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Post by Delilah A. Black on Mar 31, 2013 19:08:37 GMT -8
She nodded with a faint smile. Now THERE was a fine idea. Couldn't very well go back to the base like this at any rate.
"C'mon. Should be an apartment building around here somewhere..." she started walking to the left, away from the mausoleum as far as they could go, towards the residental area over the fence.
As they passed through the line of rich people buried here, Delilah's head would turn sideways as she stopped for a moment, staring at one tombstone in particular, looking wistful and perhaps a little sad.
If Cain were interested enough to read the inscription, he would see--:-Here lieth-
Maxwell William Constantine Black, IV
1965-2001 [/size] Legacy Builder
Husband
FriendDAD[/center] Carved into the stone towards the bottom was an almost angry, hacked font that marred the beautiful, intricately engraved sandstone was a little peice of herself she had left behind. Delilah smirked at herself and continued walking, lifting a hand to brush her fingertips against the top of her father's tombstone.
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Post by Vespyr on Mar 31, 2013 19:27:21 GMT -8
Cain followed beside her and cast a glance at the tombstone for a moment without really reading it. His eyes flicked over to her face as soon as she'd stopped, catching wind of the wistful little smirk. He glanced back at the text on the tombstone momentarily before he kept walking. There were only assumptions to be made, but for some reason this time he didn't feel like asking. A slight frown wore on the man's face and he watched the ground with a stern sort of frustration at nothing in particular.
. . .
Cain stepped up to the door of the apartment with his crowbar ready for prying, but the handle gave way when he pushed on it and the door swung inward with a creak. Broken glass and debris littered the tile floor in the hallway. Obviously the place had been looted, but that didn't actually matter.
You couldn't really steal a shower, anyway. All they needed was a place with running water, and if they were lucky, some soap or something.
"Y'ello," Cain called out, though there was probably no one there. He stepped inside and glass crunched under the soles of his boots. His red eyes panned to the corners before he walked around them, calmly cautious. Nothing sprang out at him.
"Looks like the bathroom over there. You can go on ahead first," Cain offered, casually twirling his crowbar as he glanced around the wrecked household. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Mar 31, 2013 19:49:31 GMT -8
Knife drawn, Delilah slipped into the apartment behind Cain, checking his corners and hovering behind his blindspots. Calm, centered, ready.
Nothing so far; but she wasn't ruling anything out. She checked the living-room and peered briefly into the bedrooms; it only looked somewhat lived in, probably just a stop-over for some drifters.
Lowering her knife a bit, but still cautious, she nodded at Cain and walked calmly towards the bathroom, listening at the linen closet for any noise --hearing none- and then walking into the bathroom.
She gave the door a light kick to check if anyone was standing behind it and whipped the shower curtain aside. She was almost as disappointed as she was relieved. She flicked on the light--
bzzzz--T-CHINK
There was a hum of electricity before the bulb overhead burst, leaving the bathroom cast in darkness. The mechanic gave an irritated sigh and turned on the tap of the bathtub.
A hiss and a burble of water rumbled through the pipes before pouring out of the spout. Delilah grinned at that; even the hot water was working.
...which was a little weird. But she would take what she could get at this point. Delilah poked her head out the door, looking for Cain and shucking her clothes.
"If you don't mind showering in the dark, there's actually a bit of hot water here."
She would step into the shower, letting the warm water spill over her tired, aching body for a minute before trying to find a bar of soap to scrub away all the awful with.
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Post by Vespyr on Mar 31, 2013 20:31:33 GMT -8
Cain nodded approvingly, then turned away from the bathroom and picked his way curiously through the rubble of the seemingly ancient home. The crowbar twirled flippantly in his hand as he stepped over broken picture frames and the like on his way to the kitchen. Out of habit, he pulled open the refrigerator door. The light came on much to his surprise and cast a white glow on his face. Cain's brow curiously raised as he found himself looking down at some freshly skinned rabbit carcasses.
He glanced up at the faint sound of a footfall outside the kitchen. The next moment he was staring down at his chest, at the shaft of an arrow that the stranger's crossbow had unloaded into his sternum.
"Shit," the man muttered, as he dropped to his knees with a heavy thud.
. . .
She wouldn't see anything at first. The kitchen was down the hallway and out of sight. There were some quiet rasping sounds like something moving slowly across the floor out of sight. Someone made a quiet, frightened sound. An object clattered to the floor and suddenly backpedaling footsteps fell in rapid succession, tripping over a low table with a loud crash.
Cain's silhouette could be seen briefly as he stalked from the kitchen and crossed the width of the hallway, disappearing again. The voice of a stranger began shrieking, a terrified scream with every rapid breath.
Then silence. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Mar 31, 2013 20:43:50 GMT -8
There was a heavy thud outside the door and a chill immediately ran up Delilah's spine. Leaving the shower on, she would slip quietly out of the shower dripping wet. She scooped her bowie knife off the counter and a piece of the broken bathroom mirror holding it up outside the door frame to get a glimpse of what was going on.
She saw the body of a strange man shuffling quickly backwards, followed by...Cain? Delilah felt better seeing that he was alright...but something was wrong.
So wrong.
Swallowing, Delilah strapped the knife around her thigh and dropped the peice of mirror with a tink, standing in the door frame as she was.
"Cain?"
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Post by Vespyr on Mar 31, 2013 20:56:19 GMT -8
There was no response, but there were sounds. Something tore from flesh and bone. Something pierced flesh with a sick bodily thud, several times over, in slow, methodical succession. A bone ruptured and tore from its place with a wet crack. It was thrown.
Somebody's detached jaw landed in the hallway. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Mar 31, 2013 21:05:44 GMT -8
A shiver trailed up her wet back as a jaw landed in her path in the hallway, reminding her she was naked. She thought about going back to pull on her clothes, but the last thing she wanted was to get caught by surprise in the middle of pulling her shirt on. Sure that was Cain...but it didn't feel right.
