Blood
On Her Hands
DISCLAIMER: as far as I know,
I do not own pokemon. Unless of course an email has arrived to tell me I have.
*checks inbox excitedly* Nope, nothin’.
PREFACE: this is the
sequel to Bleed Like
PROLOGUE
Like
all dreams, this one is distorted. Not a memory, but more a retelling of a
certain event he had long wished had never occurred.
An
event he could not quite remember; something that had long been pushed to the
back of his psyche.
A
soul can only handle so much guilt, after all.
His limbs shake. Sweat-soaked,
sore and bloody, he pulls himself away from her, trembling as he gains the
control he had been begging himself for these past five minutes.
Five minutes was all it
took, and already her life is ruined.
No, her life was ruined some
five days ago when they captured her; now, it is devastated.
There is no hope.
She chokes, spits up blood, curls her arms weakly about herself in a feeble attempt at
shielding her violated flesh from him.
But it’s too late.
What’s done, is done, and by
his hands, no less.
His mind screams as the
other she –the only other in the room- retakes control, and once more he is
just a puppet, bent to his Lady’s will.
The woman does not scream.
This time, she does not even
have the strength to stop him, does not even bother trying to struggle. Lets it
be done to her, even as his mind screams in protest.
But he is just a toy; no
more capable of controlling his actions than the woman lying bloody and dying
on the floor is.
Minutes pass, and once more
his Lady calls him off.
He is no longer needed now;
dismissed with a casual wave.
He wants to leave, but can’t
help but stare at the woman on the floor.
What point was there to his
directed actions? Unless the Lady found twisted pleasure in forcing him upon
the human, he saw no point in her pain.
His feet marched him out the
door, the woman’s blood drying on his skin.
It burned.
The scratches in his arms
from her feeble attempts at fighting him off bleed sluggishly.
He pulled himself into a
dark corridor and wept.
Beep.
The
green lines on the monitor spiked for the first time in months. The nurse
paused in her untangling of the IV line, and stared curiously at the display.
Beep.
Again,
a fluorescent spike traced itself over the screen.
Followed
by another, than another.
Beep. Beep.
More
spikes, larger and sharper, poured over the machine in a green cascade.
“Doctor,
I think we have some brain activity here!”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The
doctor peeled off his gloves, coming into the room.
“What
is it, Joy?”
“Just
look, doctor. I’ve never seen anything like it before...”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The
spikes formed a pattern now; rising, falling, flashing.
“He
isn’t waking. He’s not moving, but his brain activity is strange...” added the
nurse as she finished detaching the empty fluid-bag from the IV, spiking a
brand new one.
“More
blood, nurse?”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“His
RBC levels keep dropping, doctor. It’s as though his body’s... eating them. They just disappear. This is his third transfusion
this morning. Gods know what his body actually does with the blood, cause it sure isn’t
going into his veins.”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Hmm.
Get on the phone to Saffron. They’ve had a lot of incidences with a disease
similar to this man’s condition. Maybe they’ll know what it is.”
“Right
away doctor.”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The
nurse scurried out. The doctor wiped his sweaty palms on his white coat as he
bent over the supine figure.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The
machine seemed to be slowing, the brief seizure of brain activity having
passed.
Either
way, the patient did not move; didn’t appear to be able to move.
Beep.
“What
are you?” he asked.
Predictably,
there was no answer.
“-wenty
more murders reported to have taken place in
“Grisly stuff, Janine. And
now onto the weather with Sarah.”
“Thanks Terry. Today’s
weather was fine, at 22 degrees, with a slight north-west wind-”
The
woman at the bar had long since tuned out from the television. Instead, she
focused on the drink in front of her, as did the bar’s myriad of other patrons.
By
her feet, her Marill growled softly, warning off the approach of yet-another drunken,
would-be suitor.
It
was not often a woman was found in this bar; when one was, she was considered
‘fair game’.
Strangely
enough, no one seemed to bother this woman.
Perhaps
it was the snarling Marill at her feet, or perhaps it was the knives sheathed
on her hips.
Or
it even could have been the fact that the first man to attempt to grab her had
ended up with three broken fingers, one dislocated thumb and a dislocated
wrist, as well as a knife wound to the stomach, and had then been dragged out
side by the Marill, which had emerged some twenty minutes later, licking blood
off its paws.
This the drunken man remembered, and
managed to stagger in the other direction.
The
woman ignored this, draining the dregs of the bourbon in her glass.
The
slow burn in her throat clouded her senses not at all, and although the bar was
as gloomy as it was grimy, she could see as clear as day.
She
pushed back her stool, deposited a small, but reasonable amount of money on the
bar, and made for the doorway.
