Chapter Thirteen
Seven heard the ambush point up ahead. She had almost walked around that corner, right into the line of fire, but the shuffle of fabric on metal and mild cursing as a strap caught on a protruding screw head alerted her to their presence. Hiding behind the wall, she listened carefully, counting the sounds she heard. Four sets of breathing punctured the silence and distant footsteps suggested more on patrol.
Seven didn't dare risk a peek around the corner. The hallways were too well lit, and the closest man was about ten feet away. She wanted to turn invisible and slip right past them, but the thought of stumbling over a man while she was blinded made her tongue stick to her throat.
After thinking it through, Seven decided to take a gamble. She thought back to the weasel of a man and copied his appearance. Then she made blood fountain out of her gut, spilling onto the floor. Each drop on the ground, each blood-stained footstep, and each shift in her body held her full attention. She made her breathing hoarse and ragged, with a faint undertone of bubbling blood, and she made each footstep wrench free from the floor with the faint wet squelch of clotting blood.
She stumbled around the corner, leaning against the far wall with a blood-stained arm. The two Knights stationed at the entryway of a small, open room lowered their guns and rushed over, each taking a shoulder. They helped her hobble into the room, in front of their captain. He wore thick white Kevlar plates tipped with gold fabric, and his helm had a single gold star on the brow. He took his helm off and leaned closer at the wound, peering at the bleeding gash with dull brown eyes.
"Darry, what happened?" he asked without looking up.
"Shot," Seven wheezed. "Got him."
"Tim's dead?" the Captain asked grimly.
Seven weakly nodded. She glanced around the room and saw five, the two holding her, the captain, a fourth behind a pane of glass with communications equipment, and the last leaning against a wall, helmet off, smoking a cigarette. The reek of the smoldering white cylinder made Seven wrinkle her nose in disgust. Her concentration slipped, and the blood-stained trail behind her vanished, but she maintained her appearance as a wounded Knight.
"Raz, you and I will treat him. Lou, Rick, take point."
The leaning man jammed his cigarette against the wall, leaving a circular soot-stain, and slipped on his helmet. The man to her right joined him at the entry point, taking a knee behind a low metal barricade and resting their guns on top. The Captain took her right shoulder, and the two Knights carried her to a small, cramped room. A tiny bed sat in the center, and on one wall, a cabinet and a counter held medical supplies. Raz unrolled a strip of gauze while the captain reached for the armor, trying to undo a clasp that wasn't there.
"That's strange," the Captain said, "I can't get your armor off."
Seven tightened her grip around the knife in her right hand, rolled onto her left, dispelled the illusion and jammed the blade into the captain's throat. Blood gushed all over her fur as the Captain made a hurking noise. His mouth jerked open, and blood gushed over his teeth. Seven grabbed him by the collar of his armor and pulled herself up while dragging him onto the bed.
When Raz turned around, he dropped the gauze. His face twisted up in a grimace of horror. One hand shot up to his mouth, and vomit trickled between his fingers. The other fumbled for his gun. Seven kicked the gun hand away and plunged the blade into his eye. Steel scraped against bone with a sickening crunch. The man gasped, clutched at his ruined eye, and collapsed. The knife slid free, with drops of blood and a stringy piece of flesh clinging to the blade.
Seven picked up the gauze Raz dropped. The growing puddle of blood on the floor stained one end red. She cut away the ruined gauze and wrapped the rest around her arm, clumsily tying a loose knot over her bullet wound. The arm had mostly stopped bleeding, but whenever she bent it, a few drops of blood squeezed out of the craggy, brown scab. The gauze turned crusty as it soaked up the drying blood on her fur.
She pushed the captain off the bed, turning him over as he fell. She studied his helmet and armor carefully, and then she took his appearance. She strode out of the room, careful to block the view of blood and corpses from everyone outside, and approached the communications room.
A bald, thin, wiry man stared blankly at him and reached for a radio on his desk. "Would you like to make a report?"
He held out the big, knob-shaped hunk of plastic. Seven passed the knife to her left hand and took the radio with her right. A voice crackled out of it.
"Come in! Who is this?"
Seven felt a chill pass over her skin as she realized she had no idea how to answer. Hesitantly, she said, "Darry was shot, and Tim's dead," he said. "They killed a Grunt."
"Good, we were missing a few. Who is this?"
Seven shoved the radio back into its receiver. The bald man gave her a queer stare.
"Sir, why didn't you follow protocol?"
Seven answered him with her knife. Her left arm, bound with gauze and weakened from blood loss, lazily slashed across the man's face. A flap of skin hung over the corner of his mouth, and the tip of his nose was slashed off. The man grunted in pain and reached for the radio. Seven tossed the knife to her other hand and jammed the blade through his wrist. Bones snapped, and metal crunched as her knife pierced the radio. The man's mouth opened for a scream, but Seven grabbed the back of his head and drove him down on the grip of her knife. The blunt handle slid off of his upper cheek, followed the contour of his nose, and rammed into his mouth. Blood gushed past his lips as she broke four of his teeth. He screamed, but blood and knife muffled his cries, and the soundproof window sealed them in. He flailed, his good hand reaching for the window, but he couldn't touch it.
