Once again, the hopelessly spiky mass was a lost fight. Eight o'clock in the morning and already twenty-seven broken brushes lay before the porcupine. A mane of down-brushed, frizzy hair rustled as Flaky shook her head. She gave up trying to tame it, partly because her scalp was bleeding, though it was not easy to see the blood under her already deep red hair.
Flaky thought she would take a bath, as an attempt to get rid of the little flakes in her hair. Though one might consider it dumb to take a bath with hot water and shampoo when your head is bleeding, nobody told Flaky.
Followed by painful sounding screams, Flaky stumbled out of the shower, with a mixed solution of blood, soap and water running down her face, as her tears welled up in her tightly shut eyes. She grabbed a towel and forced herself to rub away at her spikes despite the immense pain that came with the movement. The white towel was stained red in many spots. She threw the used towel in the laundry basket, still cringing at the horrible stinging pain. She walked over to the mirror while trying to massage her hair.
The flakes remained in her hair, as though nothing had happened at all. Either they were just stuck there or they just reappeared, from somewhere, really quickly.
Ugh, what are these even? I don't think it's dandruff…these are more like…flakes.
Flaky only gave it a few moments of thought before shrugging it off with a sigh of disappointment. The red porcupine threw on a warm, comfy red sweater and looped a thick, pink polka-dot scarf around her neck. After a final appearance check, minus anything that couldn't be helped, she slung her school bag over her right shoulder and trotted out of her bedroom.
Her house consisted of two levels. The more private rooms were on the second floor and the general areas like living rooms and guest rooms were on the first. The rooms on the second floor were all very small, meant only to harbor one person each. Flaky's room was at the far right end, where there was a ladder to the attic. Many pictures framing Flaky and her friends together hung around the house on the walls of the corridors and rested on various tables and other platforms. It was a fairly small house, to be honest, but Flaky did not have that many belongings so it was not very cramped. Besides, she lived in her house on her own.
On her way down the stairs, she started to hallucinate that the steps were getting nearer. Then, Flaky's eyes widened as she realized that it was just her, falling. Her face first slammed into the corner of a step, digging into her nose bone. She gasped at the pain. As her legs flew into the air, the rest of her body came down hard onto the remaining steps, causing her neck and spine to crack with the impact. The recoil from the hit was strong enough to send her down even more rolls, fracturing her shins and ribcage as blood trailed from her nose and mouth. Every thud was powerful enough the shake the whole house and hanged frames and pots crashed onto the ground as Flaky fell, with everything flying about her.
Right before the last step, her scarf caught on an exposed nail which had used to be the hanging extension for one of her framed pictures, now lying with shattered glass surrounding it. The force exerted by her body weight coupled with the momentum of her fall made the thick scarf constrict tightly around her neck, digging into her throat. She opened her mouth for breath, but only blood gushed out as the scarf clenched tighter and tighter around her neck, squeezing her windpipe shut.
As blood dripped onto the floor from her face and limbs, Flaky struggled ferociously, her body dangling a few inches away from the last step of the staircase. But every movement just seemed to make the scarf want to choke her faster, squeezing the life out of her little by little. Flaky's eyes started to glaze over with tears as her gaping mouth merely managed to twitch. Her eyes rolled to the top of her head as the last shred of life seeped out of her body and as her struggling body moved slower and became slack. Her vision passed into nothing but pitch black darkness. Moments later, her body was still and unmoving, dripping with blood.
A ripping sound tore through the silence, loud and unmistakable. A moment later, Flaky's limp body dropped flat onto the floor. The cracking of even more fragile, broken bones could be heard. Blood oozed out of Flaky's many cuts and wounds, soon leaving her lying in a pool of her own fresh, deep red blood. The end of the scarf, which got caught and was now torn and forked, fluttered towards the ground and landed on top of Flaky's eyes. Without the force of her dangling body, the scarf loosened itself from her neck, inch by inch, second by second, gradually getting stained with red.
A thin stream of air entered her windpipe and into her half-dead lungs. Flaky's gaping mouth twitched as her body began receiving oxygen again. The light returned to her eyes slowly, sweeping away the darkness. A blurred vision of colors danced before her eyes as her ears were stung by a sharp, buzzing sound. Flaky managed to blink several times, gradually clearing her vision. She was finally able to make out the wood of her floor, but her mind was still too fuzzy to realize it. The only thing that filled her awakening mind was the fact that she needed to breather more air. She needed more air.
