Chapter Text
Pigs blood is not the consistency you would think it is. When you were younger, and the very idea of it had made your nose scrunch up with distaste, the words would have conjured the image of fresh blood you're used to. Dark, thick red liquid- pouring from the bucket in unappetizing, gut-curdling globs. And well, it isn't too far off from the truth. It's still unappetizing, and it certainly is thick, but it isn't really liquid. The butcher sells it to you in buckets of an almost gelatin like concoction, dark brown and spongy. It reminds you of tofu- a truly terrible mental image. The smell makes you cringe, it's awful to work with, and you'd never do it if you didn't have to. But, a certain taste has to be met, and in ten minutes you're going to meet your maker if this isn't done with.
It's serene in a weird way. Light spills in from your large bay window, and your curtains are blue with cornflower patterns on them. The whole house has that comfy, country-lite vibe you never used to think you'd like. You own multiple vases of flowers and many, many uncomfortable decorative pillows. At the bottom of the bay window lies a hand-knitted rug, toy cars threaten to trip you every time you walk by it. Softly, you hum along to the sounds of classical music playing from your speakers as you lay a slab of the congealed blood onto a cutting board. In your hands you have a heart-shaped cookie cutter, and a final pancake simmers on low heat next to you, big chunks of Canadian bacon intermixed with the batter.
It's domestic bliss.
That is- until the birds go quiet. It's a warning sign you've picked up over the years- the way that nature stills, the same way a deer goes on alert because it can sense the wolf that lurks nearby. Survival instinct. Personally, you find it overdramatic.
The next sign is the way the glass of water on the counter next to you begins to shake. The water ripples, and although you feel no vibration you know it's only a matter of time before-
"Darling!" You shout, a preemptive measure. "Breakfast is almost ready, come down!"
The tremors almost immediately slow, and come to a stop. You can't fight the smile that tugs at your lips, the deep feeling of pride and satisfaction that makes home in your gut. He's come so far.
It brings back a memory- of a few short years ago, because what your mom said about you growing up fast was true. It's like he was a baby yesterday, sleeping fitfully in your arms. The earth cracking as he cried, the entire world grieving with him. Now he nearly comes up past the top of your hip, growing taller by the day.
He wasn't so tall, yet, when he started talking. A little more so when he realized his circumstances.
"It's not fair," he'd cried to you, all four of his eyes welling up red and watery. It broke your heart, the way his face scrunched up- you hate seeing him sad. Twice the eyes, twice the amount of tears. So small, the kind that makes you want to scoop him up in a big hug and never let go. Those eyes you always vowed you would do anything to protect.
A tree had come down outside, with a thump, and the reminder of the storm brewing outside. The situation you had to deal with, you couldn't ignore it anymore before it got bad. The sky cries with him, the wind fuels his anger. Most days, you love how much the world, the earth itself, loves your son. How it favors him, that when he falls out in the forest trees curl to soften the blow, that he clears the day when he gets excited and the sun shines bright in his honor. Things other people might see as a chance for power, nature at his command- a bringer of the apocalypse if he wanted. But he'd never. That day, though, you didn't love it, so much. Because every time he got upset it nearly set off a hurricane, or an earthquake. And that wasn't ever fun to deal with. Every other mom got to take as long as they wanted to calm down their child, to let them cry it out or whatever they need. You didn't have that luxury.
"I know," you sympathized, crouching down and rubbing him on the shoulder. "You're right. It isn't fair, that you have to work harder than everyone else."
He looked up at you with those big eyes, two diagonal from each other on each side of his face. "Why do I have to?" He sniffled, but he didn't get more upset. He's kind, and sometimes all he really wants is simple comfort. You'd be remiss to not give it to him.
"Because you're special," you whisper, and pull him into a hug. The feeling of his little arms- once again, four of them- wrapping around your shoulders makes you want to sob. He's so cute, and he's sad, and he's your little boy and you just want him to feel better. You'd give your own life if it guaranteed him happiness. "You're special, and the world loves you. But it doesn't know any better, and when you get sad it does too. When you get angry, it does too. That scares the birdies, and your deer friends. It can hurt a lot of people." You took his chubby little gray face in your hands, wiped his tears away with your thumbs. "But I'll tell you a secret- that's why you're the one they do this for."
