AN: Ok, so I'm making another try at a Bleach hollow SI. This is the third time I've done this, and the fourth time I've done a Bleach SI overall, so don't count on this lasting, but I've decided to try and take what worked with my previous attempts, combine them, and see what happens.
Chapter 1: First Bite
Step. Step. Step. Inhale. Step. Step. Step. Exhale. Step. Step Step. Inhale. Step. Look left. Step. Look right. Step. Exhale. Step. Step. Step. Inhale . . .
It was eerie, I felt, to watch yourself move, and yet not hear anything. No sound of foot colliding with ground, no shifting of cloth or hair, no creaking of floorboards or grinding of sand, dirt, or gravel. When, I wondered, had I learned to move in total silence? It seemed, to me, at least at the time, to be a pretty major thing. Something worth remembering. And yet . . . nothing.
. . . then again, I didn't remember much of anything, now did I?
I took a slow, deep breath, the sound of air grinding against the edges of my bony lips and whistling down my throat almost deafening in volume. Or, at least, it seemed so, compared to the surrounding silence. In turn, the following sigh rippled through the stillness like a thunderclap.
I shook my head sadly. I didn't have time to think about what I'd forgotten. I needed to . . . I needed to . . . what did I need to do?
I froze in place, one foot hovering just off the ground. What did I need to do? Why was I wandering? What did I want? I had forgotten? What was it? What had . . .
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Wait. Inhale . . .
I looked around my surroundings again. I could feel, in the back of my mind, that this was all wrong. The solid stone floors, the bone white pillars leading up to a distant ceiling cloaked in shadow, the stagnant air. It all felt wrong.
But then again, the desert I'd been in before felt wrong to . . .
Inhale. Hold. Exhale . . .
I spun slowly in place, my feet making their first sound in ages as they skidded over the floor. The entire area was so familiar, like I'd been here before. And yet, I didn't know where I was.
Every wall, every pillar, every shadow and pile of dust was nostalgic. But I didn't know why. Why was it so familiar? Why was it so nostalgic? Why did it feel so wrong? How could it be both? I didn't know.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
So I began walking again. Surly it would come back to me, sooner or later, right? It had to, didn't it? I wouldn't be walking in such a strange place if their was no reason for me to be there, would I? . . . maybe I would. I couldn't quite remember what I was like. Maybe I just liked walking in strange places?
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
I decided not to worry about it. I kept walking. I would remember sooner or later. And if I didn't, would it matter? I didn't remember that either, so maybe it wouldn't.
As I walked, I pulled my hands up to my face, looking at my fingers. They were . . . white. White as bone, and seemed to be made of it. In fact, they seemed to be the fingers of a skeleton, with tips sharpened to a needle like point. I remembered these fingers . . . but I didn't? I knew they were wrong, but they were familiar. A sort of . . . wrong/nostalgic, like the environment was.
Inhale. Exhale.
Why did they feel so wrong? They were my fingers, were they not? And why . . . why did I, by reflex, raise my fingers to the space between my eyes, and move them as if to shove something up my nose using my knuckles?
Inhale . . .
Why did I do that? How did I develop a reflex like that? What purpose could that possible serve?
'Huff'
' . . . '
The sound of someone exhaling tore through the quite, the simple sound of air on solid splitting the silence like a knife. And I was still holding my breath . . .
I let the air slowly leak back out of me, a switch of some sort switched in the back of my mind. I turned around quietly, eyes drifting carefully over the surrounding cavern, searching for the source of the sound. ' . . . there, behind that pillar.'
I began to approach to giant stone cylinder, footsteps placed more delicately than ever. I slowed the pace of my breaths, until they made no sound, the sluggish manner with which I filled my lungs rendered all but painful from the anticipation coiling in my gut.
I felt my fingers delicately coil into a fist, before my middle and pointer fingers extended, their tips feeling as if a burning heat had suddenly flowed into them.
Step. Step. Step. Ever closer to the pillar. Ever closer to the sounds source. Until, finally, once the great mass of stone was only a dozen paces away, I raised my foot . . . and stomped.
The sound of bony foot striking rocky floor, my full body weight behind it, shattered the silence like an explosion, sending the source of the noise into a panic. They flung themselves out from behind the pillar, a bulky, grey, tailless feline with a rounded head moving away from me at blurring speed. Seeing it, a deep, aching hunger seemed to awaken in me.
'Was that what I was looking for? Food? No . . . but for now . . . '
Now endowed with some great, giddy form of energy, I raised my hand to the fleeing entity, and the glowing sphere of soft red fire dancing at my finger-tips seeming to ripple and shudder in anticipation as I steadied my aim.
The orb erupted into screaming spear of scarlet fire, splinting the air and glancing off the fleeing targets shoulder, sending my stalker bouncing sidelong across the ground with a scream. "Dammit!"
Seeing this, I threw myself forward, charging full speed towards my downed target before they could recover, more balls of fire already forming in either hand. I was on them in seconds, pouncing over them in an attempt to get at their head before they could recover. However, it seemed they'd prepared for that, and I only barely managed to lean back before a blast of . . . something, pierced through the area my head had just been.
