Night 53: Main Hallway 2-West
[From here.]Well... here he was. Ludwig's flashlight played along the empty hallway, and for the first time, he truly felt like he was alone in this place. Up on the second floor, he couldn't even hear the constant hum of activity and movement on the lower floor. In a way, it made sense, given how much distance he'd put between them. But on the
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If there was really that large amount of blood just up ahead, Damon would've normally known at this point because he would've been able to smell it. He wondered if he could even now; he was still more sensitive to blood than he was to anything else. Only natural. But he knew it didn't come close to his usual ability to track something for miles.
So he would have to actually go take a look. This was all very inefficient.
He kept on walking, not pausing for anything, letting his thoughts flick through his mind as they came and went without lingering over any matter in particular. Whether Stefan had managed to catch his long overdue dinner yet, if maybe Elena was killing time by writing in her diary, if this was seriously how he was spending his night instead of having a drink and something pretty and young to occupy the hours until morning.
Eternity had always come attached with severe boredom-everything had its downfalls, after all-but this was going way beyond simple boredom. He was skulking around alone in the dark, of all things. This was-
This was the summation of Stefan's life, that's what this was.
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It would have been easy to ignore if the source hadn't come closer, and if the noise hadn't changed from vague speech into a more unintelligible sort of gibberish; the sort of sound that mindless creatures would make.
Necrits were pretty low on the ladder when it came to intelligence, but that didn't make them any less of a threat. As small as they were, it only allowed them to cover more ground with their clawed feet. More than that, they knew to hunt in a pack, and three pairs of yellowed eyes poked out from the darkness as they moved toward the lone patient.
[ Court ]
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The whispering noises had him hesitate for the briefest second, if only because Damon still hadn't gotten used to hearing whispers in the first place, not from this close by. At this distance, he should've been getting whole conversations.
But oh, right. He was as good as human now. However could he forget.
His eyes narrowed as he peered over his shoulder. The problem with having heightened instincts but decidedly less-than-ideal senses was that it was pretty much impossible to sort out what was a threat and what was the result of him being unable to hear a damn thing. But it became fairly clear, another second or two in, that this was the former.
Well. Or not. More like...just something extremely...no, really. What the hell were those. They looked like creepy gnome props that fell off of a set of a horror movie from the eighties and then melted in a fireplace. Silent Hill, Bella had told him. Apparently. He'd have been figuring out how something like this even existed, except now was maybe not the best time because they were steadily coming closer.
He eyed them. It wasn't that he was incapable of recognizing another predator for what it was, but even so-it was just. Look, as much as he was aware of how he was functioning very not up to standards (extremely aware, thank you), it was hard for his instincts to let go of over a century of not giving a shit about anything that decided it would be a good idea to get in his way. Definitely not things that barely made it past his knees.
Still-yeah, okay, maybe they were approaching pretty quick. If nothing else, he'd rather not have some bizarre creature attach itself to his ankle. He took a couple of quick steps back, in the same way one might dodge a small group of large rats.
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When it came to the point that they were ready to go in for a kill, they did it with a certain rhythm. One would sweep in first, slashing with a claw or biting with its fanged mouth. Just as it was drawing away, another would come from the opposite side, repeating the process.
It was a slow method, but it was also consistent -- meant to slowly tire down and bring down the target.
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Ugh. He should've known. So not cool. But the reality of it still caught him off guard. He faltered-and he was already too slow as it was. His reflexes were there, but his body physically refused to react with any natural speed. It threw everything out of sync, and he realized his attempt to put a wall at his back came a bit too late, oh...right around when one of them took out a chunk just below the back of his knee?
Kind of hard for his leg not to give way immediately with that, which a) "Fuck-"; and b) yeah, if there was one sure way to piss him off, it was to make him bleed. Nothing was supposed to eat him. That was not how this food chain business worked.
But hitting the ground put him on the level of whatever they were which at least made it easier to swipe at the nearest one. It was probably the equivalent of hair-pulling given he should've been able to break the damn thing in half, but whatever. If he couldn't do that, he could rake out its stupid glowing eyes. He was easy-going that way.
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The one that was hit did draw back for a moment to recover from the blow, but the other two were more than happy to clamber up onto the man's legs now that he was downed, digging their claws into his flesh as they climbed atop him, getting ever closer to more vital areas like his abdomen.
And so one bite at his side while the other continued to scratch away at the more injured leg, still giving out those strange chattering noises as they worked away at him like a piece of meat.
