Hey Guys,
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday! I know it got pretty hectic for me and my family and I couldn't find a single spare moment to write which made me super bummed. But, I finally have been able to get this chapter together and I have to say, this may have been my favorite one to write so far! I took a bit of artistic license with the scenes in this chapter but I think it'll pave a smoother path for the road up ahead!
Nobody: Thank you so much, I'm so happy you are enjoying the ride! And yeah I know! He pisses me off so much but I gotta say he definitely adds a lot to the storyline haha
DramaDragon2: Thank you for saying so! It makes me so pumped to have you guys saying you're enjoying the story how I've written it and I hope it continues as you read further!
Lil Lost Lady: I'm glad to see you think so highly of my first story! It's very much appreciated. I'm so thankful for the heads up about the game, I'm going out to buy a Nintendo Switch immediately XD Thanks for your reviews and I'm looking forward to hearing how you feel about this newest chapter!
Now let's get this show on the road…
Chapter 7
My chest twinges weirdly in response to her words but I don't bother trying decode that. "What are you waitin' for, Ray?" I taunt haughtily.
She's repositioned that damn weapon so it's pointed straight at my heart. It's lights out if she pulls the trigger, I doubt I could recover from a straight shot to the chest. Tch.
My glare burns into her gaze as she looks straight at me. But she isn't looking at me, not really. She's still in this fucking daze and I can feel my anger simmering at the brush off, intentional or not. If she's gonna do this, she's gonna look me dead in the eye knowing full well what the hell it is she's about to do.
"You wanna die…" My feet land one in front of the other pointedly as I approach. "You wanna kill me?" My chest brushes against the end of the barrel, I can feel the coolness of the metal through my shirt, it sends a chill over my skin. "You want this fucking shit show to end?! You're not making any damn sense!" My voice echos off the walls of the silent room, just making my statement that much sharper with malice. My scythe cuts through the floor like butter as I vent my rage into the swing.
I move forward, leaving my weapon planted in the floorboards as I push my chest harder into the tip of the gun, urging her to get it over with already. "If you're gonna fucking kill me, then fucking do it already!"
Her hesitant voice slices through my ragged breaths, "I know…"
But I'm already cutting her off, pissed beyond belief at the meekness she's displaying right now, "Stop blabbering all this dumb shit then!"
"I'm serious! I'm sure about killing you!"
A wry grin slips onto my face, I cock my head to the side as I watch the expression finally flood back onto that vacant face. She's staring at the point wear metal meets my body, her hand's shaking, so I add more pressure forcing my body weight into her extended arm. "Is that so?" I jeer, knowing damn well this runt ain't gonna do shit.
I catch her finger flexing hesitantly on the trigger, but she's got to be damn well more sure than that if she wants to fire for real. My smirk just grows, I almost can't keep the mirth out of my voice as I snap at her, "Like hell I'd let a pint-sized midget like you, take me down." Before she knows what's happening I veer to the side and swipe my leg across the back of her knees. She hits the floor like a sack of potatoes.
My blade is ripped from the floor and poised at her throat before she can catch the breath that was knocked from her lungs. I've got her pinned by the arms beneath my boots, careful not to crush her completely. It's kind of a nice sight, as I stare down at her body sprawled out on the floor. She's panting and there's a worried pinch etched across her features. I can feel my blood pumping faster through my veins. My pulse is rapid and my tongue pops out to wet my lips as I let my eyes absorb her frazzled state. I can feel the anticipation building thick like a fog in the air.
"What's wrong, Ray? Not so tough now…" I jibe, wanting to rub it in now that all that false confidence is wiped clean.
"…No…No, Zack. Please. Don't—" she pleads breathlessly, her lips quiver around the words as they tumble out of her mouth. It creates a weird feeling low in my stomach, watching my Ray plead like this. "I thought you wanted it all to end, Ray? I'm just gonna grant your wish," I almost don't recognize the sound of my own voice as I speak. It's low and raspy in a way that's foreign to my ears. Why am I acting like this? It's almost like I'm hypnotized as I drag the edge of my blade gently along the underside of her chin, entranced by the quiet little gasp that escapes her throat. It amps up my excitement another notch. I'm so focused on the sight that I almost don't catch her next words.