"Dammit! You just had to be one of the smart-GAH!" The pseudo-cat screamed as I unleashed one of the shots I'd already charged point black into their chest. The blast tore off a layer of skin and muscle, filling the air with black smoke and the smell of burnt meat.
I lunged, one arm reeled back, fingers braced to stab into their shoulder. This time I was weary for a counter attack, but it seemed that the cat-monster hadn't had enough focus or time to gather their wits. I was able to close in, stab into the bulky mass of muscle above their fore-leg and pulled then up into a more comfortable striking range.
"No! Wait, please-!"
I wasn't interested in listening. Before they could get out another word, I speared my tensed fingers into their throat, cutting off the pseudo felines cry's with wet gurgle, before ripping my hand out through the side of their neck. The cat-thing gurgled, wheezed, and staggered backwards, eye's unfocused.
It fell to the ground, still twitching as I walked around the shivering body. Soon, the wet wheezing of it's attempts to breath was the only indication of their survival. A sign I soon ended, as I plunged my pointed fingers into the back of it's neck, and, with a powerful heave that nearly dislocated my own arm, tore it's spine from it's neck.
For several moments, I ignored the now corpse in lu of examining my arm, which now stung quite a bit at the joints. I wiggled my red-stained fingers, and clenched my hand into a fist, confirming their range of motion. Once that was done, I began to flex the strained elbow until the pain faded. Only then did I turn my attention towards my kill.
I crouched down, placed one hand on the ground, and lowered myself to the cavern floor, careful to avoid the growing pool of blood coming from the mangled head of the feline. Crossing my legs underneath me, I looked over the cooling body, searching for soft points.
Soon enough, I decided to simply start with the felines thick legs. I stabbed the sharpened tips of one hands fingers into the cat's shoulder area, over and over until I felt it had been weakened. Them, I grabbed the wrist with the other hand and began to pull. When that began to move the corpse towards me, I braced one leg against the body and continued, alternating between stabbing the shoulder with one hand and yanking with the other, until, with a wet squelch, the limb tore free of the body.
I eagerly raised the severed appendage to my mouth, opening my maw and stuffing the entire paw into my mouth. I clenched my bony lips shut with all the power of a vice, shearing through flesh muscle and bone in a single, clean motion, and began to chew eagerly . . . only to pause.
' . . . this is disgusting.' I realized, now that the flavor was spreading around my mouth. I couldn't place what the flavor reminded me of, but I knew it was sour, and a bit bitter. Nonetheless, I continued to chew, grinding the paw into so much paste, and forcing myself to swallow. But the hunger didn't fade. If anything, it grew worse.
So I opened my mouth and stuffed more of the leg in, hoping the next bite would be better than the first. It was not. The only difference was in texture, and it was not a positive change. It was at the same time to chewy and to squishy, not putting up enough resistance to my bites and yet sticking to my teeth uncomfortably. The sharp pieces of bone, crunching and prickling, only served to exacerbate the issues.
I swallowed, and the hunger only seemed to intensify. Annoyed, I began to stuff the remainder of the limb into my mouth, barely pausing to chew before swallowing the massive chunks of meat and bone I'd torn off. Nothing, the hunger remained, even after finishing it.
Growling angrily to myself, I crawled forward on my knees, leaning over the body. With none of my earlier delicacy, I thrust my fingers into the corpse and grabbed hold, wrenching back my arm to tear free a large, bloody chunk of flesh. I stuffed it into mouth, swallowed it whole, and repeated the process.
Stab, rip, swallow. Grab, tear, chew, swallow. Bite, rip, swallow. On and on I mutilated the corpse, shredding into the body with all the elegance of a starved hyena. With every bite, the hunger only seemed to grow worse, spurring me on, and on, and on, until, finally, I reached for my next bite only to find there was nothing left. Just a large, red stain on the ground beneath me.
I blinked in confusion, the hollow feeling in my abdomen, as if it was eating itself, going ignored now that there was nothing to fill it with. 'I . . . at all of it? It was half the size of my torso . . . how could I have eaten all of it? . . . Why do I still feel hungry.'
Suddenly filled with a surge of rage, I took a deep breath, and gathered a mass of heat inside my mouth. I pealed open the hard, bone-like lips, and screamed my anger in a blast of unnatural fire, erasing the red stain in a rush of boiling mist. It did nothing to make me feel better.
For the briefest of moments, I wanted to beat the ground like a petulant child. Why was I so hungry?! Why didn't it go away after I'd eaten?! What was the point of all that if it did nothing for me?! But no. That, I knew, was childish, and something told me I didn't want to sink down to that level.
I stared at the spot the stain had been just a second before, now a bubbling, steaming crater in the floor. The sizzling only served to accentuate the surrounding silence. I felt a wave of vertigo wash over me, and I grew light headed, hunger eating me alive. My tongue felt thick in my mouth.
Taking a couple of long, slow, deep breaths, I rose to my feet, straightened my back, and began walking. And walking. And walking. Hoping to forget my hunger, and remember . . . something . . .
AN: So, what do you think? Anything I could work to improve on?
