Something bad.

A rattling hiss fills your ears as the green-black sky dims. Something slips past Atlee with unnerving speed, and she turns her attention from you to try to catch it. Blades and spears strike at nothing, tentacles catch only empty space, and it’s gone as fast as it came. You try to spot it in spite of yourself. Seeing it like this is unpleasant, but you need it right now. Need to remind it that your life is in danger. Which means, by extension …

Raking talons rend one of the tendrils attaching Atlee to the bane, pulling a horrible scream from her. The dark figure slips through the spaces between them, vicious claws slicing through green, fleshy tubes as it darts swiftly on its course. Atlee forces herself to focus through the agony it’s causing her, tentacles **** to catch the shadowy shape, but what it doesn’t evade disintegrates, more and more vanishing with each line of support cut. In time, Atlee stands in front of you, simply human. A cruel, mocking laugh echoes as the space becomes so dimly-lit it’s almost impossible to see, green choked out by inky clouds.

“In case you’re wondering, this is sort of what it’s like daily for me,” you tell her as she whips her head around, trying to stay abreast of where the thing stalking her is. “Because you’re empty, you and your creature got along just fine. Me? I still have a soul, at least some of one. The beast inside me is less happy about that. But if I die, it dies. And it knows that.” As Atlee turns to face you, the shadows behind her take a vaguely-humanoid shape, white, blank eyes leering down at her. “If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry you never had a chance to be human. But I can’t let you keep hurting people.” Atlee shrieks as the shadowy figure engulfs her entirely, the world around you fading into complete darkness.

Until the two aggressively bright eyes stare back at you from the void. They’re hungry and demanding, and you can hear its claws raking over the barrier you’ve kept more or less intact up until now. Your beast may be useful, but you know it’d overtake your mind in a second if you let it, especially somewhere like this where it’s so ****. It doesn’t rage or scream, though, simply testing the strength of your will to resist it. Something’s almost worse about its patience. Without speaking, you understand its point without any need for verbal clarification.

It reminds you, just before you plummet back to reality, that it’s always going to be waiting for you to fail.

Hacking and coughing, your eyes fly open as you slam into the ground of Kappa’s guest room. You briefly consider holding back, your first instinct from whenever you had to vomit in life, but can’t. Which is probably good, considering what comes out is an absolute flood of the seed Atlee just finished pumping into you. Getting your bearings back and spitting out the inhuman jizz that was previously trying to infest your being, you realize that it’s been only a few seconds despite the minutes that passed fighting Atlee. As soon as you can pull yourself away from purging her from your system, your head whips up, trying to find her.

She’s in … a worse state. Her tentacles lie on the floor, smoking as they seem to evaporate into nothing. In the middle of them, Atlee is convulsing, eyes wide and burning in blank, disaffected rage. They meet yours as you notice the blood streaming out of every opening on her body, affixing on you with a hatred that feels all too familiar. As you manage to stand up, balancing yourself on the bed, she lets out a rasping croak, trying to speak, face contorted into the same contempt and violent fury that she stared you down with the night you bit her. Words quickly fail her, sputtering on the results of massive internal damage her bane being torn away is inflicting. She let out a gurgling, savage scream before her eyes roll back and she falls still, last twitches of life leaving her body.

‘Just going to let all that blood go to waste?’ hisses the voice in your head, stronger than before. You can feel it pushing at the edges of your mind. Taking a step forward without meaning to, your fangs drop down before you can reign yourself in.

‘See, this is why I make the calls,’ you tell it as you turn and stumble towards the door, still retrieving your balance. ‘Because you tell me to do things like drink pure evil, monster floor-blood.’ The basic logic of what a godawful idea that sounds like helps you resist your beast as you open the door to head downstairs.

Green-white cum stains the floor all over, the sisters hacking it up like you did, though with considerably less ease in recovery. Humans, right? You check the closest ones for signs of damage, hemorrhaging, trauma, but find nothing. You breathe a sigh of relief, then immediately lose your footing on the steps, slamming down them violently.

