The hand around his throat doesn’t stay there for long. Ellie’s quick to take action and her own knife plunges into the back of it’s head. When it lets go of him, Christian falls to his knees, gasping at the bruises it had assuredly left behind around his neck. He has to blink several times to get the clarity of the world back into focus and when he does, he’s horrified by what he sees.
The monster has fallen backwards, taking Ellie with it. It turns, wraps a hand around her throat and she’s got blood on her head. Christian panics for a moment, unsure what to do. What he can do. He doesn’t trust himself to shoot the thing, because he’s not the best aim in the world and he doesn’t want to accidentally shoot one of the only friends he has in this place. It leaves him with little else to think of doing and he feels his heart racing, his breath holding as he desperately tries to think of something to help Ellie.
C-Christian, k-knife…she’s saying and his eyes go down to the knife that had been knocked from her hand.
Scrambling forward, he picks up the knife and looks towards it’s oddly angled neck, towards it’s head. He doesn’t know if he’s got the strength enough to put bone through metal but he’s got to try. Something to get it off of her.
Holding the knife in his hands, he hurries forward, plunging the knife straight towards the back of it’s head. He lets out a cry when the knife goes part way and his hands keep going, running along the blade and drawing red, bloody lines along his fingers. The beast rears up and Christian doesn’t give himself time to think of the pain in his fingers. He just grabs the knife and then pulls to the side.
He uses his weight and he can hear a sickening pop, a crunch of bone that he thinks will echo in his ears for nights to come. But it pops and the head swings a little more loosely. Still, it doesn’t bring down the creature. Only has it standing, abandoning the woman laid beneath it and swinging an arm around to hit Christian square in the chest. He falls backwards, landing on his back and he has to roll out of the way as a bony foot tries to smash it’s way down onto him.
Pushing himself backwards, he leaves bloody lines on the floor as his hands continue to bleed, but he pauses because he still has the knife in one of them. The creature is limping as it walks, it’s swinging head making it hard to walk in a straight line and Christian takes that jangliness to his advantage.
Scurrying to the side, he brings the knife up again and this time, places one hand behind the hilt with the other holds on and he jams it home right beneath where the ear would have been. There’s another roar, a wild swing of it’s arm catches him off guard and he falls to his hands and knees again, tasting blood on his lips, trailing down from his nose. He looks up, because the knife is still there.
Waiting to be driven home.
Ellie is doing her best to find the strength as well as fight the looming darkness which has started to appear in her peripheral vision. It’s closing in and threatening to render her unconscious--the worst possible scenario at the moment, apart from death of course.
She doesn’t know where she finds the extra breath, but Ellie lets out a loud growl as she pushes with everything she has to get this thing off of the top of her. Her face starts to go beetroot red and there’s a gurgle coming from her throat as it tightens its grip and totally cuts off her breathing and restricts her vocal chords.
--she needs to get her knife--anything at all which will give her some vital seconds and a good intake of breath.
Ellie has never been one to rely on anyone else and she still finds it difficult to do so even when she is now part of a group--but then none of this would work without both she and Christian working together so it comes as a relief when all of a sudden, the knife has gone, it must have happened when she blinked or perhaps on the verge of passing out--either way it doesn’t matter because she can breathe again. She immediately starts to choke but quickly rolling to one side so that she can evade it dropping down onto her once more.
In between welcoming the air rushing into her lungs, Ellie realises she’d heard Christian let out a yell. She can only hope it’s nothing too serious but there’s no time to ask him or check. Whilever he is still moving and this ‘thing’ is hellbent on taking them both down, she will keep attacking until she can’t physically do it anymore.
Manoeuvring to a position she can fight again, Ellie watches the way it knocks Christian flat on his back and in that moment she knows she cares about him no matter how much she might deny it. There’s a twist in her gut as she sees his blood smeared on the ground, it ignites her anger and it is exactly what’s needed because what comes with it is strength.
Watching with sheer focus and concentration, she waits until he jams the knife into the side of its head. Ellie takes three swift steps backwards and then runs at the thing, jumping so her feet leave the floor and her entire body is in the air and moving to a horizontal level. Ellie then kicks one leg out straight, the sole of her boot hitting the hilt of the knife with so much more force than she would have been able to do with her hands.
The noise it makes next is something that she will never forget as gravity takes over and she lands with a heavy thud and the flesh on her arm skids across the floor.
She’s wincing but there’s no damn way she will rest until she knows it is dead first. So she takes out the homemade weapon--the two wooden blocks with the sharp copper wire connecting them and wraps it around its neck.
“You fuckin’ piece of shit!...you fugly ass bastard!”
It’s probably dead now, but adrenaline, anger and the will to survive as well as make sure it can’t ever hurt anyone again--including Christian, are what keep her going that little bit longer.
