WHO Nina Maynard WHEN Sunday night WHERE Nina's building WHAT Leaving it too late to hunt WARNINGS vomiting, talk of cannibalism
In the middle of the dark night, Nina awoke with a thundering in her chest and an ache in her stomach. Restless, breathless, she stumbled her way out of the bed, eyes barely deigning to open. Rudderless, foundationless, her body guiding her movements towards the bathroom without any consent from her higher nature.
There, in front of the toilet, Nina fell to her knees and started throwing up, hands clutching hard to the porcelain with each painful retch.
Nina didn't have to question the reason. She had been here before, and wanted to swear at her body for being so idiotic in its reaction, and at herself for letting it get to this point.
She was hungry.
(Hungry? No, not just anything so simple as hungry. Nina felt like a beast half-starved and ravenous.)
Her stomach was revolting against the perfectly nice Tibetan food she'd eaten last night, simply because it wasn't what her spirit so desperately craved. She didn't know how to explain to a unruly bundle of blood and muscle that just because it wanted fresh human heart, that didn't mean it didn't still need regular old human girl food.
Woman does not live by heart alone, Nina wanted to inform it, and she sat for a long time on the bathroom floor, her stomach cramping and demanding, while she tried to remember the origin of the quote she was bastardizing.
The Tibetan food had been a date, another with Peter. She wanted to think that it had been a nice date, but instead she could remember very little about it. She'd been so distracted by her own hunger, even as she shoveled food into her mouth, more than she really needed, even though she knew it wouldn't satiate her. She would zone out completely before realising that Peter had asked her a question, and would have to ask him to repeat it. She felt too cold and a little shaky and once she caught herself staring at Peter's neck, imagining the blood pulsing there, imagining leaping across the table in the middle of the restaurant and-
It was after that disturbing vision that Nina knew she had to get out of there. She excused herself as politely as she could. I don't feel very well, was what she told him. I think I need to just go home and rest.
He'd tried to insist on going all the way home with her, concern in her voice, but Nina had kindly refused him. She let him walk her to the uber instead, and climbed heavily into the backseat alone.
But now she could deny the screaming void inside no longer, but she also couldn't hunt on her own, especially not while she felt so weak. She would need someone else to do it for her. So after putting on proper clothes, Nina made her way downstairs to the room of the temple building where some of the warriors slept. Arm pressed against her stomach to try and stop the cramps, she knocked heavily on the door and leaned against the wall.
It didn't take long for the door to open. These were, after all, men who served gods. Gods did not like to be kept waiting.
Her tone was apologetic and ashamed, too loud in the otherwise quiet building. "I'm so sorry to wake you this late," she said to the man who stood there, shirtless and blinking against the light. "But I need your help."