The back of her skull exploded outwards, glistening fragments of her white skull along with splurges of grey brain matter splattering onto the ground beside us. The point blank shot to her head had blasted droplets of dark blood back onto my pale face, painting it a deep red.
I straightened my posture, pushing myself up with one hand and cradling her desecrated corpse with the other.
Now I just had to wait.
After a few minutes, I felt a slight change in pressure; the frigid morning air slowly heating up far beyond what it would have been naturally.
This incredible heat began to coalesce into a glowing purple light that bobbed in the air above us.
Within seconds it had solidified further, slowly metamorphosing into the form of a shining butterfly which flitted downwards before landing onto my lover's decimated cranium.
Her whole body heated up, and I let go of her glowing frame lest I get burned due to the destructive rebirth cycle.
The warm corpse I had been holding onto flashed, her skin and clothes taking on an ethereal pink which shimmered rhythmically under the bright sunlight.
I shivered, the rapid change is temperature unsettling my very conditioned sense of touch.
Her body raised upwards, every single droplet of spilled blood glowing that same otherworldly color, all of it drifting back towards her damaged but rapidly reforming body.
I didn't stop to watch the process as it was happening however, right now the priority was tending to my wound. I reached forwards, parting the patch of shredded clothing where I had been bitten.
The whole section was soaked with my blood, the trousers I had been wearing now stained a dark black.
I rolled the clothing up past my knee so I could examine the full extent of my injury.
It looked manageable, definitely not something to get worked up about. As far as bite marks went it was a rather clean cut, the flesh hadn't been ripped badly at all, just a few punctures where its teeth had sunk into me. I had grabbed the thing with both hands as soon it had managed to latch its disgusting mouth onto my leg; carefully prising its jaws open.
Its filthy corpse was probably still sliding down the stairwell wall right now - praise the genetic enhancement I had been lucky enough to attain.
I leant forwards, grabbing her floating body by the ankle and pulling it closer towards me.
The pale flesh of my hand was steaming under the heat emanating from her body, a good sign.
I raised my injured calf and pressed it into her glowing foot, hard. Cauterised wounds were easier for my increased regeneration to deal with than open ones.
My pragmatic and logical decision didn't make the process any less painful though.
My face contorted as I pushed the sole of her shoe into my calf, burning both my hand and shin equally.
"Urgh."
I gasped in pain, pressing it in for just a little longer before snapping both my hand and calf away from her glowing appendage.
The circular pattern of her soles were now thoroughly etched into my once flawless skin, leaving it a raw blackened-grey.
At least it wasn't bleeding anymore.
My contact with her foot however, seemed to have triggered the rebirth's final phase.
Her fingers twitched slightly before her eyes shot open; eyes glowing a bright, colourless white.
She clenched her fists, bringing her arms inwards into a stance akin to a boxer's guard. The pink sheen covering her body scattered away into a deluge of pink butterflies which escaped into the surroundings as she dropped to the floor.
The only unnatural thing left about her was the glowing eyes which still hadn't fully faded yet.
Her kind features crumpled in pain and confusion, and she brought a hand up to clutch at her head.
"Orion, Where are you? My head's still ringing." She called out; her voice alarmed, but most importantly, consciously aware.
Relief washed over me; it had worked, again.
I called out to her soothingly, "I'm right here, just injured is all. Has your vision not returned yet?"
She looked relieved now, tentatively stepping towards me, following the direction of my voice had eminated from.
"Not yet, although I'm not too sure why. Did something interrupt my rebirth?"
I winced, starting to feel a little guilty about my minor improvisation. "Yeah… I might have used your foot to cauterise my injury, sorry about that."
She froze mid step, looking ahead at me blankly. "You did what?"
I stayed silent, knowing full well she had heard every single word.
"You stupid boy," She hissed, the pinkish glow finally leaving her eyes as she strutted over to me. "What were you thinking? I've melted through steel in that state before, I'm surprised you didn't lose your hand."
She crouched down and grabbed my hand, glancing downwards at my burnt skin, palm still a raw black from when I had grabbed her heel. "You can be such an idiot sometimes."
"Burns are easier to heal than bites." I said calmly, indicating the barely visible marks hidden underneath my blackened skin.
"You Genons, mad the lot of you." She huffed, standing back up and walking to the railing.
"So, where are we?" She asked, her gaze landing on the city around us. "I remember calling it our 'castle' but not much else." She raised her hands and quoted the air with two fingers, smiling sardonically.
"Honestly? I have no clue, couldn't find a single map in the city - and trust me, we've been everywhere."
She clicked her tongue, clearly unhappy with my lack of relevant information.
"And… Our progress?" She turned around and looked at me, leaning backwards against the stiff railing.
"Natalie…" I said softly, pushing myself upright and tentatively stepping towards her.
"Don't 'Natalie' me." She snarled, smacking my hand away from her shoulder before glaring at me unhappily. "You might have given up on finding a way out, becoming content with this shitty lifestyle; but I have not."
That was not fair.
Content, she thought I was content. Sure I had given up, who wouldn't have. But was I content? No.
I laughed, turning away from her and walking back to the stairwell I had emerged from. "Content, that's funny."
She said nothing. She didn't mean it, not really.
Burns were indeed easier for my regeneration to heal; the topmost layer of my skin had already patched over into an ugly greyish scab, which was far more bearable to walk on than a hole in my leg.
Two centuries older than me and she still lashed out like a child, although I couldn't really blame her for it.
The 'progress' she was talking about was related to her physical condition. She had a degenerative disease that would slowly eat away at her brain until she was rendered what was basically an infant possessing an adults body.
Fortunately, or unfortunately; her radiant power granted her a bastardised version of immortality. When Natalie died she would revert back to the peak of her physical fitness; or in more relevant terms, before her brain started rotting away.
She was cursed to repeat this process until the day she decided to give up and pass on her powers to an inheritor.
I doubted that would happen anytime soon though, at least within my own lifetime.
I stalked down the stairs silently, my bare feet treading cautiously from step-to-step. No way was I getting bitten again, especially by those invisible fuckers.
It was kill or be killed, even in the world of monsters. The only reason those vermin had managed to survive was because they had somehow adapted an invisible coat of fur - don't ask me how. All I knew was how irritating they were, and that the apparent drawback was that they were blind because of it.
The gunshot could have alerted a few stragglers from the local pack, and I didn't feel like dealing with a swarm of transparent; heavily mutated, dog-sized rats just about now.
Natalie had clearly stopped ruminating over whatever she was thinking about, because I heard the sound of her ruined sneakers crossing the roof behind me.
I immediately gave up on any sort of stealth, radiants were too overconfident for my careful lifestyle, and for good reason too.
They were powerful.
"Let's go somewhere new, I can't stand being in this place any longer."
"Alright, then let's go." I nodded, agreeing. "But walk carefully, the rats have mutated again."