Realistic or Modern Eating For Two

[Just A Guy]

kuro | causter | winters​

"Another one?" Detective Winters asks. She keeps her distance, hands in coat pockets, standing in the entrance to the alleyway whilst the uniforms assess the corpse.
"Same markings as the others, ma'am. Same—" the officer cuts off, gesturing uncertainly to the neon acid green fluid surrounding him and soaking into his boats. "Whatever the hell this is."
"A close derivative of human stomach acid, densely populated by a bio-luminescent bacterium we have yet to identify," Winters informs him. She sounds like she's been a snob, but it's as much to reassure herself as it is to inform him. Reality is, they have no fucking clue what is going on. Well. Aside from them.

'Them' consists of four individuals who show up to the crime scene within the hour. 'Them' is more officially known as the SID, or Supernatural Investigations Department. It was formed six months prior, right around the time of the seventh killing.

This makes the twenty-second. And still, neither Detective Winters nor anyone else not on the spook squad has a fucking clue what is going on. The detective watches the spooks unpack themselves from the SUV they arrived in, tinted windows, bulletproof plating, the lot. She's preceded them at every killing, and knows them by sight now. Likewise, she knows their department head. She knows far more intimately than she would like that he is a total fucking asshole.

Kuro, no known surname, slinks out of the SUV with the lazy arrogance of a hunting cat, and smirks the second he catches sight of Winters. He isn't fucking japanese, he's white as a fucking ghost and Winters is 99% certain that the name is an affectation, and a probably racist one at that. As per usual, he looks like a complete mess. A well-dressed, beautiful-in-a-damaged-way mess, but a mess that is entirely inappropriate for their line of work. Sporting one black eye, a broken, bruised nose, and a split lip, he looks marginally less like he's guest starring in a shitty Fight Club remake than he did last week. Bruises indicating fingermarks purple the pale shock of his neck, disappearing below the line of his collar.

And all of this would be fine, something Winters could chalk up to being part of the job, if he wasn't such a total—
"Still playing at solving this one, Winters?" He interrupts her internal venom with a drawl. He stops before her, hands shoved in the pockets of his bomber jacket. "Cute. You might get a clue what is going on by the fiftieth one, I reckon. Figured out what the green shit is yet?"
Winters lists of the forensic report, same as for the uniform. This time, it's anything but reassuring.
"And you know why it's there?"

Biting her tongue, resisting the urge to tell him to go fuck himself, Winters goes with one of her more adventurous theories. "Someone's doing experiments on these people, and dumping the corpses when they're dead. Whatever they're doing to people, it's interferring with their digestive enzymes and—"

She's cut off by the asshole laughing.

"Oh Winters, Sweetie, no. No, they're eating people." He just smiles at her look of incredulity. "On which note; Causter, bring out the pet."

Causter, the tall, narrow one in glasses, goes into the boot of the SUV. Winters can hear a noise that is neither like a growl nor a slither, and yet somehow manages to ghost past both into a horrific, wet sound that has her neck and palms sweating. Causter tugs at something that sounds like a leash, and a moment later, approaches with someone on a leash.

This someone is stooped over, covered in scratches and bruising, and looks like they haven't eaten in months. The only thing that stops Winters calling Amnesty or shooting Kuro right then and there is the one, tiny, awful fact that this someone's mouth and jaw is smeared with bile. Bright, acidic green, luminescent bile.

 

[thenightmaredarling]

Molly | Pet
​

Molly steps out of the SUV with the rest. The girl, known by her first name only, was one of the youngest recruits, and was more a scientist than anything else. Unlike the rest, however, she stays quiet, and get's close to the body, a mask covering her face. Molly seems to be immune to the direct effects of whatever the stuff was, and typically collects samples for testing.

She's made no leeway on what that shit is.

She walks out of the alleyway, and nearly cried out. "What the fuck?!"

A girl, short blue hair and covered in wounds, with the acid dripping down her face, pulls at the leash. The 'pet.' She is sentient enough for a parasite infection… too sentient. The blue-haired girl that it had taken over isn't talking, the parasite itself is.

It doesn't talk with words, of course. It produces strange, alien sounds. The parasite has completely taken over the body of it's host, and one thing was for sure, is sure as hell doesn't like being held captive.

Molly stands in fear, tucking her sample away. "What the fuck. Who's idea was this?"

More noises and tugging. The scientist can't help feeling sorry that someone has come to this.

