continuing from [19A]

The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[20A]
For the Primary Branch [20]

Giselle‘s vision of how they would get out of here mostly involved Rachel dressing up as a nurse, stealing identification, and rolling her out with a blanket over her face while Olivia provided the distraction of transforming people along the way. It was all very cinematic. Ultimately, it just took a few papers and signatures to certify DAMA (discharge against medical advice). Mercifully, it didn’t mean any consequences for their coverage.

Their doctor still wanted to take some x-rays of the affected area, but Giselle blanched about how much that might cost, especially since they didn’t have Jeremy‘s professional income and insurance. They sent her home with a lot of paperwork, a few pain medications, and a firm advisement follow-up with her regular doctor, whoever that was.

They walked through the hallways and looked for the small sign on the contributor wall that marked the streams Jeremy and Rachel had been doing for all those years. Naturally, it was no longer there. Half-a-million in community-inspired charitable donations basically snatched out of existence. This was a part of the hospital that Rachel had shown Olivia while they were waiting. She gawked, wide-eyed, at the photos of children from many years ago grown up and thanking their helpers.

One thing they preoccupied themselves with while waiting was tracking down willing nurses and doctors as Olivia fervently gave them hugs. So far as an explanation, they commented that she had difficulty when she was younger and it wasn’t certain she would survive, and let them fill in the rest. Despite the regulations for cleanliness, quite a few gladly accepted those hugs from the strange little girl with the skin around her face of a deeper shade than the pale, practically albino tone of her arms.

Compared to the staff, Olivia just had scowls for the food in the cafeteria, now currently zilch for two when it came to cafeterias. Except for the ice cream, especially chocolate. She gave the death glare to the unwelcome reappearance of tater tots. Rachel tried to tempt her by saying that they couldn’t be sure these were as bad as the ones at school yesterday, but Olivia judged it as telling and foreboding that Rachel wasn’t interested in trying any herself.

Dennis met them at the front with wide eyes, showing genuine surprise. Giselle, even though she knew this was the real Dennis, took a few steps back and sheltered her right side. Only after some quiet preparation did she accept a quick hug from the boy. It sucked that this was her reaction, but the vision of horror and deception seated itself inside, no matter what she logically tried to tell her brain. Seeing him and acclimating to the normal Dennis helped but she felt better when they walked out to the car.

The sun was still high and hot, looming above. The ocean breeze helped cut the worst of it as Giselle leaned towards the open window.

“I hope I’m like the best of those nurses when I’m finally human. I want to help and build good emotions.” Giselle didn’t say much with the breeze fluttering her blonde hair so close to Olivia‘s brand new shimming locks. Olivia‘s energy was quietly but fervently infectious, as though they had switched roles and Giselle was now the one to bask in her emotional presence and drink the positive feeling.

Meanwhile, Giselle could tell that Athena was content in both the air and the company. It didn’t take them more than about thirty minutes to get all the way home. Herschel didn’t mind that Giselle just had one hand to pet him with. He definitely noticed that something was different and looked to her for clarification. She just stroked his fur and sunk into the couch.

It was easy to lay there and feel sorry, way easier than in the hospital. The schoolwork she desperately didn’t want to do anymore seemed impossible without her dominant hand. Same with video games she might escape to.

Yes, she knew all about modified controllers, custom jobs, and alternatives, but she just wanted her freaking hand back from that scribble shit shark. It was pointless to sit and sulk though. But she didn’t have any other ideas for what to try. So, there she remained.

Athena lurked somewhere beyond her eyebrows. She had way more reason than Giselle to be moody. Her entire species was hunted by shadow monsters as they clung to the edges of brutal darkness with never-ending cold. If she had parents, then Giselle figured they’d been destroyed a long time ago. Just her sister left, who managed to smile despite all that happened in her life.

She smiled at the games along the back wall. She smiled at what Rachel was taking out of the fridge and preparing on the stovetop. She smiled an infectious smile in Giselle‘s direction and all Gisela could do in turn was creep up the edge of her lip. Herschel was already hotly snuggling her lap. She couldn’t be glum with her precious boy huddled close.

Before too long, Rachel was done cooking and brought a steaming plate over to Giselle‘s side atop the little glass, mounted tray secured neatly under the couch. The meal before her was a cheddar grilled cheese sandwich lightly singed with a selection of glistening, steaming tater tots. Olivia carefully carried her own plate bearing half a sandwich and a smaller scoop of tots. Rachel had the other half along with some coleslaw they needed to get rid of from the fridge. She eased in next to Giselle and gave her a warm smile.

“Try it”, Rachel encouraged after taking a quick first bite and then mediately regretting it with puffs of air and waves in front of her face. Giselle opted to wait until the steam stopped wafting about and Olivia followed her example. She motioned with her stump to delicately cradle the plate as she picked up her food with the left. Often using her left for food while filming vlogs with her right conditioned her to find this so far normal. But it also sunk her mood because she realized that simple task would now be infinitely more complicated. She couldn’t even casually do the filmmaking she wanted.

That was the note that finally broke her. She laid the grilled cheese back on the plate as her eyes welled up with pained tears. Giselle blubbered without words as her stamp traced listlessly around in the air. Herschel noticed something was wrong and cocked his head to the side in the hopeful expectation that his cuteness might mend the pain. It didn’t work. It didn’t feel like anything could work.