Attempting to move her arms, a sharp pain shot through her entire body. All that she managed was a twitch. She was too weak to even manage a scream. However, what he wanted more than anything was to pull off the contraption that was entangled around her neck and fling it far away. Through sheer determination, she painfully dragged her left arm up the floorboards, drawing with it a smudged arc of blood, and forced herself to make it bend, so that her hand was able to touch the scarf around her neck. More fresh blood flowed out of the wounds on her arm. Her fingers did not hurt as much to move and Flaky concentrated on making them grasp the scarf as firmly as she could possibly manage.
Then, with as much energy as she could summon, she jerked her arm, tugging at the blood-stained scarf. Even more blood splurged out of her arms, and bruised areas on her arm opened up, leaking out with the fresh liquid. Flaky's mouth opened to scream at the searing pain, but with the scarf constricting her throat, nothing but trickles of blood flowed out of it. The scarf hardly loosened up and Flaky struggled to breathe and regain her energy. Then she tugged again. And again and again. Every time, the tormenting misery cut through her entire body stronger and stronger, as though it could stop her heart. She wanted so much to stop, but her desire to stay alive was much greater. The blood endlessly flowed out of the many holes in her body, as it entirely began to shake and thrash about. Flaky narrowed her eyes as dry tears flowed out of them, breaking the smooth surface of the blood that she laid thrashing in. With each pull, Flaky gasped for air as she felt the scarf loosening more and more, letting more fresh air into her body, like a drug of which she kept wanting more of and numbed the pain of what she had to do to get it.
After what seemed like forever, Flaky weakly made simple tugs at her scarf, weak and insignificant. Her head was spinning and her eyes were glazed over. Her mouth opened and closed haphazardly, gasping air into her lungs. She was covered in perspiration, which mixed with the blood on her skin and made her hair stick to her face. Her palm fell on the floor, opened, with bleeding and bruised fingers, nails almost coming of at hinges. It lay twitching next to the scratched-up, torn threads of her scarf. The scarf lay loosely on in her pool of blood. Most of the blood was fresh; some of it was dried under.
Flaky could not even feel the pain, having endured it for so long. She was feeling relieved as she lay in her own spilt blood. She was also happy. She was happy that she was able to loosen the scarf. As blood-scented air flowed freely through her compressed throat, she relaxed; closed her eyes and smiled, a fresh trickle of blood flowing from its corner. She fell asleep peacefully, lying in her own blood.
*click*
A pair of eyes snapped open, revealing the red of its irises. Flaky looked around. She was still laying in a pool of red, except that the blood had dried and become crusted on her front and side of her face. Besides that, Flaky felt disturbed by something. Maybe it was just her, but it seemed like everything was darker around her. She tried to move her limbs. They broke away from the crust easily. And with no pain at all!
She picked herself up, detaching herself from the bloody crust, and sat up. She tilted her body to look into the living room, where a clock hanged on a wall opposite its doorway. It had only been about thirty minutes since she left her room and had the escapade on the stairs.
It couldn't already be dark out, could it?
With a few loose spikes falling off and clinking softly on the ground, the red porcupine stood on her miraculously renewed legs and headed for the door. It was completely made of wood, painted over with white. She turned the knob and stepped outside, onto her porch.
Immediately, light flooded into her face and made her squint. The morning breeze blew at her and made her severed scarf flutter about. Straight away, Flaky felt better and any doubts she had had before were forgotten for the moment. Until something revolting splashed onto her and splattered around her. She jumped let out a shrill shriek.
WHAT THE HELL-?
Right before her porch steps, a body thumped down from the sky and barrel-rolled across her lawn, leaving a trail of blood seeping into the grass. Flaky's arms shot up in surprise. She gathered that whosever blood was on her, it was that body's.
With hesitation, she crept over to the bleeding lump of flesh, all the while trying to make out its identity. It wasn't surrounded by a splatter of blood. Flaky felt revolted by it and covered her mouth with her hand. She stared at the body from outside the splatter of blood around it and extended an unsteady leg towards it.
A bloody hand shot out and grabbed her ankle. Before she knew what was happening, she was pulled onto the ground, next to the dead body.
"AAAHH!"
Flaky tried to wriggle her leg free of the hand's grasp as her nails dug into the soil with fear. Suddenly, the body's other hand shot out and grabbed the middle of her leg, making a horrible growling sound. Flaky kept screaming and she tried to pull the grass and kicked with her free leg, tears overflowing from her eyes. She had entirely lost control of her nerves as her mind shut off and her body fell into a struggling fit.
