[PRP] Be a Better Me (Otto / Amrita) (VIOLENT)

[Bittiface]

His heart nearly stopped. His body was starting to go numb, and he didn't know why. His eyes squinted, flicking to the only thing he could see while his sight flickered in and out. Shards that remained cast reflections of the creature on his back, slowly merging with his body.

No! No. no no nononononononoonono-- But he couldn't struggle. He was already nearly entirely numb. Tenya screeched in his mind, sensing something was trespassing.
His sight flickered again, everything fading to black. The last thing he felt before blacking out was the terrible and excurtiating feeling of his ankles and wrists twisting at an unnatural angle.

Snap.

Everything had been black and dark for a while. Parts of his mind began to awake, his eyes seeing as if he was looking through another's eyes. He could hear his own voice, but it was completely devoid of the thick Southern accent he was known for.

So that was what the creature meant back then... it was going to kill him by using his own body.

NO!

His mind reeled, fought in a panic to gain control again.

GET OUT OF MY BODY!

Help...  

[Enoh Love]

Amrita could feel that little tumor stirring, trying to push her away. It was a feeble move at best, but it was still annoying. Even now he was fighting her! That a*****e...that Hunter!

"Stop that!" She hissed, using his own hand to slap him across his bloody face. "You Hunters think you can just invade my home and not pay the price?" He was awake, might as well talk to him while he had no choice but to listen. Their gaze lowered to view the weapon's totem, and she sighed, slumping sadly. "You've taken almost everything from me, including my friends..." That weapon was once a Halloween student, and it made her as sad as it did angry; turning Halloween against itself for the sake of...what, exactly? "Does it make you feel like a big man to pick on a bunch of school students?" With a muttered apology to the totem she kicked it aside and out of the way, now stepping through the wreckage, backwards foot poking and prodding through the bigger piles, looking for something suitable. A few times she even bent down, picking up a long piece of glass or crystal, testing it with her borrowed and bloody hands.

If it broke it was dropped and she moved on, but a couple more sturdy pieces she held onto. She was careful to look at everything she was doing, both for her sake and his; she hoped he was still watching. He had to keep watching...but even if he wasn't, it made her feel better to pretend that it was.
 

[Bittiface]

What the Hell kind of horrible nightmare was this? He thought he'd seen it all. Experienced the worst sort of experiences. But this was a whole new level of torture. His necklace carrying Tenya's totem was cast aside, making him nearly heave a heart attack were he in control of his own body again. s**t.. if he lost that totem.. it would spell bad news for him.

This creature thought he'd never paid for his work as a Hunter? How ignorant was it? Otto seethed in his mind, every inch of his soul prickling with anger and rage.

They had no idea how much he knew suffering. They knew nothing of him.

It made him wish to cringe and groan as he watched his own body bleed, his hands and feet twisted so sickeningly. His possessed body kept picking up shards and crushing them, keeping pieces that hadn't broken. His skin was breaking, lacerations pooling bloody across his skin. He needed those hands! At this rate...

What is it doing.. He wondered with worry. Why was it collecting those shards?  

[Enoh Love]

"You brought this on yourself...you and your comrades. If you'd just left us alone, I wouldn't have to do this to you, and you wouldn't have to be here right now. All of ours lives would be so much easier..." Something in her borrowed voice sounded sad, but lined with the anger she felt at the mere thought of the Hunters being there, invading her home. She missed the days where a trip to Christmastown was the worst thing to happen in her entire life.

"I guess I should thank you again though...if it weren't for your constant threat, I wouldn't have realized how strong I really am, or what I can really do. I would've been a lonely, scared little scareling for the rest of my life." She never would have thought, accidentally or otherwise, to possess and kill the living. The recent shard she picked up was solid and pointed. It was larger and more sturdy than the others she had collected, and at a perfect angle to do exactly what she wanted.