“Who is ya daaahhdy and what does he douu? Puuuuutttt daaahhh  cooookkkieee dowwwwnnn! I did nahhhthing, the pavement was his enemy!…”

Giselle looked over an alarm at Rachel contorting her lips into an exaggerated, almost spitting pout. Herschel was even more concerned. It took another moment before it clicked for Giselle that her wife was doing an impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was nowhere near the best and slightly overdramatic as well as softly underplayed at the same time. She was better as the straight man to Jeremy‘s shtick. But she soon shifted to a growling, precious-wishing Gollum.

Fighting off her sobs, Giselle laid on a thick Southern lampoon which had the added nuance of sounding a squeaky southern belle, “Well, now I tell ya what darling…ahh just could not make heads or tails of any of it. God bless their little hearts why I had no idea what to say but well um, you got some cracker jacks?” She did her best to slip in an overzealous deep trucker voice at the end, but it just sounded like a kid trying to make themselves sound adult. From there, they actually got into the jokes and little bits of storytelling.

Olivia appeared absolutely lost as to what was going on but gently sipped the joy and amusement waves bleeding off and feeding into her sister. After several minutes of goofing off to one another, Giselle wrapped her arms around Rachel and giggled uproariously. No matter if one side was doing more work in the embrace than the other, she forced herself not to care. The smile that settled on her face wouldn’t allow her to feel glum and sad. So, she continued through the sandwich and congratulated Rachel on making the tots so much better than any cafeteria. Olivia joyously concurred. It wasn’t long before all plates were cleared and taken over to be washed by Olivia and Rachel. Rachel instructed her on how to prepare them for the dishwasher. Olivia learned quickly and followed diligently.

Before Giselle could sink back into the space she had lost herself in before, Rachel dug out one of the Katamari games they had played at length and gave Giselle a random half of the joy-con. Chaos ensued as they had to coordinate movements or hopelessly spin in place. Just using her left hand with shakes and maneuvers was all Giselle could do or had to do. She adored this twist, having considered it once for a stream but vetoing it as too crazy and lacking in game progress. It may not have worked there but she delighted in every moment of playing together.

Olivia even had control of one side eventually and waffled between concern and curiosity about scooping up all sorts of screaming people around a giant space ball. At one point, Athena’s blue electricity hand replacement appeared when Giselle leaned the controller into her stump, but she soon shook her head and let it recede back into her flesh.

At the end of a crazy, energetic, and sweaty evening Giselle felt renewed enough to help in the curry preparation. Olivia‘s introduction to the potency of curry started with a large bite followed by panting, flailing, whimpering, alarm, and downing the nearest liquid before optimistically cycling around again. Sometime after supper, when tiredness firmly asserted itself, Olivia had a whimper of a different character as she quietly asked Rachel for help. Giselle learned that between the movie fight and later in the hospital, what Olivia drank and curiously first consumed found its way into her resolving digestive tract.

Olivia‘s first fearful reaction was that her insides were about to burst. What emerged instead was far less than that. Giselle reflected with uncertainty as to what to call it while resigning to the simple notion of irony. The toilet seat girl must now sit upon the place she once dwelt.

It didn’t take much before Olivia offered up a heartfelt apology about the way the seats dunked people as part of the punishment. She professed that she had no choice in that. From the sweating earlier, Giselle and Rachel both noticed that Olivia had acquired far more of an actual, vaguely earthy odor compared to the vague aromas and otherwise blank absence of any fragrance.

Rachel was the one to wash her up, leading her in her very first shower. Giselle lingered nearby and the sounds that emerged kindled her imagination. Olivia was faintly scared but not actively terrified. Being drenched tickled her flesh and introduced ecstatic delight. Athena drew in what emotional fumes she could manage.

The faintly delirious young girl, with towels enshrouding her and one of Giselle‘s spare robes fluttering, practically danced with Giselle in dizzy spins which made her grateful that Jeremy‘s diagnosed vertigo didn’t carry over.

Giselle‘s shower was uneventful aside from the careful adaptations. It was just barely enough space for all three, plus Herschel, in the master bed. The more humanized Olivia whimpered and twitched while settling to get comfortable. Giselle wrapping her arm around her actually helped. Soon she was fast asleep. Rachel followed by wrapping up the rest of Giselle so that she couldn’t escape. Despite her desire to respond in some way, it wasn’t long before Giselle found herself jerking up from extended naps and then immediately dropping back into them.

Morning haunted her dreams more than any apparition of shadow or uncertainty in the dark. At least it was Sunday, and she didn’t need to make any decisions about what the day after it would bring.

She woke up coughing with the others shifting and fidgeting at the edge of consciousness. Somewhere in her head, she heard a protracted, incessant tune playing. It was a ringtone from the phone she’d had to settle for as a preteen daughter. Considering she hadn’t used it much, the tune hadn’t played yet. She hated it and all the poppy bubblegum flavor of the young crooner. She wanted to either toss it out the nearest window or delete the music from existence.

Binding together the determination and dexterity to squeeze out of the covers like living toothpaste, Giselle tumbled around the cat and everyone else to spin and stagger over to the end table and retrieve her phone before things went quiet. She was too late, as it quit right before she could pick it up.

Fortunately, she was also early as the rings started over again with the phone buzzing in her hand. Bleary and trying not to be bitter about her trek towards consciousness, Giselle quickly and quietly spoke into the phone. The voice was strikingly familiar.

“This is a Blessin Cross. Huge apology for calling at this hour, but it’s vitally important to everything you said to me and so much more. Time is of the essence, and I don’t know how much we have before something terrible occurs.”

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

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