Seven looked out, at the two guards. Both of them were staring intently down the hall. Seven took a deep breath, pulled the man off of her blade, snapped it up before the man's hand could wrap around it, and slit his throat. She angled him towards the floor so the blood didn't hit the window.
Once the man stopped breathing, Seven shoved him beneath the window and walked over to the two guards. They gave her a quick salute and went back to their guns.
"Hey Captain," one said without looking up from his gun, "There's something weird?"
"What is it?" Seven asked, imitating the man's smooth voice.
"All the blood from before is gone. It vanished a little while after you took Darry in there. Lou swears I'm crazy, but he didn't see it vanish. It was just… just gone."
"You are crazy," Lou grumbled. "Blood doesn't just disappear."
"Then where the hell did it go?"
Lou shrugged. His gun wobbled with his hands. "How should I know? But I do know it didn't vanish in the blink of an eye."
Seven tightened her grip around her hidden blood-soaked knife. "I think I know where the blood went."
"Really?" Rick asked. "I'd love to hear you explain it."
Seven grabbed his helmet, tilted it up, and jabbed her knife into his throat. Blood bubbled out of the slit in the sturdy black fabric as Rick gurgled and fell to his side.
"It's right there," Seven said.
Seven lunged at Lou, aiming the knife just under his visor, but he brought up his left arm and parried the blade aside. With his right, he lifted the assault rifle off of the barricade and pointed it at her. Closing her eyes, she vanished and darted left, towards the barricade. She leapt up, trying to land on top, but her feet caught on the top of the wall, and she tumbled behind it. A stream of bullets followed her steps, but they flew over her.
The needles and scalpels glowed red around her as she groped her way across the barricade, clambered to her feet, and circled closer to Lou's frantic breathing. Once she thought she was behind him, she reappeared. She blinked as the sudden light blinded her, and she regained her sight just in time to see Lou turning towards her, gun raised. Seven stuck her knife right in his carotid artery and twisted the blade. Lou fell with a grunt, and his gun clattered on the floor.
Seven staggered back, dropping the knife. Her left arm throbbed beneath the gauze, and the stringy bandage had turned scarlet. She turned, slipped on the blood, and scrambled back up the barricade onto her feet. With slow, trembling steps, she stumbled into a break room. A plastic cup was on the table. She could smell the moisture wafting from its water. Smacking her lips, Seven raced towards the table. Her trembling fingers knocked over the cup, spilling water on the table. With a rasping cry of despair, she bent down to drink, but she stopped. A tiny voice, nearly drowned out by the shouting urge to drink, insisted that a human wouldn't stoop to lapping up water like an animal.
Goaded by that voice, Seven picked up the cup and examined the room. A water cooler in the corner caught her eye. With the press of a button, water gushed out of a nozzle, splashing off of the plastic tray and dripping onto the floor. Seven set the cup beneath the run of water, waited for it to fill up, and raised the paper to her lips. The blood in her fur tainted the water, but that sweetened the taste.
Once she gulped it down, she was struck by a pang of hunger. She rummaged around the break room, nibbled at a bit of dry crumbly pretzel, and disgustedly turned away from the inedible snacks.
When she walked back into the main area, amidst the strewn corpses and growing lake of blood, the smell whipped her hunger into a frenzy. Before she could stop herself, she stripped the nearest man, Lou, of his Kevlar armor. Blood gushed from the sodden clothes as she tossed them aside, leaving the dead man with nothing above his waist. As her head dropped closer to the tantalizing human flesh, Seven screamed at herself to stop, that a human absolutely would not eat another human, especially raw, like some wolf in the woods. But, for every impulse she had to wrench herself away, ten more pushed her closer, close enough to smell the cigarette ash clinging to his skin, feel the heat fading from his lifeless body, see the tiny hair follicles embedded in his skin, and the blue veins of blood beneath.
Seven opened her mouth, paused for a moment as she struggled one last time to stop herself, and bit down. As blood seeped weakly from the bite, Seven closed her eyes, not daring to see what lay beneath. She couldn't stop herself from feeling the floppy, wet pieces of flesh brush against her lips and slip over her tongue as she swallowed them whole. She shivered as she ate, and tears trickled down her muzzle.
Only when she was finally sated was she able to wrench herself away from Lou. His cigarette reek clung to her tongue, making her queasy. She tried to puke it all out, digging a few fingers into the back of her throat, but nothing came back up. It was all stuck down there. She grabbed another glass of water to wash the stink out of her mouth, but no amount of water cleansed herself of the shame she felt. She huddled down in a corner, buried her head in her bloodied arms, and repeatedly muttered, "I'm not a Pokémon."
Changelog
9/3/18 - minor edits to grammar and wording