Melody Mew Mews

Chapter 12

Borderline Savage

Somewhere in the room there was water running. No, not running exactly; a faucets had not been shut off properly. So the water plopped, one by one, stubbornly refusing to dry up. The air cringed at the noise and disrupted the silence of the Hospital with an obnoxious cry.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Each time Saline cringed and each time her heart skipped a beat, halfway skidding out of her chest and out of the hospital.

Was it a door? Or the faucet?

Was it a foot step? Or the faucet?

Was it a snarl? Or the faucet?

And in the midst of the painstaking anxiety provided mercilessly by the defected sink, Saline kept from tearing off her hair by pursuing trivial thoughts as she hid under a blanketed table just behind an idle hospital bed. The thought preoccupying her at the moment; Kisshu needed to die. . .and he also needed to take the faucet with him. Not only would she skin his lips but tear his spine out and choke him with it. She would take his lovely little daggers and cut him into chunks to feed to his unsuspecting comrades. She would use the left over's as fertilizer.

Not only did she resent feeling like a marshmallow and hiding under a table to cower in fear but she also resented the near heart attacks he had provided her as she was pathetically trying to find a place to hide. Taking away her pendant and there for her only source of power, she had to practically rip herself away from a horde of zombies, and not just any zombies, but brain eating ones, the kinds you find in cliché apocalyptic films. For that Saline cursed the bastard with all her fiber being.

She had ran as if Satan himself were on her heels and received scratches and a fractured wrist as the rotting, walking flesh grabbed at her for nutrients. Soon after she ducked into an elevator to have it break down; proceeding a few moments of silence were the sounds of bodies jumping on top of the contraption, just above saline's head. They madly clawed at the top of the elevator, attempting to find the emergency exit or in their case, entrance. With a boost of adrenaline and wild shrieking, she had pried the doors open in the knick of time and inhumanly squeezed out through the tiny crack.

Then she began to run, legs practically kicking air to speed foreword and soon after she had thought she found a vacant room to barricade herself in. But as soon as she calmed herself and fell into the blissful lulling of safety, the darkness parted to have an old man, neck cracked and bent at an unnatural angle, crawling backwards crab style towards her.

Saline had no idea she could scream the way that she had then; quite frankly she had no idea that anything earthly could produce such a noise from the depths of their throats and vocal cords. If she had to recall it though, it could have been the sound of a persons throat splitting in half and crackling profusely along with an undertone of a high pitched squeal only a cat, or a starving infant, could produce. She was sure that the demonic noise had caused the zombie to have an aneurism because it faltered its steps long enough to allow her to get away.

What happened next had led her to the table she was under currently and lucky for her, as soon as she had texted Cassidy for help she lost her cell phone signal. Moans, death, crying; all were outside the room she had turned into a haven. It would only be a matter of time before one of the 'undead' would break open the door and drag her out.

Now she was stuck in the situation she resented the most; being weak and in distress. She loathed the feeling of helplessness and the wait of another individual to save her. She could always save herself, never mind the circumstance but now it was simply impossible. Anger seethed from her very core as her insides shook and she denied what she knew to be a fact; right now she was useless and helpless; a damsel in distress. Pride and sense of strength down the rabbit hole to oblivion, she knew she wouldn't be able to stop herself if she began to cry.

Perhaps, she thought, this is what he wanted. Perhaps he wanted to degrade her, strip her of every level of self reliance and confidence she had until she was a frail shell of infirmity. He wanted to steal her vitality, her ability to just try; to simply attempt to save herself. He wanted to prove to her that under the flashy airs she withheld, the dazzling costume and over hyped attacks that she was just a meek human. He wanted to show her she was tiny compared to him and his training and talent at battle.

And now all she wanted desperately was to prove his silent judgments wrong; maybe grab a mop and force her way out. But a zombie had grabbed her earlier and his grip was so strong, so tight and firm, that she had no idea how she could fight one, forget the hundreds in the hospital. And with this thought she began to tear up; she was easily moved to tears and such a very emotional person by nature. But she refused to sob. Let him degrade her, let him show her she's physically weak, that she cannot fight him but she wont let him have the gusto of her begging. She wouldn't shed a tear at his cruelty.

A hand patted her head.

" Now, now kitty. . .don't cry." For perhaps the thousandth time he smirked at her.

" I'm not." She let out firmly, looking up at him with dry eyes.

" No. . ." Kisshu chuckled. " I guess you're not."

He continued to pet her head, and murmur into her ear provocatively. He spoke of his wanting, his twisted need for her but how weak she had proven herself to be and therefore how unworthy.

" You can't fix it now, my love." Her admired her face once more with a warm palm. " You're just not worth it. . .there truly is no need to convince you to join us any more."

" I don't want to join you. . .I don't feel the need to prove to you my worth."

" Because you have none." Something clutched the inside of her chest and pulled savagely; so tightly and monstrously that bile rose up her throat.

" Look, you've hurt your wrist. . ." He held her arm rather gently and inspected it. " You're perfect no more. Broken."

She lunged at him, hands clawing wildly before her but all she caught was the thick, bitter air. Struggling, she scrabbled the floor trying to find where his face once was but all she had accomplished was ripping her nails off till the point of blood seeping out from her nail beds. She hissed and fell to her side, clutching both hands against her chest. The pain began to swell into a dull sting and then subsided into a throbbing. Gently she rolled onto her knees and picked herself up, glancing around the small room as she swiveled on her heels.

He wasn't there.

He was never there in the first place.

Saline laughed with no humor in her voice. " You're going crazy. . ."