"Why?" He asked again, a curious toddler looking for answers, looking for his place in the world. A place you'll carve out by any means necessary.
"Because you're my kind boy, and you're the only person that I trust to make sure nobody gets hurt." You can see him thinking about it, the way his sobs gradually slow the longer you sit there, and the winds die down outside. "It's not fair, but you're strong enough to do this, I know that. I love you so much, sweetheart." You kiss him on his cheek, then pull him back in for another hug.
"I love you mama," you heard him say, still sniffling a little, and it breaks your heart and rebuilds it at the same time. "I think I get it."
Incidents like that aren't common so much anymore. Not that they ever much were- if it had been any other toddler or baby, they would have surely ended the earth in their tantrum stages. But he was always a great sleeper as a baby, hardly cried. His soul so pure it showed from the moment he was born. It's just that when it got bad- well, it got really bad. He was a great toddler too, you'd never experienced a terrible two's or anything like that. Now it's all slight tremors when he's annoyed or hungry, and all you have to do is talk to him about it. Sometimes you're so proud of him it feels like somebody has reached into your chest and physically squeezed your heart.
You're broken from your thoughts by the pitter-patter of footsteps coming down the stairs. Your son can do a lot- he's practically magical, he has twice the normal amount of arms, and an indeterminable amount of shadowy tentacles that hurt your brain if you focus on them too much, but you think his real achievement is never falling down your tiny, steep spiral staircase. You've almost died on it more times than you can count, but there's not really space for anything larger in your little cabin.
It's seconds before his feet meet the bottom of the stairs, and you have a few seconds to turn the heat off the stove and turn around. The very moment you do, your arms are full of your little love, his turkey-vulture wingspan winding its way around your neck. You pick him up with a grunt, chuckling into his neck as you hug him tighter.
He leans back a little bit, staring at you with those wide, bright eyes. Inverted, his pupils white and everything else black. You're not a scientist and you're not going to try to be, to figure out how that works. "Morning, Mama!" He practically chirps, diving back in for a tighter hug. You give him a big kiss on the side of his face that you can reach, before letting him down.
"Morning, bug." Humming, you pat him on the head as you reach around him to grab a clean plate. "You're getting too heavy for that," you remark. This, of course, is a blatant lie. The day he gets too heavy for you to pick up you will start lifting weights. That's a problem for another day, though.
"You're lying, Mama," he replies as he hops up onto the kitchen island stool. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes, a careful dance of all those fingers. Thankfully, no claws- you make sure to keep those clipped, since you don't exactly know how a hospital would react to him. They're baby blue this week, with white French tips at the end. He changes his mind constantly.
"I'll bite you if you accuse me of that again," you huff (without any heat behind it) as you busy yourself with finishing up the original task of the day- breakfast. Pigs blood goes into a bowl, since he likes to scoop it out like yogurt. It's only a little disgusting. The pancakes are honestly more meat than dough, but you have fond memories of your mother cutting them into heart shapes and so you like to do it for him, too.
His diet is a careful balance of as much near raw meat as you can give him and the few non-carnivorous items he can stomach eating. Later, you'll make him hand-made chicken nuggets- warmed up but ultimately raw, cut into the best approximation of dinosaurs that you can manage. Figuring out his diet was... fun. Trying to feed him milk, only for him to vomit it up- and realizing his tastes were much more iron based, as you'll put it. It's been a learning curve.
"Someone else would say that's a lie," he fires back, his mouth stretched into a wide, dazzling, sharp-toothed grin. Little shit. You roll your eyes, using all of your skills from your brief stint as a waitress in your early teens to scoop up his various dishes- the bowl, the plate, a separate plate with raw steak on it, and a Minecraft mug with blue Kool-aid. Kid's got an absolutely insane metabolism. These you set down in front of him, leaning into flick him on the head and press a kiss to the spot after, ruffling his hair.
"Someone else has a smart mouth, dont'cha think?" You hum.
"Yes! He's probably really smart. And handsome," he beams back at you. You can't hold in the snort.