"But that still doesn't change the fact that we're here now, doing what we're doing." She drew Otto's thumb across the sharp edge of the crystal shard, cutting deep through his skin and flesh. "I tried being nice to one of you, and he betrayed me. He made me suffer more than ever before...and you can only get bit so many times before you start to think that the world would be a better place with even one less of you to worry about." She turned Otto's body to face a nearby group of crystals, tapping the sharp end of the shard against his throat. The body was getting weak and she could feel it; it was heavier than she remembered it, but it was hard to tell what the source was. Was it because of the damage Otto had taken, or was it because she was getting weak herself? This was the longest she had been in a living body after all, and it felt weird...

"I kind of feel like one of those villains in the scareling's TV shows telling you this...but I thought you should know why I'm doing this to you." Otto's hand traced the sharp shard down his throat and chest, resting the point against his stomach, just under his ribs. Both hands grasped the end, shifting the body's weight to prepare for what it was she was about to do. The target located and Otto's arms lifted, holding the shard angled above his head.

"I'm sorry, I really am just trying to make life a little easier..." Otto's hands gripped the shard and swung down as hard as he could, driving the shard deep into his own core, the tip angled to reach and shred into the important organs under his ribs.  

[Bittiface]

This thing was insane! It was going to take out all of its own aggression on him. He needed to fight this, he needed to get control back. But he felt weaker of will, and had not a thread of control of what it did to him. He watched in horror as his own hands cut deep into his thumb. His hands and feet were.. ugh if he had a stomach its contents would be ejected. He'd never drum again, never use Tenya again if it couldn't be fixed...

s**t. s**t s**t s**t.

He wanted to refute everything ti said with his butchered voice. But he couldn't speak. Barely think. He could only feel. And what he felt was anger, fear, and pain. Likely that was exactly what it wanted.
It thought it was the only one who suffered? What about himself and all the other hunters, their whole lives bathed in suffering and isolation because of what they could see? I've spent my whole life haunted by the likes of you! He screamed in his mind. How dare you! If only he could say it aloud. If only he had control again..

s**t, it was getting ready for sure now, even making him watch. No... it was going to.

No! Stop! s**t, stop it! STOP IT! He pleaded in his mind, his emotions burning and buzzing in alarm. He didn't want to die! He didn't want to die!!!

But the blade was raised high, he could only watch as the creature used his own body to deal a mortal blow. Watched as it spoke with his face. His eyes, his lips.

And then the shard was stabbed deep into his body. What vision he had went white, his ears rung loudly. Was.. this really it? He'd carried out his shift alone.. no one would come looking for him. Not for a while, anyway. He'd told Nevada to wait for him, and now she;'d think he'd stood her up. He'd finally confessed to Eva, and now.. he wouldn't even get that first date with her, or first kiss with her.

Life in Deus, he'd had a lot of near death experiences. This was the first time he truly felt regret, felt such deep sadness for those who would be left behind.

I don't wanna die...

Everything went black.  

[Enoh Love]

Amrita felt something she hadn't expected to feel: Real pain. The sudden shock of something sharp tearing through her very body was not something she had anticipated until it was too late; Otto was mortally wounded and now, by extension, she was sharing his pain. The lacerations on her borrowed face were now hers to bear as well, the glass embedded in his flesh sunk into hers as well. The shard buried deep under his ribs pierced through her own core, bringing forth a pain she hadn't ever experiences, let alone fathom.

She coughed, feeling the heat of Otto's blood rise in their throat, spilling down a pale, lacerated chin. It took a few minutes for the shock to pass, for the searing pain to turn cold and empty. Her strength drained with it and she sank to her borrowed knees, uttering a last few dying gasps. Otto's mind went black, and just before hers did too she felt something odd; the feeling of being ripped away, pulled forcefully out of a body and tossed into the darkness of an abyss.

Otto's quickly dying body was left behind, the only trace that someone else had been in that room with him was the broken glass, the smashed crystals...and a suspiciously broken ankle.
 

