dirty paws

Vincenzo was in his usual haunts.

Haunts took on a funny meaning here. The Underground was Vincenzo's frequent hangout place, but it was also where he looked for victims to disturb. Disturbing ranged from simple heckling to intimate torture, depending. He supposed the proper way to refer to what he was doing, was that he was out here to have a good time.

As usual, the Underground proved to be entertaining. Not long after Vincenzo took a stroll in the sidewalks among the junkies, smugglers and no-good punks hanging out in alleyways, he found something peculiar. The scent of blood and pus wasn't too foreign in the Underground, but the bloody, disgusting, feral mess he caught sight of was.

Was this a present? Did his Christmas gift come early this year? He felt excitement bubble up from his chest. He trailed behind him for a bit, and when he got close enough — oh! he noticed! how exciting! — Vincenzo picked up a small pebble from the ground and hit the nearby steal dumpster to catch his attention, screaming, "Hey! Come and get me!"

Now, Vincenzo wasn't one to remember faces and names of inconsequential people, and he definitely didn't remember this guy's name, but he recognized him. How could he not? Vincenzo frequented the library more times than he'd care to admit, and that was a face he recognized there. A meek man. Uninteresting. He didn't care for his secrets before. This? This was quite the surprise.

Vincenzo intended to give chase, but his own bad physical health and the inhuman speed with which the creature was moving didn't give him much of a chance. He barely reached the end of the alley before getting caught in his grasp, hitting his back on the cement wall, sharp pain on his back. Fuck his own weak body.

He'd bitten off more than he could chew, he knew, but there was still a chance to fix this. Vincenzo so rarely did anything in the Underground without the presence of a rift to escape to nearby. This one was fairly close, just five or so meters away from him.

He didn't expect the creature would be moving this fast. He checked the magical reserves in his arm and his own mental strength. There was a bit of electricity left, but he doubted he would that would suffice. He attempted to push him back with a small wave of electricity and a burst of telekinetic energy. And then? He hoped he could make it to that five meters into safety.

It's too early in the day to be gored, he thought bitterly.

Vincenzo felt his blood turn to ice, and it took him a second before he registered the emotion as fear. Huh. Fear. He hadn't felt that in a while. He collected horrors and shady situations like one collected antique stamps, and he thought he would be desensitized to it all by now, but he was so terribly wrong.

He wanted to laugh at himself. Really, what was he so afraid? Monsters? Pain? Death? Dying? He thought he was already a big enough monster to stare at other monsters in the eyes without blinking, but apparently not. Oh, Manta Carlos sure did love to surprise him. Vincenzo attempted to run from the beast, and it was so pathetic a move that he felt mildly relieved for being punished for it when the creature went for his ankle and he went down like a lanky tree. A fitting end for cowardly prey.

Except that was the terms of the contract, wasn't it? It wasn't going to end. He was going to feel all of the creature's teeth and its hunger ripping apart his flesh. All because teenage him got a little too ambitious and made a deal with an abomination he thought he could control.

That stupid son of a bitch.

"Ffffffffuck," he said, and then he laughed as a painful ache settled into his bones while he was pulled him into the darkness. He tried to kick him off a couple of times and knock him back with telekinesis. After the first surge, however, it was only about as good as hitting the zombie with a light punch on the face. He might have accepted his fate, but that didn't mean he wasn't going down without a fight. He pulled out his knife, ready to injure with claw, blade and his own teeth if he had to.

Everything was too much and not in a good way. The stench of the alleyway was enough to make his eyes burn, sting and water, and his stomach churn uncomfortably with fear and disgust. He kicked and squirmed and thrashed, but it was all for naught when his position and his own weak body were working against him, limbs about as forceful as a limp noodle. Panic rose in his chest as he was pinned, trapped and cornered. Helpless. Expensive clothes ripping into ribbons and caked with blood. Fresh prey for a creature he couldn't fight or control. This was the sort of feeling he wanted to inspire in his victims, and of course, karma loved to fuck him over. He always knew he was going to go down poetically.

When he was bit, he let out a loud, pained cry and stabbed the zombie's face, aiming straight for the eye. He wasn't sure if he got him. It was hard to tell, when the pain blurred everything into a near indecipherable mess and his neck burst open into an alarming open gash. He wasn't sure what was happening to his body, but something was up, and Algrogath was attacking it at full force.

With no regard to his physical state at all. As per usual. The black, slimy, grimy parts of him throbbed and squeezed against his sensitive flesh, and he felt himself break inside and outside.

A loud ringing noise overtook his thoughts and numbed him, mentally. Not a voice but a suggestion bubbled up from the deepest trenches of his thoughts, and it said, Give up, Vinnie. You can free yourself from this pain if you let your consciousness slip. I can let you sleep, now. Thick, inky fluid began to spill and clot the wounds as they emerged. Algrogath was right. Vincenzo didn't want this.

But fuck it if he was going to let that Eldritch son of a bitch win.

Vincenzo felt his consciousness begin to slip from the pain dragging him down but he reached out to choke, and hopefully break off, the zombie's neck with his monster claw. While normally it had a grip that could crumple thick steel like rubber, he was weakened, but he held on, and even if it wasn't strong right now, it was sturdy and sharp. He could slice off his neck little by little or faint trying. His life depended on it.

That was it!

It was a glimmer of hope, no matter how tiny. When the zombie snapped back, Vincenzo turned over to his stomach and began to crawl away. The black eldritch bile spread all over the pavement like a putrid oil spill. It smelled sharp and rotten. His own eyes were watering. It was disgusting, all of it.

Vincenzo stabbed a nearby dumpster on the side with his claw. It pierced through the metal easily, and he pulled himself away from the creature as much as he could using whatever was left of his energy. His human arm had a more difficult time trying to grasp something, slipping on the slippery but somehow still sticky metal of the dumpster. It was frantic, desperate, and his body reacted so badly to the movements that he ended up vomiting black bile on the the ground and all over his shirt. The taste was thick and unpleasant, bitterness festering on his tongue.

Algrogath was working overtime to regenerate him and it was so painful. His vision was doubling. He was slipping, dying.

Please, if there's a god, let this end.