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Uzi’s boots crushed the leaf litter beneath her, filling the air with quiet crunches that punctuated the only other noise of wind whistling around her. The rest of the landscape was as dead as the maple leaves on the ground; trees with ghastly, thin twisted in lopsided curves, bare and all branches, while snow caked the earth and covered the few dull plants. If there was anything under the snow and foliage, Uzi guessed it could only be more mulch or dirt.
She’d woken up with a nasty soreness in her back—from what she could only guess was from something light hitting her extensively frail form and leaving her with huge bruise-like patches on her shoulder blades. That felt great.
Distantly, her classmates goaded one another, cheered, and likely gossiped—what they spoke about, however, wasn’t anything she cared for.
To her dismay, she then spotted her unexpected allies decked-out in counselor uniform and chatting the class up. The vampires were getting very, very involved—Valerie, especially, which only served to further piss the alt girl off. She had to be egging Uzi on.
Shrinking further into her hoodie and stuffing her hands into her pockets, Uzi begrudgingly trudged over to everyone else.
—
“Yeaaaah, and you’re like, kind of pretty too, I guess,” Val drawled, turned to one of Uzi’s classmates, who Uzi didn’t know the name of but recalled had tripped her before in the lunch line. Some popular piece of shit. They all were. Suddenly, the vampire caught wind of Uzi’s presence and shifted her attention, tearing away from the other girl—-who seemed infatuated with talking to her—without a hint of care.
Bearing an abnormally sharp smirk, Val gibed, “Hey, shortstack! Finally slugged over here, huh?”
“Don’t call me that,” Uzi hissed, knuckles clenching out of instinct. “I’m not here for fun, I—“
“Huh, actually,” Val started, voice laced with cockiness. Uzi’s heart dropped. “Why don’t you join us? I’m sure you’d be a great addition to our team, Uzi.” God, Val spoke her name with such condescension.
Uzi narrowed her eyes, not willing to deal with whatever the conniving monster had in store for her. Before she could open her mouth to speak, however, another familiar (albeit friendlier) voice chimed in for her.
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary—come on, Val! You’ve already got a full team, it’ll be more leveled out if I take Uzi,” Noah spoke, internally partial to both sides but unintentionally covering for Uzi by the fact he’d actually cared about the ‘game’ competition … thing.
Uzi sighed. “I’m fine, Noah, I’d really rather … get familiar with the property, first.”
All parties involved knew that really involved going and investigating the situation with Doll. Noah realized such, and relented, eyes widening just slightly with awareness.
Valerie rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh, have fun ‘exploring’, freak.”
Noah gave her a disapproving look and elbowed a small jab to her ribs, earning a barely bitten-back growl from Valerie.
Uzi had already darted a few paces away, eager to gain some distance. Before Val could speak, Noah calmly warned, “Watch it. Ease up on her, dude.”
“Whatever,” Valerie muttered, changing her expression in an instant and turning away to entertain herself with whoever else she could wrap around her finger.
Noah let out a sigh. It was different without June, sure, but he’d thought Valerie would have calmed down because of that. Instead, the opposite happened—or, rather, she didn’t outwardly change at all. It was hard being the runt of the group and especially so as the newest one. Uzi would probably do better with less pressure and less snark, but he couldn’t control Val’s actions. With luck, she’d let up.
A camper trotted up to him; some girl he didn’t know, and the second he saw her overzealous, cocky face he knew he was in for a grueling next few minutes.
He didn’t want to turn her down, but it was getting ridiculous at how fake their interest in his life was compared to their interest in his looks.
God damn it—maybe he should say he was gay? Though, the jocks’ attention wouldn’t be much better to receive..
—
Uzi huffed, fidgeting with her hands as she crept through the woods, just out of everyone else’s sight.
She could still see them, though—laughing their sorry asses off and probably having a better time than she ever has.
She’d been hoping the structure she’d spotted earlier wasn’t boarded off—and, alas, it was free to enter. She couldn’t tell whether or not it was when she was so much further away from it, and its cover beneath the trees did little to help her figure that out. The rotten cabin sat ahead of her, its wood peeling and its frame barely holding up. There were a few nails scattered at its porch, along with broken shingles that had seemed to have fallen off of the roof. The windows, however, were in the worst shape: splintered and shattered, most of their frames and sills more than unable to fulfill their purpose.
It reminded her of herself. Symbolic. Rolling her eyes at its performatively ghoulish display, Uzi walked forward and pushed its door open, which creaked slowly as she did so.
While it didn’t slam behind her, the considerable breeze shut it with an eerie click.
