Cannibal, Cannibal

[Ada Wong]

They were making that noise again. That loud, mechanized drilling noise, right outside her window and vibrating against the glass pane. Viola Burns curled up into the fetal position on her Tier 3 apartment floor, her skin burning like dozens of fire ants were marching across it, biting and digging, trying to seep into her pores and devour her sweat.

The fever had been easier to deal with yesterday. It hadn’t made it impossible for her to move without wailing in pain, ripping into the plush surface of her down comforter as she crawled toward the bed, flames licking under her skin and searing down her throat. Only the cool planes of the hardwood seemed to quell that fire now, but even that was starting to not be enough.

Viola groaned like a dying animal, unable to compel her arms to move and scratch at the itchy, dried tear-tracks curving down her cheeks. Her body was dry as a desert on the inside, yet sweat peppered her skin in a salty-sweet layer, a strange scent that her brain had begun to take notice of. Or perhaps that was the smell of her girlfriend in the other room, that strange mixture of pinkish-yellow plant matter she liked to burn and inhale…

She’d been robbed of the ability to cry hours ago.

Memory was not on her side. Viola couldn’t remember how she’d gotten home last night, how she’d gotten in and managed to jam her key into the lock. The remaining memories she had were blurry and numb and weak; they came and went like moths from a hanging lantern, fuzzy antennae tickling the air and feeling their way through the night. She didn’t want to find her way. She wanted to forget. She wanted to be lost to the darkness, to end her suffering now.

She could see something on the floor; a limp thing, furry and stiff. Her eyes rolled toward it, the whites stained a painful yellowish-red, the blunted edges of her mind attempting to comprehend what she was seeing. Sweat and the haze of fever clouded her vision.

Focussss. Find food.

Finally, the discarded thing swam into view. It was a dead rat, covered in short brown fur and with prominent yellowed teeth jutting out from its mouth, the little thing’s jaws gaping in death. She remembered those teeth, the indent of a bite from them still stinging on her wrist, but the pain was growing duller.

Questions eddied about inside her mind, churning like sour stomach acid. Why was it a rat? Had she killed it? Should she bite it back?

The sickly woman stared at the rat, her mouth suddenly watering; not even the fever could combat this sudden, gnawing emptiness in her belly, the salivating hunger that scorched through her. She crawled forward on her hands and knees, palms sliding forward to cup the tiny, frail corpse between her hands, cradling it as gently as if it were a babe.

A gurgling, chuckling growl burbled up from her throat as she hunched over it, stripping flesh and fat from the bone with her teeth. The rotten skin of her chest and arms, turned into a gory mess by her endless scratching, began to slough off in pieces, falling away like meat torn from a fiery spit. Sickening and wet popping sounds echoed around the room, veins and tendons mashing disgustingly between dull white molars, blood slicking down the corners of the woman’s lips and painting her chin with dark red.

Thu-thump.

What was once Viola ceased feasting, head snapping up, nostrils flaring like a hound on the scent. Ghostly pale eyes fixated on the door, swollen and bulging with infection. It was cracked open, just slightly. There was something moving on the other side of that door. Something that smelled good, spicy and soft and candy floss-sweet.

Sluggishly staggering to her feet with the bloody remnants of the rat spilling down the front of her dress, her lab coat still falling over her shoulders like a ghastly shroud, Viola nudged her way out into the apartment proper. Moments later, horrible, awful screams rent the air.

The drilling outside abruptly fell silent, the mechanical drone leaving the entire neighborhood swathed in complete and utter silence, save for the muted sounds of shuffling and something heavy and soft bumping into furniture, the slick sound of tearing meat.

After a moment's pause, the drilling from the construction zone began anew.