#(meanwhile martyn feels… cold. cold and slow and vicious and hungry in a way that he’s never felt before)

[theminecraftbee]

Cleo isn’t a fan of the heartbeat, honestly.

Okay, so there’s a lot of things she’s not a fan of about Martyn, actually, up to and including the black eye she has from where she’d punched him, which she has decided to blame him for despite it being her own action, because if he hadn’t been so deserving of a punch in the face, she wouldn’t have a black eye! She hates that she can still feel phantom heat licking against her, hates that he left her all day, hates that she didn’t get a choice in the matter. There’s a lot to hate, really. Martyn should be impressed.

But the thing she didn’t expect, and realizes she hates, is this: she has a heartbeat. She’s lying on her bed, and she feels her heart beating, and it makes her anxious, because, because—

How fast is a racing heart, anyway? She can’t remember! She hasn’t had one of those… ever, really. And it’s not her heartbeat. It’s his. And now that the day has slowed down, it’s all she can feel. That disconcerting thump, thump, thump, thump, that crawls inside her chest and presses against her throat.

God, how do the living deal with this all the time? She turns over. She feels her pulse thump. She feels oddly like crying. She doesn’t think it hurts. The sensation is not something that hurts. She’s not sure how to interpret it, though, so her (long-dead) brain’s trying to tell her something is wrong. Something is moving like it isn’t supposed to.

Something is inside of her and it is moving. Martyn is inside of her and she wants him out.

The traitorous heartbeat keeps thumping.

She hates him. She hates him. She hates him.

(And she’s supposed to be dead.)

She can’t bring herself to sleep all night. In the morning, Scott asks, but when she tries to explain, he barely seems to know what she’s saying. She goes to chop wood, and hopes the exertion hides the traitorous, terrible thing that is alive in her now that she’s noticed it. It doesn’t quite.