“Ow,” you mumble, more or less intact. Someone helps you up before you can do it under your own power, hauling you to your feet. You smile at Eva as she helps steady you, Andy moving ahead of her into Kappa house and scanning the room, presumably with her hunter-vision.

“I hope this means you won,” she says with a small laugh. Looking at it from the outside for a second, a whole sorority full of women absolutely covered in cum is a little bit funny. You snort, then cough a little. “Oh, I brought this. For you. I figured the dress would be kind of a write-off.” You let her put a coat on you, which fits you a lot more like a jacket given the difference in your heights, but it feels better to cover up after everything that just happened.

“Yeah, Atlee’s dead. After pulling her away from the bane, she sort of … exploded inside, as far as I could tell. Massive trauma,” you explain, turning to her. “When I was in her head, I saw the Monopoly Guy ether-rag the big, nasty green thing. Either I’m losing my entire mind, which, possible, or things worked out downstairs?”

“There were some complications …” she trails, looking at Andy as she throws a glance back at the two of you.

“I got overenthusiastic,” Andy says with a shrug.

“You exploded four of the dice!”

“That doesn’t sound UNDER-enthusiastic. Besides, we had two left,” she reasons, continuing up the stairs to make sure all the girls are recovering. Thankfully, they’ve stopped heaving, and are mostly standing up, dazed and profoundly confused.

“But yeah, we played for a bit. Things got unpleasant, but that was sort of the point. Kenneth said you’d done it and told us to go check, then he disappeared.”

“Like … poof?”

“Checked his watch, then he was gone. Probably be back soon if he won his end of the fight, but it sounds like you set him up for it!” She hugs you, too tightly for you to return it. “I’m so proud of you!”

“Don’t be, it fucking sucked,” you say with a heavy sigh. “It was brutal. Just all tentacles and sharp and severed limbs and ugh. And she didn’t … go easy. I’m going to be having nightmares about it for years.”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” you hear Andy shout from upstairs. “DID YOU FEED HER GLASS OR SOMETHING?!”

“NO!” you shout back. Eva is staring at you, wide-eyed. “Very not easy. You probably don’t want to go up there.”

“Take your word for it,” she says with a nod. “How are we going to clean all this up?”

“You’re not,” a tired, heavy voice speaks from the top of the stairs as Kenneth emerges. Both of you jump at the sudden interjection, along with the sudden arrival. “Really have to get used to me doing that. It’s dead, though. And bound. Shouldn’t bother anyone again. Good work, vampire.”

“Thanks?” you answer uncertainly. “What do you mean we’re not cleaning this up?”

“The leavings from the bane will dissolve in an hour or two. Without something to keep it locked on this side of the Veil, it’s too unstable to last,” he continues as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. He looks down, lifting his boot, and grimaces. “Still don’t love it on my shoes, but at least it’ll be gone soon. I can take care of the body and the blood. Plenty of places to make it disappear in Redfield. Either side of it.”

“Thanks. It’d be kind of awkward for any of us to come up with answers about it.” He nods back to Eva. Good to see the Monopoly game didn’t make them kill each other.

“You’re welcome. But I don’t want it getting out, either. Humans can overreact to evidence of the supernatural. Been bad for both our peoples in the past.” He steps around Eva and you, walking out into the night. “Be seeing you girls.”

“They’re all fine!” Andy exclaims as she hops down the stairs. “Atlee’s dead, sorority sisters are free, and an old man is going to mop up our mess for us! I’d say it’s a job well-done.”

“I can go awhile without one of those,” you answer with a shudder, but smile back at her all the same. “Come on, I could use a shower. And some real clothes. Don’t want to be around when the girls start asking questions.” Eva and Andy nod in agreement and help you out the door, moving back in the direction of your dorm. While the horrors and **** you saw in Atlee’s head still haunt you, the people she went after are safe for now. That’s enough. For now, anyway.