Victoria is sitting on the log, a dead rabbit next to her, as she gathers twigs to start a fire. Once the pile is large enough, she takes out her lighter and flicks it open, letting the wood burn. She waits for it to grow stronger as she skins the fur away from the rabbit, leaving behind only its flesh and muscles to be seen. She has some branches left to roast the creature so she swiftly arranges them to let the animal to cook. She wonders what she can do about the fur, but it doesn't really matter. She lets it thrown away somewhere far from her.
She looks down to her hands, reddened by blood and with strands of white. She breathes in the smell of roasted meat and looks at the dead flesh on the ground. She can see the veins, no longer having any blood pumping through them and she wonders if finding it as beautiful as she does makes her a psychopath. Is it really so wrong finding beauty in the flesh of animals, finding beauty in their death? Is it? Or is it a way of worship? She never cared much for faith, but she does believe that only in death can there be true freedom. How morbid...
Once it's been cooked, she takes it off the fire and brings it to her mouth. She bites into it, her teeth tearing the meat from the bone with more desperation than she had imagined, her hands becoming even more unclean. Victoria revels in the taste, letting out a sigh of relief. She had been hungry. The rabbit is not eaten fully, some parts of it remaining behind on the ground. She would have taken it with her had she any means of keeping it fresh. She doesn't. At least this way the vulture will have some food for himself as well. Itself, it is not sentient she reinforces once more in her mind.
The sleeping bag unrolls with a flutter of material and a myriad of dust rising as it hits the ground hard. Victoria coughs into her elbow, her hands still holding the edge of the bed. She kneels on it, unzipping it and pulling it open so she can lie down inside. She drags the backpack closer until it is next to her head and the knife is held in her hand, in the opening of material she'd created long ago. It would be nothing to draw it out if she were attacked. She dreams that night, she knows only because she awakens to the sun blaring in her eyes and the wind cooling her sweat stricken body, because her head hurts in a phantom pain that forces her to remember Doctor M. He had been the one in charge of testing her powers; he had been the one smiling when a cut healed faster than expected, when her body seized up as he sent electrical current through it and when her lungs screamed in desperation for air as he held her beneath water. Doctor M. She never knew his full name and she never saw him again after the Scalpel took over. Anthony may not have had the scientific curiosity and creativity, but he had been worse. There had been moments when Victoria had found herself wishing for the doctor to return, even if his eyes roaming her barely clad body gave her nausea.
"Why am I even thinking about this now?!" Victoria asks the empty forest, the back of her left hand wiping her forehead and her tongue tasting lead inside her mouth. She spits on the ground as she rises to her feet and is not surprised to see blood. She must have bit her cheek again. It happened whenever she had a nightmare about Dr. M. She wondered often if it was because of the electroshocks. She shudders. "Okay, Vicky. Snap out of it!" she mumbles to herself as she begins packing everything away again. She lets her mind work through the litany of sentences and words she has come to realize has become a mantra for her. Mentions of having escaped and of having seen Dr. M. killed by Anthony before her eyes in such a pure rage that the others had been frightened swarm around the darkness that she usually pushes back from consciousness. Victoria stops what she is doing, throwing the backpack on the ground and turning around. Her jaw clenches and her hands fist at her sides, her breath deepening. She can hear her heart beating inside her ears, pulsing through her chest and limbs and she can't see anymore. "Damn it! Stop it, Vicky! It's just a dream!" she grits through her teeth, but even though the words are picked up by her ears she can't stop the panic from mounting.
She falls to her knees, curling into her own body, her arms wrapping around her legs and her head bowed deeply into the space between her chest and thighs. She focuses on breathing, on steadying her heartbeat once more. When finally she succeeds she doesn't know how much time she's wasted as she can't even see the sun in the sky due to the tall trees. She stands and swings the backpack over her shoulder ready to venture further inside the woods. A growl gives her pause.
Frightened she stares behind herself, red irises reflecting the sight of a large grizzly bear. She has little time to wonder what she can do to get away before the animal decides to rips her apart when the bear draws closer, its mouth opening wide to let another growl out. Victoria holds her breath and tries to stop the automatic response of wiping her face clean of any and all spit that may have landed on her in favor of thinking. She abandons all rational thought when the bear begins a soft sprint towards her and she turns her head back to the direction it had been fixed on going. The animal sees the movement and walks faster. It takes everything Victoria has to stifle the scream bubbling on her lips as she runs once more.
She considers throwing away her backpack as it slows her down, but she can't do it without losing valuable resources so she just has to find a way to outrun the bear. Thankfully all the experimentation and torment Anthony imparted to her has given her an advantage. She is fast, impossibly so one would say. She is by no means as fast as some of the Others but she can probably escape from this situation if she is smart about it. As she runs, her legs working due to pure reflex, she strains her hearing. It gives her the perfect plan.
Her ears hear the rush of water, a river of some kind, not five meters away to her left. It's a gamble changing direction while being chased and even more of a risk heading towards the river, but maybe the bear will think she's too much trouble than she's worth and prefers fish for lunch instead. It's worth a try in her mind. Sadly her sharp senses have left her with an overestimation of her sense of space and when she reaches the steep cliff that is the bank of the river, her leg slips. She tumbles down the small hill, her clothes tattered as they hit rocks which slash her flesh and her skin bruises from the hard impacts with the earth. She is dizzy and fatigued when her back crashes into the water mass and nearly drowns.
Victoria struggles for air, water filling her lungs and her arms grasp desperately for something to pull herself up with. She kicks her legs faster until she gains momentum and then her mind remembers how to swim and she pushes against the current to reach the other shore, this one not a hill, but a grass filled plain.
"Oh, God!" she croaks, her voice raspy as she coughs water. She turns on her back, eyes opening to watch the sky for mere moments before she realizes the bear could have easily come after her. Her head lifts to watch the other bank, but the bear is nowhere to be seen. She is surprised by it, but she is even more shocked to see the vulture that has been following her around circle the other bank, cowing loudly towards her but not moving any closer. The vulture leaves with a rustle of wings and she is left alone.
Victoria lets her head fall back onto the grass, her chest expanding and retracting rapidly. She doesn't sit up until half an hour later and when she does it shivers from the quiet. She forces her senses further, struggling to hear insects or birds or mammals, but the forest is unnaturally still now. She frowns and turns on her heels to try and hear something in that direction, her wet hair slashing the side of her face from the speed and her clothes clinging to her body. She needs to change soon she thinks before she gazes at her surroundings.
"What on Earth–" she whispers as the image is made clear to her scarlet eyes. She steps towards the mansion before her.
YOU ARE READING
Purified by Fire
ParanormalVictoria was going to spend the rest of her life running. This was something she knew, like how she knew her bike was the best and forests sucked. But she never expected to end up trapped in a mansion with a young couple, not with her worst enemies...
