Author's Note: Corpse Party does not belong to me.
Chapter 7: Flicker
It has been three days since he arrived in Kisaragi Academy as a new student for the term. Usually by now, according the scenario he envisioned anyway, a foreign student would have at least been approached by a few curious eyes, brimming with nonsensical questions that will be provided with cropped answers. A love confession perhaps from a foolish love-struck girl? Perhaps an invitation from a clique group to put him as a hunky showpiece?
Nah, don't get your hopes up.
Surprisingly he stayed within the confines in a shell of unapproachability. No one tried to talk to him. A passing glance here and there, and a few shared amounts of quiet gossip. The teachers acknowledged his existence with the attendance sheet and nothing more.
He at least expected to be ragged on the first day. Maybe the second. Third time was not the charm too.
A good record so far, he mused, as he settled himself onto an empty seat in the Chemistry lab. He was already making progress with being the antisocial loner that no one cared about, as he had planned upon coming here.
However, he had been bracing himself since this morning, for – he inwardly hissed – the part of the day he had to finally associate himself with the rest of his classmates, a number of them anyway. Compared to general subjects in every school present in the world, science subjects in general required students to be in groups, most of the time.
And they're basically stuck with that group for the rest of the school term.
This was going to be his first class. So…
He briefly took a glance around the lab. There at least, five, or four students in one group in a table. Perhaps he could play the part of the guy in the group who either brings the apparatus from the cabinets and just sits there and doodles with his notebook while they do something productive –
"Good morning!"
He was stirred from his reverie, and looked at the direction of the voice. A brunette, with twin tail curls resting on her shoulders, had her hands clasped behind her back, was smiling at him.
He glanced at his right. No one else was there. Was she really talking to him?
"You're sitting on my table."
Kenneth blinked, then got up and apologized. "Sorry. I'll just find somewhere else -."
"Hupupupup!" He stopped when girl waved a finger at him, still grinning. "I don't mind. At all."
"Sakamoto right? The new guy?" She asked simply.
"Uh huh." Kenneth answered dumbly. He recognized this girl. She was the student who called dibs on him when he introduced himself as a new student in class 2-9 a few days back.
"You're that girl."
"Oh?" She smiled.
"Dibs on me chick?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
She giggled. "I was hoping you remember that."
What…was that supposed to mean?
"But it ain't dibs on me chick mister!" She playfully waved a finger at him, before extending her hand in greeting. "Seiko Shinohara. Pleasure to make your acquaintance!"
He tried not to give her a once over. She seemed…chipper, if not a little cute. A little.
He quickly shook her hand and that was it.
Until the chair next to him creaked in motion. And big amber eyes met his vision once more.
"Uh…what are you doing?"
She grinned. "No one is sitting here right?"
"No, but…"
"Great!" She stretched her arms and settled herself properly next to him. Not a few five seconds of silence later, she popped another question.
"You adjusting well in Kisaragi Academy?"
"I…I suppose." He kept his eyes on the table.
"Joined any clubs? Made any friends? Delinquency? The usual hunky dory for a new guy?" She asked in rapid fire.
Seiko suddenly moved her face close to his, "If you need help or anything, this girl here is reporting for duty!" She gave a mock salute and grinned once more in a carefree way, not at all noticing the flustered expression adorning Kenneth that nearly dropped him from his seat.
They were also garnering some attention from the rest of the students…
Before Kenneth could muster a response, Seiko beat him to once again, this time however calling out to someone else.
"Naomi! Over here!"
Kenneth's eyes fell upon the other brunette who had stopped by their table. Wait a minute, their table?
"Seiko." Naomi paused for a moment, registering the individual next to Seiko. She greeted him in kind, despite his sullen expression. "Oh…hello there."
"Sakamoto. Sup." Kenneth maintained a poker face. Naomi nervously smiled in return and her eyes wandered at Seiko, as if asking, 'Seiko, why are you sitting with this guy out of all people in this lab?'
