3: Existential Hospital

Previously on We’re Not in Edison City Anymore, Sam Superlative the Third has arrived in Edison City, John Cute has disappeared, and Candystriper lies unconscious in the hospital! As heroes and villains alike try and make sense of these astonishing developments, first our usual commercial word:

Candystriper opened her eyes. Everything was dark. She blinked a few times. It remained dark. It wasn’t just the dimly lit darkness of one’s bedroom or the pale grey of one’s underground bunker, no, this was an utter absence of light, a darkness that could be felt, to use the Biblical phrase.

The henchwoman wasn’t sure why a Biblical phrase had crossed her mind just then, but she had a sudden horrible suspicion and she didn’t like it in the least. “Okay,” she said to herself, trying to ignore that her voice sounded very flat and feeble in the darkness, “I am not dead, and I am not in the bad place. I am … I’m resting! That’s it. I’m resting and dreaming and-”

“Oh, yeah, no, you’re dead, like super dead,” a new voice said. Candystriper whirled to see who had spoken, hoping that maybe they’d brought some light with them. They hadn’t, alas; all she saw was the same pitch-black void of dark.

“I’ll spare you the trouble, ‘kay?” the voice said, “I’m you, but evil. Evil-er. You know what I mean, right? I’m like Devil You.”

“Oh,” Candystriper said. “So-”

“Hi,” a second voice said, a little sweeter and from a different direction. “If I may, you are not dead, not at all, you’re just, um, taking a teensy little bitsy break from reality, right? Cool beans, cool beans, now let’s just hop right on back now I think we’ve learned our lesson, haven’t we-”

“Yeah, no, we like totally haven’t,” the first voice said languidly. “Unless the lesson was how not to get ourselves killed, because if it was then y’know total flunkeroo on that one, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, no, no, we are not dead!” the second voice said insistently. “It isn’t true if we don’t believe it! If we can all just be a little more positive about this-”

“Shyeah I’m positive we’re gonna go straight to the Bad Place,” the second voice grumbled.

“Now look at you, being so negative,” chided what Candystriper assumed was her angelic self. “Why would we, of all people, end up down there?”

“Hello?” said the first voice. “We were like a henchwoman? We killed people and broke stuff! For a living!”

“Well, we didn’t like it very much,” the second voice said after a pause. “Also I don’t think we actually literally killed people? It was really more some light maiming, some minor concussions, a bit of-”

There was a vaguely ethereal sort of clapping sound, which sounded as if her bad side had tried to smack herself on her forehead (which was particularly difficult to do as a disembodied manifestation of Candystriper’s evil side). “You carried Death Kazoos, duh?” the first voice said. “Did I like miss a memo where we changed it to Light Maiming and Minor Concussion Kazoos? What’s with the kazoo anyway? We should’ve just got, y’know, actual firearms. Or maybe actual Death Rays, you know? Death Rays are cool.”

“Yeah, but they’re so messy,” the second voice said. “All the bits and things going everywhere, eugh.”

“Excuse me,” Candystriper said. “Are you guys really sure I’m dead? Also, I think I’d go with beams myself-”

“Not this again!” her evil self sighed.

“Oh, well, actually,” the second voice said, somewhat awkwardly, “I, um, have to admit, I think we might be, like, close?”

“What do you mean, close?” Candystriper demanded.

Silence followed. “Guys?” she said. “Guys?” She waved her hand around, hoping somehow to catch hold of one of them, even though she suspected she couldn’t anyway. Then she realized she could see the vague outline of her hand and arm moving in the dark. She turned.

“Oh,” Candystriper said. “What do you know. A light. Well, isn’t that just peachy. I get to go toward the light and John frickin’ Cute gets away scot-free because he’s a dang hero and he’s probably killed my guy by now and who knows where he’ll end up-”

The light beeped at her, in a steady, insistent, annoying sort of way. “What?” she began, only she found it was suddenly difficult to talk. It was hard to move too; she seemed to have things weighing her down and attached to her, and she felt funny and generally awful all over. Slowly, very slowly, she managed to get her eyes open.

She was in a room with pale green walls, surrounded by medical devices that beeped at her and tubes that ran around and occasionally into her, and the television on the wall across from her bed was playing what looked like a Disney movie from the ‘90s.

“Cool,” Candystriper whispered muzzily. “Better ‘n hell…” Without further comment, she drifted into unconsciousness again.

In the corner, on the drab couch by the window, the Malevolent Med-Student had fallen asleep himself. He hadn’t changed clothes since the night he’d brought Candystriper in, and he hadn’t left. One of the nurses had brought in a blanket and pillow. “Boyfriend?” she’d asked sympathetically.

“Ah,” the Malevolent Med-Student had said, not entirely sure how to answer that question. It wasn’t as if they’d discussed feelings or anything; they’d been too busy being tossed around their own lair by a rogue antihero. Then he’d shrugged. “Close enough,” and left it at that. Now he stirred slightly, as if he’d heard Candystriper, and then fell asleep again as the monitors beeped quietly on around them.

Read the Next Episode.

---