Lethal || Corvo & Sloan
When fungus mutated the once living into mindless many, the only familiarity belonging to that of hunger, every sense one would rely on was simply heightened. It manifested, adapted to the change in circumstance, and was only ever smothered by the taste of flesh and the sensation of cracked and frayed fingertips embedding the innards of their victim. If you were lucky, you would be discovered already deceased, a carcass with no ability to suffer from organs being torn from their compartments. If luck had fallen slim, one would hope they came equipped with even the smallest of weapons, capable of cutting the thread of your fleeting existence to an end.
A mirage of blurred motion had descended in the direction of what another may call home, arid streets sheltering various survivors and the promise of tomorrow. There was no reason to look back, for his own two ears could still take notice of the pounding footsteps, a pair closest to him in which he would only assume would belong to the female - if she were smarter than he believed her to be. As he lunged up a nearby hill, the base of his feet sliding upon frozen ground, dark eyes took in, for only a second or two, the sight of hazel irises prominent upon colourless features. Her slender legs had narrowed their distance, synchronising the two side by side, the dirt of the earth occasionally scattering against either shin.
When given a reason to survive, to thrive within a world so bleak, there was only ever one importance to him: to remain intact no matter the cost.
Cole had claimed many lives before, the girlfriend of the other woman a single name upon his extensive list, and he had done so without any sign of guilt to encompass the weight upon his shoulders. He had not succumbed to guilt since the days of a young child, until it was beaten black and blue from him, forcing him to know that the worst decisions you would make would often be the wisest choice in the end.
His footsteps slowed for only several seconds, drawing his alactricious breath to steady itself. He wouldn’t usher an apology, a meaningless word which came with no empathy, for he was as villainous as she once believed him to be. Thus, as scuffed fingertips trailed against the weapon she had once owned, he used the most important skill he had mastered since childhood: the art of living.
A perplexed veil cast upon porcelain, every ounce of surprise demanding her to beg for her own life, but no words left her lips in time. One bullet impacted her kneecap, causing her to mimic his own limp briefly, but even her cry of torment would still not cause her to fall to bloodied knees. She attempted to move further, the slowing of her pace becoming prominent, until another bullet perforated the injury once more, causing the weapon to click as it released the final bullet; unprepared for the many infected which followed behind so eagerly.
Further cries etched their way from a slender throat, the admission of defeat as she fell upon her knees, unable to move from what would soon come. The agonising pain left no room for a response, only the roaring of screams which soon drowned upon the flock of infected, smothered underneath the weight of them until she was nothing other than a disemboweled cadaver.
Cole never once opted to look back on return, not to even confirm the finalisation of her outcome, for he had made his facile choice; he had claimed another life.