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The moment Claire hit the last step, there was a bodily thud that shook the floor. And chattering - not quite human, but close enough to momentarily confuse her until she realized the words were impossible to make out. The rhythm wasn't human. Nor was the pitch.
She rounded the stairwell, sweeping her torch towards the sound and gawking at the sight. There was a man bleeding on the ground and scrambling against what looked like, at first glance, sickly grey potato men. Their bodies were armless and misshapen with flaking, scab-like skin, wide yellow eyes that seemed to glow even in the beam of her light. Stubby legs that moved quickly, slashing with claws and hustling over top of the man to sink sharp teeth into the man's side. The man shifted in his struggles, face thrust into view.
Damon's face.
Boone.
A memory flitted past. A young man drenched in blood being wrapped in blue tarp, body broken and limp.
The torch fell from her grasp and both hands went to the axe. With a bloodcurdling cry, she swung the head towards the creature chewing at his abdomen. The blow came in from the side to avoid hitting the man instead. If it didn't slice the thing clean in half, then it would at least knock it off its perch.
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Oh. So it was. He might've been distracted at the moment, but yes, that was an ax held by someone the size of a cheerleader.
He knew her, he realized. It was a recognition that flickered through, registered only vaguely. The combination of crazy girls coming out of nowhere with an ax and having something gnawing its way towards his ribs made it hard to process logical details. If hadn't felt any effects earlier besides hunger from the lack of blood, that was starting to change now with the rapid loss of what little remained in his system. But he registered enough to think, What the hell was she even doing?
He had enough sense to yank his hand back before she took it off by the wrist along with the creature. Her target could very well be him, so best to be safe. He kicked out at the thing still attached to his other leg and scrambled backwards, leaving a smear of blood along the tiles. His hands were slick with it, which was not actually unusual per se. The blood just wasn't often his.
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The second one got a kick, which was much easier to handle. It only pushed it back, but the sheer amount of blood was enough to make the creatures rabid, and so it and its companion continued to attack; one went for the man's shin and scratched, while the other moved to his thigh to sink its teeth in.
While the new human was a clear threat, they were too spurred on by blood lust to listen to their limited survival instincts.
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Claire had no time to wonder about the impossibility if this. There were two still on Damon. Getting them off was more important than wondering what they were or where they came from. She stepped back for an easier shot at the one Damon had just kicked at, the axe swinging over her head with a shrill grunt before it plummeted down towards the creature's head.
But there was something to be said for momentum. Her foot had scarcely touched the ground when she was brandishing the weight of the axe. And too late, she realized she had stepped into something wet.
Though the axe still fell through its arc and her hands continued to grip the handle, the rest of Claire went tumbling to the floor. Her skull connected with a bruising crack. Claire went still, breath short and wide eyed. Stunned. It's a smooth floor. His blood's all over.
She had come in expecting the friction of roots and soil under her feet.
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At least she hadn't fallen on him. That would really be awesome. You know what, this was all needlessly complicated and, if he had to admit, kind of embarrassing. Also, painful. And while it was his blood that was spilling, recycled and reused and basically about as useful for his body as a Twinkie, blood was blood and the scent of it was enough to distract.
So was she. She'd fallen extremely close to him. For a split second, he almost didn't notice the creature clawing his leg. Almost.
Ow. He cursed and jerked his leg back, instinctive, for all the good that would do.
But not being eaten alive (unalive? Whatever) came first, even before feeding-barely, but. He snatched the ax out of her hands while she was still recovering and slammed the end of it directly at the nearest one.
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Unfortunately, they were easily distracted when the other human fell to the ground with a crash, the impact enough to make them feel the small vibrations on the floor under their feet. The necrits hadn't been prepared for that, and it confused them for long enough that the one that got aimed at with the axe wasn't even prepared for the hit.
The blade of the axe smashed right into the middle of its body, cleaving it cleanly in half. The close proximity meant that it hadn't really had a chance.
The third one skittered away, finally realizing the true extent of the danger that it was in. It decided to move over to the other human now, as that fall might have left her unable to attack. As it moved toward her a claw stuck out for her arm, aiming to scratch deeply.
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Anger bubbled over the shock of the fall for a moment as she watched him take a swing at one of the creatures. No, it didn't matter that he was trying to kill the thing, you couldn't just take stuff from people's hands like that. That was her axe, she'd found it and she was the one keeping it. What if he turned it on her next?
Claire was, however, ever so slightly miffed when she saw the monster he'd aimed at split cleanly in two, while hers was still on the ground over there twitching in one piece. It wasn't fair.
