The Bloodbath

Sept 3, 2019 22:21:42 GMT -5 cameron said:

elmo latch d10m | post 6 attack on d8m | 9047 miss knife lost bye knife

My blade soared past the toddler, and for a moment I was washed with relief. There was fragility in his paper-thin bones, blonde strands stickin’ to the sweat, the blood on his face, and I thought of the twins back in ten. They’d cried when I was ripped out our home, the only home we’d ever known, and it had been ours together; now they watched me forgo morality in this newfound lust for life, and I knew they cried still. I felt it in my blood, boilin’ and bubblin’ with the heat, with their judgment and confusion and I wanted to tell them I was just as confused, just as unsure of my actions as they were. I was as much a stranger to myself as the Elmo on their screen.

Scorpion was no stranger, though she’d been gone for nearly a year and now stood leaning to one side, bloody paper gown as thin as the boy’s bones. Her hair fell around her, and I could still feel it brushin’ past my cheeks as her hips locked in mine and our bodies bled into one. I could still the gentle click of spit as her lips turned up, a smirk that lasted a mile.

She opened her mouth and released a chorus of death, hounds of hell roaring with anguish and pain and what could only be stubborn pride. My head tilted her way as she wedged two knives free from her flesh, red rushin’ out like rain, and stretched her back straight, strenuous but strong.

My mouth fell agape, and she tossed me knives soaked in her warmth. She licked the other clean, “you should have killed me quickly,” and slashed at the toddler like she wasn’t bleedin’ out before our eyes, like she hadn’t just ripped weapons from her body and held herself tall through it. I watched her, jaw still loose, eyes waterin’, takin’ in as much of this warrior before I’d never get to again.

Shoe girl stepped up, whisperin’ to her diapered friend, and they both charged forward, charged at Scorpion like she’d done somethin’ wrong, like she’d thrown the first blade, like she was to blame for the souls of our brethren marinatin’ in the fake grass, like she was the enemy when she’d all but fought for them.

I clenched my fist, thought of the twins once more - hopin’ they wouldn’t witness no more of this in their lives, that they’d live without the burden of their brother’s, Ma’s and Pa’s deaths on their shoulders - and wrapped an arm around my partner’s back. “If we go down, we’ll go down fightin’.” I turned my head, face against hers, and inhaled. She smelled sweet, through the horrors and destructions, she smelled so sweet. “Together.”

And I threw a knife she’d ripped from her beautiful, dyin’ body back to whence it came.

Sept 3, 2019 17:53:53 GMT -5 ✨ zozo. said:

audrey manning d7f ; post 9 ; knife attack ; 2154

audrey manning d7f ; post 10 ; knife attack ; 2029

Only little girls believe in miracles. Audrey’s knife finds nothing but the wind and her heart breaks - there’s not enough time to trial a third charm or a fluke hit or wish for a miracle of her own. Her time has run out. The boy with blue eyes needs not to tell her with words but he does all the same, standing so close to her that she sees her own petrified face in the reflective glint of his glasses.

“Is that all you got, little girl?”

Her lips quiver, hands shaking violently at her sides. It’s a frightening thing, knowing you’re about to die. Audrey’s throat closes up and refuses to let her scream, cry, beg him to stop. Please, no. The words don't reach reality, for she knows it's useless to beg death for a second, third, fourth chance. Death doesn't care if you're small or scared or crying. Neither does this boy.

Underneath his taunts, he’s right. It does seem to be all she has left.

But the other girl isn’t finished fighting.

"You'll have to do better than that if-"

In the place of Audrey’s heart is glass, the tip of the kind stranger’s knife plunging into it.

The evil boy’s hand falters and with it he crumbles, succumb to a weapon plunged through his glasses, his eye, his skull. Someone screams - the girl, she's killed him and she knows it. Time stops, and as Audrey gasps it starts again. She is alive, somehow. Still dodging death’s cold grasp.

It takes a moment in the chaos and the screaming for Audrey to process what has happened. The world spins a little, and she stumbles with it. Backward, one step, two steps, and then she remembers to breathe again.

“Th...” she tries, tongue thick and bruised, bleeding under the weight of her teeth - talking is hard after watching that.

“Thank you...”

Fleeing from the chaos, death on her tail, Audrey clutches at her knife and her final, precious, miraculous minutes. When someone gets in her way, she can only wince and think of a silent apology as she slashes toward the figure.

Sept 4, 2019 13:03:40 GMT -5 ✨ zozo. said:

audrey manning d7f ; post 10 ; knife attack ; 2029

There's more bodies dead on the ground than standing and when the tall boy she sliced at looks into her eyes she's sure she'll be next. Slicing through someone's skin, feeling the weight of violence through her hands was a hollow, abhorrent feeling - it made her stop, cry out from shock, shudder from her head to her sock-clad toes.

"Don't make me do this, kid" he warns, and the boy returns the favour - cutting clean through the fabric of her pyjama arm. A sharp cry of pain in her nerves brings hot tears to her eyes and Audrey gasps from the shock, clutching at the wound now striking and warm underneath her fingers.

"Ow!" she gasps, stumbling back and taking a moment to catch her breath and grit her teeth. She's not afraid to cry in front of him, letting the fruits of his attack fall down her cheeks - because she's scared.

"I- I..."

And she's sorry.

"I don't..."

And she wants desperately for him to know that.

"I'm sorry!"

Closing her eyes, she strikes - hating every second.