"Well," you drawl, as you start turning the coffee pot on. You have a sneaking suspicion you're going to need the energy later. Who doesn't. "If he's so smart, then he can handle hitting the books a little after breakfast, can't he?" You finish, to the exaggerated, half-muffled groans of displeasure from a third-grader with pigs blood trailing down his chin. You poke at your own, and he quickly wipes it away with a sheepish grin. Dork. "Don't give me that, it's important. I think smart guys need to know how to read, don't they?"
He scoffs, narrowing all of his eyes and pointing an accusatory finger at you. "I know how to read!"
"Oh yeah?" You say, raising an eyebrow. "Prove it then, bug." You point to the schoolbag in the corner of the room (he doesn't go anywhere besides home, but you're really pushing for as much normalcy as you can get). It's Minecraft themed once again, Creeper faces and that ugly-as-sin grass block overlay. His name's written on a sticker, big blocky lines proclaiming LEVI in red marker. His full name, Leviathan, is a bit of a mouthful after all. The monster that was supposed to end the world, in biblical terms. Maybe it's a little on the nose, but you were the kind of girl who read Sylvia Plath in your middle school days. You're allowed a little romanticization. He's your Levi- your amazing boy who can change the world, for better or for worse, and you just have to have faith in him and what he'll pick.
Your boy who is going to change the world, once he grows out of his Minecraft phase, that is.
"Ugh, fine," he groans, half-heartedly shoving a forkful of bacon-pancake into his mouth. "I'm going to read so well," he continues, determination in his eyes.
You hide your smile behind your hand.
///
It's later in the day when you get that feeling. It was a productive day, if not eventful- you helped Levi do some of his homeschooling, because this boy is going to learn math if it kills you, and after that deep-cleaned the entire cottage while Levi entertained himself with his various toys and books, occasionally lending help. In various forms, like bringing you a bucket or lending a tentacle when you can't quite reach a certain spot with the feather duster. You've got two floors- two bedrooms on the top floor, the bathroom, kitchen, and living space on the bottom. A tiny cottage, but pretty good for something you found and fixed up damn near by yourself. Sometimes you just like to sit and be proud of all the accomplishments you've made, how far you've come.
But that feeling can't be ignored. The buzzing in your head, the itch under your skin, it makes you restless. The worst thing is, you know what it means. Because your life with Levi would be perfect. Sure, he's got his quirks, but you'd honestly say you've got yours too. Only difference is he can't control his. And sometimes the lack of adult interaction besides the Butcher in the tiny town two hours of walking away drags on you. But you wouldn't trade it for anything, you'd make every decision again. There's just one, small, tiny issue.
That issue has no face. And when you get like this, you know that you've got work to do.
"Levi, baby c'mere," you call out, from where you'd been perched on the couch getting some reading done. God, you're an adult now. Isn't that heartbreaking. 'Caught up on some chores today,' 'relaxed with some light reading.' You've become your mother. But that's probably the least of your concerns.
Levi walks over to you, and you immediately notice he's twitchy. "Head fuzzy?" You ask, knowing the routine of this by now. He nods, one of his hands rubbing at his temple, the others reaching out for a hug. You indulge him, and maybe yourself, too.
"Feels like bees," he mutters into your shoulder, and he sounds so tired, you want to scoop him up into a pile of bubble wrap and keep him there for eternity. When you use the back of your hand to check his forehead, the other wrapped tightly around him, he's burning up. You restrain the absolutely murderous feeling rising up in you. He always complains about this. The itch you feel under your skin is a buzzing he feels in his head. Before, when you were less used to dealing with this, it would get loud enough he got nosebleeds. Once, he couldn't remember anything that happened for the entire day surrounding the events.
"My poor baby," you soothe your hands through his hair, caress the sides of his face. "Let's get you to bed, why don't we?" He nods his head, and in a moment you're up, holding him close to your chest as he stumbles as if in a daze. But you're there to catch him every time, there to push back the hair that is quickly becoming increasingly sweaty, mumble words of encouragement to him on the trek to his room. You know it isn't easy for him, and although you're itching to get moving absolutely nothing could tear you from this spot at this moment. The Studio Ghibli motherfucker can calm his tits, and then you'll rip them off of him for what he does to your boy.
