{Disclaimer: Please do keep in mind that this is a work of fiction… violence is never the answer, and behaving like this is *not* okay. This chapter will also go over certain adult and sensitive themes, so please read on at your own discretion.}
- - -
Elisa managed to throw Eve off of her.
Unfortunately, she threw Eve in the direction of the kitchen.
Where the knives were.
Elisa realised her mistake as Eve opened a kitchen cabinet, sliding a chef's knife from a leather sheath. Eve's eyes were still glassy, feverishly glazed over, her mouth bent into a sick smile like a doll.
"Come onnnnnn~ You're just making it harder for the both of us. Didn't you want us to be together? This is kind of hurting me, you know~~~"
The TRACE operator fingered the edge of the knife before lurching forwards.
Elisa backed up behind the table and grabbed a chair. While it wasn't as great a weapon to defend herself as a knife, at least it meant that she had more range.
Seeing Eve like this broke her heart. Eve was shivering, laughing, crying with insanity like a tortured child—and while she wasn't sure what had caused this, she knew that she had more than played a part.
"Eve, please." The fear and pain in Elisa's chest was real, pinpricks of wild heartbeats that needled at her being. "Put the knife down. We can talk about this." The cold Seaward PMC was completely unprepared for Eve's flip in character, stumbling and flustered by the change.
"Whaaaaat~?" Eve tilted her head to the side innocently. "Why? This is just my way of taking responsibility. Besides, then you'll be mine. Ehe~ All mine. Mine. Mineminemineminemineminemine~"
Eve jerked forwards, closing the distance faster than Elisa could blink. Even though Eve clearly wasn't in her right mind, her TRACE training was still real as she feinted and brought the knife down in a carving arc straight towards her girlfriend's chest.
However, Elisa had expertise in hand-to-hand as well, immediately smacking the knife with the chair to disrupt Eve's line of attack and to weaken her grip before trying to gain control of Eve's wrist. At the distance they were at in Eve's enclosed apartment, there was no use in running; Eve would catch up to her before she could open the door.
Unfortunately for Elisa, Eve's grip on the knife was steadfast—but then again, Elisa was physically stronger.
While it pained Elisa to raise her hands against her girlfriend, this was an emergency—if she didn't, she'd probably die. Eve wasn't in her right mind at the moment either. They wrestled on the ground and eventually Elisa snatched the knife from Eve's grip and threw it across the apartment floor, clearing it from Eve's reach.
"Eve, please," Elisa panted. "Stop this. You've more than made your point. I'm sorry for lying to you. I'll do whatever you want to make it up to you. I needed to keep it a secret because I genuinely thought that I could erase it from my body, and I only let the Bloom take over to save us that one time."
"Really~? You'd do anything?" Eve grinned, a cold blush painting her cheeks a dangerous pink. Her grin stretched wider, her eyes filled with a sick obsession. She had pinned Elisa to the floor once again, trying to wrest her hands out of Elisa's grip with a hollow smile. "Then let me kill you. Let me be your little monster. It's all my fault, after all. You know that it's better for you if you let me kill you, right? Then I'll be able to love you forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. No one will be able to take you from me~"
"Eve—"
Eve broke free from Elisa's grasp and straddled Elisa's waist, her hands slamming closed around Elisa's neck. She began to crush.
"Kh—"
Life began fading from Elisa's eyes as she desperately struggled to get Eve off of her, to break Eve's grip. She tried to slip Eve's thumbs but nothing worked.
It felt to Elisa like this was where her story ended.
Elisa struggled against the TRACE operator, but her strength faltered until resistance gave way to resignation. The Bloom didn't come. Elise couldn't intervene.
Where did I go wrong? How did it come to this? Why does it have to be like this?
She stared up at Eve's obsessed grin that suffocated the life from her. Elisa couldn't bring herself to condemn Eve for what she was doing. If she thought of it from Eve's perspective, it was a perfectly normal course of action—she probably should've been killed by Eve to begin with.
She would have done the same.
This is my fault. Actually, no—it was the Bloom's. The anomalies'. Fucking hell…
Tears foamed at Elisa's eyes as the last of the air evaporated from her lungs. It was a miracle that her neck hadn't been broken by Eve and that Eve had chosen to strangle her… Why was that? Eve should have known that snapping her neck would've been more practical…
Not that it mattered anymore.
