Death to Bumble Bees

17: bee vs hunger

TW: a bit of gore and blood 

Listen to Adrenalize by In This Moment 

Chapter Seventeen: Bee VS. Hunger

Bee knew she wasn't in the same reality anymore because suddenly she was choking, and it wasn't on her feelings.

The stifling still air was thick like liquid. Cold like the darkness encroaching her. And she knew all too well where she had slipped into. Raising her head and opening her watery eyes, she uncovered her ears. Shivering, she sat in the middle of a dark forest--trees on every side of her with a red moon hanging low in the clear sky. Was she not even in Europe anymore? Did she accidentally will herself here? How could any part of herself want to be here? Was it really her that kept pulling herself back in the Shadow Domain?

And if not herself, who? Or maybe, what was doing it? Why?

She didn't want to breathe, let alone move, on the chance that she'd attract unwanted attention. But Rath hadn't told her how to open the portal door without a mirror. She had to find a mirror--maybe even just a reflection. She'd settle for a puddle at this point. Anything that gave her some sort of hope of making it out of such a terrifying inhuman place.

Standing up, she felt her body recoil with fear at every hint of a sound or movement--waiting for the claws to grab her from deep within the twisted shadows that encircled her. Of course, the silence that stretched on and on was more eerie than what she was trying to hear for. The only noise was the sound of her shoes snapping the dead branches beneath her feet. Walking around the forest, she could feel herself going deeper and deeper into it's belly--like she was being swallowed alive by the land itself. Her skin prickled with shivers, her skin cold to the touch as she held herself close--rolling down her thin sweater's sleeves as she clutched at the grey material. It felt like she was walking for hours, seeing the same dead trees as the ones she had already passed. Her teeth chattered now as she violently shivered; the air like a vacuum of heat. Even the moon didn't seem to care to tell her the time as it stood high in the sky, unmoving. Had it always been dark there? She couldn't remember a time where it was sunny, but was it always so dark?

She felt tired, on edge, and ready to collapse into something hot; and at the same time, she felt her emotions stir frustratingly. Anger was beginning to seep into her bones.

Why her? She was just Bee. A girl that had done nothing special to garner something so spectacularly dark. Her normal trauma she could kind of handle. Sure, no one ever deserved it, but it was normal (as normal as traumatic pain due to someone else's carelessness or evilness can be). But this? This was so far from normal, it was on a whole different plane. Literally--she was not in Kansas anymore. Wasn't it enough when Death was courting her? Why did she also have to become trapped in his icy cold hometown in the middle of what felt like a frozen tundra (minus the millions of trees and lack of actual snow)? How was any of this okay with the stupid universe?

Trembling, her fingers were hurting as she dug them into her armpits. With a groan, she crouched down into a ball; trying to warm herself up enough to start walking again. Why was it so cold. She wanted to scream and cry and curse whoever was in charge of the whole makeup of this world and every other world out there.

In the midst of Bee's complaints and woe-is-me monologues, the figures looking out with eyes as black as the deepest abysses within the cosmos, had finally found her. A scent like that of another life and an aura of familiarity called out for them; her presence like a siren song as they drawled forwards with no thoughts or memories of their own. They communicated together with sharp winds howling around them in an otherwise still environment and through abstract images of and about their prey--the smell, the sounds, the need. Nothing intelligent save for what they could feel burning in the back of their throats...

Hunger.

A deep and consuming hunger that pulled them forwards. A hunger that lived within them permanently and caused an icy fire to starve them further with each passing second. A never ending hunger for life. But there was something more to it--to the presence that they were now hunting. They couldn't fathom what, nor could they stop to ponder in the first place. But it was there, somewhere embedded within them. Something like a whisper of knowledge hidden away from them. A long ancient knowledge they were now incapable of understanding.

But perhaps, they once had. Perhaps, in another life, it was a knowledge that carried them forwards as it did now. Instead of claws grabbing towards it, maybe they had reached out with hands.

When Bee looked up again, something in her body was acutely aware of the fact that she was no longer alone. She could feel the air sickening with that ink-like substance that blocked her lungs. A wind in the distance blew through the trees, loud, sharp, and cut too quickly. And eyes. She could see them now, watching her with an empty insatiable hunger.

Her throat scratched dryly as she stood slowly, painfully aware of how they had left no room for her to escape. Wherever her eyes fell, she saw eyes staring back at her. Her eyes stung with tears, knowing this was it. That this was going to be her tragic and inevitable end. She had no way out, and if she could have willed a portal or pulled herself out of the Shadow Domain, she knew she already would have. It seemed, she could only slip into danger, she could not slip out.

Finally, the creatures lunged--their twisted and distorted bodies reaching and stretching for her. Their talon-like claws slashed into her skin mercilessly as she tried to cry out; the sound choked by the air itself. She tried to fight back, but it was like fighting mist. She didn't know where to hit or kick and when she lashed out, their bodies were like mirages against her fists. Not really there. Like they didn't exist. Not even in the Shadow Domain.

Only, their claws digging into her skin, and their rows upon rows of dagger-like teeth tearing into her flesh were very, very real. She had never experienced so much physical pain in her life.

Thick red blood pooled around her now as she fell to her knees and shielded her pain-struck face; her body being sliced and mutilated before her eyes as a numbing sensation spread along the wounds, doing nothing except keeping her from falling into black unconsciousness to leave all the pain behind. All of her overwhelming feelings were bubbling up inside of her now--the anger of having to go through so much pain screaming inside of her.

Stop, stop, stop, stop. she chanted inside of her head, begging for the pain to go away--for her to just cease to exist already if that's what it would take. It hurt. The claws scratching her skin in so many varying degrees.

With another slash landing between her scratched up shoulder blades that cut into her deeply, flaying her flesh open in angry red slices, she finally released a scream--one that ripped out of the stifling air at last, seeming to tear into the Shadow Domain itself in rippling echoes.

"Stop!" She shrieked, her voice like a raging storm before taking in lung fulls of oxygen to demand them to release her.

Only, she didn't have to... they had already stopped.

End of Chapter Seventeen

Yick. I didn't know how graphic to go with this tbh. I don't want it to be an EXTREMELY heavy book, so I kept it to a lighter visual. But man, the image in my head was anything BUT light. Woo. Poor Bee. Side note: This song is another one of my favourites. It's SO good and her music in general is *chefs kiss* I know it's about sex, but I thought the hunger thing still fit well with the vibe hahaha