Seiko paid no heed, and enthusiastically gestured for Naomi to sit with them. "C'mon, girlie, class is about to start! Sakamoto won't bite…right?" She giggled at him. His right eye twitched with annoyance. Why on Earth was she acting as his mouthpiece for a whole minute?
Under better judgement, she did sat with them both. Kenneth could tell she was uncomfortable a bit with the inclusion of a stranger to what seemed like a usual spot for a pair of close friends.
The teacher entered a few seconds later. Introductions and all aside, the apparently trigger happy fellow wanted everyone to get their hands on a fun experiment…with jellies?
"Sakamoto-san, the bleach?" Naomi asked when she had finished assembling the apparatus. It was just the three of them apparently, whereas there was an irregular amount that closed on five for other six tables in the lab. Twenty students in total.
So half of the whole class it seems…
"Got it." He carefully poured the bleach into the beaker, making sure there was about five hundred milliliters of it. Then he started boiling it for a while until the crystals started to precipitate. After that was the cooling process in which Seiko had already gotten a saturated volume of potassium chloride to mix along the solution.
"Lemme do the stirring!" Seiko excitedly jumped up and down with a spoon in hand.
"Alright. Let me pour the solution first!" Naomi smiled in response to her friend. Seiko's spoon twirled dispassionately as Naomi mixed the solutions together in a fresh empty beaker, and then she finally started…er, stirring it with the goofiest smile on her face.
She likes the hype of things, apparently. Kenneth mused.
Soon they managed to obtain a sizeable amount of potassium chlorate.
"Awesome!" Seiko held the beaker with the crystals up like a trophy. "We got it!"
Kenneth rolled his eyes. Why was she being so excited for a stupid science experiment? "Everyone else got it too."
"I know." She smiled at him, then she bounced off to another table while holding the beaker. "How's your side doing?" Seiko proudly showed her prize, where the blue haired class representative Ayumi admonished her to be a little careful with it, and a brown haired fellow, Satoshi, merely chuckled at her antics. She cheekily described how similar they look like salt and wondered if she could taste it, which produced laughter from that table.
"Are you done yet?" Kenneth asked aloud. This earned a stare from the class representative that he tried his best to ignore.
"Eh? Oh right!" Seiko's eyes widened with surprise and immediately returned back to the table. "You gotta admit, they do look like salt…"
Naomi blinked. "Salt?"
Kenneth ruefully commented. "Why don't you try it? You seem pretty confident about this being salt."
Seiko laughed, oblivious to his tone. "No can do, Sakamoto-san. We got an experiment to finish!"
"If that's the case can we get back to work?"
"Sure thing boss!" Kenneth rolled his eyes.
What they had to do was, according to the teacher's instructions, put the jelly into the molten potassium chlorate with rested on the bottom of the long test tube after heating the bottom of the test tube. What happens next was…according to the teacher, a non-life threatening explosive reaction.
"Who's first?" Seiko toyed with her jelly and gave both Naomi and Kenneth excited looks.
Kenneth shrugged. Naomi glanced back and forth towards the test tube and her jelly worriedly.
"I say the new guy gets the shot!" Seiko pointed at Kenneth with authority. Kenneth made a muffled sound of surprise.
Naomi nodded with approval. "Give it a go, Sakamoto-san."
Oh great, the two to one vote scenario. But…they wanted him to experience a gist of things that a new member of their class deserved. He had that right after all. So why not make use of it?
And they seemed pretty genuine about it.
He shrugged. "Okay." And he unwrapped his jelly and dumped it straight into the test tube, much to Seiko and Naomi's horror.
Now in every school's science lab, it was a clear rule than no student should directly face the test tube while doing an experiment. A rule in which Kenneth had totally forgotten in the midst of his musings.
He learned his lesson immediately when an explosive amount of sweet smelling smoke was directly blasted upon his face for say…about a few seconds or so. And screams of terror followed suit.
