"And then—BAM!—I sent the dragon flying!"

  Rodent snickered at the front of the large, spacious room where children sat before him. Most wore hospital gowns. Those unable to sit on the ground were in wheelchairs or reclined in their mobile beds.

  "Of course, I didn't want to fight him." Rodent's smirk was larger than most people's smiles. His fist was raised and exaggerated as he held it upward. "But he was messing up the city. Holding up traffic. Obviously—something had to be done."

  Having the children's attention, he turned to shadow-box the air, looking as impressive as possible for a good-hearted idiot. "Wasn't even a challenge! Just knocked him a few times on the snout when he tried to eat me." He stopped, chuckling. "Same weak point as a shark!"

  The children laughed and wiggled at the absurdity, but one child, a little lady, scrunched her face and wiggled her nose. She looked agitated in her wheelchair. "You SO did not fight a DRAGON!"

  "Did so!" Rodent's face playfully scrunched. He assumed a confident stance, even wiggling his nose back at her. "He took to the skies and used the clouds to block vision of him. Didn't matter. I knew who his target was."

  Rodent started rolling his shoulder and arm as fast as he could, sliding a foot back and looking at the ceiling as though it were the sky. From this level of the hospital, the children could see the actual sky through the windows behind Rodent, the dying orange of a setting sun.

  When Rodent threw his winding punch, it blasted upward with a subtle twist of his body, the window blinds flying up simultaneously from a sudden breeze.

  The children were ablaze with amazement at the confidence, time slowing the moment down, stretching out the wonder that ticked with every second. Then time resumed, the drapes floating down as Rodent's foot slid back.

  "He descended like a bullet to destroy me," Rodent said with a face still bathed in confidence. "But one super-powered uppercut later, and he was knocked back like anything else."

  The kids exploded with laughter and cheer.

  And Rodent smiled, taking a bow.

  Then, the bright, dying sunlight started to recede.

  "Um… s-so… w-what happened next?" asked a shy voice from the group.

  Without missing a beat, Rodent noticed the kid, sat beside him, and crossed his legs like him. Rodent bobbed side-to-side, humming as if deciding the fable's next part.

  "Well. Y'know. Suppose I should tell the truth." Rodent touched and tilted his face. "I felt bad for wrecking that dragon like that." His bouncing stopped. "You wouldn't believe his nosebleed. Thought we'd need two water-towers to plug his nostrils with."

  The children all gazed at him.

  "Once it was over, we got to talking—which is what we should have done in the first place."

  The children nodded.

  "Turns out the dragon went through the wrong portal and ended here by mistake." Rodent shrugged. "Didn't even mean to be mean."

  Silence.

  For a second.

  "So I apologized. Talked on a nice hilltop." Rodent straightened. "Makes sense why he was upset—he just wanted to go home. And I… didn't know how to get him back there."

  Rodent looked down for a moment. The kids took notice. Then, the young man smiled—which existed beneath his blue eyes and gray-and-blond hair. "But there's no sense in worrying about what you can't do." His smile became stronger. His posture rose. "So, to cheer him up, I focused on showing him how cool this world could be!"

  Rodent chuckled, leaning back with arms crossed, glancing at everyone with blazing confidence. "So I called a few people. Made a couple of deals. Had water tankers filled with soda and trucks full of snacks pull up. The dragon and I took over a drive-in and watched all the classics. It was pretty good."

  The kids blinked.

  "After that, I rode on his back, and we scouted the world for a nice cave for him to take for the time being."

  "NO! NU-UH! YOU'RE LYING! NONE OF THAT HAPPENED!" yelled the previous girl.

  Rodent, blinking, glanced at the girl, seeing her anger and hate, and could only close his eyes and focus more on smiling. "Mm-hm! Even made a business out of it!" He reached into his jacket, pulling out a card. "Now I scout out caves and recommend them to displaced dragons. The gems they pay are insane."

  He passed the card to the kid next to him, who gazed at it closely and made a confused face. The card was passed down, and the previous reaction was matched by the subsequent one.

  Soon, it reached the young lady, who straightened herself as much as she could, not staring at the card immediately. Making herself appear more proper as if to give herself more authority, she finally raised the card to her face, scanning it carefully and suspiciously… until she squinted with rage.

  "THIS IS JUST YOUR NAME IN CRAYON!"

