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 Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:06 pm
[I rolled a 60, see post below. XD]
He had to be somewhere. Elke knew it. Everyone else was back, everyone was walking around even the dead, she'd seen Nacio, so even if the fire had killed her Avery he'd be there. She shifted the book in her arms, flashlight shoved between it and the crook of her elbow. Glancing at the palm of her hand, at the smearing list, she sighed. She still hadn't found anyone she was looking for, except for those found before she became Virgo. No sign of the most important one...
Worse, the day was getting on. It was nearly three, and the sun would set soon. She had to be back with the princess by nightfall, or else... Well, it wouldn't be good to leave the princess alone. Even if Hero and Aurelia happened to be there, they weren't senshi. Nothing exactly like having Virgo around, not in her estimation although of course she didn't discount Hero and Aurelia at all--
Someone off to the side. She flicked on her flashlight--no way it was near enough to dark for there to be monsters, or for her to even need one. Feeling stupid, she shut it off and stepped towards the figure, three uncertain steps. "Who's there? Please come out, I won't hurt you..." But she gripped her heavy book a little tighter, knuckles turning white as the color drained from her face.
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shibrogane rolled 1 100-sided dice:
60
Total: 60 (1-100)
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:08 pm
[CRAP FORGOT TO ROLL I SUCK ;;]
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:26 pm
Tracking down someone on school grounds should have been like taking candy from a baby--or eating a baby, since frankly, Avery's hunger for flesh was much stronger than his sweet tooth. Finding them was easy enough, yes, but the catch was coming across a person not surrounded by five others. If he got too close, he expected his head to get hacked off, and that would be the end of him.
When your only alliance was a moron who couldn't even accept his mortality, you didn't put a lot of faith in teamwork. Avery had been fully conscious meeting his end, and he knew he was dead; he just didn't want to be dead dead. That was so much more final compared to being a zombie.
But he'd told Sebastien the truth: They were going to die eventually. Really die.
If that was the case, he planned to take as many down with him as he could. Was it nice? Was it humane? No, but he was feeling neither. He wasn't feeling much now, actually, other than a dangerous combination of impatience and hunger. It had been a day and they still hadn't found who they wanted. The former athlete was calling it quits and making plans for the last hours of his afterlife.
He'd just eat Sebastien when he got back and go from there, he decided.
The reasonable thing to do would be to keep the useless p***k around and stop being so anxious, but the idea of literally ripping him apart piece by piece was so appetizing and entertaining Avery was having a hard time looking into the future for once.
The blood on his shirt and face, in between his teeth and falling from his lips was a combination of his own and the stupid cat's. He doubted it was anyone's pet given the thing had been all skin and bones. The claws had managed to catch him a good three times across the face before he got to it's throat, but what did he care? A snack would have to sustain him until that moron got back. By time he heard the footsteps he was more than ready to strike, but the voice...
Elke.
Avery sighed. Poor girl. This was just going to break her heart.
Tossing the feline's carcass to the side, he licked the disgusting blood off his hands and waited. What else was a zombie to do?
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 4:30 pm
That sigh. She recognized that sigh! Her heart soared, the color came back into her face, she smiled widely, and Elke hurried through the shrubbery towards the figure. "Avery? Avery!!" Her joy seemed to be without bounds, and it showed clearly in the fluting of her voice.
She was finally close enough to see his face when the impact of what she was seeing hit her, really hit her. Green skin, blood everywhere. A cat's corpse off to the side. Her Avery. She barely had time to say, "I'm so sorry," before turning away to throw up, her arms wrapped around her stomach. Blood hadn't bothered her so much when she was a monster--it still stained the collar and front of her uniform shirt--but it seemed the effects came right back the instant she was human. She could only hope that as Virgo she didn't barf up her guts when she saw blood.
Then, she stood up again, brushing her hair behind her ears. "Avery," she said, a pleading tone in her voice. "Avery, what happened to you?" She already knew, but she had to ask, she wanted to know what had brought him here, looking so... inhuman. Tears had already begun to well up in her eyes as she stared at him. "Avery," she repeated, a third time.
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 4:42 pm
"I died," Avery deadpanned. The fire, the smoke, it was all too much. All because he had to find Elke, and that meant he'd wasted away for nothing. Here she was, alive. Gone was his humanity and for what? All in the name of seeking out someone who had gotten out on their own. Had she ever really needed his help?
"In a fire," the starving, undead student went on. Horrified for the first time in a while, he realized throwing the cat else where was a bad idea. Wanting to eat Elke hadn't crossed his mind; he didn't deem it possible. She was Elke. And he was Avery. Avery should never hurt Elke, let alone want to.
Desperately he ran to the cat, picking the mangled creature up and biting into it. The crunch was sickening, and loud. He didn't look at her, but he hoped she watched. Maybe she'd listen to him for once.
"Just run away, Elke."
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:53 pm
No, she knew he had died, it was... he didn't look like Avery anymore. She watched him in silence, horrified silence, and clenched the hand she'd written her list on. This had to be a bad dream; it had to be. He was Avery, and Avery... wasn't supposed to be covered in blood. He was supposed to be a safe haven. It didn't help to try and think of him as not-Avery; that only made it worse, because he... he was. Like she hadn't died in the fire, she couldn't imagine him as dead when he was right before her.
"No," she said, her voice increasingly horrified as she continued: "No, Avery, no..." She didn't move from her spot on the ground, hands over her mouth. Couldn't she explain that she, too, had been dead? That she had died in that fire, looking for him? And she'd never, ever leave? She flinched when he bit into the cat, averting her gaze, staring at the dying grass a few feet away.
