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Chapter 16 - Chapter 15:What The Point He Should Just Die

Happy late New Year and Christmas 

And bad news im going to be really busy starting on the 26 i got class every day but tuesday and yes, that include sunday and saturday that for 3 hour math class, so my brain is going to die

And I really want to pass this class so my GPA goes up. Right now I got 1.7 cause my professor didn't grade my work and said i wasnt ther,e even though I got proof and an email that I submitted the work, and that brought my GPA down ngl that really piss me off

Again, sorry for the wait, that shit with my prof killed my mood, and to get my mind working i started farming Warframe Prime parts. So far i got 11 primes and 5 prime weapons

This took awhile got i don't know how the f to write horror scenes. I just went and found a horror story and just read that

This chapter is 3,514 words. It was longer, but I chose to break it into 2 parts :)

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**Late at Night in a different higher-dimension**

The Druid was a powerful and learned priest and judge, but at this moment, he lay prostrate on the floor, almost clinging to it. He had positioned himself in the shadowy corner where the reception desk met the floor, effectively hiding in a blind spot, as if he were an emotionless potted plant.

He was one of the many souls caught in the chaos of this conflict. To call it a war would be an understatement; no, this was hell itself—dimensions, space, and time all convulsing in turmoil.

Silently, he counted his heartbeats, unsure if he would miss his only chance. The nurse at the reception seemed engrossed in a drama, munching on snacks like chicken feet and occasionally making crunching noises, thoroughly enjoying her meal and completely oblivious to his presence.

As time ticked away, impatience gripped the Druid, especially as he realized it was nearly 3 a.m. With nurse shifts changing every three hours, he knew that if he couldn't find a way to steal the keys soon, he would be discovered once the shift change began. If that happened, the stealthy maneuver he had successfully managed earlier would be wasted.

Just as the Druid contemplated the angle of his impending doom, a phone call suddenly came through to the reception. The nurse, seemingly irritated, stood up. Her large frame made a loud noise as she left her chair. Restricted by the short phone cord, she moved to the right side of the reception desk.

Now was the moment!

The Druid fixated on the keychain beside the reception computer. Seizing the opportunity as the nurse moved away, he swiftly bent down, suppressing his racing heartbeat and roaring in his mind, "Now is the time! I must block out everything else and steal those keys to go home!"

Without making a sound, the keychain vanished from the desk, going unnoticed by the massive nurse, who never turned around. The Druid, trying not to focus on the human fingers she had gnawed on, stealthily slipped from one shadow to another, moving into the corridor.

Once he was safely away from danger, the Druid clutched the keys. 

Confidently, he began to piece together the clues he had gathered so far. First, it was clear that this hospital was abnormal; by day and by night, it felt like two different worlds. The normal nurses and doctors transformed into bizarre creatures at night, just like the enormous nurse at the reception, who contrasted sharply with her slender daytime form.

Secondly, the hospital was filled with eerie occurrences—people vanished without a trace, unnoticed by anyone around.

Earlier, too tense to focus, he hadn't paid attention to what else he had grabbed, likely swiping a photo along with the keychain. 

When he took a look at the photo, the Druid froze. The person in the photo was incredibly attractive. 

"Could humans really possess such perfect features?" he wondered. "No, I have met many humans, but no one has this level of perfection. It feels too perfect, as if it were an AI attempting to create an ideal copy, but landing on something unsettling."

Druid gazed at the photo before him, realizing there are indeed greater things in the world. The image depicted a young woman in hospital garb, her hair a deep black streaked with dark purple. Her eyes, like amethyst, seemed to contain intricate clock-like symbols. 

Her skin was so pale it appeared almost translucent, giving off the impression of someone who had just recovered from a serious illness—fragile and easily broken. But despite her delicate appearance, she looked incredibly strong, with well-defined muscles and abs. Druid, a straight guy, finally understood the concept of a "woman who can kill you," a trope often hyped in fan circles. It seemed like the girl in the photo had the potential to break anyone with just a little force.

Suddenly, Druid was interrupted by a system prompt from his cyber implant—something all individuals of his kind possessed, or at least the high-class ones did. 

"What the hell? A mental check? I haven't done anything... Hey, at least tell me the result!" he protested. The system offered no response, and just as Druid was about to angrily curse the implant, a loud roar erupted from the reception area: 

"Who! Who the Dalek sacks. stole my photo!"