Quietly, slowly, she stepped out of the doorway and moved to the living room, looking for her partner in crime...and the source of the jaw.
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Post by Vespyr on Mar 31, 2013 21:23:10 GMT -8
As she slowly rounded the corner, Delilah would find Cain crouched over a body on the floor, calmly at work. The business of his hands was just out of view until he threw something else away, something bloody and unrecognizable.
At her last footfall, the man stirred and quickly turned around to look over his shoulder. His eyes were lit in the dark like coals, smoldering an intense red with no trace of an iris or pupil left in them at all. Blood trickled down the sides of his forehead from either side of his hairline where the tips of horns had erupted from his skin. Cain wasn't smiling anymore.
He rose to his feet and faced Delilah with the front of his shirt soaked with blood from the chest down. There was something long and thin and pointed in his fist. It dripped red on the tile as he stepped forward toward the naked woman, extending a hand for her neck.
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Mar 31, 2013 21:32:23 GMT -8
She relaxed for a moment as she saw Cain calmly at work. She had seen him in a similar trance just the other night, where he had pulled that heart out of one of their victims and crushed it in his hands. So, she was crazy, then. Everything was fine.
--Until he turned around.
Her eyes widened at the crazed, dead look in his over-bright red eyes, HORNS of all things protruding from his forehead on either side. He was wounded; she could smell his blood from where she was; could see the bright red trail from the hole in his shirt leaking down past his stomach.
Dead?Zombie? Demon? I have no idea what's going on, but this is bad.[/i]
Bewildered, staring, she let him get close, only to hop backwards and out of the line of his grab, looking him in those smouldering red eyes.
Couldn't hurt to try... "Cain."[/size]
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Post by Vespyr on Mar 31, 2013 21:41:08 GMT -8
The man didn't respond to his own name and swiftly tried to grab at her throat again, backing her toward the kitchen. He dropped the bloody arrow to reach for her with both hands. Any movement she made he would counter by side-stepping the same way she did, all the while pushing her closer toward the enclosed kitchen space. Reaching. Trying to grab her by the shoulders and pull her toward him. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Mar 31, 2013 21:47:17 GMT -8
This was an odd sensation.
It was very clear to her that her life was quite possibly in imminent danger, but she could not bring herself to react. Was this shock? She had only suffered from it once, when her father had died and she fainted. She wasn't sure if this was the same, but she was faced with the impossible, a lethal situation, and she was doing nothing to get out of it.
She continued moving backwards, into the kitchen where he forced her back. She couldn't feint around him; his awareness was too high. The small of her back bumped against the counter and he seized her by metallic shoulders as her Qi activated of it's own will; he pulled her towards him--
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Post by Vespyr on Mar 31, 2013 21:55:03 GMT -8
--and went straight for her mouth, not with his lips, but with his teeth clamped voraciously around her bottom lip. His mouth was hot and tasted like blood already as he tried to tear straight through. He kept pushing her back toward the counter with animalistic wantonness, rough insistence. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Mar 31, 2013 22:19:19 GMT -8
Delilah winced and gave a small cry of pain as his teeth sunk into her bottom lip, immediately drawing blood. A thread of familiar fear arched through her body and she resisted for a moment, pushing at his shoulders, twisting her hips away from him--
"You can do whatever you like to me--," "--Or whatever you want me to do you--," "...OR whatever I want to do to you," "For as long as you like. Whenever you like~...
...If you stop 'hurting' people," [/color][/center][/i][/blockquote] The memory reminded her of her promise, of her giving her word. She might not know exactly what was going on, but she knew that Cain was not himself (or, rather, MORE himself, depending on the perspective). If not her, than who? She would endure. As she always had. Resisting subtley, quietly, she let him push her up against the counter, licking some of the blood off his upper lip with her tongue. Enticing, deliberately fidgeting. A hand wrapped around his shoulder, clawing at him through his shirt.[/size] _________________ When Cain awoke it would once again be night time. He would find himself in an unfamiliar bed with a familiar, clothed, companion sitting upright beside him, looking moodily out the window. Her hair was moved to the side to show the exposed side of her neck and a severely puffy and bruised lower lip. Her eyes stared unblinkingly forward, obviously off in some kind of trance or meditative state.
If the man looked down at himself, he would probably find a lot of blood.
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 1, 2013 1:01:47 GMT -8
Cain opened his eyes and he felt fine. Physically.
But the last thing remembered was the arrow in his chest, looking down at it, falling to the floor and gasping for breath. When he opened his eyes and found himself still alive, on his back, he picked up right where he left off mid-gasp and reached for the arrow in his chest. His hand found nothing there.
And he felt fine.
Cain stared at the ceiling for a long time, his eyes wide with shock. His brow tensed with confusion. His heart beat madly. Again and again, his hand went up to touch his sternum. Nothing there.
He didn't see her at first, but when Cain sat up all of a sudden he did, and stared at her with the most genuine look of bewilderment that had ever worn on his face. He looked down at himself. The shower had washed away most of the blood but the stains on his clothes remained. And there it was, right in the center of his chest like a bullseye on a target, the epicenter of his lifeblood leaked out of him.
He didn't have any words. |
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Post by Delilah A. Black on Apr 1, 2013 1:04:54 GMT -8
Delilah slowly turned her head to look at him as he sat up with a cool, somewhat puzzled expression of her own. If he was going to be hostile again, she would have no choice. Her patience was at an end.
But he seemed fine. Normal. Shocked, but the same Cain she knew from before.
Plus the horns.
She would look at him calmly for a moment, just staring as though trying to comprehend the concept on her lips before she spoke it.
"You died."
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