NOVEL SIMPLE 59 - Just don't think about it
Viktor’s body hit the ground with a meaty thud while David stared at it for a few moments blankly, the feral instincts fading away to simmer in the background, seemingly satisfied now that Viktor was dead and the challenge to their supremacy answered with great finality. The body was relatively untouched, almost without wounds, and the deformation of his crushed throat stood out starkly in contrast. A primal surge of exhilaration flooded David after the man hit the floor, his predatory instincts celebrating the kill with waves of visceral satisfaction. For a moment, he was awash in the foreign sensations of excitement and fulfillment. Then reality snapped back into focus, leaving David disgusted - both by his actions and the fact that he had taken such feral gratification in the act. He gagged, appalled at himself.
The room suddenly felt suffocatingly small to David as the adrenaline rush faded. His prey drive, however, was reveling, savoring the vivid loop in his mind replaying Viktor's final seconds with victorious glee. David struggled to control his breathing, his mind ping-ponging between the euphoric satisfaction of his baser urges and the memory of Viktor's last twitches now seared into his consciousness.
He gagged again and backed away violently, almost tripping in his haste before he whirled and sprinted to the door before stopping. He shot a glance toward Edgar, still lying in a mangled heap on the floor, and briefly considered finishing him off as well before he recoiled from the thought.
I don’t want to kill him…for all I know Viktor forced him into helping right from the start. The hostages here might know, but I’d have to ask them first. There’s still Paul to deal with, so I can’t just leave him here…fuck.
David loped back to stand over the toad, swaying one ear to face the door as he rapidly debated his options before coming to a horrible realization. He had no way to restrain the man in the long term and potentially no time to wait for another option to present itself if Paul returned. Any damage that he had done would likely be regenerated in only a few hours, plus the man was at best complicit in all of Viktor’s butchery and at worst actively assisting in it, which seemed likely given his role as Viktor’s guard. A choked sob escaped David's throat as he raised the talons on his right wing, then drove them down hard, feeling the thin hide part easily to his feral sides delight. He kept pummeling the defenseless man with Nocturnal Strikes until the notification chime signaled he had finally killed him, then immediately bolted from the room while his subconscious crowed with delight at the savagery.
–You have slain Edgar Hernadez–
–Gained 800xp!–
Why was it so easy? Is that all it takes? I gotta get out of here, I hate this. Everyone at Riverport got along just fine, why did this have to happen?
As David sprinted through the lobby outside the open doorway, feeling oddly numb and disconnected despite the sudden hyper-realistic appearance of his surroundings and the emotional storm he desperately ignored. His entire assault lasted less than 5 minutes from entering to leaving the room, the whole event incredibly surreal as it replayed in his mind. He darted down the hallway, no longer clinging stealthily to the ceiling as he searched for any exit point he could reach. As he skidded around a corner he finally saw a window, long swamp grass barely visible on the other side through the accumulated grime, and he launched himself toward it frantically. David slowed only long enough to blast the fragile material with a Screech, quickly shattering it before he blew through the window frame, ignoring the tear and pull of the fragments as they pierced his skin.
–You have taken 4 Piercing Damage–
He hurled himself into the sky without a second thought, wings pounding the air as he leveled off and burned a large amount of Stamina to accelerate. He reached his top speed quickly, thundering through the moonlit night sky as he tried to outrun the memory of what had just happened, simply bolting away from the source of his horror in a straight line. Blood pounded in his head and his muscles burned feverishly as he climbed higher and higher into the night before he threw his dark leathery wings out and began to glide. The swamp below him tilted as he began to turn, slowly arcing his way toward where he felt Claire had positioned herself within the sinking city of Redfield.
Just don’t think about it. You had to do it, he made you have to do it, it’s not your fault he was...bad. You just saved everyone in there from the same thing you did to him. Just don’t think about it.
David leaned forward, allowing himself to descend. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to clear his mind and enjoy the feeling of weightlessness, the wind tugging at his fur and rippling under his wings, and forget the sensation of Viktor's throat crunching in his jaws. He'd killed monsters far more savagely without a second thought beyond fearing death, but they hadn't tried to bargain for their lives moments before the end, and that had disturbed him more than he thought it would. He let out an explosive Screech, not bothering to focus it in any direction as he simply vented his frustration and anxiety in one of the only ways that he could, and was slightly surprised when he felt a bit drained of the negative emotions afterward.