Fast, heavy footsteps approached from behind. Druid cursed under his breath and hastily attempted to activate his stealth skill again. "Goddess! Don't mess with me at a time like this!" he thought, even though knowing that most gods perished easily in this war.

As the footsteps grew louder, Druid caught a glimpse of a hulking figure rounding the corner, startling him into tiptoeing quickly in the other direction. Unfortunately, the sound of high heels clicking from the opposite end of the corridor echoed ominously.

Caught between the two sounds, Druid panicked and accidentally stubbed his toe against a long hospital bench, instantly feeling a wave of dread. Even worse, the nurse at the front desk seemed to have heard the commotion. Her footsteps paused momentarily before she rushed toward him. 

Druid knew his end was inevitable. Resigned, he activated his implant's recording feature, preparing to document his final moments. 

Just then, the door to a hospital room swung open. A pair of strong arms yanked Druid inside, pulling him into the room. Before he could react or cry out, a hand covered his mouth.

"Shh— they're outside," the person whispered in his ear.

Druid shivered, unable to articulate his feelings as the voice sent tingles through his head, like an electric current. Before he could ask any questions, a deep and hoarse voice from the front desk nurse echoed outside, "Despicable little rat, I'm going to tear you apart piece by piece and find my photo in your corpse!"

An uncontrollable image of the front desk nurse flashed through Druid's mind: she sat at her desk, her skin so thin that her red veins and yellow fat were visible underneath. Her small eyes occasionally glinted with greedy hunger, and her mouth, painted with lipstick as red as if she had just devoured a child, boasted teeth sharp enough to crush bones.

He had heard stories about them. During the first time War before this one, known as the War in Heaven, the soldiers of Gallifrey had increasingly transformed into non-humanoid forms. They enhanced the regenerative properties of their 'Wave Soldiers' to meet the demands of war.

These soldiers possessed standard Time Lord senses and abilities, including time sensitivity. The natural time-related abilities of a Time Lord were redirected for combat purposes, allowing Wave soldiers to bend time, utilize combat precognition, and accelerate their movements to defend against attacks from higher-dimensional beings.

However, the Time Lords needed more soldiers. Therefore, they not only enhanced existing Time Lords and created Loom-born but also experimented with uplifting members of lesser species to serve as soldiers. Standard enhancements included sharpened senses, regenerative capacity, and time-active biodata, making them more adept at navigating time warfare and thinking in four dimensions.

That's why he was here. They had come to his home world, frozen the entire planet, and taken them to their labs.

The heavy footsteps abruptly stopped right outside the hospital room, sending a chill down Druid's spine. Just as he braced for the Butcher of Flesh Mountain to break through the door, another voice sliced through the tension from outside.

"What are you doing?"

This voice was sinister, unmistakably female, and it made even the terrifying Butcher of Flesh Mountain momentarily falter. 

"I'm terribly sorry; it's just that a thief has sneaked in..."

"Return to your post."

"But..."

"Do I need to say it a second time?"

"Yes, yes!"

Druid's heart raced as realization struck him; he recognized this voice. It belonged to the red-haired head nurse! 

One of the few Time Lords in the hospital, she was known for her fiery hair and alluring yet unsettling demeanor. Druid had regarded her as one of the more terrifying figures within these dimly lit halls. However, her voice took on an eerie shrillness at night, making it almost unrecognizable. 

The realization didn't bring him any comfort; it only deepened the dread pooling in his stomach.

Thankfully, the voices outside began to fade, and the sound of high heels pattered further away, their echo almost mocking in the silence. Druid exhaled, allowing himself a moment to gaze at the face of his unexpected savior.

At one glance, Druid was rendered speechless. He had seen this woman before, recently in a photo accompanying the stolen keychain. He had thought the image was a distortion of reality, but in person, she was even more mesmerizing and equally disconcerting.

"Damn," he thought, a mixture of awe and fear swirling within him.

It took all his self-control to look away. "Thank you for saving me just now," he finally stammered.

"No need to thank me," the young woman replied with a soft, light laugh that dripped with an unsettling charm. "And you don't have to rush to thank me; your crisis is far from over. This place is not kind to anyone unless they're one of us, a Time Lord."

As she spoke, her smile held a depth that was both inviting and ominous, amplifying the unsettling atmosphere of the shadowy hospital room. Druid felt as though he had stepped from the wolf's den into the lair of something far more dangerous.

"No, no, no, I can't impose on you. I'm leaving right now..." Druid protested, adrenaline surging as he reached for the door handle.