No
one made to stop her, no one questioned why she left, just as no one questioned
why she attacked one unfortunate fellow by the door, dragging him out, leaving
her Marill to wash the blood off the dirty tiles.
He disposed of the body as
he had been told to: quickly, efficiently, and leaving behind no traces that it
had ever existed.
Usually, he would have been
ordered to feed it to either one of the many scum-sucking bottom-feeders that
lurked in the city’s many alleyways, or have been told to just toss it in the
refuse trench that backed onto the harbour.
This body was different,
however.
The body of a woman, one of
the ones he had been forced upon some few months ago.
Or was it weeks?
He could not remember, and
by the frozen horror on the woman’s face, he had good reason not to.
Either way, the corpse -with
its swollen stomach- was heaved into the furnace of the steel mill in the
stinking industrial centre.
Molten metal closed around
the woman’s flesh with a hiss, welcoming her into oblivion.
She had only died the day
before.
She had killed herself, and
whatever it was the Lady had valued in her.
He was not entirely sure if
it was the knife he gave her, or the Rattata poison; either way, she was dead,
and at his hands.
Just as his violence had
been perpetrated against her weeks before.
He could not recall what
number she was; just another in the endless stream that his Lady had used him
for.
He did not understand; there
was no gain to be made.
But while his body belonged
to her, he could not help but obey.
Pikachu sniffed, and
wrinkled his nose.
The air was heavy with
burning flesh.
The
woman scowled.
The
feeder at her feet whined pathetically, reaching out for her leg.
Before
broken fingers could clasp, a swift booted kick was made to his face.
Teeth
crunched and cartilage jolted back into the feeder’s brain.
The
body grew still, breathing cut off suddenly.
She
was under no illusions that he was dead; within the next twenty minutes he
would be up and about. A little sore perhaps, and certainly worse for wear, but
not dead.
These damn things just won’t
die.
Her
interrogation of the currently-dead feeder had yielded her nothing, given her
no clues as to what she sought.
The
murders in Saffron would continue unabated.
Misty
sighed.
She
was perhaps the only one that knew what had really happened in that cavern; it
had not been a cave-in caused by a suicidal cult, nor had the bodies suffered
from a disease which caused blood loss.
Misty
snorted.
Feeders
were a disease.
A
crunching noise in the background brought her out of her reverie.
“C’mon
Marill, leave the body. You know
feeding more than twice a day will give you indigestion.”
Marill
grunted and swallowed. The feeder body was certainly in a worse state than
before, missing a nose and both ears, as well as the jelly-like mush that was
once an eye dribbling from an empty socket.
Marill
burped.
Misty
rolled her eyes.
“Gods,
Marill, I can’t trust you with anything, let alone a dead body. C’mon. We’d
better head back.”
The
blue aqua-mouse nodded, and trotted after her trainer.
Behind
them, Rattata swarmed over the corpse, ensuring that this feeder at least would
not rise again.
Fingers
twitched, curling around crumpled white sheets.
The
nurse adjusting his IV line for the fifth day that afternoon didn’t notice.
Eyelids
twitched also, causing long lashes to flutter on newly-plump cheeks.
His
brow creased, and the monitor, silent since that morning, beeped loudly.
“Another
spike? Doctor, it’s happening again!”
Once
more the doctor came, walking briskly down the hall and peeling off his gloves.
It
would have been better if he had bothered to run like his instincts were
telling him to; if he had done so, perhaps he could have avoided the fate that
stretched before him.
The
previously comatose patient was asleep no longer; instead a full-grown man held
the nurse by the throat.
Her
lips were turning blue, and blood dribbled sluggishly from one nostril.
The
man’s eyes were angry and confused; a dangerous combination.
“Put
her down. Easy there. Put her down.”
He
did, throwing her in an overhead arc through the glass plated windows and down
the hall.
Her
body hit the concrete walls with a terrible crunch.
Blood
pooled around her crushed head.
He
turned towards the doctor now; stark naked and with various tubes and wires
attached.
Blood
dotted his skin as they were torn off.
The
doctor found himself moving into a corner- the man was shepherding him as
surely as Growlithe herded Mareep- and his back
thumped against the wall.
The
man grinned, no longer confused, but just angry.
Those black eyes are mad, thought the
doctor as a hand reached for his face.
Gristle
and bone crunched as the man squeezed.
END
PROLOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTES: see? I said it
was short. Still, I hope to update before the end of the month *fingers
crossed* although in reality, it might be a while. I have homework, the school
musical, various chunky assignments, not to mention my
girlfriend coming down to visit me... phew, I’m a busy girl!
Anyways,
reviews are always appreciated.
Clover,
April
2006