"Uwaaaaaahhhh! Sakamoto-san is burning!"
What happened next was completely unforeseen, and yet the seemingly logical thing to do at the moment. Someone lunged and sent Kenneth crashing onto the floor, and the sound of a fire extinguisher being capped open was heard. His vision would then briefly see a massive amount of white before he was blinded a second later, and an unexpected force was felt as it spread across his upper regions in and pressed down his uniform tightly against his body, and keeping…rather pushing his head down on the floor.
"Hold it! Hold it!" The teacher's booming voice immediately stopped the fire extinguisher.
Kenneth blinked when the foam stopped piling up on him. Goodness, did the person empty the entire canister on him?
He slowly took off the foam covered goggles, wiped the foam off his eyes, and slowly got himself into sitting position.
"It was just gas."
Everyone around him heaved huge sighs of relief.
"You're fine!" Seiko suddenly hugged him. "You're fine you're fine you're fine!"
(Scene shows Seiko hugging a disjointed version of Kenneth and everyone else is blankly staring at them both)
"Aaaaah!" Kenneth's disorientation was replaced with a cry of surprise. What the heck was this crazy girl doing?!
"Seiko! Give him some breathing space!" Naomi called out. Seiko realized what she was doing, and cried out in surprise too.
She pushed him back and clutched her face with embarrassment. "S-sorry! I…I…I didn't mean to…"
Was he in one of those lame school romance mangas?
"Sakamoto-san, are you alright?" The teacher spoke up, extending a hand out to him.
"I wasn't burning up like a damned Christmas tree!" Kenneth replied, exasperated. He spat out foam. "I'm fine."
The teacher sighed, disagreeing. "Still, you were directly exposed to the chemical reaction process. For your own safety, I think its best that you should get a checkup from the infirmary, immediately."
Kenneth stared at the teacher. He was being serious.
"Fine…sir."
"Do you know where the infirmary is?"
"Uh…no." This school had an infirmary?
"Shinohara-san, Nakashima-san, can you accompany and direct him there and report back to me?"
Seiko guffawed. "Eh?" Naomi and Kenneth blinked as well.
Well…this was not what he had in plan today.
...
"'Just so you know, Sakamoto…I was the one who pushed you down, and -." She chuckled nervously. "- nearly emptied the fire extinguisher on you."
Kenneth raised his eyebrow when Seiko embarrassedly broke the silence between the three of them.
(Kenneth plays out the scene nonchalantly in his head in a vividly cartoonish way. Seiko pushes him down, rushes for the fire extinguisher and hoses him like no tomorrow)
"Okay..."
"I didn't mean to do it!"
He got thrown off immediately when she whimpered. "The burning jelly smoke was…it was all over your face! My body just acted on its own, and it just…well, anyone else would've done it too!"
She actually sounded genuinely sorry, despite the awkwardness present. Kenneth felt a slight trace of guilt for making this girl sound like a wounded puppy.
Just a little bit.
"The teacher said it was a non-life threatening reaction." He nonchalantly said. "What you did back there was unnecessary."
Seiko felt herself shrink with embarrassment. "I know…"
"But...you did save me back there."
"Eh?"
Kenneth continued, trying to keep his composure together. "You did what was accordingly right. I mean, what if that was actually something that could've harmed me?" He trailed off. Drat, a few months of house arrest really did take a toll on him. He couldn't even look at someone straight in the eye while talking with them.
But this was a girl. He's never talked...with a girl.
He coughed. "Thanks."
Seiko's expression brightened up. "Y-you mean it?"
Kenneth merely shrugged, his lips upturned.
"Phew! I thought you were gonna blow my top off!" She gave one big smile, and a clap on Kenneth's back that completely erased the impression Kenneth had on her in one go. "You're actually a pretty swell guy!"
'I probably would've thrown a fit if you hugged me any longer', Kenneth thought crossly.