  "The stick figure is me as well," Rodent said. "First one to invent something gets to make up the rules for it. And I think crayon is good for the world's only cave/dragon real estate agent."

  The room exploded in laughter.

  Until a bell rang.

  And a flood of nurses entered the room, each softly clapping. "Alright! Show's over! Everyone, please thank Mr. 'Rodent!'"

  Most did.

  Rodent, returning to the front of the room, took his bow.

  The children were then led into different halls and different rooms by different people. One remained in the spacious room—the girl in the wheelchair. Rodent sat on the ground beside her, legs crossed, staring out the window at a darkening sky.

  "Guess you didn't enjoy the show?"

  She scrunched her face and lips, looking away. "None of that was real."

  "Really? That's the important part?" Rodent asked, genuinely curious. "Heh. Well. It felt real. Y'know, when it was all happening inside my head." He happily touched just above his ear. "I could imagine it clearly. Feel and experience everything. It was a lot of fun."

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  He looked at a sky where the clouds were becoming harder to see. "And sometimes, others enjoy that same fun too—which is probably why I'm so happy all the time."

  The girl glanced back at him, hearing the shift in his voice, the overly-positive note gone. Hearing him earnestly speak was enough to earn her gaze. It was like a special kind of respect.

  "Do me a favour," Rodent said gently, looking for a bright sky that was no longer there. "Don't be in such a rush to grow up." He smiled with a breath, both small. "Much easier being immature as a kid than as an adult."

  "You're an adult," she said. "How come you're not mature?"

  "Because your eyes deceive you," he returned. "I'm not an adult. Just a really, really old kid."

  The girl smiled. She didn't want to. But the smile was too strong to fend off.

  "It's getting late," Rodent said, standing but unable to tear his gaze away from the darkened sky. But he did in order to look at the young lady. "May I bring you back to your room?"

  The lady sat there.

  Rodent didn't mind standing around.

  Seconds ticked.

  And then the lady said, "...okay."

  Rodent smiled, assuming the handles of her chair and turning it, careful in his movement, the ride smooth and the speed consistent. The girl disliked being pushed around. She'd rather do it herself. But in the times she couldn't, the people that rolled her around were too quick in their turns.

  Her stomach easily became upset.

  But with Rodent, he was perfect, as if he had experience with this before. They turned into a hallway linking two out of the four buildings together. The silence was peaceful—besides the idle sounds of the wheelchair itself.

  "Why do you keep coming back?" the lady spoke her thoughts without meaning to. She immediately disliked herself.

  Rodent blinked, focused on his task. "Back? Like… back here?"

  "U-Uh… m-hm."

  "Hmm…" Rodent gave it genuine thought. Though his eyes lifted to assist in the endeavour, he still pushed the wheelchair with absolute care. "It might not seem like it now… but even when you can escape this place… some part of you yearns to return."

  The lady glared downward. "I'd never want to come back. Nothing about this place is nice."

  "I used to feel that way, too," Rodent said. "For a long time. Many times. Sometimes, I still feel that way."

  The lady blinked. She looked back and over her shoulder up at him. "Y-You… do?"

  "Mm-hm." Rodent hit a button on a wall that opened the double doors ahead. They passed into the joining building, the floor empty of people, but machines and beds were littered along the wall. "Some feelings never vanish. They just become less strong. Less frequent."

  The girl reflected on this. "T-Then… w-what causes them to go away?"

  "Hm." Rodent thought about this, weaving the chair around 'WET FLOOR' cones without a single jerking motion. This total peace allowed the girl to relax more around him. "Whenever I'm reminded about the good stuff. But that's the thing. I always have to be reminded."

  The girl listened carefully.

  "The good stuff doesn't stick to you like the bad stuff does. Makes it real easy to get swept away in it." Rodent softened after he had darkened for a bit. "But then something good happens because you went looking for it or because it just happened, and suddenly, you remember not everything is terrible."

  Despite shaking his darkness, Rodent couldn't help but feel wisps of it sticking to him. "It's okay to feel bad while bad things are happening. It's best to let it flow through you—to express what it's like." He nodded. "But you cannot let it hold you for too long. There are good things out there. You have to look for it."

  The lady was quiet.

  "That's why I go by Rodent," he said. "Because whenever someone calls me it, I'm reminded of good times." He smiled. "And something passive becomes active again."

  The girl asked, "How'd you get the name Rodent?"

  "Annoyed a girl I liked until she called me that."

  "And... it stuck?"

