Linda decided that waiting until morning might be the best course of action. That being said, she climbed the stairs to her loft and began to undress. She slept in the nude, so this didn't take a lot of time.
As she crawled beneath the covers, she worried about her littleward. Was he going to be alright? Should she have called Animal Control? Why didn't she do that? She hoped he would be alright as she slipped into her dreams, she thought she was doing the right thing.
Her dreams were troubled. Combined with the bat, and the book she had been editing, she was Shellie Vernon walking through a dark cave with a flashlight torch. The torch fizzled and went out, and Shellie spiraled into nothingness. There was screeching, and Shellie disappeared only to be replaced with Linda herself. Linda squinted, since it was dark she could not see what was ahead, but she could hear it. There was a rush of wind, and suddenly a rush of wings and screeching. Linda screamed and fell to her knees protecting her head from the stream of bats. She lay down, and the dream changed again, suddenly she was naked, and she held a bundle to her breasts. Looking down at the bundle, she felt a soft sucking and a sharp prick. She blinked and parted the folds of the bundle.
There she saw the bat suckling at her breast. She moaned, and twisting in her sheets began to stroke the bat's head. It meant her no harm, it was just strange. And then it seemed normal. Linda drifted into the quiet and slept on through the night.
The creature in the shoebox stirred.