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:10 pm
Unfortunately, Avery was no mind reader, and though Elke wanted to overlook the truth, he saw very clearly the facts before him: She had lived and he had not. He wondered how hard it was for her to run out of the school without him, to know he was inside dying and just leave him there to burn. Alone. The anger overpowered even the hunger, and in his current state--inhumane, a monster--he felt himself giving in to both. Whether he wanted to or not.
The corpse dropped to the ground for good this time. Bloodied, carrying the scent of death and baring the piercing gaze of what was indeed a killer, Avery turned to her and laughed. Laughed like something was funny. "No? No? I tell you to run and you tell me no?" A single step toward her felt like he'd walked a mile. "Why not, Elke? Because you're going to help me? Going to save me? Look around you. Look at me. There is no happy ending for us."
For him. For Sebastien. For the others who had died, and who knew? Maybe the survivors were just as damned in the long run.
"How many are there, Elke? How many on your list to worry about? Am I even first? Was I ever first?!" Here he thought he'd accepted there would always be too many people around her. Apparently not. Avery had shunned everyone else for her, and she left him to die, then took this long to find him. The thinking was selfish and wrong, but the mind of a crazed and starving dead man was not the most reasonable. "What are you going to do if not run, Elke? What is such a nice, pretty little thing like you going to do for me?"
He was moving again, fast. Because he was an athlete in life and a youma in death. He wasn't touching her, but he was almost close enough to. She could smell the horrid stench radiating off him if nothing else. He leaned down and looked at her, trying to catch her eyes. Cute enough to eat.
"I love you, Elke," Avery whispered in a voice that was nothing if not completely convinced. "And that's why I'll give you ten seconds to stop being stupid and run ahead of me before I do something bad."
A measly ten seconds was nothing...
Right?
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:02 pm
He spoke and her gaze was dragged back to him, back to the familiar features and she stared, listening; there was something odd in her expression, as if she was memorizing something she didn't expect to see ever again. The only time she looked away was to rub her eyes, teeth gritted so she wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry, not now, not ever. "I looked for you!" The words tore out of her throat, vehemence tinging each syllable. Her hands clenched, and she imagined she could feel the list of the people she was seeking written on her hand. Avery. First on the list: first in her heart. "It was you, only you--"
It was so unfair that he could say this to her. Even if she had lived. This attitude, it didn't belong to her Avery--someone else's, perhaps. She knew she had looked for him, she'd searched, the floor collapsed and she fell through it and she burned. A strangled whimper was all she allowed herself as he approached, but she didn't move, not even a little. Still staring at his face--that beloved face--she just. Stood. A part of her didn't believe that Avery could hurt her, not ever; the rest of her, the part fostered by Giselle and by the fact that she had a princess to look out for, told her to gather up her s**t and run.
She could bring him to Chronos. Chronos had brought Virgo back, hadn't she? Elke was alive now because Chronos had brought back Virgo... But not everyone was a senshi. She couldn't put the princess in danger. She dearly wanted to put the princess in danger, because it was Avery, and for a very long time she had been so worried about him. Hero would shoot him before she got anywhere near Serenade, let alone before the two senshi could change over into the right form. And then she would deserve the things he was yelling at her.
The smell of decay made her stomach roil, and she stared at him, body language openly pleading for him to take it back. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. She couldn't do anything here; it was foolish to think she could and she knew it, but still, she wanted to. Elke could henshin up - hurt him to stay close to him. Or she could just stay, and accept that she'd likely die. But if she stayed, she'd risk hurting him--if hurting her would still hurt him--so she started to back up. "I can't outrun you," she said, louder, dropping her heavy book to the ground. "But I love you all the same, okay? Please believe I still love you." She turned to run, then stopped. "I'll come back, I promise. I promise!"
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:40 pm
Too often was Avery aware he only felt like a good person in the company of good people. No one more so than Elke, but not now. He couldn't feel like a good person or a bad person because he wasn't human at all. Accepted it? He thought he had, but hearing what she had to say, he knew that was wrong.
He didn't want to be a monster. He didn't want to die. Fear was something he tried to filter out of himself years ago. Then again, he'd sworn to protect Elke, too, and what a bang up job he was doing with that. Standing there struggling not to maul her, rip her flesh off, he knew how unwise it was to grab her hand. Turns out he couldn't do anything right.
"Elke, I'm sorry." Who knew what he was apologizing for. Everything, maybe, including his increasingly strong grasp on her wrist. She was right; she would never outrun him. "I can't help it."
The hunger was too much. Almost.
"Elke, listen." The sudden shove forward contradicted the plea to stay and hear him out. It didn't make sense, but none of this did. "I'll stop as long as I can. Run. And scream. Get whoever you can and just jump me. Don't walk away, make sure I'm dead. Have my head taken off. Whatever it takes. --Now run! RUN!" He stumbled away from her and bit into his own hand, snarling like an annoyed dog, but glaring at her like a wolf ready to hunt.
It was very obvious Avery Roth was now a monster, and it was just as obvious he couldn't hold that part of him back much longer.
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:21 am
"It's okay," she tried to assure him, wincing at the tight grip on her wrist. Trying to minimize the look of pain on her face didn't really work; it never had. It was incredibly hard to blame him, though, even if she wanted to. Elke didn't; she knew the hunger of a zombie personally. And... she loved Avery. She could forgive him anything. "It's okay--"
When he shoved her, she didn't quite catch herself--she fell to the ground, dropping her flashlight. It was easy to get up, though, she was unharmed; though she wanted to brush herself off, she just bent down for her flashlight. Then she started to back away; with one more "I love you," she fled, bounding in the direction of the second gym as fast as she could, and changing to Sailor Virgo as soon as she could. The speed would help her get away.
[FIN ;;]
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