The hand grasping her ankle moved up to the top of her shin and pulled, bringing the body's torso up her foot, its head hanging down over her knee. The strength in Flaky's elbows failed her and they hit the ground. The body brought its knee under itself and it loomed over her. She was petrified. She could only stare at the shadowed face of the demonic creature that was pinning her to the ground.
Without warning, the body suddenly shook as a sort of choking sound emitted from it. As Flaky stared at it, confused, the noises slowly evolved into full-hearted laughter; a boy's laughter. The body lifted it's blood-covered face and a wide grin broke out on it. Flaky slapped it halfway across her lawn, back where it landed.
"Upf—"
Flaky unsteadily stood up, and stomped with her tiny feet over to where the body lay, her face glowing bright red. Her cheeks were puffed up looking like they could explode. The dead body tried to stand up, which it would have done smoothly if Flaky hadn't pummeled it with tiny slaps from her tiny hands. The figure was hunched over as it tried to back away from her tiny but strong hands.
"Ow, ow, ow, Flaky stahp, it tickles. Pfh—"
Flaky smacked the person across the face again and put her fists on her hips.
"NEVER DO THAT AGAIN," she screamed, her voice still quivering with fear.
The person she slapped, twice, tried to shake off as much blood as he could, revealing a blue jacket and blue trousers. He brought up a semi-gloved hand to his neck and cracked it, showing a red band over his eyes, tied up at the back of his head, the extra cloth fluttering about in the breeze.
"Sorry, Flakes, but your reaction was priceless!"
Splendid smiled and laughed as the small red porcupine before him puffed up with anger and embarrassment.
"SPLENDID, YOU-!"
"Hey, I totally planned to drop by your house this morning. I made some cookies but I think I dropped them somewhere…"
Just then, a basket fell and hit the blue flying-squirrel on the head and pushed his head to the ground.
"Ahah, there it is. I planned that."
Flaky just stood, staring at Splendid grabbing his basket and stuffing himself with some cookies. More like crumbs. They were all broken and shattered, but it didn't seem to bother the squirrel. He held the basket with open flap out to her.
"You want shome?" he asked with his mouth full.
"Umm, no thanks, Splendid"
"Cool, more for me then!"
He swallowed the chewed up cookies in his mouth and brought his finger over the crumbs round his mouth and licked it. Flaky was sure they tasted delicious, but she just did not have the appetite for them, not after what Splendid just did.
"So, why are you here?"
Splendid looked up at her and rubbed his sleeve over his mouth.
"Dah, yes. Quite an entrance wasn't it? I was working on that new flying routine I told you about. It met a couple of snags—I-I mean it went perfectly. I totally meant to do all that—but anyway, I'm here to escort you to school, because you absolutely seem like you'll need protection from any hands from graves, ma'am."
Flaky crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at him.
"We're both late, aren't we?"
"Yeah."
"Then let's go," the red porcupine sighed.
Flaky secured her shoulder strap with her hand and walked out of her gate, followed by Splendid, still gorging himself on his crumbled cookies.
"Where's your bag?"
"I'll just borrow your books. You'll let me, right Flakes?"
Flaky let out another sigh and just nodded her head. Splendid made his happiness obvious by doing various fist umps and tricks with his basket. Splendid and Flaky talked about nothing more than the cookies on their walk to school, about how they were so easily broken. As though none of the things that just happened ever happened.
"I think I swallowed a tooth."
"EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!"
-{Author's Ramblings}-
So do we all agree not to kill the author at the pathetic attempt at gore? Okay? Okay. /thrownoffcliff/
So it's le first chapter to this story, and I know there are some disruptions to the flow. Because reasons. And I'm sorry if this sucks and if I took really long to just type this out I know is slow. And I tried to incorporate gore in it but its really weak. Hey, it's my first time, please be gentle with the stabbing. QnQ
I know there are lame repetitions of certain terms, I just couldn't find other words because of my stupid limited vocabulary. I'll try to update with the next chapter soon but I cant promise it will be better or anything hur hur *coldsweat*
If there are people out there who actually like this, CAN I HUG YOUR FACE?
And if anyone would like to, I dunno, review or follow or fav this story I will, like, love you. So much. So much love. For you. From me. Love me. Please.
P.S. TAYUKE, IM NOT SURE IF THIS IS EVEN GORE—HOW DO I GORE? HELP THY JUNIOR. QAQ