The store
Kris struggled to decide what it was she wanted to do, but, deep down, she wasn’t the sort of person to just abandon someone in need, even if said person was probably not the sanest given all the weird surgeries they must’ve had to end up looking like a real life Thundercat. Yet even with that taken into consideration, Kris wasn’t a nurse. She needed help. So, she opted to combine two options into one.
‘I just hope this works,’ she thought.
With a sigh, she scrambled to try and move the woman - the woman was taller and just plain bigger than she was with muscle mass, but, Kris was able to pull her over to a nearby tree. She propped the woman up, then checked the wounds: the woman was bleeding from several cuts in the right leg and right arm, likely from her attempts at trying to free herself.
Kris’ lips twitched.
She was fortunate enough to have brought a jacket with her, and, though she didn’t like the thought from a personal and hygienic level, she swallowed that down and removed it, then tied her jacket around the cat woman’s right leg, since that was the area bleeding the most. She knew enough to know that would help. Somewhat.
“Please don’t die on me, lady,” Kris muttered, more to herself than anything.
Once she was finished, tying her jacket over the woman’s leg, Kris stood up and, after casting a lingering gaze about the area, started moving.
She started with a brisk jog back to the pathway she’d been walking on in the first place - and was glad to see it hadn’t magically vanished on her, even though she knew that wasn’t possible. Yet she shoved these thoughts away and instead began moving at a quicker pace, not a full run, yet definitely close to it, booking it down the way she’d come from, down the clear, oddly empty trail in some internal hope that shop would be open still, and be able to help.
She was fortunate for two things while she moved - the first being that she’d worn comfortable running enough shoes for running, and the second being that, despite her usual lax nature, she wasn’t TOO out of shape where she’d end up losing her breath too fast.
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she thought as she ran, bypassing the fork in the road with the sign that didn’t tell her anything about her choices.
It took a few minutes for her to finally leave the forested area, and, another few minutes on top of that to get to the large clearing she’d come upon. Kris came to a stop then to catch her breath - her cheeks were flush, and she was breathing harder, but, overall, she was in fine enough shape from the running.
The shop was still where she’d left it, still looking quaint and nondescript and so severely out of place where it was. Yet Kris had no choice. She swallowed her own reservations and walked up to it, pausing only briefly to grasp the doorknob to see if it would even turn. It did, and, Kris pulled the door open and entered the shop.
Upon entering, Kris’ eyes widened. The interior wasn’t what she’d pictured.
The inside of the store, for one thing, seemed a hell of a lot bigger than it did on the outside. The first room stretched out longer than she felt possible given how small and normal-sized it appeared. Its walls were a strange mix of colors - they started off bluish on one end, then began to shift to purple, then green, and as the walls wrapped around, the colors continued to change to yellow, orange, and red, before turning blue again. It was… certainly eclectic, she thought. Otherwise, it was quite cozy. It had windows with opened curtains to let the sunlight in, there was a ceiling fan spinning above her, and there were a handful of potted plants and even a few cozy chairs on each side.
‘It feels more like someone’s house than a shop,’ she mused.
But the other thing that was strange to Kris was that, across from her, there were three doors. One was in the blue section on the left. One was in the green section on the right. And the other was at the center, in the purple section; all three were snugly placed in their respective color areas.
Fortunately, Kris realized that the doors were labeled.
The left hand door had “Traveling Supplies” on it. The right hand door was labeled “Health Supplies.” And the final door was called “Survival Supplies.”
Her lips twitched. What sort of weird store was this where it had three doors in the main room, rather than, you know, an actual store? She was beginning to wonder if this was a poor decision to make, and yet, she couldn’t risk going back empty-handed when there was someone obviously injured not far from her.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
Thus, she was left with three choices. Kris could take the traveling door and see if there were any first-aid kits or other essentials available there. Or, she could go right for the obvious and pick the health door - health had to mean essentials for scrapes and bruises, right? And yet, she couldn’t help but wonder what might be beyond the survival door. Kris scowled, thinking.
‘Don’t all three kind of go hand-in-hand?’ she wondered. Even so, she had to pick fast.
Written by Hollowpages on 07 February 2020