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“Why are you running?”
Susie didn’t look over her shoulder. She didn’t need to see what her other senses could tell was right behind her. Hot, rancid breath pouring over her neck, the crash of walls breaking and stone shattering, a car alarm punctuated by shrill laughter. Something strong and fast and just as human as Susie used to be, which was to say not at all. Her feet pounded against the asphalt as she tore through the entrance of what appeared to be a drugstore, the advertisements flickering on the walls in some language that she couldn’t read.
“Come on! I just wanted to introduce myself!”
Fuck that.
She needed to find a generator. She needed to escape. The killer had been chasing her across half the map, ignoring anyone else in her hunt. If Susie wasn't terrified out of her mind, she would be so frustrated. Why wasn't anyone helping her? Susie remembered from her time in the Legion that usually, by this point, the survivors would have tried to help each other.
Well, duh. She had just answered her own question. She had been a killler, she had probably thrown all of these people on hooks multiple times. Why would they help Susie when she was being such an effective distraction? She was a liability, bound to get everyone killed, and that wasn’t even accounting for their justified hatred of her. The logic made her want to laugh, but rationality didn't cure the fatigue and terror. Her vision swam with dark spots, her limbs felt weak.
This all would have been so much easier if she wasn't so hungry. If the survivors had shared their food with her around the campfire. How many days had it been? Ten? Eleven? So stupid and hungry that she couldn't even count right anymore!
Fuck. She had all the time in the world to hate herself when she was dead, which would be far too soon unless she found a way out.
There!
Spotting the back exit to the store, Susie sprinted for it, her lungs on fire from the lack of air. Her fingers just managed to graze the handle before a thick, sinuous tendril of flesh wrapped around her torso and yanked her back. She didn’t even have the energy to scream as pale, slender fingers dug into her shoulders and neck.
“Got you,” cooed a feminine voice that sounded far too reserved for the ravenous strength behind it. Another one of those crimson tendrils wrapped around Susie and she found herself being rotated, as though in the limbs of a giant spider, to meet the gaze of her captor.
The killer was a girl, Japanese, not much older than Susie herself, with her hair dyed purple and wearing a white bodice and blue shirt. Her eyes were wide and manic behind her somehow pristine red glasses as she pulled Susie close, smiling blood-red. Viscera dripped from her teeth, from her eyes… were the sclera black? And that didn’t even account for the monstrous tentacles flailing behind her back!
Susie shuddered as the girl’s breath wafted over her face. It smelled awful, like the animal carcasses she and the Legion… no! She wasn’t going to think about them!
“My name is Kamishiro Rize,” the girl said with a shy titter, sniffing Susie’s neck. What the fuck? “I heard Ji-woon’s new song and I was so excited. A new survivor! One that used to be a killer, no less! Oh, I just had to know how you taste!”
Oh god. Susie had to be hearing wrong. “I-I really don’t taste good,” she stammered. It was so hard to string her words together, the hunger in her gut clouding her mind. It wouldn’t help her to beg, she knew that, but still… “Please don’t…”
Her protests were cut off as Rize’s head snapped forward with a click and tore into her shoulder. Susie’s scream echoed through the drugstore as she tried to struggle, flailing ineffectively against the tentacles as Rize suckled on the wound. Her satisfied hum rose and fell with Susie’s agony, until she abruptly let out a disgusted growl and tore herself away with a piece of Susie between her teeth.
“Bleh! You taste awful!”
Susie moaned in pain, curling into herself as Rize’s tendrils pulled away and the prettier girl thrust her to the ground. Now would have been the perfect opportunity to flee, but she didn’t have the strength to run away; her arm was barely hanging on by a thread as it was. “...’m sorry.”
God, she was so stupid. Why was she apologizing to the cannibal monster?
The purple-haired monster was stomping back and forth, mumbling incoherently to herself. Her black eyes snapped back to Susie upon hearing her words. “You should be! You don’t have any fat on you, and barely any muscle! It’s disgusting! It’s like you aren’t eating anything at all!”
Susie felt a bitter sort of satisfaction at that. Even the other killers didn’t like her, naturally. She was awful. Even her body was awful, but at least she could have some sort of vengeance. Another delirious glance at the killer saw her looking at Susie with an odd expression. “What?”
“You really aren’t eating anything.” It wasn’t a question.
Susie slowly shook her head.
“But that’s not right! That’s not… not healthy! You’ve gotta eat!” Rize pulled a hand away from where she had been pulling bits of Susie’s hair out of her teeth and jabbed it in her face. “The Entity gives you survivors a bunch of food! I know it does!”
Why did she care? There were other survivors to eat, tastier ones, probably. Actually wait, that was bad! The others needed to escape! Unfortunately, the killer seemed to have had the same thought as a thunderous expression darkened her face, her red pupils glowing ominously. “You wait here, Miss Pink Hair. I'll be right back.”