"Stop!" It's a choked and desperate plea, but it halts me in my tracks for some reason. I inch the scythe away from her jugular ever so slightly and my eyes meet hers once again.
It's out of this world.
Her eyes are glistening with unshed tears, sparkling like the shattered glass that rained down on me upstairs. The blue is so shiny and beautiful and her expression is so painfully desperate as she continues, "Please, Zack. I don't want to die…not when…" her tone is thick with emotion and a lone tear finally escapes as she gasps out the rest.
"You're not my God anymore."
The tears rain down one after the other on her pale skin as she chokes on her own cries. If I thought I was entranced before, I'm fucking spellbound by the look on Ray's face in this moment.
"My god doesn't n-need me anymore…he-he's dead."
A deep hum sounds through my chest at her words, my lips quirking up on the ends as I reply, "Yeah, that's right. I killed him." Her lashes flutter as she attempts to blink away the flooding moisture in her eyes, but it's futile. They quickly drive a path down the sides of her cheeks and disappear into the tresses of her hair.
I catch myself kneeling, letting one of my knees meet the floor just under her left bicep as my other foot stays in place, planting her other arm into the hardwood. "But I'm not dead." My face leans a little closer to her, my weapon still hovering a few inches from her neck as I gaze into her sad eyes. "You catch my drift?"
"Who was it that said he'd kill you?"
"My Go—"
I cut my scythe to the side quickly, barely missing the skin at her throat as I wedge my blade deep into the recesses of the wood directly next to her head. The sudden movement and harsh sound so close to her makes her flinch and gasp.
"Wrong." I sneer, bringing my face right in front of her. Feeling the fanning of her breath against the bandages of my face. The sensation's weird and I don't think I've ever been so close to a person before. "It was me, Ray. It was me. Not some dumb god!" I back off of her, leaning back from her face as I push my weight back on the legs astride her torso. "I'm the one who's gonna fucking kill you!" I laugh, my lips stretching back to reveal my teeth as I think of the deed only I can fulfill. I will be the one to kill her. No one else.
I stare at her, feeling more amusement creep into my skin at the aghast look on her face. Who knew my little Ray could be painted pretty with emotion.
"But…I'm unclean."
I knew she had been spouting some bullshit the past few hours but I didn't think she was completely off her rocker by this point. "Look who you're fucking talking to, I'm a fucking murderer…I've killed tons of people just 'cause I like it! You think I'm a god damn saint or something?" I'm dubious, looking at her as she just looks back at me in wonderment, tch I thought she knew who I was for fuck's sake!
"I'm nothing like the four-eyed fucker who babbles on and beats around the bush all damn day! What you see is what you get and I ain't claiming to be anything but me! I couldn't give a rat's ass about parents or your bullshit with 'God.' I do what I want to do when I want to do it! So shut your fucking trap about this unclean bullshit, you're looking at the bottom of the barrel here!"
I'm huffing and before I even realize it I'm practically nose to nose with her, my eyes boring into her own with the seriousness of cancer. I take my tone down a notch, finishing my rant off with, "I'm my own man and you're your own woman, Ray. Am I wrong?"
If I wasn't so god damn close to her I probably would have missed the whispered words that left her mouth, but I just barely catch them as they wisp out into the open. "I'm…my own woman?"
"Fuck yeah you are! So you make your own decisions for your damn self! Grab life by the balls and take control!" Tears well up in the corners of her eyes once again and she looks as though the lights upstairs have finally flickered on. That haze that's been smothering her this whole time seems to fade away. About damn time. "So, Ray? Who is it you see in front of you right now?"
