Of Monsters And Men | Discontinued |

Episode Eleven - Mutt

The Thing curls in her stomach, heavy yet light. She slips from her door, not quite cold, not anymore. Her lips curl. Her shoes, boots, the only pair that didn't seem to be falling apart besides heels, even feel awkward, clunky and oddly heavy. She doesn't like them, but she can't take them off. It, most likely, would draw attention hat she doesn't want or need. She needs to blend in, to stop the stares she gets.

Still, even trying her best to blend in, people stare and whisper. She looks over them all; the haggard looking women and men whose eyes are alight with fury. She drops her shoulders, shuffling further across the sidewalk, sticking to the walls of buildings she passes. She glances up, finding herself at the street the man told her to go to. The man she doesn't know anything about. She wanders down further, the Thing creeping in her muscles when the hair on the back of her neck raises.

"Evren." She looks over, seeing two men in suits, the rest on black clothes, holding guns. Her stomach flips, yet she remains carefully calm on the outside. One man is smiling, hair greasy and disheveled. He gestures to the boxes he's leaning against. "One o' these are your employers'." He pats it. "Didn't expect you to get here so fast, ya know? With all the time you been missin', we thought ya ran off with your Employer's Mutt."

A car door shuts behind her, and footsteps approach. She twists her head, eyeing the new arrivals, face falling. She shifts on her feet. Two groups of men, enemies, that makes Rot stir uncomfortably in her stomach. Turning her back to either of them is a bad idea- one that makes her stomach feel heavy, eyes glancing back and forth, over the faces of the strangers, new and old.

"Who is that?" The arrival spits, glaring at her. "Don't tell me that this bitch took over my job?"

"What?" Evren asks, furrowing her brows. She's confused. This person called her. She was going to see if they know anything about her, to try and connect the dots between who she was and who she is now. This trade isn't innocent-- their postures, how they grip their guns, their careful eyes-- they all set off alarms in her mind that are kept invisible from their gaze by her face falling carefully flat, even as her heart pounds. She isn't sure how she's managing to stop herself from recoiling. That feeling, not the Thing but not her, is growing hotter and yet colder in her chest. Something foreign, yet unabashedly her, is enjoying this. She, Evren, hates it.

"Oh, shit." The arrival mutters, staring at her with wide eyes. "You're the messenger, Evren, aren't you?" He asks, hand creeping towards the gun on his hip. "Our employer said you disappeared. Said you died." His eyes crinkle, his lip peeling back into a snarl. "He mourned you, his mutt did, too."

Evren frowns, her chin suddenly trembling at the display of anger. "Mutt?" She mumbles, her voice oddly calm. It feels wrong. The man scoffs, sliding his gun free from its holster. She stares at it, unable to tear her gaze away from the glittering metal.

"Oh, please, you and the mutt always had a thing going on. Fisk let you have your fun, but he didn't-" The mans words stutter to a stop, his arm falling for just a millisecond before he jerks it straight, pointing the barrel at her head, teeth bared. "He didn't even let me have my wife. My wife, damnit. Yet you got to fuck his mutt." He scoffs. "Hell, there's been some rumors that ya did more than fucking. No ring on your finger, though, eh?"

Her heart slams to a stop in her chest. The air leaves her lungs. For just a second-- before she could even remember the sound of it-- a name. Someone, someone important, pulling her to a car, shoving her in. She's laughing so hard she can't breathe. Brown eyes melt into honey underneath the light-- It swirls through her head before disappearing into the black abyss of her head, leaving her begging for more, her temples aching. She flinches at the feeling, hands raising to her hair.

The gun fires and she recoils, clamping her eyes shut. Something covers her skin much faster than the bullet reaches for her. She blinks, slowly, opening her gaze to see herself taller, feel herself be so much stronger than before, with skin that glistens dark green with neon veins. The Thing is around her, within her. A part of her. The Thing growls, deeper than she's heard in her mind, and pounces. The man who dared to shoot her screams as the Thing descends, digging its teeth into his neck, mouth encasing his head. It jerks, again and again, toying with his garbled screeches as bullets bounce off of its skin, hunched over the man until it tears his head off. It stands, turning its head towards the rest of the strangers, biting down on the head.

Skull erupts across its-her- their tongue, blood falling down their shared throat. She isn't sure if it's her or the Thing that releases a pleased hum, swallowing the fragments of bone, blood, and brain matter. The Thing jumps, primally, growling, pushing another man to the ground, digging its face into his intestines as he screams and thrashes, tugging them and splattering them across the asphalt before it moves on, hunting the men as they scatter. No one tries to shoot at them, anymore. They run, screaming with their eyes wide, until the Thing, Evren , crushes them to the ground.

Then there's no one left. The Thing remains covering her flesh, panting. Blood is covering the Things face, coating their chest and hands. She can feel the blood on its teeth, its skin. She can feel the human hair stuck in their maw and in the back of their throat. She tilts its head, their head, lifting her hand to watch it copy her movements. The Thing doesn't force her to be still, only watching and feeling as she stretches their fingers and toes, an odd grin splitting their head even further. The last time she was covered in the Thing, she couldn't feel or see anything, left groggy and unsure about what was up or down. Now she feels the Thing thrumming through her veins, a permanent growl rising in her throat, lungs taking in more air than before, towering over the dead men.