There Was An Accident - Persephonen
@persephonen
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There was an old, European-style mantle clock that kept ticking, and that was the only sound in the small house. Very clean, very empty; though it was a quaint, small house they had picked as base, it had the unattached CCG airs about it. As if nobody had ever been here, ever lived here, ever experienced anything in this place.
It suited Hanbee just fine, though. He was only Rank 2 – fresh out of the academy, and they had made a mistake somewhere along the line. It was his last name, probably. Abara. Or the order had been shuffled around. Either way, he was slated to come with Arima and his impossibly powerful squad on a dangerous SS-rank double-ghoul hunt.
He wasn't happy. Nobody was, really. He would be stuck with the all-too-strong crew and the CCG's most wonderful agent until they managed to find him someone who needed a partner proper.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
They had left Abara behind – with the excuse that 'somebody needed to stay back and watch the house in case something came up'. Ihei, in all her indomitable sunshine, just chirped at him that she was expecting a nice homecoming and maybe a towel to wipe off the blood from her face. Hanbee felt a little bit sick at the image it conjured up, but he settled for smiling and promising her a warm welcome back.
That had been about an hour, hour and a half ago. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. Despite all the ticking the mantle-clock was doing, Hanbee hadn’t actually looked at the time. He just sat still on the couch, fidgeting. Thinking about how everything seemed to go a little bit askew for him, how even the good things always had a little taste of something bitter mixed in.
Upstairs, something thumped. Absorbed in the silence, { ₐₗₘₒₛₜ ₜₒ ₜₕₑ ₚₒᵢₙₜ ₕₑ wₐₛ ₜₕₑ ₛᵢₗₑₙcₑ } the sudden sound caused Hanbee to jump in his seat, breath pulled in swift and sharp and sudden. His heart, already so tired from the worry laying in his body since he received his assignment, began to beat faster, louder. But nothing – nothing could be upstairs, right? Somebody had probably set something too far to the edge of a table, and it tumbled off. Actually, Hanbee himself might have been the very one to do that.
One breath, two breath. Right to the tick, tick of the clock, and everything would be alright. But the heart-hammering, bad feeling wouldn't go away.
And then there were the footsteps.
No, no, no – did a robber just break into the house from the second floor? Had he left a window open? Oh no – even if humans weren't as frightening as ghouls he still didn't want to – wasn't prepared to – deal with someone dangerous, possibly armed, definitely willing to break the law.
Hanbee slide back, towards the mantle, towards his quinque case. It was a sword, and even though it was meant for ghouls, it would still look scary, right? Oh, but what if the intruder had a gun? That would just motivate them to shoot him-
A body turned the corner from the stairs, into the main living area, and Hanbee shrieked, because it was not a robber – it was one of the group's targets. He knew that face from the briefings he so attentively sat through, dreaming up horrible ways to die…
Lamprey. SS Rank. He cut shapes out of his victims as if using a cookie-cutter, wore a mask with spikes and edges and what he could only guess were the canines of people he had killed.
Hanbee reached impulsively for the nearest thing – something he could throw, something he could stave them off with. His hand fell, of course, onto the annoying mantle clock. And with a shriek, he threw it right at the ghoul, who jolted towards him only to get hit in the face with the clock, teeth from the mask clattering to the floor like a handful of marbles.
The next second, and Lamprey was on top of Hanbee, knocking him to the ground, breathless, black-and-red eyes peering into his face and breath coming hot from within the mask. “You- you – hit me with a clock?” oh, that voice sounded like a hiss. “Don't you have any respect for furniture and property that isn't your own? Of course you don't.”
He kept on speaking. Hanbee could hear him go on, but the words weren't registering. His shaking fingers touched the case, bumped it – and then he screamed. Something – something was pressed into his hand – a shaped metal thing, a something, a cookie cutter? And it was biting through his hand deeper, and he was bleeding.
And he was looking death in its toothy maw.
“No, no, NoooOOOO!” his voice kept picking up, frantic, tears stinging in his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. How pathetic was this? He was a graduate, he was a ghoul hunter, and this was one of his first actual jobs and he was going to die crying and begging and dishonorable and, and, and…
He wanted his mom. He wanted to tell her he was sorry.
His free hand reached over, grasping at the cookie cutter still halfway embedded on top of his hand. He pulled it out – tug tug tug – and tried to press it into the chatty ghoul's hand, the one that was pressing fingers through his shoulders. They were going to crack his shoulder bones, he was going to be so broken-
And Lamprey laughed. The cookie cutter bent, couldn't break the skin even. “Cute...” He hissed, and his fingers did poke through the clothes, through the skin. Oh, it hurt, it hurt! Hanbee wailed, and managed to jerk just a little bit, grab the case and swing it around to hit the ghoul again. It hit with a thud, and was greeted with a koukaku that pressed into the side of Hanbee's body, sending waves of pain through his body and wet, sticky, hot blood.
It moved fast then.
The Rinkaku sword was released, it bit through the koukau, sending up a surprised scream, and a return scream from Hanbee. And then…
Then there was just blood, lots of blood, and Hanbee was kneeling over a corpse with a tear through his side, through his hand, and a bite from his shoulder. And he was crying, covering his face in his blood-slicked hands, feeling sick, sick to his stomach. He wanted to die – but he didn't want to actually die.
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