"Sakamoto-san, you wouldn't happen to be slightly nauseous or dizzy?"
Naomi herself was still positively worried after that horror show. Kenneth shook his head in response. "No…nothing screwing my head or body yet. I'm pretty sure I just got a whole whiff of carbon dioxide…if my nose doesn't mistake me."
She pursed her lips. "Can't be too careful though…"
He shrugged again, scratching his head, which unfortunately still had traces of foam left in his hair.
"You need help with that -?"
Seiko, who was tentatively reaching out for Kenneth's hair, received a cold response from him. "Don't." Immediately did she take her hand back while smiling nervously.
They eventually reached the infirmary with minimal talk. Kenneth made that pretty clear enough with that he was not really a talker. And with the still uncertain mood between the three of them, the silence was appreciated in kind.
"Ah…Sa-Sakamoto-san?"
"Yes?"
"If it's alright, and if the doctor says you're all clear to go, can I…can I…um…treat you to lunch?"
The actual fuck? Naomi herself seemed surprised at Seiko's sudden forwardness.
"Excuse me?"
Seiko's finger played with one of her curls nervously. She looked absolutely sheepish. The fact that Kenneth was staring at her, dumbfounded, served to make her blush further.
"For earlier!" Seiko managed to say. "You wouldn't have had to get foamed from head to toe and get your butt dragged here if it wasn't for me!"
"Uh…"
He could not formulate a coherent response.
"Please say yes!" Seiko's hands rested on her knees and she bowed before him. "The takoyaki here is pretty good, and cheap!"
"Tako…what?" Kenneth dumbly muttered.
Naomi's arms were jittering from sudden embarrassment and dread at this scene. Seiko was well known in the school to not let anyone, teacher or student, in particular hold onto her for favors, and would often try to make up for her accidental mistakes that directly involved another party or individual, no matter how small it may seem. Usually she would do it, with treating lucky boys, flustered girls and sheepish teachers with some favor, or lunch...mostly lunch, as a method of recompense.
She didn't like leaving bad impressions on people after all.
A brief flashback crosses her mind. Late at night, her eyes bloodshot, Seiko bawling on the phone about spilling milk on a cute guy sometime during their middle school period.
She suppressed a gulp.
As much as it would be easier to let this slide, it just took one look at Kenneth's bewildered face to suggest that he was not comfortable with this forward attitude one bit. He was still, a new face, after all. And he still needed time to adjust properly here in this school, and towards the rest of the class.
Not to mention that he sure as heck didn't look like the open type…
"What she means is, it's only if you're perfectly fine with it!" She loudly chuckled, slapping Seiko's back with empathic effect. "Seiko! We should be going now right?"
"Eh? Hang on a minute! I'm not done yet!" Seiko whined.
"Later, Sakamoto-san!"
Kenneth sweatdropped when Naomi then dragged Seiko by the back of her collar and hurriedly walked off from his sight, even as Seiko vainly flailed her arms and shouted all the various things that she apparently owed him.
Just what exactly has he gotten himself into within a week of being in this school?
"I make some good girls go bad~..."
While her father patiently waited outside in the car, Seiko prowled the store, eagerly seeking the prize of her search. She had already stocked up nicely on potato chips, sweet buns, drinks and various sweets for the upcoming sleepover she had planned out for Naomi and hers truly.
If one knew Seiko, she would have a specific reason to gain something apparently rather insignificant for something apparently simple as a sleepover. In her case, why else would she buy whipped cream other than to get it all over her best friend's face – ahem, as a topping for those sweet buns she bought?
Following which, once they've gorged themselves to those buns, she could lick what's left of it on her best friend's cheeks despite Naomi's bashful protests, like a hungry cat, eventually finding her way to the prize.
Where would she finally…get a taste, of those lovely, tender -
"Aaaaauuuuh!" Seiko clutched her face and felt a nosebleed coming along when she visualized that scenario. "All in good time girl." She giggled to herself, "All in good time, all in good time -."