"And any idea on who that is?"

 

[Just A Guy]

Kuro, much to Winter's complete lack of surprise, doesn't seem at all bothered by the unusual noises coming from the pet. Striding over to the corpse, he gives the acid a wide berth and bends over, neatly rummaging round the corpse's clothes. "Either a hooker, or a rave scene go-er, judging by the clothes," he observes in a brisk, light tone, finding a phone tucked into the corpse's knee-high boots. He thumbs through the credit card and drivers license tucked into the casing. "A one Lina Graves." He snorts. "Fitting."
It takes Winters a second, but after a stumbling pause, she blurts out, "I know her. I've worked with her. She's a stripper down at Lux Rouge. Helped us out with a drugs ring bust a while back." Winter's enthusiasm for knowing something among this chaos dies as she connects the woman she knew to the corpse slowly dissolving into the acid. "She was funny. I liked her."

"Still so sentimental, Winters. I would have thought working homocide would have desensitized you by now. But, whilst you get a tissue— Causter, bring it over here. See how it responds."

Obliging, Causter drags the pet by the collar past Molly and Winters, into the alleyway and up to the corpse, giving it space to move in on it. "Go on then," Kuro says encouragingly to the pet, like it's some kind of dog about to pull a trick. "Give it a sniff."

 

[thenightmaredarling]

Molly watches the pet as it walked close the the body… and began to devour it an a bloody mess of organs.

I'm hoping that was the expectation. The parasites need flesh to survive, within and without. The creature can't care It's starved, it needs to eat. Tearing whatever it can from the body, swallowing without chewing, the acid dripping down it's face.

Molly turns away. "I... I think I'm going to puke." She whispers. She's not used to the graphics, she's been in a lab for her career. She was drafted for her scientific ability and knowledge, not her ability to watch gorey situations play out.

As the being no longer human tears into the corpse, she starts gagging a little. She walks away, unable to continue watching the gruesomeness. All it confirmed was, yes, the things ate humans. And by God, they didn’t care.

Who'd want to watch this?

 

[Just A Guy]

Rather than disgusted, Kuro looks utterly fascinated. Whilst Causter stands with his usual vacant, unreadable expression, looking at nowhere in particular into the middle distance, Kuro crouches down and watches their captured parasite devour the corpse. At the entrance to alleyway, Winter's face paled, and she struggled not to look away. So he wasn't kidding.

They really were eating the bodies.

But the one they'd found had barely been touched, throat torn out and some minor wounds, but it had certainly not been devoured. "Most informative," Kuro says, without sarcasm, pushing to stand. He glances down at Winters, grinning. "Want to tell me what we've learned, Winters?"

Regarding the offer with distrust, Winters can only stare at the 'pet' for a moment, watching as it works its ways through the victim's organs. "Well... I don't know what you know already. But— whoever killed her, they might have been like your— like this girl, but they weren't doing it for food. They could have been interrupted mid-feeding, but most of the others so far have been left in tact."
"And if they could have eaten her to dispose of the body?"
"...Then— then they wanted her corpse found. By us or someone else."

Winters isn't sure what she hates most: the smug smile Kuro gives her for her answers, or her own, itching sense of satisfaction at the unspoken praise. She shivers.

"Molly," Kuro calls out, glancing past Winters to the women trying not to puke behind her. "I want you taking regular samples and running the usual diagnostics on our little pet. I want to see how they're affected post-meal. See if it's a time when they're weaker, stronger, so on. And try not to look so horrified. This thing can smell your emotions. Don't offend our little helper, won't you?" He turns to Causter abruptly and instructs, "But it back in the trunk."

 

[thenightmaredarling]

Molly shivers. “It’s still horrific to watch, Kuro. It also means there might be more deaths than we counted for. Look at how the thing is tearing her to shreds!”

That was a terrifyingly realistic thought. If the bodies could be cleaned like this by an infected human... Than missing person cases could be these cases.

The pet finishes the body at a feverish speed, even eating the bones. It leaves one part of the corpse untouched; the eyes. Molly walks over to the bone shards that are left of the corpse; however, the parasite doesn’t attack her. It makes it’s hellish, inhuman noises at her.

She picks up the eyeballs. “Why would it..?” A loud noise from the creature sends her backing up. “Shit, it’s mad. It’s mad.”

The monster tugs at it’s leash. It wants something.