After a few minutes of work you manage it, getting him and all his ever-shifting limbs up the stairs, through his door. You tuck him into bed as carefully as possible, trying to arrange him so he's not sitting directly on top of all the tentacles. You really, really hate that word, but you don't know what else to call them. Especially because looking at them too long gives you a migraine- he's got a little bit of that Eldritch horror, Lovecraftian 'cannot be comprehended by the human mind' energy going on. Still, you try your best. A little bit of your sanity is a very small price to pay.
Once he's settled, you have a lot of work to get done very quickly. You pull the windows down, locking them, and then pull the metal covers you've installed down after that, locking those as well. Every curtain in the room gets shut, every closet door checked and you kick around under his bed. You leave no stone unturned, making sure he is truly alone in his room, before slipping out, pressing one last kiss to his head and telling him you love him. He mutters the saddest attempt at "L've you M'ma," and it makes you feel like you could fuse wood and iron on a molecular level with nothing but your bare hands. Like you can do the impossible, anything at all. Lift a building. Swiftly, you go down all the locks on his door, turning them all with the key ring that never leaves your pocket.
The rest of your house gets the same treatment. Windows shut, locks flipped, curtains closed. You do a quick sweep, but you're fairly certain you're alone in the house. It doesn't feel like any of them are nearby, or well at least in your immediate area. They're definitely in the forest, which disquiets you to no end. They haven't gotten this close in awhile, although you suppose every break has to end eventually. Every time you go awhile without one it worries you anyway, makes you think there's something unexpected about to come out of the woodwork. This, though, is normal. This you can handle.
The next five minutes are pure muscle memory. Green jacket that matches the leaves of the tree and the green of the grasses, brown cargo pants replace your comfy 'mom uniform,' which is the straightest thought you've ever had but not really the point. Rifles get unlocked from the cabinets, strapped around your back, ammunition goes in your bag. Knives strapped to your thigh, the long sharp ones and not the big butcher knives next to them. Goggles on your eyes, since pointy elbows and the tips of knives are a real danger to your whole 'keeping my sight intact' agenda you've been working on for the past twenty-five years. A last check and then you're out the door, your last locking ritual completed for the time.
It gets a little tricker once you're in phase two, the forest proper. You're almost depressingly good at pinpointing what you're looking for, since the scratching under your skin goes from a mild irritation to a need that you have to actively fight every second you stand lest you rub your arms raw like you've got a rough case of poison ivy. The worlds shittiest game of hot and cold, essentially. It's just about balancing that and making sure you aren't heard or seen.
Luckily for you, it's never not home turf advantage. You've lived in these woods every day for years, worked outside for hours upon hours. You know the moss-green, dark but lush at the same time surroundings like the back of your hand. Evergreens and pines, the grounds scattered with ferns and grasses. You could find your way to the various calm, softly trickling streams with your eyes closed, know which rocks to step on to avoid obviously splashing in the pond portions without looking. You're a stubborn, callous bitch, and you're not about to let anyone show you up in your own home.
You spend some time tracking your way through, the chatter of the birds (it always elevates when Levi gets like this, like they're screaming for him, letting the world know the pressure he's feeling, letting it out for him any way they can) doing wonders to cover the soft rustling you can't do much else to dampen. The itching grows, it feels like an animal grows inside you and you're hardly keeping it contained, restrained. You grit your teeth and tighten your fists against the sensation. The last dredges of light are draining from the forest, the sun firmly setting, and you have to move quickly before your visibility reduces. With these characters, you can never be fully sure that the dark affects them, too. Sure, some it does. But you've got a good few scars from unfortunate surprises that they aren't similarly impacted. Well, fuck those guys, because they didn't know you used to be a gymnast back in the day, and now they're dead while you're still here, tracking down their friends.
It isn't too long before you hear a voice. "Where the fuck is he?" It hisses. You hear a grunt in reply, something along the lines of 'that way,' and the way they talk about your son always makes you tense up. They always sound so venomous, and you just know you would never survive them getting their hands on your bug. The sound also makes that static feeling flare up, this time in your head, and you pause for a few seconds, still hidden, just to breathe through it. Deep breaths, that calming breathing they taught you in those shitty therapy sessions the school made you attend. Good for something- a win for them, since it never made you actually attend your classes like they wanted.