"Hey!" she barked, clumsily rolling onto her arm so she could reach for the weapon. "That's mine! Give it back, you -"
Words died when a sharp gasp escaped her instead. Pain sliced through her forearm as the last of the bunch tore the skin there with a clawed toe, gifting her with parallel gashes where it struck. Claire scrambled back, having enough sense to furiously backhand the beast before clutching at the wound. That wouldn't keep it down for long.
In a flash she was on her feet, both hands reaching out to snatch the axe away. "Give it to me!" she snarled. She put a foot on his stomach and heaved - the weapon popped out of desperate fingers into her own bloodied grip. Claire didn't waste time. She got her footing on ground free of blood again and hammered down the axe towards the last creature.
If it didn't chop in half good and proper, she was going to be so mad.
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Seeing the state that its companions were in, one definitely dead and the other just about there, survival instincts finally kicked in and the creature ran away just in time to have the head of the axe miss it.
It disappeared into the shadows, leaving both the bloodied patients and its two hunting partners behind.
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And then she bled.
His field of vision, his thoughts, his instincts-everything zeroed in on that one fact. Forget that he wasn't healing at all, one hand pressed against the open wound in his side; forget the damn creature skittering the other way. Blood. She was bleeding, fresh and human and warm, and the scent of it was dizzying, intoxicating. His eyes burned with the rush of his own blood, a ripple of darkened veins that could almost be dismissed as a trick of the light. It didn't matter that he was no longer capable of hearing her heartbeat; he heard it, anyway. The pulsing rhythm was one he was intimately familiar with. He could have her, she was there, wounded and easy prey, they were all easy prey-
A flare of pain in his leg, the result of moving it to stand, snapped the smallest part of him back down. Shit. Breathing-he was breathing too hard and too fast. His fingers curled. If the floor hadn't been hard linoleum, his nails would've left permanent impressions.
He dragged his eyes closed until some semblance of clear thought returned, relaxed enough so that he was no longer visibly coiled like a wire. It wasn't that he didn't want to feed on her or that he wouldn't; he did and he would. But he wasn't this. There was a difference between embracing his nature and losing complete control, and he had absolutely no intention of doing the latter. He stalked, he toyed, he fed, and he did it whenever and to whomever the hell he pleased, but jumping blindly on the nearest bleeding target was reserved for vampires who were new or who'd never learned any better. He was neither. And you know, he'd spent the past three days being far less in control of things than he'd have liked, so he really wasn't in the mood for more of the same.
This place. He was so burning it to the ground.
But after he ate something.
Barely a minute had passed when he opened his eyes again. The red flooding the whites had disappeared. His gaze remained fixed on her forearm, the way the blood slid slowly along her skin. With effort, he looked away, rolling his eyes to the ceiling instead. Better. Kind of.
He shifted until he was just a bit more upright, wincing. God, being human sucked. How did these people stand it?
"Give me a hand, would you? Please," he added, because he was just that nice.
Yeah, he thought. This was much more like it.
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That wasn't fair.
She debated trying to follow it for a moment. But it was fast for its size, and she'd need the flashlight to give chase. She couldn't hold that and swing the axe at the same time. And Boone - Damon was bleeding. He was still sprawled out on the floor, totally useless on his own. If she left to follow the creature, something worse would probably stroll along and finish him off.
Claire scowled after the beast's trail in the darkness for a moment longer. If she ever saw it again, she wouldn't hesitate. It had scratched her arm up pretty badly. A fact that was impossible to ignore as she hefted out the axe from the floor, prying it loose with a painful grunt. Blood trickled down to her knuckles even as she set the axe against the wall and clutched at the wound. It didn't feel too deep. Just messy. She would need bandages of some sort for sure, and all she had were her clothes.
Damon would need more. He'd probably have to lose his whole shirt to get fixed up. Would he even be able to stand?
Well, he sure seemed to think so.
"Give me a second," Claire said quietly. She stepped around him and approached the twitching creature that she'd failed to finish off earlier. It was alive, but badly broken inside. The woman watched it with a steady gaze, and then lifted her foot over its chest.
Crunch.
The skin might have been as hard as a rock, but the bones inside seemed brittle. Snapping cleanly, like a bird's. It finally stilled.
It did little to ease the loss of the third beast, but at least now the job was done properly.
She padded back over to Damon. "You shouldn't be standing with your leg tore up like that. Here, let's get you against the wall." Claire leaned down to pull him by his underarms. The scratches protested violently the moment she took her hand off, dripping onto the floor. Claire winced. She'd gotten by with much worse before, but telling herself that now didn't make it any easier.
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