A dull thud on her knees made her stop in her tracks. "Oh!"
"The hell?"
She had hit an open door of the coolers, and the person who was picking out a bottle to pick from the shelf groaned momentarily when the door lightly hit him, before fixating a disgruntled look at her.
"Eh, Sakamoto-san?"
She kept her voice down however, knowing that workers on the counter had seen better days in the gutter than being on a twenty four seven roll here. Also, she didn't want to over enthuse the fact it's been nearly two weeks since she saw him in person. And even talked to him in fact.
Okay that was a big lie. Inwardly she was really happy to see him, and containing it is not an easy thing for someone as bouncy as herself.
"You again?" Kenneth let a sigh escape him.
"Oi, what do you mean 'you again'?" Seiko clutched her hips and pouted. "You make it sound like I'm someone you didn't want to see…"
Kenneth snorted. "Take it any way you want." His left hand held a large bottle of Sprite and he rose to his full height. "What are you doing here anyway?"
"Hmph, if you must know. I'm here to procure a very important item for a very important event!" Seiko beamed at him.
"In a convenience store?"
Seiko chuckled, then beckoned him with a mischievous look. "Wanna know what I got in plan?"
Kenneth gave a flat "No."
"It's a sleepover!"
"Fun."
"Yeah." Seiko stretched her limbs. "Where else am I supposed to get the basic items for a sleepover?"
Kenneth nodded. "Good luck with that." He began to walk off, suddenly halting when he felt a tug on shirt.
"Sakamoto-san…"
"I would appreciate it if you let go of my shirt. Now."
"Yeah, but..." Seiko's expression now was a prime picture of utter worry left unchecked. "How's…um, your, you know…?"
"In Japanese please?" Kenneth impatiently commented.
She gestured lamely at her torso.
The bridge of Kenneth's nose had a nasal strip stickered on it. Though it's been days since the incident, his lower lip still bore a reddish purple blister on the right corner. He wore a black shirt, unconsciously concealing the bandages that he dressed on this afternoon.
He initially wanted to reply in his trademark rudeness, but what drew him off guard was the shift in Seiko's personality that he had not previously seen before. She looked...worried.
Why did she looked worried?
"I'll live." He curtly replied.
"Oh…" Seiko muttered. "That's good, then." She sounded like she was the one who got her teeth kicked in.
Kenneth glanced at the door and then at her. "Before the awkwardness rolls in, I'll just - ."
"How'd you ever get here?" The question came out with spontaneous notion. Seiko had no idea why she had even decided to start being suspicious about his appearance here. Was it the extent of his injuries that worried her alone or was it the surprise of seeing her friend after quite a while between the month?
"I…walked." Kenneth hesitated. His eyes fluttered back to the door.
"You're still recovering." It was not a question.
Kenneth knew he could not dodge this one. He sagged his shoulders. "You can tell?"
Her steady gaze gave nothing away.
"And?"
"Isn't there anyone else in the house to help you out?" She hoped her concern reached out to him.
Kenneth shrugged. "I came here of my own volition. I didn't want to trouble anyone."
Seiko failed to notice that his right hand had a fading bite mark. Of course, there was not need to reveal anything about how he managed to get this from his bratty sister who couldn't take a joke about a boy she was texting in the house.
Maybe he shouldn't have pushed it with 'you're fucking your senior?' before asking her to accompany him to the convenience store?
Seiko bought it however. "I guess that's fair…" She poked him on the rib, eliciting a slight yelp from him. "But you should be careful while handling yourself. You never know if you're ribs might start acting up at the wrong moments or if you have trouble breathing at one point."
"What are you, my mother?"
"No, just someone who cares for a certain Sir Grumps-a-lot." She shrugged, still smiling.
Kenneth stared at her, unblinking. Did he…did he hear that right?
"What?"
"Hmm?"
"What did you say?"
