I need more practice in writing bloody gore stuff. It's funny, I prefer blood, gore and horror about a hundred times more than some gushy, mushy romantic frolic storyline and I tend to write gushy stuff more often. I daydream about blood more though.

Oh, I envisioned Eileen here to be late 26ish. I don't actually know canon age range, don't kill me. Yes. Also, blood.

Rebirthing

Blood had never bothered Eileen as much, even when she was a little girl. It was the abnormal and the unknown that always made her squirm. Still, as she watched the slow line of red trickle down her upper lip she couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable. The stuffy air in her apartment had become somewhat notorious for popping the veins inside of her nose. For the last five days the nosebleeds had increased in curious number, as if the atmosphere in the complex had somehow become more sinister. She didn't notice it at the time, but the heavier air corresponded with her neighbor's odd behavior.

Eileen gave a frustrated sigh and dabbed the blood away with a Kleenex. Here she was, all prettied up and ready for her friend's party and her nosebleed comes back in force. Luckily she caught it before it messed up her lipstick. When she was somewhat satisfied that she had stopped it she wandered out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. Her mother's precious bracelet was kept on her dresser, she only wore it for special occasions, but something had told her to wear it tonight. It was nothing but a simple birthday party for her friend that had turned a quarter of a century old now. Eileen had been there and done that, it was nothing entirely special.

Still, the way it made her think of her mother intrigued her tonight more than any other night. Eileen slipped it on, caught in a strange trance. She wandered across her room to the window. Her bare legs tingled as she passed her bed. The sensation had been happening for a while to her, but she forced herself to ignore it. Even though it felt as though someone was watching her she passed the thought off as ridiculous. Despite the strange noises she heard from 302, her neighbor had not stirred once. While that was worrying in a different aspect, she didn't feel like she should worry over the shy man being a peeping tom. He didn't act the type either—not that she knew him that well; her internal senses just told her he was alright. Not for her, but alright.

She glanced at the clock and sat down on her bed. There were a few minutes to rest before she had to pack her purse and other miscellaneous chores. Sometimes she really hated how meticulous a party can get between plans and invitations and making one's self look attractive. Through all this Eileen felt like dawdling. She usually liked to be on time but perhaps today she could be fashionably late.

Dragging her feet, she shuffled to her living room, plucking her purse from the coffee table and rummaging through it to double check she had everything she wanted. Eileen had just put her purse down when there was a knock at her door.

It was slow, haunting almost, and very questionable—with an aura of its own that seemed to outwardly warn Eileen to back off. She could do nothing but stare at the door in curiosity, waiting to see if the person had stayed or not.

A minute or so passed before the doorknob jiggled with frantic insanity, and Eileen gasped, stepping back in surprise. A muffled, disheartened voice cursed behind the door. Eileen couldn't hear what it said, only that it trailed off with running footsteps.

Confused, her heart rate increased as she stood there, frozen. Things were running out of order, becoming unknown and abnormal. The more she stood there the more she dwelled on her imagination; and the higher her pulse became.

Eileen shook her head to rid herself of the nasty visions. Things like that hardly happened anyway, even if Richard had just been attacked. Lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice. She felt safe as long as her door was locked or she was elsewhere.

There was still a twinge of doubt, but Eileen forced herself not to dwell on it.

She busied herself with writing her friend a birthday card. The store-bought card had a dopey dog on the front. Eileen wasn't one for animals, much less dogs, but her friend was quite fond of them so she picked it up. Ink from her pen flowed out naturally as her hand moved across the paper, the writing therapeutic and making her forget about the slight scare she had only moments ago. Slipping the perky letter into the envelope Eileen found herself interrupted by another, smaller knock.

Eileen stood up and quickly made her way to the door, not willing to let the person get away. Without looking through the peephole she flung the door open, blowing her hair back from the wind.

No one stood there.

Eileen stared ahead at the apartment hallway, perplexed. Looking left and right proved to be fruitless, and she hmphed lightly, ready to pull the door closed.

"Do you know where my mom is?"

Startled, Eileen jumped and looked down, finding a young boy around the age of 7, maybe 8. He had big eyes and a simple, rough bowl cut with a round face. Eileen took in a deep breath to calm down and kneeled to his height.

