Sweet Damnation (Richonne Lemon One-Shots)

Endless Inferno Pt.1

Warning:  Extremely violent and dark subject matter...

******

This was a dreamless sleep.

The first she'd had in months. This time, there weren't the familiar shards of long-buried memory tormenting her so that she woke up sweating and crying.

No...There was just blackness. And peace.

"Wake up..."

"Wake up!"

"Hey! Hey – Black Beauty! I said...Wake up!"

Michonne jerked awake violently, reaching out to grab hold of the hand that was slapping her.

"Don't touch me..." she mumbled croaky, still struggling to shake off the thick fog of pain that flogged her head and the ringing in her ears. She was feeling groggy as fuck and was dreading the queasiness that was churning in her gut. Unable to focus, she let her dark eyes roam over the surrounding area. She was in the lower level of the large vacant house at the edge of Alexandria.

The last she remembered she was patrolling the grounds. The loud moans from the gathering walkers outside the perimeters blocked out the sound of the quickly approaching person who struck her hard in the back of the head, knocking her out cold.

Instinctively, she moved to stand and make a run for it but found that her body felt so heavy because she was strapped tight to a post in the middle of the room.

Although it was dark in the room and her vision and hearing were compromised by her injuries, she could make out the silhouette and voice and it confused her even more. Jessica walked closer, she could see her clearly now as the light of the moon peeped through the only window in the room.

"Don't bother, my granny knots are the best, it'll take you days to even loosen them."

Jessie smiled, and Michonne was struck by how clownish it actually looked when she did that. It gave her a bad feeling. Almost as though she were an alien stuffed in human skin, trying out different expressions - practicing so that she could fit in and go undetected by real people.  A very bad feeling.

Perhaps Jessica was not who Michonne thought she was. The woman she thought she knew as harmless, this woman looked much more calculating.

Michonne went right on with trying to loosen her knots, but it seemed the more she struggled, the more the course rope dug into her soft flesh.

"I went out with some coworkers one night and stayed out too late." Jessica scoffed while walking forward and squatting a few inches away from her. "Pete called me around 9 pm, screaming at me. I knew my ass was grass when I got home."

As she spoke, her voice had grown steadily deeper until Michonne almost had to strain to hear her. Jessie's expression was now serious.

"Thankfully the kids were with mom and he was in a drunken coma, so I tied him up."

As she talked Michonne kept tugging at the ropes, but her struggles made about as much impact as a toddler arm-wrestling with a grown man.

"I got sick of his yelling and threats so I left. When we got home two days later, he'd somehow got free and that's when he..." She stood and began a slow steady pace around the post that Michonne was tied too. "Well everyone knows what Pete did to me and the boys."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Why am I doing this to you..?" Jessica repeated in a mocking tone.

Jessica paused. She moved closer, leaning forward.

"You know Rick's been coming on to me since the day he got here?" Jessie was smiling again and it struck Michonne how grotesque that smile was.

Michonne repressed a wince. She knew it was Jessica Anderson who came on to Rick first. But she could not deny the fact that Rick had unwisely reciprocated his inappropriate feelings and offered himself as the battered woman's personal savior. Thus making Michonne wonder if he'd ever considered her as more than just a friend. There were so many times she thought he did.

"He kissed me at the welcoming party for your group." She said as she began pacing again. "He told me after he fought with Pete that he wouldn't have done that for just anyone." She turned her back to Michonne, looking out of the small high placed window. "And tonight..." She turned around slowly to face her. "Tonight...he kissed me again." Her eyes were almost luminescent in the glare of the light. "And I offered myself to him...I offered my body to the man who shot my abusive husband to death right in front of me... I offered myself to him." She had become lost in her speech, a far-off look crossed her face. "And he turned me down!" Her voice was suddenly much sharper. Her icy blue eyes were stern. "And you know why he turned me down!"

She sprinted towards Michonne and slapped her face hard, so hard it blurred Michonne's vision even more.

"He said that he needed to do that to see if what he felt for me was real..."

"Can you fucking believe that?" She screamed. "He left and went straight home to you! I watched as you fed him dinner, laughed and talked to his son and tucked his daughter into bed." Her expression was dark...deadly serious.

"That's when I realized, you're in the way...The fucking nanny is in the way..."

Michonne struggled to keep a neutral expression, but inside she was plagued with animosity. Jessica's feeling toward her was incomprehensible. How could one person be so stupid, so delusional? Can she not see Rick is severely damaged? She has no idea the liability she'd face being with Rick. He did her a favor by walking away and going home to his children.

"I won't stand in your way Jessie, Rick and I are just friends."

"BULLSHIT!" She snapped, her voice sharp like a knife, echoing and filled with pain and rage. "I see the way he looks at you!"

"We are partners, we've been through a lot of shit together, his son and I, but..."

"I know, I know..." She spoke in a sickeningly conversational tone. "You and Rick are just friends." Jessie was smiling her alien smile again. "That does not mean, he doesn't love you and care about your feelings...he won't be with me because he's afraid of hurting you... therefore..." She gestured slowly with her hand, that eerie far off look crossing her face again. She chuckled, whistling and turning to the table with several shiny, sharp instruments.

"I once watched Pete perform surgery before..."

Those shiny instruments on that table were meant for her. Michonne was in danger.

"Of course I'm not performing surgery on you..." She giggles, fucking giggled, like a little girl... "I'm going to kill you... slowly... Then kill you again, of course, it would be cruel to let you turn into one of those things." Jessie looked as if she had narrowed her choice down to two extremely scary-looking instruments.

"Rick will soon forget about you."

One was what looked like an enormous scalpel; the blade looked sharp enough to cut the air. The other was a small saw. The sight of it turned Michonne's stomach. She shivered. Beads of sweat ran down the side of her face, over her temples, into her neck.

"It's quite fitting ya know." She chose the scalpel. "Rick killed my crutch and now I'm killing his."

That excited gleam was back in her eyes. Jessie was approaching Michonne, and her heart rate accelerated painfully as she watched her come towards her.

To Be Continued...