She gapes at me in an almost awed expression and the feeling it gives me is beyond fucking strange. There's a fluttering light sensation and I can already tell I hate it. It gives me the creeps but I can't pry my eyes away from hers. The intensity I'm well used to feeling as I gaze at her is finally back and it's sucking me in with vengeance. I'm swirling into the oceanic depths of her irises and I feel as though I've forgotten how to fucking swim.
A grin sneaks onto her lips and the entirety of her face ensnares my full attention, I scarily find my own expression stretching to mimic hers as she finally answers me. "Zack," the slight tilt of my lips morphs into a full blown genuine smile as I take in her words, relief floods my body so suddenly. I didn't even realize I had tensed up waiting for her answer.
"That's right, not some god or anyone else, just me." I whisper gently.
"Mhm, it's always been you, Zack." The tears are flowing unbidden down her face and her features are the most relaxed in this moment that I've ever seen them. I can't help but feel that Ray looks pretty with her face like this. I shake myself of those sappy thoughts and back away from her personal space.
"Geez, for a crazy bitch you sure as hell are serious. Lighten up."
I take a moment to take in her form beneath me, finally feeling as though I've gotten the real Ray back. I feel weirdly full, like my chest has filled some of the emptiness inside of it. It's a weird sensation, but I can't determine if it's horrific or not.
"I'm right here, so if you understand that, then…" I cut through the space between up instantly, planting my hand right next to the fanned out locks of her blonde hair as I get close and personal. "Wish for me, Ray!" She gasps at our close proximity or my loud outburst, I don't really care either way. "If you wanna die, swear that it'll be me who does the killing!" I shout impassioned by the prospect of her finally realizing all this other bullshit had been a fancy smokescreen. Disguised with sparkling notions of a bigger picture and predetermined destinies.
So fucking disgustingly fake. It was always just Ray and Zack. That's all there ever was, the promise between me and her, and that's all that ever mattered. None of this fake shit was important, it just served as a bump in the road for us, she may have gotten lost on the way but I snagged her at the end.
"Swear it to yourself and swear it to ME!" I urge her sharply, she needs to take control of her own fucking life and what happens to it from here on out.
"O-Okay."
Her head barely bobs in a nod and it causes our noses to brush slightly. The touch sparks an awareness in me, I take notice of her mouth, how it's parted in a light breath. Her lips are just barely glistening in the dim glow coming through the window and it illuminates them in front of my eyes in a way I never noticed before. My heart feels like it's trying to jump out of my throat right now.
A strangled cry escapes her open mouth, and my forehead automatically comes to rest against her own without my say so. What the fuck? Her sobs are growing louder and she fumbles out a strained but firm, "I swear." Her tiny fingers come up to grip the fabric at my shoulders and a warning bell finally sounds off sharply in my head. Too close.
I carefully disentangle myself from her, rising slowly to my feet as she lets her emotions run their course. I look away from her, glancing out the window and staring blankly through the fraud moon. I can feel a smile ghosting over my mouth against my will and these warring feelings are making me feel kind of sick.
"Good," I say absently, thinking I need to get a handle on myself fucking quick. "I'll swear to you, too," I let myself sneak a peek at her and immediately feel that warm fuzzy feeling swarm in my body again. I wait for it to pass as it usually does.
Except this time it doesn't, it dims just the tiniest bit but hold strong nonetheless.
Tch, what a pain in the fucking ass.
I drag my hands across the handle of my scythe, stroking my fingers along the metal resting over my shoulder. I've nearly paced a fucking hole in the floor by now. I can still hear the faint blubbering of Ray as she finally starts to calm down in her heap on the floor.
"Oi, you gonna keep crying a river down there or can we get moving?"
She's rubbing her hand against her nose as she continues to sniffle. "Sorry…" comes her lame whimpering reply. I hate it almost as much as I hated her fucking sobbing. Idiot.