Similarly to their hinged companion, the floorboards groaned a shill cry with every gram of pressure placed on them. Uzi treaded carefully, mindful of the more worn-down parts of the floor as she made her way upstairs. Her heart speeding up just slightly, Uzi felt around for the railing and gripped it tightly as she went up. Her hands felt clammy.
She climbed over the last step, and exhaled as she released the stairway rail.
She shuffled further into the room, straining her eyes to discern the shapes of filing cabinets and other peculiar memorabilia placed there in the dark.
She lowered herself into a kneel, pressing her face close to a calendar and a few scattered papers on a table. What did—
A blood-curdling scream interrupted her line of thought, and she flinched before shooting up and darting to the nearest window. They hadn’t just gone and turned .. no, the screams weren’t blood-curdling, but they were instead of joy.
Her class sprinted about on the frozen-over lake, Noah and Valerie accompanying about half of them each in some sort of course run. Val was held up high in a canoe with faithful porters on both sides of her, and she deployed some form of sabotage by knocking into Noah’s team.
Just … playing games. While Uzi was here.
Cool. Cool cool cool, cool.
Load of bullshit.
From behind her lips, two fangs suddenly jutted out from Uzi’s clenched teeth and pierced into her tongue, splattering a small massacre of blood around in her mouth. Wincing and stepping back as she leaned against a wall to stifle the tears and yells she was holding back from releasing; a sharp noise took her further by surprise as she stumbled to look like she didn’t need to cry.
Golden slits shone at her from a few feet away, and they were inches from her face before she could blink.
Valerie pressed her to the wall, her abnormally pointed features and gnarled lips especially petrifying. “Do you enjoy people watching, or something?”
“Ho-o-oly shit, get out of my face!” Uzi ducked to the side of her, but was only able to gain a little bit of space before Valerie took it up again. She was too imposing to try and match a second time. It was an intimidation act, Uzi was sure.
“You’d be served better if you went and actually did your job, dimwit. We wouldn’t want you to be dinner, would we?”
“God, whatever. Another vampire’s blood probably doesn't do anything for you guys anyway, you’re just saying shit. It’s just awesome that everyone immediately took to you two—love to see it,” Uzi murmured.
“I wouldn’t be sure of that.” Valerie moved even closer to her, and she could feel the eerie lack of warmth from the vampire’s body. A shiver wracked Uzi’s spine, followed by another one as Val roughly raked her cheek, her nails leaving marks.
Uzi grunted a curse and Val turned tail, finally tearing away from Uzi. As best she could in the sparse lighting, Uzi stared Valerie down with defiance.
“Noah doesn’t need your sorry excuse of a once-human in his life. He’s made friends with rocks, he’ll bounce back just fine—and forget you like we do every other meal.” Valerie slipped further into the shadows, but on her way down, shouted, “Don’t forget that just because you got lucky!”
Uzi felt a plethora of variations of horrid, but she did her best to stay composed, though she scarcely could.
That fucking—she was probably right, too. That fact was even sadder considering that Noah was the closest thing Uzi had to a friend, and he'd literally been trying to kill her when they’d met.
The cabin walls felt cramped and now unsettled Uzi in a bad way. She didn’t know what she needed, but maybe fresh air would help. She made for the stairs, her feet hardly flitting over each step as she tried to get down sooner.
Near the door, something scuttled by her foot, and she froze up.
It only made sense for a place like this to have roaches, sure—but the one under her sole seemed to have changed into a beetle, before she blinked again, finding a moth. “..What the fuck?”
Swamped with interest, she crouched to the floor, examining it. “What are you, dude?”
She hadn’t expected a spoken answer or anything, but the shape-shifting insect only slipped back beneath the floorboards without a sound.
“I’m goin’ fucking crazy, then,” Uzi said aloud, speaking to no one in particular; which may as well have just further cemented her point.
As her eyes followed the grooves that the insect had climbed into, she spotted a gaping segment of the floor that was taken out. Upon closer inspection, there were remains with bits of bone and very expired flesh sprawled into the building’s foundation. Suddenly, a similar looking moth darted onto her hand—though this one was huge.
“Woah,” Uzi sputtered, shaking it off out of instinct, albeit a little too hard. “..Sorry, buddy.”
It flapped back upward, but this time only fluttered in front of her. After a few seconds, Uzi could hear a low whisper of some type, seemingly coming from the bug.
“… There’s no way this shit is real.”
It was giving her some type of instruction. What for, she couldn’t tell nor discern.
“Y—“
Again, it moved away with a quick gust of its wings. Despite its size, she wasn’t able to see it anywhere in the room.
Fuck, maybe she’d taken an edible and wasn’t aware that she had.
