thearena | (no subject)

Who| R and Ellie
What| R deteriorates over the Arena and makes the mistake of trying to attack Ellie. She puts a stop to it. Permanently.
Where| A bit away from the theater: around town where Ellie is on a supply run.
When| Just after Hell-rena
Warnings/Notes| Zombie stuff, possible gore, zombie killing.

Zombies don't do well in heat - toss in humidity on top of the hunger and R's such a mess that even the few fans he has watching him are hoping he gets taken out, fast.

The gore from Eponine is still caked onto his chin in chunks here and there, one side of his face sagging under the humidity. The hunger and the droning sound vibrating across his corpse. He can't think. He can't even manage a simple, kindergarten sentence. Most days he tries to pick a dark corner, ignore the walls peeling down, and try to take his mind off the hunger. Eventually he even forgets the droning. The fog comes back. Today he lurches around from house to house, sniffing every now and then, drooling a little bit all over his sweater.

He comes across Ellie in a small alley between houses. It's dark. He stares at her, sniffs once, and then lurches and sways toward her. It's just foggy enough that it's difficult to see how bad he looks.

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She hadn't wanted to slip out long. Just a quick run across the street to scrounge supplies - in and out, while the fog kept her under cover, before the world went to fucking hell again.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw R - mistaking him for something else - then calmed down immediately when she saw his face. "Fuck, R," She muttered, the hand on the knife stuck in her belt relaxing. "Nearly stabbed the shit out of you. You alright?"

R isn't alright, he isn't okay at all. He's rotting and hungry and he knows he doesn't want to kill the girl talking to him - she knows his name - and feed and live just for a few minutes off her memories. R doesn't answer with anything other than a groan as he materializes out of the fog: both arms come up, one reduced to a stump at the elbow, the other caked with Eponine's blood.

He lunges at Ellie with an urgent moan.

If she were someone else, perhaps she wouldn't have moved quite so fast. If she were anyone else, perhaps the instincts wouldn't kick in, perhaps she'd still be struggling with the concept, perhaps she'd still be in reach when he lunged at her.

But Ellie has lived too long in a world meant to kill her to stay in anyone's reach, and she stumbles backward, the knife immediately drawn.

"R!" She snaps at him, harshly, as if she can snap him out of it - but she's already feeling sick to her stomach because she can see it, in his eyes, in those dead, dead eyes.

He isn't there. His arm is gone, he's covered in blood, and he isn't there.

"Wake the fuck up!" she says, her voice tighter, higher, the knife already out of her belt, held up defensively in front of her.

He almost seems like he would hesitate at the sound of his name, something flickering behind his Dead-grey eyes. It passes the next second, R groaning as he ignores the knife in her hand and that "don't fuck with me" stance from Ellie. Mostly he has his eyes on her chest, that sixth sense he has like every other zombie searching, telling him she has a beating heart and that he needs to sink his teeth into, say, her arm. Or shoulder.

R lunges, his good hand reaching out so he can grapple, grab, claw at anything and get tangled up. At that point, he'll probably be close enough to bite.

He thinks, in the back of his head in the little voice that grows quieter the longer the hunger goes unfulfilled, that he'll regret this.

It's instinct, that has her lash out, knife aiming anywhere near his jaw. She needs to keep his mouth away - knows what could happen if she's bitten. He survived losing his jaw once before, right? She didn't - it wouldn't necessarily kill him--

Whether she meant to be lethal or not, however, had absolutely no bearing on how viciously she struck - her instinct for survival hardened to a fine edge.

"Fucking! R! R!"

The knife catches him in the side of the jaw. It cuts through rotting flesh and knocks out some of the teeth he'd surprisingly managed to keep during his stint as a stumbling, cannibalistic corpse. R makes a snapping motion like he wants to gnaw on the knife, a desperate moan vibrating up the blade. His forward stagger gets thrown to the side by the weapon stuck in his face, the zombie's remaining hand clawing uselessly only centimeters away from Ellie.

"Gggh!"

At this rate, he'll work his way free of the knife, teething at her with whatever's left of his face...

The tears are stinging at her eyes as the reality of the situation really dawns on her. She tears the knife free, swiping it sideways right through his jaw, rending flesh and sending black, sludge-like blood splattering everywhere. She sobs, immediately stabbing again.

And again.

And again.

The knife flashes with a vicious quickness, each stab meant for anywhere in his head.

She had to kill him. She knew that, now. She had to kill him, and she'd tried so hard--

She sobbed, again, the first of the tears falling, as she stabbed one of people she loved to death.