Susie fumbled uselessly as the killer darted away, splattering blood over the aisle from her glistening tendrils. Every movement sent new waves of agony along her body, but she had to do something. Anything!
She hadn’t even made it out of the store when the screams started. Frantic begging, swearing, interspersed by the unmistakable sundering of flesh. Susie tried to ignore it, just another tally on her list of sins for failing to run away as she tumbled out onto the asphalt of the nightmarish cityscape around her.
Just a little further! Just a bit more! Susie tried not to think about the pointlessness of it all. She couldn’t fix a generator like this, not with one arm practically torn off and the other too weak to help her stand. Still, she dragged herself forward, one arm after another.
The exhaustion didn’t matter. The pain didn’t matter. What would Mikaela and Sable think of her if she just gave up!
A bare, wet foot pressed down on her shoulder blades, pinning her to the ground. Panting breaths and panicked whimpers rained down around her, Rize's elated exertion and the pained grunts of some poor bastard caught in her grip.
“You’re so lucky you’re like Mister Kaneki,” Rize snipped, as though Susie was nothing more than a naughty child. “I usually get really upset when people try to run away from me. But you’re just so cute!” There was an audible squelch as Rize smiled, the sound unmistakable despite Susie's face being ground into the street. “I like you.”
“Let me go, you bitch一”
There was a strangled wheeze and the crack of displaced air as one of Rize’s tendrils snapped out and bludgeoned his face. Susie didn’t even see it move, just the shadow against the store facade and the silhouette of Rize and the survivor in her grasp. Monster. Just like Susie. All of the mirth had left Rize’s voice. “You all aren’t feeding my friend here. Why?”
The captured survivor gurgled. “She’s a killer! Why the fuck would we一”
He didn’t even get to finish his sentence. Rize squeezed and there was a horrible tearing sound as his neck popped, head tumbling to the ground in a shower of gore. Susie’s heart raced as her vision wavered from stress and exhaustion and fear. For some reason, her brain latched onto the blood puddling on the ground, a crimson pool that strobed neon under the city lights.
“Honestly,” Rize sniffed. “I hate wasting food, but some people are so uncivilized. I’m sorry you have to deal with that, hehe.” Teeth sank into flesh and then Rize spoke through stuffed cheeks. “Y’ wan’ some?”
“No?”
“That’s no good!” Susie didn’t even have the strength to scream as Rize roughly grabbed her again, slinging her against the wall with her tendrils and sitting her upright. “You’ve gotta eat, you know. Being hungry sucks! I should know! I’m always hungry!”
Looking at the headless survivor on the ground, bits and pieces of himself all over Rize, Susie somehow managed to summon a spark of defiance instead of the bile brewing in her gut. She was going to die either way, from blood loss if nothing else. “I’m not going to eat a person!”
Rize stared at her, unblinking. There was no guilt or remorse in those black-and-red eyes, but that didn’t scare Susie. Not like Julie with her empty eyes. Rize wasn’t a liar, just a hunter. Her expression was cycling between manic and ecstatic and angry and sad.
Always hungry though. And far too human.
Finally, Rize seemed to settle on something. “I like you…”
She frowned, searching for her name.
“Susie.”
Why did I say that?
Rize swallowed another bit of meat and clapped her hands together with a thick squelch. “Susie! I like you. You remind me of my friend, Burong. She doesn’t like eating people either, but she gets what it’s like, always being hungry. You do what you have to do.”
“I… I thought I reminded you of a Mister Kaneki.”
“Oh,” Rize batted her earlier comparison away dismissively. “He doesn’t like me. But I like you, Susie. You’ve got grit! We’re gonna get along great, I can tell.” Her eyes went manic. “I’m so excited to learn how you taste once you get some food in you.”
Susie closed her eyes. She was so, so tired. Even the dark dreams of death seemed attractive now. She didn’t have the strength to stay awake. “Yay me.”
At least she’d be getting hooked soon. That would be a relief.
“Glad you agree,” Rize’s voice swam through her consciousness, hands shaking her torso. Couldn’t she die in peace? “I’d better see you fed and rested when you get back to me, Susie! I’m rooting for you!”
Susie hated how good those words made her feel, even coming from the girl that had eaten her shoulder. “...I’ll try.”
Rize clapped, excited. “Great! Now, you’re going to die soon, but I figure I’ll spare you the hook for today, alright? If I can’t eat you, then the spider can’t either.” There was a wet, shuffling sound as Rize pulled something out of her pants pocket. “I’m just going to tell you about this book I’ve been reading. If you find it before I hunt you again, you’ve gotta let me know what you think, okay? This is important!”
Susie barely followed the story. Something about a daimyo and a samurai. It was the last thing she heard as the cold concrete and the rain and the acrid stench of city and blood faded away. She just had Rize’s voice, reading to her as that familiar black void reached out to take her away.
It almost felt like being held. She wished she could stay until the end.
You have such a nice voice, Rize.
And...
...Susie...
...died.