Chapter 53: Humanity is Ugly

Blair didn’t turn the doorknob.

It was three in the morning. No one should be awake at this hour, but the way the girl was desperately banging her fists against the wood, even the dead would wake up. The walls in Dormitory G were paper thin. Blair was certain that everyone in the corridor could hear the girl crying out for help.

The blonde moved away from Blair’s door, rattling the handle of the room next door, then the one across the hall.

"Please!" she sobbed, her voice cracking. "Let me in! Anyone!"

Blair stood perfectly still, her hand hovering just inches from the lock.

She waited.

The hallway remained dead silent, save for the girl’s frantic weeping. Not a single door opened. No one peaked their head out to see what was wrong. Blair wondered if the other humans were pressing their eyes to their peepholes, watching the terror unfold, or if they were simply hiding under their blankets, pretending they couldn’t hear.

I should ignore it, Blair thought, her chest tight with anxiety. I should just go back to bed like everyone else.

Blair let her hand drop from the doorknob.

But she didn’t step back.

In the oppressive silence, the memory of an old nun’s voice drifted into her mind.

If you help someone, child, someone will help you in return.

Blair scoffed quietly. It was a nice sentiment, but she had never been shown an ounce of true kindness outside the walls of the abbey. Maybe the sisters had been shielded from the cruelty of the real world for too long. They didn’t understand how people actually operated out here. Humans were selfish. They backstabbed, manipulated, and abused each other without a second thought. They lived by a strict, unyielding ’not my problem’ mentality.

It made Blair feel sick to her stomach. She wondered, not for the first time, if she actually wanted to go into politics. Did she really want to dedicate her life to fighting for people who would always look the other way to save their own skin?

But then, the sister’s voice echoed again, acting as the voice of reason against Blair’s growing cynicism.

This world has good people and bad people, Blair. We cannot condemn the good just to punish the bad. We must forgive them and help them be better. The good depends on people like us to look after them, to speak up for them... to give them a reason to believe that Hell hasn’t reached Earth quite yet.

Blair let out a long sigh. Her shoulders slumped in defeat.

Her hand reached for the doorknob once again.

There was no time to put her contacts back in. She grabbed a pair of big, ugly, dark sunglasses from her desk. She shoved them onto her face.

"I am definitely going to regret this," Blair muttered under her breath.

She unlocked the deadbolt, threw the door open, and reached out into the hallway.

She grabbed the crying girl by the shoulder of her torn uniform, yanking her inside the room. Before the blonde could let out a scream, Blair slammed the door shut and clamped her hand firmly over the girl’s mouth.

"Shh!" Blair hissed, pressing the girl back against the wall.

Blair could feel the sheer terror radiating off the girl. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering against Blair’s palm. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, as if she had just stared death straight in the face and barely lived to tell the tale.

Who was she running from? Blair wondered, her own pulse quickening. Or what? The monsters?

Blair waited in the dark room, keeping her hand clamped over the girl’s mouth as she strained her ears, listening to the hallway outside.

Minutes ticked by agonizingly slowly.

The only sound was the harsh, ragged breathing of the girl trapped against the wall.

Blair slowly raised her free hand, pressing her index finger to her lips for silence. Very, very carefully, she removed her hand from the girl’s mouth.

The blonde nervously narrowed her eyes, watching with teary eyes as Blair pressed her face against the door, peering through the small peephole.

Blair’s heart hammered against her ribs. She had no idea what she was expecting to see, but...

She saw nothing.

The hallway was completely empty.

Blair waited for a full fifteen minutes, checking the peephole every thirty seconds. Whatever had been chasing the girl, it was gone.

Blair let out a quiet exhale, turning her back to the door.

"Are you okay?" Blair whispered softly.

The girl didn’t answer. Her eyes rolled back into her head, her knees buckling instantly as she passed out cold.

Blair gasped, lunging forward to catch her before her head hit the floor.

She dragged the unconscious girl to the center of the room. Moving quickly, Blair checked her pulse and her breathing. Her heart rate was elevated, but steady. Blair carefully checked the girl’s arms, legs, and neck for any deep gashes or signs of venomous black blood, but her skin was clear. She appeared physically fine.

It was possibly psychological shock.

Blair let the girl stay where she lay on the floor, knowing she shouldn’t move her too much. She grabbed a spare pillow from the closet, tucking it gently under the girl’s head, and draped her own duvet over her trembling frame.

Blair didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

She sat on the edge of her mattress, keeping watch over the door and the unconscious girl on the floor. Sometime between five and six in the morning, the girl’s temperature spiked. She broke into a feverish sweat, tossing and turning restlessly under the blanket.

As soon as the clock on her desk hit eight in the morning, Blair hurried down to the dormitory lobby and used the phone to call the academy nurse.

Ten minutes later, there was a knock on her door.

Blair opened it to find a human nurse standing in the hallway, flanked by two other human men dressed in white medical scrubs. They all wore bright, friendly smiles.

Blair was relieved. She had no idea there was an infirmary specifically for the human students, separate from the beastmen wards, but it made perfect sense. The last thing a human needed was a Bear doctor handling their fragile bones.

The two men stepped into the room, lifting the blonde girl from the floor and placing her onto a stretcher.

The movement jostled the girl awake.

Her eyelids fluttered open. For a second, she looked confused. But the moment her vision cleared and she saw the two human men and the smiling nurse standing over her, her eyes widened in blinding panic.

"No!" the blonde screamed, her voice cracking.

She thrashed violently on the stretcher, desperately trying to scramble away from the medical staff. She reached out, her fingers wrapping around Blair’s forearm with an almost painful, bruising grip.

"Please!" the girl begged, looking up at Blair with terror in her eyes. "Don’t let them take me! I don’t want to go back there!"

Blair froze, taken aback by her reaction. "Hey, it’s okay," Blair tried to soothe her. "They’re here to help you. You’re safe now."

The nurse stepped forward, offering Blair a warm, comforting smile. "The poor dear. The shock must be making her hallucinate. We will take good care of her."

Blair nodded, feeling a twinge of pity for the delirious girl.

Gently, but firmly, Blair pried the blonde’s fingers off her arm. "You’ll be fine," Blair promised her softly.

"No! No, no, no! Somebody help me!" the blonde shrieked, kicking wildly as the two men strapped her down to the stretcher.

The nurse quickly got a small syringe from her pocket and injected the sedative into the girl’s arm.

Within seconds, the screaming stopped. The girl’s thrashing limbs went limp, and she fell into a deep sleep.

The friendly medical team wheeled her out of the room, thanking Blair for her help before disappearing down the hallway, leaving Blair alone in the quiet dorm with a lingering sense of unease.