Seiko giggled. "Sir Grumps-a-lot a little much for you? I was thinking Edge. You know cos you're all about being edgy and all, plus it's like that hunk of a wrestler -."
"No…" Kenneth hesitated. "You said that you…"
"Oh that?" Seiko merely smiled at him innocently. "Yeah, I meant it. Why?"
Kenneth stiffened.
"You...you really think I'm buying it?"
"Eh?" Seiko blinked.
"Name me ten people who even want to look at me properly before you go off with that crap. We've known each other for five months, but even you can't even get it through your ridiculous curls that I strike as someone who needs pity or well wishes from people like you?"
He said it with such venom it inwardly stung her.
"Do yourself a favor, Shinohara. Just…just leave me alone." Kenneth muttered, before briskly handing his money to the cashier and walking out of the store.
Seiko could only look at the doors dumbly, her previous intentions of procuring items for the sleepover with Naomi suddenly forgotten.
The distance between the convenience store and his house was hardly more than twenty minutes of walking.
However, it felt as though he was walking through twenty hours' worth of this.
His left arm hung the plastic bag holding the large bottle of Sprite and some other junk food inside. It wasn't particularly heavy, but walking itself feels strenuous.
I should've called a cab or something…man this sucks.
He slowly made a right turn on the walkway. Only seven more streets left to go.
"You're…still recovering?"
His ribs faintly stung when her words came back to haunt him just moments after he brushed her off. Hmph, of course he'd be still recovering…who the heck would recover from getting their asses kicked by three fit eighteen year olds?
"Isn't there anyone else in the house to help you out?"
Like hell. Izumi hated junk food…while Misa only helped him whenever she felt like it.
"You should be careful while handling yourself."
Geez…the girl sure is a pushy one isn't she? He sidestepped an uneven patch on the walkway.
"Someone who cares?"
A traffic light signaled red.
"Someone who…"
"Weirdo. Why would anyone want to talk to you?"
"It's Kenny Tripper!"
"Your Asian mumsie's got the chipper of your old man's load, Kenny boy. Bleach yourself once in a while, it can't hurt!"
"You're the problem! Is it so wrong to just act normal like everyone else?!"
"Why…why did she leave me with you?!"
"I wish you would just disappear…"
"As long as he takes his medications, it's guaranteed enough to keep him functioning as per normal…"
"He's creepy! He always keep to himself and just smiles and laughs whenever he feels like it"
"You don't belong here, gaijin…and we're gonna make sure you remember it."
The traffic lights flickered. At the same time, so did the street lights around the area.
Kenneth hadn't noticed it, but once did he started walking on the zebra crossing, he saw a cat prowling the walkway opposite his direction. His eyes narrowed into slits, when it stopped at to look at him.
"What?" He dryly asked the brown furred feline.
The cat simply stared at him, unresponsive.
"Stupid cat." He muttered.
He took a step forward, deciding to ignore the present case of absurdity.
Until one of the streetlight bulbs exploded.
At the sound that disrupted the silence of the night, a jolt immediately shot up his spine, freezing him in place.
Kenneth gulped, and he slowly turned around to look at the street light with the broken bulb. It was just ten or fifteen steps away on the left from the walkway he was at earlier. He could barely see the thinly shaped construct in the dark of night, but above that, the lamppost itself seemed undamaged.
A power surge. Yeah, probably a power surge.
He stared at the lamppost for a few more seconds, then sighed in discontent.
Barely did he turned his eye away before the bulb of the next street light on the right, exploded into a cluster of shards that littered the pavement.
His breath finally hitched.
Five seconds later, another bulb burst into smithereens. Followed by another, and another…and another.
All the while as each bulb exploded in methodical fashion, his feet stayed rooted on the pavement, unwilling to move. His pulse quickened every time he heard a glass burst.
Now Kenneth did not mind the darkness. He wasn't the type who'd sleep with a night light and he frequently referred to it as his 'friend' to himself alone. However, at this moment, each time another lamppost went out, and the darkness of the night consumed the area where it was shining at earlier, all of his seemingly subjugated thoughts ebbed away as he realized that he was not fond of this event.
