TW: This Chapter contains gore galore and excessive vomiting
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Blood rots fast. Chester swears he'll never get used to the sharp metallic pungent odor as he enters the bathroom to assess the damage.
The dazzle of light on the black and white tile is relieved by glistening scrawls and blots of red. He grimaces at the headless corpse leaning stiffly against stained porcelain, coated in a ruby film.
Chester's watery eyes rove further up the wall. The ceiling is crisscrossed with dark spray patterns of blood and he gawks because how the hell did it get all the way up there?!
"PARKER!" His voice carries across the hall to the living room where Parker had gotten up in the middle of the night to crash on the sofa, leaving Chester to wake up to an empty bed after experiencing nightmares in which he'd wake up alone and get attacked by monsters.
"It's for the best dude." Parker had said after Chester approached him with tears in his eyes and warnings of nearly having a heart attack.
He shuffles into the bathroom with a yawn and instantly wrinkles his nose. "Ugh."
"Bro, I thought I told you not to make a mess," Chester points to the ceiling. Parker cringes at the gorey mess and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, "Oh, uh.. sorry about that."
Chester thinks he has some PTSD surrounding the trauma of the basement full of dog carcasses. The maggots, the horrible disfigurements, the stench.. And now this. Frankly, he's more than tired of cleaning up this stuff and can't help but sigh in frustration, a tincture of exasperation sharpening the edges of his tone.
"Well, do you think you could be a little less violent next time? It looks like this guy got mauled by a bear, or like, a pack of wolves."
Parker's hand drops and his brows pull together in a frown, clearly offended. "Bro, what do you expect? I don't exactly have control when I get hungry."
"If you were so hungry then why is there so much left? Honestly it just looks like you pushed around the food on your plate."
"Dude the brain itself is literally 3 pounds, you can't expect me to eat an entire person.." he exhales deeply and rubs his tired eyes, "I don't even know why I'm arguing with you about this.."
Chester crosses his arms, "It just seems like such a waste," he mumbles and adds, "all of it needs to be gone before I can get you anything else."
Parker's eyes widen, "I can't eat this!" He gestures to the boy who is now a rotting husk of meat made rancid by stewing in its own blood, shit, and noxious gases. Unidentified scarlet sacs spill out of every jagged gash like pustules from a giant festering wound. He'd rather drink his own piss.. o-or something!
"I don't want to kill another innocent person unless I have to," Chester pushes past his friend, in need of fresh air.
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"This is so disgusting.." Parker speaks quietly into the empty room while kneeling infront of massacred flesh. He isn't even hungry, but the meat is only going to spoil the longer he waits, and maybe he won't get hungry so fast if he can only force himself..
His hand dips into the warm gooey cavern, mixing fluids and rearranging the abscess of swollen organs in a blind search for something substantial, but is at a complete loss. Parker coughs into the back of his hand and turns his head away, wishing the nameless creature entwined deep within the root of his infection would come out and save him the trouble.
He could probably recede into the endless corridor of his mind. But there's always that chance of getting lost.
It's only a day old, quite being a coward and just eat.
His pupils dilate the moment he brings a thickly coated hand to his mouth and swipes the tip of a thumb across his tongue. An anomalous force reaches out of the dark and grabs hold, vision wavering. Parker's limbs stiffen, automatically trying to fight for control before they yield to the infection's predilection in its craving for cruor and carnage. Flesh and blood.
When Parker finally comes down from the high, blurry peripheral shapes and color regaining clarity, he feels worse than before. His face feels sticky as he blinks the haze out of his shrinking irises. The once human mass infront of him is now completely unrecognizable.
Belly full and movement slow, he preforms the familiar ritual of harsh scrubbing with extra soap- with a touch of self loathing and disgust. Gaining consciousness is both a gift and a curse, Parker thinks, with more bitterness than the flavor of death that now saturates his taste buds.
~~~
Chester comes out of the bathroom looking green and finds his friend splayed across the velvet sofa he'd slept on days prior. For the past several days, Parker has been feeding off of the rapidly decaying mess of clotted scraps in the bathtub and looking worse each time.
"Bro, I feel so sick.." He groans, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while clutching his stomach with the other. It quakes violently when a wave of nausea forces out a breathy pained noise that has his jaw clenching down hard.
Normally he'd eat once and incrementally lose his mind in a few days, as starvation seeps into every bone and conscious thought. But it's been close to a week now, and instead of hunger, Parker feels delirious with illness.
Chester sits on his knees infront of the other with a cup of water in hand and a worried expression. "Um, I brought you water." He raises the cup but Parker's eyes remain tightly closed, lost in the throes of painful cramps and rolling nausea.
"I'm sorry, this is all my fault.." He sighs. Parker's suffering right now because he needs something fresh.. and I'm too afraid to kill again.. b-but he needs me. Chester tugs on his hair, a habit that's formed when he hits a road block and doesn't know where to go from here. Ugh, the stress is eating me alive!
He sets the cup of water down and scans the cupboards in the kitchen, searching for anything with meat. Aha!
Chester taps a chaotic rhythm on the glossy countertop as he waits for a can of ravioli to heat up. He dishes it up in two bowls and places them on the fancy table in the dining room.
"Bro come in here, this might help!"
Parker stumbles in, hand secured around his abdomen and Chester immediately goes to his side and pulls out a chair, gently helping him into it. "I can sit on my own dude.." Parker slurs, the whites of his eyes are webbed with red and appear more hollow from severe lack of sleep.
He places a fork in his hand that clatters against the table when Parker jolts, scowling at the sudden stab of pain in his gut. Another airy sound escapes his parted lips that sounds suspiciously like a moan, and Chester hates himself for the heat that travels up his neck and stains his cheeks pink.
The blond picks up the fork and stabs a ravioli before bringing it close to Parker's mouth. "Nooo.. no more.." he gripes and turns away like a fussy child.
Chester rolls his eyes. "Bro, it's just ravioli. It has meat so it might help you. Look, the sauce kind of looks like fresh blood, right? Mmmm fresh blood!"
Parker cracks a bleary eye open at the food, arches his brow, and slowly raises it to Chester's wide smile. "Seriously dude?" He deadpans.
Chester laughs and waits until he takes a bite. They get through half the bowl and Parker's hand loosens on his stomach, his shallow rapid breaths beginning to slow and deepen.
"Better?" Chester smiles, tilting his head to inspect his friend's face.
"Yeah.. I think so." Parker speaks carefully, appearing thoughtful yet apprehensive. Then, he doubles over and vomits long and harsh, overflowing the bowl with alarmingly dark, viscous fluid.
"Holy shit!" Chester swears when Parker doesn't let up, and now the entire end of the table is overflowing with thick streams of black onto the wood floor, seeping into cracks and absorbing the light like liquid chasm.
Parker gasps and chokes, tears streaking down his face and all Chester can do is tear his hair out and swear more than he has in his entire life. Parker falls sideways out of the chair and passes out cold, surrounded by oily black.
Beyond stunned, Chester swipes a finger across his own cheek. It comes away with speckles of dark, and he fiercely scrubs it away from the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his worn hoodie. His own bowl stays untouched as he rushes to find cleaning supplies and tries to process what the hell just happened.
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(Words: 1,558)
A/N
Poor Chester just trying to help but only making things worse😅
Chester: Here comes the airplane! *Nyyyeeeeoowwww*-*✈️🥄
Parker: 🤮🤮🤮
Chester: *Excessive swearing*
•••
Will Parker get worse? Can Chester do anything to help? Will romance finally happen? (The answer to the last question is yes btw) Stay tuned!~(๑≧ ﹏ ≦)ﻭ
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