You've got this. This isn't half as bad as the feeling when The SCP Foundation bitch himself shows up, and you've proven before that you can handle that. This is all for Levi. Focus. Ahead, you can see the two figures. Another deep breath, zoom in on the first one.
You're not surprised to say that he isn't pretty. He's got an ugly, scrunched up face, kind of like a human pug. Scars litter his features, and it isn't working for him in the sexy, rugged man way. If it wasn't for all the wrinkling and scaring, you'd honestly be confused on if he's fifty or five- pig nose and big, scrunched up cheeks can go either way. Most babies aren't all that cute when they're fresh (except Levi, since of course he was even a cute baby- all those eyes did a lot for his charm). The guy is even managing to make muscles look bad, something you never thought you'd say in your life. It's giving those gross looking cows they genetically engineer to hold one-hundred percent more of the muscle, even if they can't move all that well once they get there.
His friend is a different experience. You can only describe him as the worlds most nervous looking man. Lanky and with the countenance of an ill Victorian child. "He can't be far," he replies to his friend, and god, even his voice is nasally. What a fucking nerd. He's holding a gun in his hands, while his buddy's holding an axe, so you set yourself to the idea that you'll kill him first. Gunshots are a pain to deal with by yourself, and you don't consider Levi old enough to help, quite yet. Maybe not ever, he'll stay your cute little boy even if he's seven feet tall. That sounds nice.
Focus, (Y/N). Surveying your surroundings, you figure you're far enough away that you can chance clamoring up into the trees to get yourself a better shot. The distance, high up in the air, will also give you room to breathe. Time to steady your hands. The spruce and oaks around you are thankfully all dense, with thick branches that support your weight as you climb up. Once you're up, you chance moving a little closer, eyeing the men carefully as they walk through the forest. They're going your way at an angle, the same direction that leads to your house if you follow it long enough. Like fuck they are.
You can smell the pug guy even from twenty-five feet away, crouched high in the trees. The thing you've found about these guys is that their boss doesn't exactly pay, and they tend to spend most of their time squatting in abandoned homes, ripping out guts, or rooting through landfills. It's a major tactical disadvantage when the enemy doesn't even need eyes to see you coming, but you're not about to tell them about that. They don't ever really make it out of your forest anyways, at least not without being chopped up in a jar or a bag, so it isn't like it actually matters.
The men aren't saying much at the present moment, mostly quiet murmuring that you can't hear from how far you are. You unstrap your gun from your back, shaking your hands to rid yourself of some of the anxiety before gripping the gun firmly. It's a far shot, but you've had a good deal of practice and you are one hell of a markswoman. Thank you, weird doomsday-prepper man that you dated when you were fifteen. Fuck you, because you were way too old to be with a teenage girl, but thanks for all the gun-practice disguised as dates.
Shooting in trees is a little awkward. It's hard to get a good angle without making much noise, or falling out of it, but you're nothing if not a miracle worker. Without giving yourself much time to think or psych yourself out of it, you fall back on instinct and muscle memory. Focus on the nerdy bitch, line them up in your sights, and pull the trigger. Brace for the recoil, ignore the ringing in your ears from the loud CRACK, watch as it connects and the twig goes down like a log. Forget about the second man for five seconds, readjust and shoot again to make sure he's down. A little less successful of a shot this time, probably far less close to anything vital from what you can see, but you see the way the body shakes as an impact is made.
"Oh, fuck!" You hear, and by the time you tune back into the second man he's ducked behind trees, better cover you don't have much of a chance at hitting. Shit. He seems to abandon the idea of his friend, at least, since he's now twitching in a red pile on the ground, the movements slowing. You squint, but shitface has retreated more into the denser part of the forest- and with the fast fading light, you can't see much of him anymore.
There's a certain thrumming in you. You won't call it excitement, since that would make you confront things about yourself you never thought possible, but you wouldn't say it's a bad feeling. Mania, maybe. That's a little more comfortable of a term for it, since you can't deny it. Each time the hunt starts, proper, you feel like somebody just injected monster energy directly into your veins. Sometimes you hope you miss your shots, if only for the ensuing chase- not that you'd admit it out loud.