Scratch that, he was unnerved. Seriously unnerved.
Before he knew it, his fingers started trembling, threatening to drop the plastic bag.
Suddenly the bulbs stopped exploding. However it took him just half a minute to realize that, since his eyes were frantically looking at the darkened vicinity for any telltale signs of anything else that might threaten to make him piss his pants.
Apparently there was something that did.
One lamppost was still lit in front of him. The very fact that it did, both annoyed, and at the same time, made his skin crawl at what would happen if he continued to stay put right in the middle of the road.
Fucking hell. I'm in a horror movie aren't I? He thought ruefully. It did not calm his nerves down however.
Now since he had put it into thought that he knew something bad was going to happen, the obvious option here would be to turn tail and run as fast as he could back to the comfort of his house, which would be accessible if he could actually run right now.
Screaming was not an option since he was practically out of breath.
Basically he was stuck here. A plastic bottle will hardly do no good as a weapon…
The lamppost light flickered, immediately catching his attention.
"Who's there?"
Like hell he would get a response.
"If you're planning to scare me, it's not gonna work." He somehow managed to muster false bravery, while it was clear enough his voice held an unmistakable fact that it held less confidence than expected.
The light flickered once more, then twice. A brief pause followed.
He kept his eye trained upon the lamppost, straining to keep from blinking.
This is stupid.
As if it was trolling him, the light started flickering erratically.
Taking the piss on me are you?!
Kenneth gritted his teeth and marched over to the lamppost, giving it a sharp kick. It did hurt his toe, but he swallowed the pain when he saw that the bulb finally stopped its maddening behavior.
"And fuck you too." Kenneth spat and started heading back towards his original route.
The cat meowed loudly.
"Night..." He muttered as he passed the cat by and back towards his home. Whether this was a power surge or not, he couldn't care less. He just wanted to crash and binge watch The Sopranos.
The feline intently gazed at the spot where the lamppost still shone. And it meowed, much louder than before.
The bulb died for approximately three seconds, before flickering back to life.
A figure stood below the lamppost, its head hung low. Its long, disheveled wiry hair covered most of its face, and it wore an ancient dress of faded grey, caked with blood and traces of gore.
The cat started to hiss, all hairs standing on its back.
The woman slightly tilted its head upwards, fixing an eye upon the cat.
Almost immediately, the cat hunched over on all fours and started mewling. Not just in fright of the presence before it. Its furry face scrunched up and its entire body trembled. It was unmistakable that the cat was in sheer pain, as if the woman's beady stare itself was slowly burrowing a sharp knife into its brain.
The cat half mewled and half choked, coughing up blood. Its legs gave way and it began to wobble and sway as if punch drunk. Somewhere in its primal consciousness, the feline realized that it had made a terrible mistake of looking at the woman in the ancient dress.
What's left of its instincts…that all flared, screamed, begged the cat to get away from the woman immediately…was slowly rendered to nothing but agonizing pain that overruled all traces of thought and feeling.
Still, it tried one last attempt to at least make a sprint for it.
And something held the cat in place. It held it just in line of the woman's unflinching gaze.
Something was making the cat suffer under those eyes. Those empty, dead, grey eyes.
And that fact alone made the feline cower in fear.
Before the cat could utter one last pitiful meow, it was too late. It slumped and fell on its side. Blood began to pool from its mouth and spilled all over the ground. It shuddered once, and then stopped breathing altogether.
"Stupid…cat."
See what I mean by uneven updates? I get five months worth of making one chapter plagued with a lack of inspiration, college work, dissatisfaction with how I initially wrote this thing...
Well, I'm on break, and here's a jarring bugger to remind you what this fic is really about.
Fret not readers, I'll do my best to update another chapter within next month before the brunt of college catches up with me again. Stay tuned...