"What does your mommy look like?" she asked him sweetly. As a response to her question the boy backed up and pointed down the hall matter-of-factly. Humoring him Eileen stood up and followed his finger. She saw no person, no picture, only a terrifying strangeness.

Room 302 was gone. The neighbor's abode was nothing but a mere wall—not even cemented over, just a wall. It was if it had been ripped from the reality in Eileen's memory. She narrowed her eyes as if trying to decide if this was a dream or not.

The boy at her knees gasped, pawing at her leg. She was going to reach down her hand to gently hush him when she saw what he was cowering from.

A man in a grimy coat stood over the both of them, splattered with blood and smiling. It wasn't the blood that tipped Eileen off—no, it was the strong gleam of pleasant insanity in his eyes.

Eileen opened her mouth to say something, anything, scream even. She needed to act before anything bad happened because instinct shrieked that this was far from a dream.

Something blunt crashed over her head just as sound started to blurt out and she stumbled backwards into her apartment, vision gone. The young boy protested in cries, stepping into the doorway between the grimy man and Eileen. Her vision cleared enough to see the child in harm's way, and she sputtered a moan, spitting out blood.

Her mind slowly struggled to repair itself, taking the pieces of the puzzle and putting them together. The kid was in grave danger and she had to protect him. Drunkenly she stumbled to her feet, blood pouring down her forehead. A weapon, she needed to find a weapon.

She didn't allow herself to take her eyes off of the boy as she found her mindset. Still quite immobile, Eileen cringed as the man reached his hands down. He could so easily snap the boy's neck, so easily end his life. Desperate cries blurted from her mouth, telling the kid to run, to get out of there.

The man grabbed him under the armpits and raised him up high, getting the boy on the kitchen countertop. Eileen winced. They were now blocking her path to the kitchen, blocking the path to the knives and other such objects.

A low groan escaped her; it looked like the man would not harm the kid for now. Taking the opportunity she turned around and sprinted down the short hallway as fast as she could into her bedroom. Slamming the door behind her, she desperately started to search for an adequate weapon. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Blood from her forehead was swept away with her hand. Nothing but a wimpy candlestick on her end table. Her fingers closed around the thin neck of it when the door burst open. Thinking without looking she grabbed the face of her stuffed Robbie the Rabbit with her soiled hand, swiveling around and flinging it in the man's face. Clutching the candlestick tightly she bumbled from bedroom to bathroom, scrambling about for anything else useful as a weapon. A razor, a loose pipe, hell, a goddamn curling iron would work.

Or a knife in the side.

Eileen gasped as the cool steel slid into her soft flesh. It was a strange sensation where the pain came last after a few moments of shock and feeling. She felt the blade quiver as the man shook with insane excitement, causing her to choke. More blood trickled out of her mouth, and Eileen stumbled forward into the shower curtain. Out came the knife, causing the pain to rocket to her head. Dots flew and danced in her vision, mocking her fear.

Running on nothing but adrenaline and survival instinct Eileen forced herself to turn around, flailing the candlestick wildly. The dots blinded her, and she was unable to see if she was doing any damage whatsoever.

That answer soon came to her when rough hands gripped her left arm violently. Still unable to scream, Eileen winced as he twisted and twisted, paying no heed to how powerless and bent over she had become from just the pain. Then he tugged and she dropped the candlestick, leaving a red handprint on its neck. Viciously he tugged again, leading her out into the hallway, into the living room. A glimpse of the boy came into her eyes and tears of pain stung her irises.

The man threw her down on the floor, still keeping his grip on Eileen's arm. Eileen crumpled down to the sound of a muted 'snap.' Her jaw hung open in stupefaction as she saw what should have been her elbow swaying limply above her, her wrist still caught in the man's palm.

"Guh…guh…," she uttered quietly, appalled.

The man smiled, putting his foot and his weight down on her shoulder and continuing to pull upwards harshly. Her nerves sparked, and Eileen screamed in a ghastly crescendo. As if she wasn't damned enough, her eyes refused to close, rewarding her brain with everlasting memories of her arm stretching beyond her imagination—stretching and popping.