But before he could turn it, Engineer's calm but firm voice pierced the air from behind him: "You want to go out? Are you sure?"

"The person outside hasn't left yet," she said, like it was normal

Druid hesitated, reluctantly following the lady's gaze toward the door. His pulse quickened, the silence thickening with tension. With a lump in his throat, he crouched low, peering through the small gap beneath the door.

What he saw made his blood run cold. A pair of red high heels stood ominously outside, perfectly still. The red-haired head nurse had been lurking just beyond the door, waiting. The sounds of her departing footsteps had been a cruel ruse!

How could this be happening?

Panic gripped Druid as he shrank back into the shadows of the room, trembling uncontrollably. Outside, the red-haired head nurse seemed aware of his discovery, abandoning her pretense. Her voice took on a seductive sweetness, a stark contrast to the icy demeanor she had worn earlier.

"Mrs. Engineer," she cooed softly, as if charming a prey, "it's Noctyra. It's time for your medication change. Please... open the door for me." 

The invitation hung in the air, thick with menace, as dread trickled down Druid's spine. and Wailed in despair, 

Little did he know, Engineer was equally baffled at that moment. Where did this guy come from? This hospital was exclusively for Time Lords, entirely different by day and night, patrolled by non-human nurses with various monsters roaming at night to protect the injured lords. This place was designed with the Delaks in mind, causing both the inside and outside to feel the same; there was no way to escape or inform anyone about her situation until she had been healed.

She guessed this guy was some Time Lady's pet toy that had gotten hurt. Sometimes, failed projects ended up here to try to stabilize, but that didn't mean they were safe at night.

Last night, after witnessing the patient in the next room being dragged away by a massive night-shift nurse, becoming a pre-meal snack, Engineer had given up all hope for this world. The great sorrow and despair even led her to a state of resigned indifference. Tired of it all, she thought, let it all end. 'I can't blame the doctor for ending this war by any means. I would do the same… we are beyond saving,' she thought bitterly.

The red-haired nurse was an old acquaintance by now, knocking on her door every night, trying to get in. The time ghosts and monsters in this hospital followed special fail-safes: they couldn't enter a patient's room unless the patient opened the door themselves.

Seeing someone outside, the engineer still felt compelled to save them. She had no other thoughts; if she was destined to die in this world, then saving one more person was worth it.

The seductive shouts outside gradually faded. The red-haired nurse seemed to sense the determined resolve of the person inside not to open the door. Her voice grew increasingly agitated, and the knocking became so loud it was almost like she was trying to break it down. Druid, watching the trembling door, felt like the monster outside could burst in at any moment. 

'Pff, please. Like she can break this place. Everything here is made from Gallifreyan Zinc, one of the strongest metals in the universe.' 

"Miss, shouldn't we think of something?" Druid asked, trembling with fear. 

Engineer, still caught in her resigned mindset, glanced at Druid calmly and said indifferently, "Don't worry. When it's time to go, we'll go."

Druid: ...0_0 

From that casual glance, Druid did not delude himself into thinking 'everyone has their own time to go' meant 'them.' Obviously, the 'when it's time to go, we'll go' referred only to him. Feeling like the only weak human surrounded by powerful beings, Druid felt completely overwhelmed.

In truth, the engineer wanted to say that even if the nurse knocked with all her might, she couldn't enter. But somehow, focusing on the possibility that he probably wouldn't survive the night, her desire to explain dwindled. What's the point of explaining, anyway? He should die here rather than be erased from time, where no one will remember or mourn him if he gets caught in the war.

She sat nonchalantly on the edge of the bed and even thought about patting the seat beside him, inviting the young man to sit with him. She had assumed the young man was too scared to move, but as soon as she made the gesture, the young man suddenly stood up and then sat down beside him. 

Druid: ?

His body wasn't obeying him. Druid hadn't fully grasped the situation when the noise of banging on the door from outside ceased. 

Silence enveloped the hospital room, and Druid quietly let out a sigh of relief: "Is it over?"

"Not yet," the engineer said calmly. "The night is far from over. As long as the sun hasn't risen, this hospital is still not safe." 

As if to prove her point, the sound of nails scratching came from the neighboring wall. 

Druid shivered violently. 

"What's the matter?" she said, showing no sign of being bothered by the loud sound

"I-I-I just can't stand that sound!" Druid swallowed hard, looking toward the direction of the wall. "Does that mean she's going to come in from next door?" 