[its me debz]

Clerise was lucky, she supposed, that the stupid cuff didn't ban her from the likes of the Haunted House. It was a strange place; she'd met a few students here, befriended one even, in her own way. Its rooms changed, each one its own little ecosystem. None of them had locked for her, today, which made for a visually pleasing but extremely boring adventure.

That is, until she happened along a room of glass and crystals accented against pure water--

Oh, no. Red eyes flicked around the expanse of the room, taking in the sight of wreckage and broken glass. Clear evidence of a struggle, made worse by blood-slick surfaces, mirrors with shards missing and--


Oh, no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no.

"Otto!?" At a breakneck speed, Clerise dashed towards the limp and bloodied strewn across the floor. It wasn't moving at all: limbs skewed at angles that were wrong, and there was a lump in her throat-- this couldn't be happening. Please just be another nightmare.

Take me, she pleaded to gods she didn't believe in, to a fragment of a memory that didn't exist in this universe, a mocking smile with teeth the colour of blood smiling in her mind's eye. Please, it can't be him.

As soon as she was close enough, Clerise roughly dropped roughly to her knees, panic welling up in her chest, a jolt of white-hot nausea coming with it. He wasn't moving. Her Prodigy, her ally, her friend-- he wasn't moving.

"Otto, baby, can you hear me?" she asked, fingers roving over his skin, tearing away at fabric with her quickly unsheathed Runic Dagger, exposing the wounds littering his torso, uncovering some further up his arms. Her breathing stuttered as she took them all in: they were bad. His face was torn all to hell, and there was just.

There was just so much red, new wounds still filled with splintered shards of glass.

The worst was a piece that protruded from beneath his ribs, embedded far, far too deep for her to remove.

"I just need you to hold on for me, okay?" Clerise begged, her voice wavering as she took his pulse, a small burst of relief filling her as she felt the thud of his heartbeat. It was a weak one, and sluggish, but it was there. He was alive. But for how long? Swiftly, Clerise pulled out a tin of runic bandages, and in her rush she dropped it, and the metal echoed sharply as it clattered against the floor.

"Just hold on." The hysteria in Clerise did nothing but rise (and all she heard was mocking laughter, the feeling of being vivisected alive), and she realised, somewhere, that she knew Otto couldn't hear her. That she was talking to herself in an attempt to keep herself calm, to distract herself from the hot pinprick of tears at the corners of her eyes, from the fact that he was still like a corpse. The knowledge was distant, far away from where her mind was, and just come on, tin, just open up, please, come on. She sobbed, once, scrubbing at her face, a few tears splashing against Otto's neck, and once the floodgates had opened, they didn't want to stop.

If it had been anyone else, save Clarice, maybe this wouldn't be so scary, she could do this, stay disconnected, stay efficient, be a better hunter--

Balthazar's voice cut into her panic, and he enveloped her with heat, his presence a warmth in her mind, aiming to steady her hands with his own tranquility: but his tone was harsh. {[ The slower you are, the more likely he is to perish. Get. Him. Home. ]}

"Okay," the Life huntress whispered, voice hoarse, shaking her head once to clear it. She extracted the shards that she could with her dagger, bandaging the wounds that bled the most profusely, with closed eyes so it wouldn't be so obvious that it was him. That giant piece of prismatic glass still stuck out from his torso, leaking blood sluggishly.

Something unreflective caught the corner of Clerise's eye, and she realised with a sick twist of the stomach it was Tenya's totem. She grabbed it, clutching it with a deathgrip. After his life, this was the most important possession Otto owned, and Clerise would not have her find her end in a battleground of broken glass and blood.

"We're going home, Otto," Clerise whispered, resting Otto's head in her lap, clutching the pendant in her other hand, activating its return sequence. This, she could do. Retreat. Organize. Regain control. She could do this, she was familiar with this, with the protocol and the duties of a Life Hunter. She had faced down part of the apocalypse with her bare hands, and now she would save Otto's life, because that is what you did.