Everything started to spin, causing Eileen to be ill on the spot. It was like a horrifying carousel that she couldn't get off of and was doomed to ride forever. Her arm kept stretching, the man kept smiling, her voice kept screaming.

Suddenly her poor arm was dropped with a sickening plop, making Eileen scream shortly just one more time before she saw in her impaired vision the boy attempting to tackle the perpetrator.

Eileen's eyes widened, and she told the kid to run, get out of here, find your mommy and get out. Almost in a fatherly fashion the man pushed the young kid aside, and as soon as she said "mommy" a new blaze began to roast in his eyes, creating a shiver down Eileen's bare back. The only warning she had was a flash of reflected light, to which Eileen threw up her good arm to protect her head just as the already bloodied knife crushed her forearm with a cruel stab.

It stopped it from piercing her skull.

Heart pounding beyond recorded speed, blood gushed and sprayed from the new gouge. Eileen's face became washed in red, the blood adding to the man's already splattered coat. There was no pain for her yet—even so everything was already fading.

The man gave a frustrated growl as the boy yet again stepped in to interfere, but still he would not harm him to Eileen's relief and surprise. The injured woman struggled to get up, feeling pain sting her all over in her limbs. It was no sooner than she got up did the man make her fall prey once again.

Eileen's head whipped backward with a rocky fist to her right eye. She tumbled backward, tripping over her coffee table, entangling her legs in it. Menacingly the man took a piece of pipe (what he had hit her on the head with) and brought it down, shattering the table on her.

Splinters and shards shot at Eileen in places she didn't even know could hurt. Cries and tears she had been trying to keep back for the boy's sake were now threatening to show. Oh, how her life was disappearing in a mere instant—how she was watching it fall away from her! The life ebbed away from her, the adrenaline and will to live disappearing like sand in an hourglass.

And yet the man still wasn't done with her. She was pulled to her feet by her hair, her back facing the front of his coat. He steadied her with a hand around her waist, his hot, rotting breath contrasting her cheap perfume.

"Number twenty…," he said pleasurably. Eileen flinched away from his voice and from the blade that pricked her skin in the back. He moaned dreamily, almost as if he was in ecstasy. Life thrived in Eileen again as raw fear tore away her skin, and in her nearly dead condition she trembled under his grasp.

This was his erotica.

"The Mother Reborn…," he cooed in her ear.

The knife began to carve.

Eileen shrieked like she never had before, with power she didn't know she still had. She screamed and didn't stop screaming. Even through the pain she could feel what he was carving into her once perfectly marble skin. Blood beaded and drooled out of the newly opened crevasses. Her broken skin stretched like a great red maw as the numbers became terrifyingly clear to everyone present.

20121.

Sobbing with the last of her breaths, Eileen felt herself climb onto the death carousel for good this time. Blood spider-webbed her face and skin. It stained everywhere, in her bathroom, her living room, on her walls. There was no way she was going to survive with the amount of blood that she lost.

The man grabbed her hair again and dragged her. Feebly she fought back until he dropped her in the front hallway of her apartment, the blood from her body soaking the carpet. He disappeared, leaving her to rot. The poor boy, witness to everything, stood indifferently in front of her. Dragging herself along the carpet, smearing the blood further in, Eileen brought herself as close to the boy as possible before her strength collapsed, leaving her body to unsteadily undulate against the floor with labored, dying breaths.

Blood had never bothered Eileen much, until now.

Her mind was playing tricks on her. It sounded like someone had just opened the door behind them. She passed it off as ridiculous—even if it was true no one could save her now, even if her neighbor was a peeping tom.

"Hey kid…," she gurgled, reaching a bloody hand for his shoe, "Thanks…,"

Choking on her own saliva and more blood, Eileen forced herself to continue, "Did you find your mommy?"

Eileen said something else, but she didn't know what. Probably about escaping, the same crap she'd been telling him to do from the beginning.

Her senses faded one by one in quick order as her forehead rested in the lukewarm wet carpet. The last to go was her hearing, in which she heard someone fall to the ground, perhaps to their knees. Eileen would never know if this was true or not. Thoughts drifted swiftly away from her, the faces and names of everyone she knew. The last identity to fade was the vision of her precious bracelet gleaming in blood, resting next to the boy's shoe.

Mother…