You're quick- speed is everything. You maneuver through the trees with an efficiency that comes from years of practice, sneak level one-hundred, you're cool as shit. Everything focuses to a point- step, hold onto the tree, step, switch hands, keep going. You're as quiet as you can be without reducing your speed much, but once you see the top of his ugly mug peaking through the forest you abandon it all. You're much louder now, but you make a beeline for him. From there- it's a hop and a skip, and he hardly even sees your jump.
Your knee digs his back into the ground, his face smushed into the dirt. You hold his arms, squirming and trashing but thoroughly unprepared for your iron-clad grip. Looks can be deceiving- you pack a lot of muscle from long days spent outside, corralling a toddler who could lift cars. The knife in his shoulder might also be tipping the scale in your favor, just a little bit. You'd let it loose with the jump, the handle falling into your hands, moving like water, an extension of yourself. Hit him bulls-eye, right before you yourself made contact.
"Bitch," he growls, meaty and mean. And oh, so original. You've definitely never heard that one before.
"Bet this is the most contact you've had with a woman in years," you whisper into his ear, before rearing back and using your teeth to clamp down onto his shoulder. He lets out a guttural noise of pain- reminds you of Ares, the god who could give it but couldn't take it. His arms flex with the strain he's putting on them, trying to throw you off. You dig your claws in deeper, one of your hands giving his left arm a bit of slack only to then move and dig into the knife wound. You twist your fingers without care, almost like you're playing with it. Your jaw's clamp on his shoulder pulls a chunk of flesh from his body, which you gleefully spit onto the ground. "Well you better control yourself, because I am not about to deal with you getting a fucking hard on, bastard," and you spit his blood out, right onto the side of his face.
He growls at you again, because his panic button apparently only has the one default option. Men so used to being the hunter don't ever really react well to turning hunted. "I'm gonna rip you limb from limb," he grunts out, which is painfully funny considering you're knuckle-deep in his flesh and have got his blood staining your teeth. One dimensional character, this one.
"Been awhile since one of you got so close, gotta say I'm almost impressed," you hum, pressing your knee in deeper to properly steal the breath from him. It's a strange, sadistic pleasure you never thought you had in you to enjoy. Every time you get your hands on these scum it makes you want to break every bone in their bodies, bleed them dry of blood and beg you to stop. The knowledge of what they want to do- it's enraging, it makes you someone else.
You’re going to brutalize anyone who that thing sends, rend limbs from bodies with bare hands, and put the fear of god into anyone that thinks they can make your son into something that he’s not. You are going to show them that there is something far scarier lurking in these woods than the monster that sent them, or the monster they were sent to find.
Oh well. Cry about it, you guess.
"Didn't know the freak had a bitch," he grunts. Every time he talks he sounds like he's wheezing. Which, he very well could be given the current situation, but you're still going to give him shit for it.
"Don't call him a freak, bitch," you reply. You're getting really tired of his attitude- really doesn't give up. His dedication would be commendable if he wasn't terrible. The hand in his wound grabs your knife, instead, before stabbing right at where his tendons should be connecting his arm. It's definitely a hack-job- punctuated by the guttural screaming as you detach bone from flesh- but it's not like he deserves a clean death anyway. You cut it down to a point you're happy with, and then you jump off- keeping your feet digging his face right into the dirt he's about to go back to (you're nothing if not an eco-warrior)- and pull with all your might. The arm comes off with a satisfying rip noise, kind of like velcro if it sounded nothing like velcro, and also was wet.
He's blubbering on about all kinds of things. Face wet with snot and spit, tears in his eyes he doesn't want to shed. His leftover arm is seizing, clutching at nothing because he's not at an angle where it can make any kind of concrete contact. To him- you're a whore, you're going to pay for this. To you, you're swinging your new beefy toy around like it's a light saber.