A faint roar sounded from the near distance in reply to his Screech, and he snapped his eyes open and refocused himself before angling himself into a steeper descent as he approached Claire’s position. Crumbling buildings loomed up out of the darkness below him as he finally caught sight of her lurking in the shadows of an alleyway and looking slightly worse for wear. Several patches of the mud on her enormous body looked singed, and the coating on her head and jaws had been completely worn away, with several prominent burns visible on her snout. David’s wings beat the air, filling his wings like sails before landing on a mostly-intact fire escape dangling from the building beside where Claire stood, allowing his wings to droop as he draped his talons over the rails and returned her gaze.
“David! You okay? That snake is a real bastard, and I,” Claire paused almost immediately, “You alright? You’re looking a little…droopy. Did you, uh…”
David nodded slowly before a torrent of words burst from his mouth, “Yeah, I got him. He didn’t even have a chance to do anything, and I got the other goon too because I didn’t know if I should leave him or if he was a bad guy and I couldn’t figure out a way to lock him up or something and I don’t know if it was the right thing to do and I–”
“Whoa, whoa. David, take a deep breath, okay?” Claire clacked her jaws anxiously, “Are you hurt?”
“No! That’s the worst part! They couldn’t even do anything, they didn’t have a fucking chance!” David wailed as he lost his composure, “I know I had to do it but it was so easy Claire! It was easy! If I barely made it out it’d be different, but they both just…I ambushed them and they got hit with Gloom and that was it. They couldn’t even fight back, not really. They just…went down, and I leveled up.”
“Oh.” Claire mumbled halfheartedly, “If uh…if it makes you feel any better I got the snake. He followed me a little bit too far and I got him by the tail when he tried to turn around. I was just trying to shake him, but I think I pulled too hard and he…he snapped like a whip and I got the notification right after.”
David nodded woodenly, “Are we bad people too? I feel…nasty, dirty maybe.”
“What?!” Claire snorted angrily, “No! We just saved a bunch of people from being killed by the same people we…well, you know. You really think Viktor would have stopped?”
“No. You know what he said to me?” David sagged down on the fire escape as it wobbled slightly, “He said, ‘It’s none of your business, why do you care?’ Like he was cutting in line or moving someone else's laundry. I just…I don’t like hurting people, Claire. I don’t want to ever have to do that again, it made me sick.”
He stared into her eye as she lifted her head to snuffle at the blood he was drenched in with concern while he collected his thoughts.
How do I even explain this without sounding like I’ve cracked and gone completely nuts? She’s gonna think I’m having a mental breakdown or something but…I need to know.
“Claire…do you ever…sometimes I get these…instinctual reactions to things lately. Usually when I’m fighting or in danger, but tonight it was different. It was like I was in the back seat to my own body, and I let go and let it happen…Does that ever happen to you?” David finished quietly.
She stared at him for a few moments in silence before she replied, “Yeah, a couple of times. It’s always when people smaller than me that I like are in trouble. It always feels like ‘Get away from the little ones, get away from my nest, or I’ll eat you’. I’ve never even had a nest…”
“So it’s not just me then. That’s good, I think. I thought I was…” David hesitated for a few heartbeats, “I almost lost myself in it for a minute. I can still feel it right now, in the back of my head. All it knows is killing, and hunting, but it hated Viktor for ‘challenging’ me.”
Claire’s eyes glowed menacingly in the dark, “...During the fight with the Area Boss, it hit me hard when you told me that Dallas was hurt. I got ‘put in the back seat’, like you said. I didn’t snap out of it until I tore its head off.”
"So what do we do now, then?" David chittered, abruptly shifting the subject as discomfort crept in. "Is that it? Is everything over now? I’m sorry, I’m feeling a little lost right now."
“No, we go let the rest of those people know they’re free to leave if they haven’t already, Viktor probably has some of them locked up. Or we point them to Herold over in Riverport, he’ll probably take care of them. God knows they could probably use somewhere stable to stay for a while.” Claire added hopefully after a moment, “Plus we were going to go to that observatory remember? It was your idea, right?”
“Yeah…can I ride on your back? I need to think about some stuff.”
“Of course, you moron. Hop on, let's go.” Claire rumbled amicably as she angled her muck-covered back towards him.
David’s snout wrinkled in horror at the smell of the swamp scum, “You know what? I think I’ll fly, clear my head a little bit.”