Gloom (complete)

Hopesville

Her fingers were wet with blood as she held onto her side. Her wound should have been healed by now, it hadn't been that bad. She frowned and she and Blain rounded a corner, deciding to cut through the empty parking-lot of Wiggle's Market and Deli as a short cut to her house. Though it was bare of cars, she could make out the bright blue handles of a few abandoned shopping carts.

Jacey slowed down and frowned at the glass doors and windows at the front of the grocery store. Only one window remained it tact, a sell poster of buy 1 get 1 free of bags Grand Ohio potato's still clung to it. It was only odd because all of the other building in Hopesville were in tact, actually, windows had only been blown out of Lester-Miller as far as she could see; though to be fair, most of her attention had been on making certain she hadn't tripped over her own feet.

That was her very first glimpse of the looting. As she and Blain moved further into town, it became more apparent things were very different in Hopesville. Every store they went by had a broken window and the doors were thrown open. At a smaller grocery store there was a whole cart filled with cans and bottled water propping open one its glass doors.

Blain stopped and stared. She also stopped briefly glancing between Blain and the cart. Her stomach growled, but her side ached horribly, off-setting her hunger.

"We can grab a couple of those cans..." He trailed before glancing around. "We...You're bleeding..."

She blinked at his sudden change in subject and looked down at her blood soaked hand. She had been keeping track, it wasn't as much as appeared. She was fine.

"You're bleeding," Blain repeated once again. White tuffs of air seeped from his mouth and floated around his head. "Why in the hell didn't you say anything? You're a dummy but you're not a freaking idiot... I thought, anyway."

He grabbed her arm again, which had let go of only a few minutes after reaching Hopesville, and began walking again.

Jacey groaned, Blain's hold was like a metal cuff, tight and uncomfortable. He yanked her forward, mumbling under his breath about coming back and searching for food.

"I'm fine," the girl assured after a few seconds, licking her freezing lips. She yanked her arm out of his hold and winced lowly as her wound pulled. "I... can...walk on my own." She bit her lip holding in a grimace. "Thank you... though..."

Blain groaned and walked forward, ignoring her. Jacey sighed and pressed her hand into her side again. She noticed a few blotches of red on the ground and half-turned, surprised upon seeing dots of red sticking out brightly against the white ground. She frowned and kept her detection to herself and followed after Blain.

Something giggled when they were few blocks away from her home. Above them, across an empty snow covered parking lot, on the far side of the top of a church was a large Inkie. It was as big as big as a... large baby whale while the others had only been man sized. It's large body clung to the brown brick a few feet below the white cross. Its black body shuddered as its bone chilling laughter loudly echoed out, vibrating the very air.

They both froze and stared up at the creature, mouths open, eyes wide.

Fear kicked what was left in Jacey's stomach and latched its invisible fingers around her neck. She already couldn't breathe, but now it was as if the air was much too thin. She found herself too aghast to even breathe.

Its body jerked grotesquely as a part of it extended from its base and slithered down the building's side. It giggled again, but it hadn't attacked. It was almost as if it hadn't noticed her and Blain.

No. She quickly realized. It hadn't noticed yet. They were only a few yards away and it hadn't noticed. She chanced a glance towards Blain who was still watching the creature, watching the black appendage glide along and down the building before easily settling on top of the frozen ground.

His body stiffened and she noticed he had stopped breathing. She found herself freezing as well, not even daring to move enough to turn back and face the creature. Instead she watched Blain watch the creature.

His blue eyes were wide and slowly slide left. He was watching the creature's limb move along the ground, stretch out feet from its body. Blain didn't turn his head, he never once took his eyes off the creature. His already wide eyes widened further. Her stomach sank as her nerves began to tremble underneath her flesh. When is lips parted and his bad arm gave a trembling twitch, she couldn't help but to quickly whirl herself around.

Its dark arm was behind her, now thinner with its distance from its base. She was met by a horrifying and nauseating sight. Its black arm had developed a tiny white tongue and it... was... licking at trail of blood she had left behind.

It all happened in a matter of seconds but it felt insanely slow to Jacey.

'It' gave a high pitched giggle, this one louder and filled with excitement, its whole body bunched up, almost compressing in on itself before it vaulted off the church and landed on the ground with an earth shaking thud. A wave of snow lifted into the air, feet high and was sent in their direction and rained down on them.

She felt her body being forced down as her feet came off in under her, snow beating her into the ground. She cried out in surprise and fear as her legs were yanked from underneath her and snow pelted her into the ground.

She was only under for a few seconds before her hand frantically began to push snow off her and she crawled from underneath the mound of cold flurries. She quickly sucked in air as she worked on getting above and standing on her feet. Her actions being carried by adrenaline, the now snow covered girl didn't even notice the cold and pain.

Standing on top on shaky legs, she quickly looked around, gaze locking on the large black beast working its way forward, it's movement torpid and sluggish, as if he couldn't work its large body a quick as its smaller kin.

Her insides lurched upwards painfully at the vexing view of the thing working its way in her direction, it was half way.

"Blain..." She called out quickly looking around, unable to see the boy. "Blain!" She called out again, daring to look away from the creature. Her pulse thudded painfully inside her. "Blain!" She cried out frantically.

A half a second later a gloved hand burst from the hill of snow a few feet from her and began to frantically push at the flurries around him. She quickly moved forward and grabbed his hand and pulled. Biting her lip as pain raced over her she tugged with all of her strength, releasing Blain from his snowy grave.

He fell on top of her, sucking in air at an alarming speed, his body shaking. Though he must have caught a glimpse of the creature coming there way because in second he was on his feet, yanking her up with him. He was unstable for a moment, awkwardly dragging his feet forward in his attempt to run. It took a few stumbling steps, but finally he had both of them running, cutting across a hotel's parking lot.

"I...live on parkway road in... the third house with the tree in the front and," Jacey stumbled a little, her mind filling with haze, " a key... we have a key underneath pot." The girl said, unsure if she would be coherent enough to say in a few minutes.

Blain said nothing, only moved quicker. All she could feel after a while was her legs moving and buckling under her weight at times, but there was always something stopping her from hitting the ground. All she could hear was her blood rushing and her own heavy breathing mixing in with someone else's.

She wasn't even sure why she was running after awhile.