She picked herself back up, attempting to exit before she pulled away from the door handle after a searing pain shot through her. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing her knees so as not to fall from vertigo. Christ.
The barely formed scabs in her mouth seemed to ache to reopen, a sensation most of her injuries did not come with. Her head swirled, and she fought back the urge to bite down on her tongue purposefully. At the same time, her back pain returned tenfold, and nausea crept into her chest.
What she had least expected, however, was hunger.
Overwhelming, colossal hunger.
Before Uzi could think another thought or take just one step to lean against something, a gust of wind pushed through the window and the light that reflected from the snow it brought in shimmered—at the brightness, she felt uncomfortable and violent.
She should go back to the campsite.
She could—she could talk to Noah and maybe hover nearby everybody without being involved, and then she would feel normal again.
She just needed to calm herself down, and whatever this was would settle. Yeah.
—
Blood—acrid and darker than normal—gushed from Uzi’s mouth, and she sputtered something about a nosebleed before turning tail and sprinting through the words with her palm over her lips.
This time, she hadn’t even bitten the inside of her mouth or tongue, it just started to fucking pool.
It tasted metallic, like blood, but it seemed to be something else—nastier. It was viscous and deep and unnatural.
She needed to be in the dark.
She stumbled over herself, feet catching on twigs and rocks, but she forced herself ahead nonetheless. Her only sense of solace, the log cabin, finally came back into view; and she would’ve felt relief if she wasn’t in so much pain.
She darted inside, slamming the rickety door behind her and falling to the floor as soon as she had arrived. She wasn’t sure she could hold herself up if she had to.
Fate was a cruel mistress, because Uzi found that her lower back seemed to be bleeding out with the same foreign liquid, too.
She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it slide down her spine in all of its disgusting familiarity. It smelled, too. She felt so unclean.
Everything came to a head, and her muscles seemed to boil over with pain.
A rippling ran through her shoulders, before creeping down and through her back—spines bursted from her shoulder blades, revealing grimy, membrane covered structures that resembled only the nastiest mythological beast’s form. Her hoodie was torn to shreds, ripped off in big shreds around her and leaving her upper body in only the tank top she had under. However, even her undershirt was splattered in the foul smelling fluid. What the fuck was this stuff, vampade?
Incredibly poorly timed, the door flew open as her classmates Rebecca and Darren stepped through—the former looping her arm around her companion.
They stopped dead in their tracks when they caught a look of Uzi’s bug-eyed face and disheveled body, Rebecca even uttering an ‘Ew, fuck!’ on instinct.
It was a scene of horror, really. Misshapen limbs sprouted from Uzi’s back and her entire form was caked in something bloody. Her eyes were so dead.
Uzi only watched them, the pain too much to bear for her to move, but something else took hold of her.
Her jaw unhinged, wider than she thought it could be, and she locked onto Rebecca—snapping the girl’s leg in half with her mouth, before darting to the other one and picking at it like an overzealous dog to leftover chicken scrap.
Darren screamed with repulsion, Rebecca letting out a jaded shout of pain with him; to Uzi, it was a duet for her efforts.
Blood streaked her face, mixing with her own ‘blood’ and creating a sanguine mosaic for her form to display.
Before they could get away, she pounced forward onto Darren—sure to get him first, as Rebecca was likely the least of her troubles.
She wasn’t thinking anymore.
Her teeth sank into his face, biting off chunks of his cheeks in pallid strips and scarfing them down, his life-blood the treasure she sought. Even still, she couldn’t bear the idea of carefully taking everything else off—she just had to eat him then and there, she wouldn’t dare wait by slowly taking off the skin and extras.
Rebecca made some sort of noise or gag, but the sound faded into the background for Uzi, who had cleaned off around half of his face by then.
She was bored of its flavor—his skin was gross and salty, and much too oily, as well.
She turned to Rebecca, and the look of disbelieving panic sent spikes of satisfaction under Uzi’s skin.
Before she knew it, her face was inches deep into Rebecca’s stomach and tearing into her intestines, already having devoured her kidneys and siphoned a few of Rebecca’s arms’ veins.
Uzi pulled back, taking in heavy, labored breaths as she simultaneously struggled to keep the flesh down and struggled to stop herself from finishing down to the bone.
Everything—and by now, especially Uzi herself—was so pungent.
It made her sick—she retched, vomiting up chunks of anything from flesh to hair and bone. Now, a terrible trail of puke joined the chorus of bodily fluids she was bathed in.
It was disgusting. She felt horrible.
And she wanted more.
More. There was more. Out there.
She was so, so hungry.
—
Noah surged through the woods, sweat coating his forehead. He had to go.
Valerie had probably already gotten to Uzi, and whatever that meant for either of the two was something he prayed he wouldn’t end up finding out the answer to.
