Death to Bumble Bees

4: bee vs doubt

It's been awhile, I apologize! But I've read your comments and I decided to get this chapter out really quickly. I hope you enjoy it! It might not be in the complete same voice as the other chapters, but I hope it's close enough that you still enjoy it (to be fair, the last chapter I was intoxicated by covid lol I don't know if I could create such a voice as I did that day lmao and I still have no idea what I exactly wrote, so if you're a little lost, it's okay, so am I, but we're gonna go for it and figure it out as we go lol). 

Listen to Haunted House by Christina Aguilera

Chapter Four: Bee VS. Doubt

Holding tightly to the quickly melting root-beer floats in her stiff hands (the same two drinks she had ordered at the diner that the waitress boxed up for her), Bee stilled; her heart threatening to break out of her chest as her body processed the hallucination's words.

"I'm here to end you."

Rath was there to end her. A truth--an undeniable truth. And as her heart slowed back down to a healthy rhythm, she suddenly knew that Death--who had been flirting with her throughout her entire life--had finally materialized to finish the job in person... And that Rath was Death.

She turned slowly towards the creature of death, her deep eyes filled with something strange and unsettling. Rath looked down as the silence stretched between them, studying her steady gaze as she searched for a response--her mind stubbornly blank as she tried to pull words out.

Her dark golden eyes, Rath felt, were like a chasm--a black hole that pulled everything into them. He even felt himself tip as the gold shimmered with untold secrets. Would they reveal something unpredictable and chaotic if he stared into them longer? Did each speck of gold honey represent different worlds? She seemed like someone that held an entire universe inside of herself.

"Is that something you can do?" Bee finally spoke, acknowledging Rath for the first time since the diner. Her contemplative voice wasn't challenging, nor did it reveal her worry or fear--if she even worried or feared in the first place. She spoke as if she were politely asking how long someone had been working in their place of business, and if they ever considered changing career paths.

In other words, there was a clear unspoken doubt in her question. Doubt of his abilities.

Rath blanched. His face flinching as he quirked his head; perhaps watching an 'error: does not compute' pop-up in his vision as he looked away from her mesmerizing yet dangerous eyes. "Something... I can do?" He retorted mostly to himself. The outrageous idea of failing to get the job done one he had never even paused to consider. Blinking, he let out an exasperated sound.

Bee watched him freely now, her denial forgotten for the time being. Could something so surreal be what killed her? Could this weird hallucinated being do what a car crash could not? What a poison and fire and explosion could not?

"Yes." He seemingly answered her unspoken questions, his bio-hazardous-like eyes amused as they flickered back to her. "That is 'something I can do'." He nearly laughed--the action almost perfectly natural.

Bee hummed, turning away--a note of disdain in her otherwise calm expression, "I guess I should get my affairs into order then." She didn't hide her sarcasm this time.

Rath clicked his tongue, his bleached eyebrows furrowing as he hopped off the ledge of the window. Circling her, he frowned, "That's it?" He asked almost angrily. He had expected outrage or some sort of yelling and crying, maybe even begging. Cold disbelieving nonchalance had never even occurred to him.

But in truth, it wasn't that Bee disbelieved him. She believed, to a certain extent, that he was Death coming for her--that is, if he wasn't a hallucination. However, she quite honestly didn't see how it would be any different from the other attempts on her life. What could he do that wasn't already tried?

Bee watched the condensation roll down the side of the plastic cup--the ice cream in the root-beer float all but melted now. She felt curious as she placed the straw to her lips, the sweetened flavorful soda swirling on her tongue with little sparkles of carbonation as she took a sip. If Rath could change the sun, mix up the colours of the world around her, and potentially kill her, could he also drink a root-beer float? And if he couldn't, did that mean he couldn't touch her--that he was bluffing? That he really was just a hallucination from the gas fumes she had inhaled?

She held out the untouched cup, thrusting her freckled hand towards his face without a sound. Her eyes, this time, holding a challenge--her brows stitched together as she glared un-movingly at him in wait.

Rath didn't make a move either as he looked at her soot smudged face in wonder; knowing that his newly-materialized skin coming into any contact with hers held the potential to obliterate their entire surroundings in the blink of an eye. Yet, he was almost mad with the temptation--to reach out and trace the star-like constellation of freckles on her face nearly hidden by the black smudges, and feel for himself what it was that made her what she was.

She wasn't like anything he knew. But how was that possible?

Instead, he spoke in a near whisper--leaning into her space around the drink she stubbornly held out for him until his glowing blue eyes were all that she could see.

Bee held her breath. Surely a hallucination couldn't be so detailed to reveal even the smallest of specks of blue in one's eyes? The patchy blonde within the bleached white? The electricity his stare zapped into her bloodstream?

"For both of us, Bumble Bee" Rath began as he looked down at her, ignoring her automatic small whine of disapproval from the nickname, "you must survive as long as you can." He exhaled; his breath noticeably cold on her warming skin as he drew in closer, "There will be no more explosions or arrows purposely shot your way, so all you must do is survive the unpredictable." Rath promised her knowingly as she glanced frantically between his unflinching eyes--her brain understanding there was no way in hell that she was this imaginative. Not when his gaze made it hard to swallow; to talk; to breathe. "And then, when I come back for you..." He murmured almost seductively as his fingers twitched up towards the side of her pink face, "...I'll be the last face you see as death finally wins."

Bee's blood would have gone ice-cold had he not, with the slightest, most daring of movements he couldn't seem to hold back, closed the distance between them: his cold fingertip trailing feather-like against her cheekbone, brushing back a loose curl.

Rath was... So. Undeniably. Real.

"Bumble Bee..." he mumbled in sheer amazement as her knees shook beneath her from the buzz-like sensation growing under her skin where he touched her; Rath's eyes bright with excitement as if she were the wonder and not him.

"It's... Bee." She whispered inaudibly as everything inside of her seemed to stop; captured by whatever magic he exuded from his fingertips. "Just... Bee. Not..." She trailed off, lost in a swirl of silver and blue.

Then, with a soft mumble of a laugh, the world of blue and silver disappeared; leaving her standing alone on the train platform as the root beer float slipped from her grip and splattered onto the ground beneath her. 

End of Chapter Four

Swwoooon, my idea of romance--being softly threatened with the brush of a fingertip lmao 

I hope this was okay! Don't be scared to tell me what it's missing compared to the other chapters. I wrote this one quickly, so I know it has room for improvements lol.