You did whatever was necessary to survive.

They landed in the courtyard, and she called out, voice hoarse but clear like a bell: "I need a medic over here, I need a stretcher, and I need a bed in the hospital. NOW."

[[ exit ]]  

[Enoh Love]

Someone was gasping in pain.

She could hear it echo in the emptiness around her, but she couldn't see where it was coming from. Actually, she couldn't really see anything; what she could make out was fuzzy at best and completely unfocused at worst. Not only that, but there was a heaviness she had never felt before; dead weight holding her down, pressing her so firmly into the ground it took too much effort to even turn her head. That noise...the sound of pain...where was it coming from?

Her mind wavered in and out of focus and something in her told her to move, her arm dragging like a weight across her lacerated stomach---wait. She was...she was wounded? But how...? The realization made everything very real; the cuts across her face, the deep slice in her thumb, the dented and broken skin where glass once resided...and the deep, gaping hole in her stomach, angled up under her rib cage. A cry tore from her throat as all the imagined wounds became very real, as the desperation to cling to life took over ever fibre of her being.

She couldn't stay like this though, not alone in the forest like she was. It hurt, but she had to move...she had to call for help...! Every tiny fidget was followed by a blinding pain, and the sheer effort it took to pull her phone from it's hiding place was enough to make her reconsider her grasp on life. In all her unlife, through everything she had been through, she had never felt like this before. She wanted to die, to close her eyes and let the cool, still death take over...

NO, a stubborn part of her screamed, threatened to be drown out by the shrieks of pain in her mind. Instinct had her drawing in breaths she didn't need, each swell of her chest igniting the sting even further. She couldn't roll over, she couldn't die; if she felt this bad, that Hunter should feel this too. It was a small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless. It took her a few more minutes to get the will to move again, and as she did she managed to open her phone, the pain now bringing her to the verge of tears. She couldn't do this any more, she couldn't...but she had to try. Come on, Amrita...come on...

Pressing the buttons she needed to get to her contact list was just as agonizing as ever, her focus flickering in and out as she faded in and out of consciousness. The tears started to fall then, further clouding her already fuzzy sight; it was too hard, she was going to just stay here, alone and hurt and inches away from dissipation. Healthy enough to remain where she sat, but unable to move enough to get herself somewhere safe, not to mention keeping consciousness for much longer. Alone, forgotten and in an agonizing pain.

She couldn't even see who it was she pressed call to. It might have started with an A but perhaps also an M...She just hoped, with her last ounces of strength, that it was a friend she called. Someone who could help her, or at least know enough to get her to the nurse. All she could do was wait, unable to hold the phone to her ear and straining to hear anything other than the sound of her own pained, almost wet breathing.

"H...help..." She pleaded weakly as she thought she heard something else, fighting to stay conscious long enough to give her message. With the way things are going she couldn't even be sure she was talking loud enough to be heard, but she was trying. It was all she could do. "I...m....in f...forest." A breath was drawn in, one suspiciously close to a sob that pitched in agony. "p-please....i need..." The edges of her vision frayed, everything growing darker and darker, her body feeling heavier with each passing second. "...help..."

Amrita lost consciousness then, her body slumping and hitting the ground with a dead weighted thud. Her phone slipped from her grasp, still connected with whomever she had called.

AstaraeI

AYMET HALP ;;

 

[Molten Tigrex]

Amrita probably didn't hear the voice that shouted her name from the other end of the line, now long since disconnected.

Or the whump of air displaced by wide wings flapping overhead, circling ever lower.

Or even the wood snapping and creaking as whole trees were bent aside under heavy claws, gouging a hole in the very forest to reach her.

Just the sound of the wind whistling in her ears, and the sting of cold metal against her face and arm as Aymet held her body close to his armored chest in flight. No longer a skeletal dragon; just a student, whose eyes flickered back to her nearly every other second in the hopes that this time, this time, she would wake up...