She walked over to the bathroom and slipped inside, finding the mirror to her left. She peered at the lackluster which had enveloped herself . Her hair was frizzed, the candy curls more voluminous than normal and sticking out from the tops. Her face was glistening, a degusting combination of dirt and sweat acted as a protective layer on her skin. She turned on the sink and washed her face, desperately using hand soap to scrub away at the grit and soil, fingers stinging even more with the action. She ran her wet fingers through her hair as an act of taming her wild coils.

Though now content with her face and hair, Saline was displeased to find her black shirt caked with soil and blood along with her khaki shorts. She cringed, her cloths clung to her skin by the sweat of her body. How long had she been wearing these cloths? Since Kisshu chased her down the streets, and then she had fainted, and then went to find another mew, then returned to the café and now she was here.

" Gross." She spat at her reflection and the knowledge that a long hot shower with plenty of antibacterial soap was needed greatly.

There wasn't much she could do about anything now; the zombies outside were mutated patients and hurting them would be unfair but then again. . .she had spotted an emergency ax in one of the hallways.

" Maybe I could get to it. . ." She discussed with her own reflection. " I could crawl through the vents?"

The girl in front of her looked doubtful.

" Right, the openings are to small, I won't fit."

She backed out of the bathroom and shut the door slowly; she had a phobia against open bathroom doors or any open doors to rooms no one occupied.

She poked around the unoccupied cart she had been to afraid to notice before. On it were some towels ( which she made use of by wiping her wet face and bleeding hands), plastic cups, capped syringe needles and a small incision blade barely big enough to fit into her hand. She pocketed the blade and syringe needles and also grabbed a small vase full of flowers, dumping the plants and holding the vase itself as a club. She wasn't going to be able to fight off a horde of flesh eating corpses with these mere instruments but they could hopefully keep her alive long enough to find a fire extinguisher or an emergency ax; something heavy and easy to wield.

She walked swiftly to the door, legs jittery with panic and a sudden overwhelming rush of excitement. Opening the door slowly, quietly, she peered down the hallway on both sides and slid out into the open.

They were there.

She could hear their voices speaking in the guttural, mumbling language she couldn't understand. She tip toed quickly past the occupied rooms and turned a corner sharply. Ridged arms grabbed her from behind and in an act of self defense she couldn't help but scream and stick a syringe through her capturers eye. The molting nurse groaned with a slacken jaw and clutched her eye as she fell to the ground. Saline raced down the hallway, grabbing a vacant cart and ramming it into the barrier of doctors attempting to catch her. They toppled and fell, body parts flying off of weak joints and sockets. Saline looked back in horror. What would become of the people once they returned back to normal?

Busting through a door, she jumped flights of stair to a random floor and rushed through its halls to find her objective. A zombie jumped ahead of her and another grabbed her from behind. It moist tongue slobbered against her ear as the other grabbed the sides of her stomach. She bit her lip to keep her cry smothered in her throat. A syringe made its way from her pocket into one zombies leg but besides a moan of discomfort he didn't budge. She kicked the one in front of her in the gut and sunk her teeth into the arms of the corpse holding her. She gagged at the rotted flesh and flaking skin in her mouth but tore with her teeth as he cried in a muffled pain. Grabbing the knife from her pocket she swiped at the one she had kicked and mistakenly left the blade in his chest as she ran. They snarled behind her.

She spat while running, stomach churning at the rotten taste in her mouth. She paused to upchuck the remains of her breakfast, the only meal she had had, and slightly shuddered. Looking up, her eyes brightened. A perfect, glossy ax was contained in a glass box mounted onto the wall and without another thought she tugged a nurse zombie who was about to make a grab at her and used her head to smash through the glass. Ignoring the blood on her hands and the agonizing knawing that was trying to liven her senses to the animalistic state she was in, she pulled out the weapon and confidently stalked down the hallway.

She knew that if she escaped she wouldn't be able to live with herself. A broken head, punctured eye, gashed chest and a chunk of meat torn off a mans arm; none of which caused by the enemy, the aliens, but by her, the protector of the people she had just ravaged. But she was no saint, that was certain, and the will and desire to stay alive had lit inside of her like a flame.

She wouldn't die at the mercy of monsters written out of a horror tale.

She wouldn't die in Kisshu's hands.

A/N: I was going to put a warning before the chapter started, something along the lines of 'Warning: zombie gore, lack of humanity and the breaking point of a character' but then I thought, 'Nah, what's the point of ruining it?'.

At first when I wrote this chapter I wasn't going to post it, I just thought that it was to dark and to devoid of the warm essence Tokyo Mew Mew was suppose to have. But I put it up anyways because first of all I have never had as much fun as I did writing this chapter than anything else I've written for this story (perhaps I should just stick with a horror genre :P). For the first time I sat and enjoyed thinking of what I could do next and revising my words to what I felt expressed my meaning. Second, this story, though initially was suppose to be a fun, humorous and slightly romantic fan fiction, was one I wanted to incorporate a more deeper level than I saw in Tokyo Mew Mew. I wanted to explore the dangers of fighting chimera anima, of the fear that most people would feel in situations like these and emotional roller coaster one might go on balancing school, extracurricular activities, homework and saving the world. Personally, I know I would go insane with so much responsibility and I wanted to depict that in this chapter, where Saline is almost at the brink of a dangerous and murderous breakage of mentality.

No, this story is not going to turn into an angst filled void of psychopathic desperation, misery and trauma. It's going to remain light hearted, humorous and fun but now and again there will be a point where no birds sing in the sky and the sun doesn't come up bright and happy.

So I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review J.