"You dumbass, quit apologizing. I need your brains to get the fuck outta this place, so get yourself together." I tsk at her, watching on as she slowly continues to pathetically wipe at her face with the backs of her hands. Annoyed and impatient, I stomp over to her and hoist her up by her arm to her feet. I take the clean part of my sleeve, wiping at the wetness on her cheeks roughly, turning them a bright pink.
"There, all set. Now how the hell do we get out of here?" I turn away from her, slightly horrified at my own actions but not willing to say anything about it. When I don't get a response from her, I turn my head to glance over my shoulder at her. She's looking at me with a weird ass face that I can't figure out, her cheeks still pinker than ever. "Well? This is your floor ain't it?" I urge, my brows furrowing at her strange demeanor.
"I-I don't have any memory of going above this floor," she voices out finally. Well, great, another bullshit mystery to solve. She starts to walk away from me, towards a closed door I'm only just now noticing.
"Hey, where you goin'?"
"I don't know the way out, but I do know there's a foyer just beyond this living room." I follow her and approach the door, "Give this a hard shove," she commands. I bristle a bit at her bossiness, but continue to examine the door. In my experience these fucking doors are made of steel. I'm not tryin' to break my fucking foot here.
"Fine…"
I plow through it with my scythe instead and the splintering of wood is like music to my ears. Pleased with my handiwork, I smirk and lope through the gaping hole I created.
"…You just had to push it, not obliterate it," I hear her exasperated tone sound behind my back, but I only chuckle in response.
"Ha! It's open, so who fucking cares?" I throw a cheesy grin over my shoulder at her as my eyes squint closed.
I completely miss the pink tint that graces her face behind my closed lids.
"I guess so…" I hear her huff and open my eyes to see a pout on her little mouth. It seizes a laugh from my lips as I take in her cute expression. Wait, cute? The mirth is completely wiped from my face as I try to get a fucking grip, I reach up to rub the side of my head. Maybe I'm getting sick or something. I'm giving myself the heebie jeebies for Christ's sake.
I examine my new surrounding as I explore the small outside space. It feels like a set design, fake and completely useless. There's a dumpster, some more useless shit and a whole lot of fucking nothing. I spot some writing scrawled on the wall, hell if I know what the gibberish means though.
"What's this say?"
I hear small footsteps as Ray steps up beside me to read the wall. "It says, 'miss'" her small voice rings next to me. I glance at her, trying to read her features and see if this isn't just some pointless graffiti. Her face is as blank as the day I met her, perfect. I sneer at the wall, pissed at the insignificant letters put there for no fucking reason.
Yeah this sure as hell was a 'miss' I'd say. "Tch, maybe it's hidden in some place we haven't scoped out yet," I offer, holding out some bleak hope that it could ever be that easy.
My hope being swiftly crushed to bits as Ray voices what I should have already figured, "No. I've traveled every inch of this floor. I needed to in order to find every possible place to lay my traps." I grit my teeth in remembrance of falling pray to more than a few of those fuckers. Wanting to growl out my annoyance at her thorough work, I bite my tongue instead.
"So did anyone ever come down from the elevator?" By this point I'm just spurting out any idea that wafts into my head, I just wanna get the fuck outta this hell hole. "No, there are no stairs or elevator that leads up, besides they definitely would have gotten caught up in one of my traps and I don't foresee anyone besides you surviving one, Zack." I peek at her expression to try and gage if she's just blowing smoke up my ass, but she looks dead serious.
"Yeah…that's probably true. So, how the fuck do we get out of here? This isn't making any damn sense!" I fume, we're so fucking close but can't catch a damn break in this place.
"No one ever came down…but, Doctor Danny was always bringing in things from outside for me…" she was hunched over with a contemplative look on her face as she continued to mumble. I didn't bother interrupting, feeling myself prickle and dutifully tuning out at the mention of the sick fuck. I figure she would have her eureka moment soon enough.
I was watching her pace, her tiny legs making little to no progress across the floor as she turned back and forth. It was kind of fun to watch her get so worked up while muttering quietly, but before I could make a jibe at her, her head popped up abruptly. It snapped to meet my stare.