"Y'know, don't really think this is gonna look good on the living room wall," you mumble. It's also bleeding a horrific amount, gushing from the raw stump, which would be terrible for your paint job- but goes unsaid. Probably implied. The arm gets tossed behind your head without care, you hear the thump as it hits the trunk of a tree some ten feet behind you. "You guys are always so tough until you're not anymore. Crazy."
"Your freak," he spits, and then promptly screams as you connect a brutal kick to the side of his head, "didn't fare much better." He spits out a glob of blood onto the forest floor.
"Wouldn't, I think you mean," you correct. It's not like he's going to get anywhere near him- hasn't, been anywhere near him. Certainly not without his precious little arm. Your little boy is sleeping his troubles away right now, all cozy and snug, bug in a rug style.
"Look for yourself," he grunts, and his arm makes a jerky, uncoordinated motion off to the side. You tilt your head curiously, throwing a glance in that direction, but there isn't really anything other than forest.
"Uh-huh, alright. Well, I'm getting tired of this, sooo," you chime, humming happily as you unstrap a pistol from your thigh. He's kind of bleeding out anyway- breathing labored, skin absolutely sheening with sweat. The adrenaline is starting to die down, and now you're just sitting in the forest, covered in blood, and you need to brush you teeth. You're bored. "Bye!"
Bang! Point-blank, right to the skull. One hundred points, two hundred if you'd done a sick flip. Gore splatters from the man prone on the floor, hitting the trees, the grass, your face. Chunks of brain flying, the head on the ground little more than a gushing, wet mess.
And all is quiet.
The buzzing is gone, something for which you breathe a sigh of relief. Your skin feels like yours again, nothing crawling under it, no artificial beast in your chest squeezing your heart, making it beat faster and faster. You can think.
Which really only cues you in to how gross this all is. "Ugh," you mutter, trying to wipe some of the dubious flesh chunks off your body. Might've gone a little overboard on that one- probably didn't need to play with his wounds like they're play dough, or mess with his limbs like he's a shitty, ugly doll. Whatever. What's done is done.
Your arms find themselves high above your head, as you go for a much needed stretch. Everything pops, and you roll your neck to in order to get rid of the crick that had formed from being hunched over the dickhead. As you roll your head, your eyes catch the direction of forest that he'd motioned over to. Now that you're thinking clearer, there was definitely something weird in those words. Your's didn't fare too well either. Implied he'd met with somebody, when you know for a fact he's been nowhere near Levi. Didn't know the freak had a bitch- they definitely should know about you, you've been killing off their counterparts for long enough. The puzzle pieces are on the verge of fitting together in your head, the DVD movie logo about to hit the corner of the television screen.
You're probably just being paranoid. You go to check anyway.
Your boots leave a wet squelch as they step through the unavoidable puddles of blood to get past where you're standing. As you continue through the forest- still seeing nothing odd other than the occasional viscera that made it an impressive distance- you leave behind a trail of bloody bootprints. Kind of metal.
You walk for long enough that you start to get a little frustrated. The light has long since left you, leaving you stumbling a little half-blind through the roots and leaves. You're just not seeing anything. "This is probably stupid," you grumble to yourself, whacking a branch with your arm as you push past some huge shrub/tree thing. "I should just g-" and you cut yourself off, because your eyes finally catch something as you move past the huge damn thing.
There's a man, slumped. His skin is gray, and you feel like you're looking at an older version of your son. He's got that weird, heart-pounding quality to him, where your brain fills with TV static if you try to think too hard about what you're seeing. His eyes are closed, because there's a giant-ass wound on his shoulder. Knocked out absolutely cold. Gunshot, if your opinion is worth anything. He's absolutely giant- looks like if he was standing he might border eight or nine feet tall. His blood spills on the ground, and it's definitely not red. Looks closer to a dark blue, not that you can see shit as you currently are. Behind him is a mass of- tentacles, maybe? It doesn't look easy to tell. His hands are splayed, and your eyes spy a pair of nasty claws attached to them.
This is definitely not what you expected. You have no clue who this could be- he's not one of the marshmallow mans weird groupies, because this must have been who they were actually after- not your son, you guess. That wound and the way they were talking doesn't look friendly. You've got a million thoughts, all rushing through your head faster than you know what to do with.
"What the fuck." Very well put, (Y/N).