No matter what he hoped, someone was in danger.
His stupid wings couldn’t push him forward quick enough. He was sure his phalanges and metacarpals and all else in there would shatter from the strain, but he’d rather die himself before slowing down.
He heard a familiar voice bellow.
Noah moved his wings faster, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes from the effort.
A flash of silver caught his eye, and he realized it was Val’s wings and what parts of Uzi’s pair weren’t concealed by her transformation’s drainage. He sharply pivoted for them, crashing into the snow and then pushing his body up and forward so as to just keep moving.
Uzi’s mouth was agape and ready to strike. Noah, right behind her, slung his arm around her waist before swinging her up into the air—the momentum and already strong winds picking up beneath her wings and keeping her plenty afloat.
Kicking away from where the newly turned vampire had been, Valerie lay sloped against a tree with a look of innate fear in her eyes with an intensity Noah hadn’t recalled having seen her display before.
He looked at her with concern, all words he had dying out in his throat.
Uncomfortable once she’d realized she was so vulnerable and exposed, Valerie’s affect fell to something duller. She started speaking before he could. “Go deal with your pet,” she spat. “Maybe it needs to be put down.”
Noah’s brows furrowed. “Val—“ he remembered the situation above them, and forced himself to stop while he was ahead. “I’m going to deal with her, you and I will chat later.”
“You’ll die trying to make that happen,” Valerie argued, but Noah paid her no mind—choosing not to acknowledge the subtle crack in her voice.
He catapulted upward, propelling himself so as to catch up with Uzi.
“Hey, dude,” Noah started. “..You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Uzi looked like she was going to cry. Between the liquid and her general state, she probably was, but it was hard to see under the rest of her condition.
Her flight was messy, but she’d been able to settle into being decently balanced. She turned away, cradling herself with her wings and stretching their claws over her face. “NO! I’m fucking disgusting, I just ate—I—Jesus Christ.”
Noah sighed, weary and internally rather apologetic.
“Yeah, a couple of things going on.” The wind enveloped both of them in pure cold, and their elevation didn’t do that any favors. “But I meant emotionally. You were off tonight, before all of the kooky, uh, vampire .. stuff—which tends to get worse when you’re worse, which might be why it was so bad. I swear, I’ve only seen three, but that was an insane first time. I don’t want you to think this is normal, and it shouldn’t happen every time.”
Uzi looked so tired. Her voice softened, “Noah, am I disposable to you? Would it matter to you if I was here or not, or was this just a fluke with your prey?”
The question gutted him.
“Uzi,” he started to reply, tone tinged with a sadness not present in his prior words. “Sure, this wasn’t something that I’d expected to happen, but that doesn’t mean I don’t value you now after the time we’ve spent together. What kind of pe—vamp—being would I be if I didn’t care about that? I’m not heartless, I promise you that. I’ve missed your snappy jokes and somehow both no-nonsense and chock full of nonsense-ness today.”
A few tears streamed down Uzi’s face, and she let them. She just wished that they’d even slightly help her get the black void dripping from her mouth a bit cleaner. She’d have to go play around with a power washer later.
“..I missed you too. I don’t know what I’m doing. I want to let you help me, hell, maybe the both of you, but—I … sorry.”
She paused, pensive and suddenly seeming to be much more detached. More seriously, she spoke, “..I’d never felt so—I’d never killed someone before.”
“You’re okay, Uzi. We’ll figure it out, yeah?”
“Maybe if this was like, fucking softball, but MUR—“
“Hey, nonono, I get that part! And out of anybody, I’d be familiar. This is also something that takes baby steps.”
“… Okay, yeah. Um, you know, thank you, dude.”
“Thank you,” Noah chimed.
Uzi squinted. “How about you thank yourself?”
Noah let out a laugh, and Uzi lightly snickered.
The fact they’d just been in rapid descent came back into reality as they both cratered the ground, kicking up leaves, snow, and forest debris in their fall. Noah emerged with Uzi in a protective hold, and he let her down out of respect.
Valerie, further away, had her claws out and back hunched. Seeing the state they were in, she fell back into a more relaxed stance, but her eyes only softened after she observed them more. She made her way back to the camp, against her initial judgment.
Uzi dusted herself off, giving Noah a small, reluctant smile.
With the intent to encourage, Noah then said, “Hey, you’ll get used to it. It feels like it takes a while, but once you do, things get easier.”
He gave her a light pat on the shoulder, beginning to make his way back to everyone else with excuses in tow and an assumption that Uzi would follow.
Her smile fell, and while she did trail after N, she couldn’t feel anything but a creeping sense of dread.