The engineer spoke indifferently, "As long as the door isn't opened voluntarily, the nurse won't come in. As for next door…" 

He paused, and Druid, feeling hopeful, asked, "Maybe they're scared and seeking our help?" 

"That won't be the case." 

"Ah? Why not?" 

Engineer tilted her head, speaking in a tone as casual as discussing the weather: "Because last night at this time, the patient next door was dragged out and killed by the front desk nurse."

==== Back To Young Engineer====

The Engineer survived the first ten minutes by sheer luck. That wasn't false modesty; it was a factual assessment. The battlefield didn't care that she didn't belong there. The Time War held no regard for youth, potential, or good intentions. It devoured Time Lords like faulty code and moved on.

She learned that quickly. They were still in it. 

Lucky This was not the worst front she could tell that much. They weren't at the screaming edge, where causality shredded itself every second. Instead, they were in a fractured midline: ruined cities overlapping one another, the sky half-burning, and time coughing up debris like shrapnel. 

Which was… survivable. Technically.

She crouched behind what might have once been a wall, or perhaps three walls from different centuries stacked together incorrectly. Nash and Lira stayed close, both silent in that way people become when they know that talking won't help.

The Engineer pressed her back against the stone and tried not to shake. 

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Panicking later. Inventory now.

Her Omni-Tool flickered weakly, interference everywhere, drowning out clean signals with screaming temporal noise. She winced. 

"Of course," she muttered. "Of course, the worst war in existence has a terrible reception. What's next, snow that erases you from time by touching it." 

Lira shot her a look. "You're… coping."

"Poorly," the Engineer admitted. "But actively."

She peeked around the corner. 

The landscape stretched out in impossible layers. Dalek wreckage fused with alien architecture she only half-recognized. Scattered bodies—some human, some not, some flickering in and out as if the universe couldn't agree that they had ever existed.

And there, half-buried in a collapsed street that was also a desert and a forest, all stitched together wrongly

Her breath caught in her throat. 

A TARDIS. 

Or what remained of one. The light steel exterior had been burned away, revealing a raw, scorched structure. The outer shell was split open, exposing ribs of impossible alloy like a chest torn apart. Temporal shielding lay in shards, its harmonics dead and silent. The interior—the soul of the TARDIS was gone. Like it was eaten.

The Engineer froze, her throat tightening before she could stop it.

"Oh," she whispered, her voice small despite herself. "Oh no… no, no." 

She took a step closer but then hesitated, as if afraid of making things worse just by being there. 

From her pocket, Omega reacted. The faint, constant wheeze that the seed usually made deepened its pitch, dropped, and turned rough. It wasn't pain; it was rage. 

The sound vibrated through her ribs, through her bones, like a growl held back by sheer effort. The air around her prickled, and time itself seemed to tense, small distortions rippling outward as Omega pulsed. The Engineer felt it immediately. 

"Hey—hey, I know," she murmured under her breath, pressing a hand to her pocket. "I see it too." 

The wheezing surged again, louder now and uneven. It was not fear. Not grief. Anger. 

This had been Omega's kind. A sister. A thinking city. A living ship torn open and devoured by the war. 

The Engineer swallowed hard. 

"They didn't even let her finish dying," she said quietly. "They just… took her apart." 

Omega's response was sharp a psychic spike of wrongness, of unacceptability. The seed burned hot against her palm, artron energy flaring in erratic pulses. If Omega had a voice, it would have been screaming. 

The Engineer clenched her jaw. 

"I know," she repeated. "I know. I'm angry too." 

For a moment, the universe around them seemed to hesitate, as if reality itself were unsure whether it wanted to keep enforcing its rules here. 

Then she inhaled, slow and steady, forcing control back into the moment. 

"We can't help her," she said softly. "Not now." 

Omega's wheeze didn't stop, but it steadied, simmering instead of exploding. 

"But I swear," the Engineer added, her eyes hard as she looked at the ruined TARDIS, "I won't let this happen to you. Not ever." 

The seed pulsed once in response. 

Not agreement. A vow.

Nash followed her gaze. "Is that one of yours?"

"No," she said quickly. "No, but… close. Different type." 

She stood before she could stop herself, then hesitated and glanced back at them. "I'm not going to touch it without looking first. Promise."

Lira nodded, pale. "Just… don't die."

"Strongly planning not to."

She moved quickly, low to the ground, weaving through cover as if she'd done this her entire life, which was wild considering she absolutely had not. Her body just… knew. Reflexes snapped into place, instincts clicked together like puzzle pieces she hadn't realized were missing.

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