"There must be another way out that's not on this floor."
Her conclusion makes me squint, my brows drawing together as I figure its plausibility. "So, then what does that mean?" I'm not going to waste my brain power when I have her to do all the thinking for me.
"I would guess that there is an exit on the floor below us. Since anyone who was ever brought from outside came from the elevator coming up. Therefore, that must mean they had to have been taken here from B2," her voice is strong and sure, I know she thinks she's got all the answers now. But, I'm still feeling slow on the uptake. "This was the final floor."
Her finger comes up to rest on her chin, "That means there was never a need for an exit to be on this floor, since it was presumed that no one would make it out alive." She finally raises her head to meet my eyes as she finishes her thought, "There would have to be an exit before this floor."
My mind's whirling at the long winded explanation and I only catch about half of it before my brain attempts to process it. I'm about to short circuit, so I just relent. "Whatever you say, Ray. I don't really get it, but if you say we gotta head down then let's go."
I don't waste time as we head back to the elevator we rode up on and I'm slamming my fist into the button at this point. The fucker isn't doing jack shit though. Just one time, couldn't we have it easy for even a fucking second?
"It won't fucking work!" I yell, taking my frustration out on the useless button as I hit it in rapid succession.
"That is because the power's off," she states nonchalantly.
I gape at her for a second, wondering if she really had the balls to act so blasé while she knew we had to turn the power on first. "Ray…" I growl out warningly, she's testing my patience so why the fuck is she messing around?!
Her eyes meet my glare head on but the way they glimmer cuts my aggression clean in half. I release some of the tension in my face as she speaks, "I'm sorry…I know where the switch is though." I could almost say she's giving me puppy dog eyes, but I would never peg her to be capable of such an expression.
"Alright…" I break away from our weird stare off, the look she's giving me is making me feel funny. "Let's get this over with."
We're standing over the entrance to the basement of this shithole, and I'm just about to step onto the first rung of the ladder as a soft touch on my arm stops me in my tracks. I look over at the feeling, noticing Ray's small hand resting on my bicep. I drag my eyes to meet hers in a questioning glare, my impatience growing with her endless stalling.
"Zack…" her tone is small and if the room hadn't been draped in silence I might not have heard it.
"What's the hold up, Ray?" I prompt my short temper grating on my skin.
"I don't—do you think I could go alone?" That wasn't what I thought she would say, my curiosity is peaked. I step away from the opening in the floor, standing chest to chest as I stare down at her.
"Why would you wanna do that?"
Her eyes cut to the floor and I'm kinda thrown by this sudden shyness that Ray's showing me. "Well, this will be my last time here…so, I just wanted to say a proper goodbye." She glances at me every so often, as if gaging my reaction to her words. I'm a little stunned to be completely fucking honest, so I just give up on trying to form a sentence.
Instead spitting out, "Why?"
I don't understand her behavior and I wanna know what's got her so…whatever the hell she is right now. "It's just—" her eyes meet mine for a few split seconds, before she drags them down to our feet once again, "it would be embarrassing to do that in front of you." I'm frozen, because I catch a glimpse of pink cheeks and it's doing bizarre ass shit to my innards.
It's a few moments of silence between us before I finally say, "Okay, fine. But you should probably know I slaughtered those attack dogs you had." I don't want her freaking out when she comes across their bloodied remains, I chance a look at her expression only to be more confused when I'm met with a small smile.
"Yeah, that sounds like something you would do."
I'm blank, I don't understand a damn thing that's happening right now and it's strange as fuck. I turn away from her, putting some distance between me and the creepy vibes floating around in the air. "You go ahead, I'll keep watch," I throw over my shoulder, wearing a frown as I secretly watch her decent into the basement.
What the fuck's going on with me?
PROGRESS People! We have got some progress going on, slowly but surely! Zack no longer thinks he's dying but he still can't figure out the signals his own body is sending him, silly boy. Let me know what you thought in a review! See ya next time :D