Elisa reached out with the last of her strength.
Even now, she's so pretty…
She wrapped her arms around Eve in a gentle hug, bringing Eve closer to her. Eve's blurry eyes jolted and darted around as she was brought close to Elisa's chest.
"W-What are you doing?"
At this point, Elisa was barely holding on as she gently held Eve—who still clutched her neck—close to her breasts. Elisa couldn't reply nor make a sound as her fingers dropped from Eve's shoulders, gently brushing the TRACE operator's hair.
Letting you kill me, Elisa mouthed. I'm so sorry for everything, Eve. I love you.
As she read Elisa's lips and felt her warm hands, Eve finally snapped out of her trance. Her first reaction was embarrassment.
"E-Elisa?" she yelped. "What are you—"
She stopped as she registered the situation.
"Elisa?" She croaked.
Her hands were on Elisa's throat and red marks dug into Elisa's pale skin where her fingers had been pressing down. She was straddling Elisa's waist, pinning her down while a chair had either been flipped or thrown and a knife lay across the floor along.
None of the food had been touched.
Eve pulled away, breath coming in broken gasps. Her hands shook as she reached out to feel Elisa's face. Gently holding the woman's head, Eve couldn't tell if the warmth under her palms was real, or just the throb of blood as her heart sank.
How long had she been in her daze?
No, no, no, no, no—
She pressed her ear to Elisa's chest.
Nothing.
A weight crushed Eve's lungs as sobs clawed their way out of her throat. She stared at her hands. Soiled, filthy, violent hands.
Hands that should've protected Elisa, not…
"What did I do?" she whispered, the words breaking apart as she banged her forehead against the table. Her whole body shook as she ran her hands over her face and her hair.
She forced herself to move, her hands barely managing to perform chest compressions, her breaths shaking against Elisa's lips.
In, out.
In, out.
As time slowed to a crawl, Eve counted seconds in her head. It didn't have any real purpose, but at this point Eve was reaching out to anything that could keep panic from breaking her focus.
Finally, Elisa's chest rose—a thin, unsteady breath. Relief cracked through Eve as if she were fragile glass. She slumped to her knees, still trembling, vision blurred with tears.
Raising her head slightly, Eve saw that the window shutters were slightly open and caught sight of herself in the glass.
A pretty young Korean woman stared back at her, eyes stained with tears, her knees spread out as she sat on her thighs. Her clothes seemed to sag around her as if they all had tried to pull away from her in guilt. Eve's mouth muscles were strained as if she had been smiling or crying for an unnatural amount of time.
Beside her, Elisa lay frighteningly still, her chest faintly rising and falling, only the red marks betraying the violence of what had just happened.
Eve's breath shuddered. The memory of her own hands crushing down on Elisa's neck wouldn't leave her, nor would the memory of anything else she'd done.
I hurt her. I nearly killed her.
Her stomach twisted. Eve was used to killing. She had to do so as a TRACE operator, after all. It was her duty on the battlefield—but this? This was unforgivable.
Some detached part of her noted that TRACE would probably court-martial her for this. Prison. Ruin. Maybe worse. But that wasn't what stuck in her chest. The thought that Elisa might never look at her again was the real sentence.
Not that she deserved to be looked at after what she'd done. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing tears across her skin.
How could I lose control? How could I hurt her like that? She'll never forgive me. She shouldn't.
Her eyes fell on the knife lying near the wall. Her throat tightened. A part of her conscience whispered at the edge of her mind.
End it. Take responsibility. Atone before Elisa even wakes.
Eve's legs trembled as she stood and shifted toward the knife. She slowly inched forwards. She was scared, Eve realized.
Do I even deserve to be scared? She thought bitterly. I'm the one who should be afraid of myself. I'm the monster…
She was about to walk over when weak fingers closed around her bare ankle.
Eve froze. She couldn't bear to turn around and ducked her head down to her chest, her face unreadable.
"Eve," Elisa rasped, voice raw but still familiar, still hers. "What are you doing?"