  "Mm-hm."

  "W-What… happened to her?"

  Rodent was gone for a moment. Stolen and taken away. He only snapped out of it when a janitor with a cart was coming his way. Rodent jerked them out of the way—much to their mutual displeasure at his first mistake.

  He quickly spoke up. "N-Not… around, anymore."

  "Oh." The lady became shy. She never expected the goof to have anything serious about him. This reveal made her feel a previously unfelt guilt. "U-Um. T-Then. Y-You l-like t-the n-name, R-Rodent?"

  "Only one I really know."

  "T-Then… h-how about… your real name?"

  "Never had one." Rodent shrugged. "Besides what the hospital called me."

  "O-Oh."

  The lady's head lowered.

  "Don't get depressed," Rodent said. "I'm not a sad story." They took a right into another hall, hugging the wall as a group of three sprinted past them. Rodent glanced back to watch the people run. "There were six of us when I was a kid here. Seven, really. Some of us were upset about not having names—until I suggested that meant we could name ourselves after cool stuff."

  The lady lightened and giggled, looking more like her usual haughty self when she turned to gaze up at him. "You guys named yourself? Really?"

  "Yup! What's the hospital going to do? Reject the request of sick, abandoned children?" Rodent laughed. "If we wanted to name ourselves Rocket or Firecracker, then that's what the hospital would have to call ourselves."

  The girl blinked. "Except for you."

  "Not having a name didn't bother me." Rodent smirked. "Besides, I couldn't have picked better myself."

  They neared her room, which the lady had wanted to reach quickly but wished it had taken them longer to get here after getting to know the man. Tests would be run on her throughout the night. The people that would come would only speak of what they required from her.

  The lady made sure to be strong, silent, and mature about the whole thing—as if it made her superior to the other children. But something about leaving this warm and caring bubble to the cold and sterile operations that were her life made the weight she usually bore so much heavier.

  In this state, the girl once again spoke without thinking: "I'd like a name like your group's."

  "Heh!" Rodent chuckled, nearly giggling. "Give yourself one, then!"

  "B-But—"

  "Can't do any worse than Rodent… can you?"

  The girl looked into her lap as they rolled into her room, which was no different from all the other rooms she stayed in. Nothing was consistent in her life. No one place that she could make into her own—that could be considered her home.

  But then she looked up to see Rodent doing the same, seeing him stare through the room's windows, seeing the dark sky now dotted with twinkling stars. It all looked so beautiful, even if the moment was sombre—like a little bit of warmth during a snowstorm.

  Seeing the stars so pretty and bright was enough to steal the woman from her plight. It offered her peace and strength in such a rough moment. It was enough to brighten her spirits—to refresh her soul.

  The woman breathed before she spoke.

  "F-Flower…" said the lady, twisting to look at the gray-and-blond-haired man. "I-I'd like to be like your friends. I-I want to be known as Flower."

  Rodent snickered, offering a salute, looking down at the little lady as though she were his captain. "You got it, Flower!"

  Flower smiled, feeling special. She actually took hold of the wheels of her chair, rolling herself back into her dim room… and absolutely glowing inside of it. She expected the door to shut behind her and for Rodent to leave the brave girl to her fate.

  Instead, Flower turned to see Rodent's foot behind her, taking a knee so they were on eye level. He remained lightly cheerful. "Listen. I know what this place can do to you. How it feels to be going through so much… while everyone treats it like nothing."

  Flower watched him.

  "It often feels like what you're going through isn't a big deal because other people aren't treating it as seriously as they should." Rodent waited a moment for his words to settle. "That doesn't mean you don't deserve attention or care. Most people are barely making it through their own problems. But what you're going through still has value."

  He smiled. "So next time? I'll go on real adventures—and bring you back cool souvenirs."

  Flower smiled. "You better."

  It was a genuine smile. "I want to hear about real adventures you went on. No more fairy tales, Mr. Storyteller."

  Rodent nodded, holding up a pinkie. "It's a promise."

  They pinkie-promised.

  Rodent left after that.

  And Flower, through great struggle, opened the window of her room—enjoying the breeze.

  Very original.

  not to be fun and, though I might never create a decent work because of this, I have decided instead to write content that I, myself, find enjoyable. This means probably going against both good taste and the expectations of most readers.

  strange stories that are written by a very strange person.

  you will get some sort of kick of this strange.

  ~ Triple-Triple