File type: Text File (.txt) [Download]
-----------------------------------------
Rita, End of the line
Final Stop


Written by Septia.


“That was self defense. That guy was gonna grab me, you all know it. It's not just me and the voices, you all have voices too, don't you dare lie to an innocent girl.” The adult woman, sporting a broad bulbed abdomen – which only recently settled form it's struggling – spoke with a finger raised in accusation to the vigilantes.
The two peacekeepers exchanged a glance. Then back to the cornered woman. “Alright, alright, you will come with us easy, and we'll sort all this out, alright? You just gotta calm down.”
“Phahaha, Calm? I am. The most calm. I am the Clam Of Calm. Why wouldn't I be calm? Have you even seen someone less calm than me?” Lin screamed with her broad, noodley appendaged hair sprouting out in all directions above her like an uprooted tree grasping at the clouds…
The peacekeepers raised their capture poles towards her, the clamped hold at the end snapping shut with an intimidating clack to assert authority. “Be still, or there will be further problems.”
“Hey…” one peacekeeper whispered to the other, “this girl bust through a brick wall, you think these will really hold her?”
The other vigilante shot them a glare that instilled how green they thought they were presenting. “We'll approach now, and it would be appreciated if you did stayed calm. We don't wanna hunt you all night, but if you think we won’t stop at anything to get you, then you better think agai-.”
-Kkrrnnnnnnnrrr- The door to the warehouse ground open, with a ticking creak of the hinges dragging against rusted iron. Light streamed into the dust dominated room, and in its frame stood the triangular silhouette of a woman weathering not but a thick overcoat, and a bald scalp that reflected the light from outside in a halo of glare.
Lin looked up. “Rita?”
“Lin,” she responded. The dark hued interrupter threading into the room, eyes affixed on Lin, pupils dilated as she travelled in a perfect, straight line.
“Excuse us, we are in the middle of an apprehension, stand aside.”
Rita kept walking, closing in.
Lin shuddered, clasping the wall behind her. “W-wait, n-no, no, no not now.” the tendrils of her hair – thick as boaken branches with enough leverage to topple vehicles – slackened down behind her back and over her shoulders, giving off the image of a docile jellyfish.
The peacekeepers glanced to each other. If their subject was this afraid of them. With a mere exchange of glances they knew what they were to do. Both standing up on either side of Rita's path, crossing their man-catchers in front of her, and opening them wide.
“One more step and you will be apprehended,” the green called out.
Rita, failed to acknowledge them.
With a practised, coordinated thrust, they slammed their man-catchers forwards, the clamps clutching shut to pincer around Rita's body, pinning her arms to her sides, and putting the force of the metal poles as leverage on her, locking her in place…
Before the traps had closed fully, they began to bend backwards -Crrrncnggk- the wail of warping metal ringing out from the vibrating clutches, as the catchers didn't bend at their joints, but through the metal itself, the locking mechanism working perfectly, but the pronged holders warping open around Rita's figure like a drape before a theatre. -Gnnncccrnnnh- The metal screamed as she walked through them, warped open by her locomotion, her overcoat caught back on the metal, dragging and tearing against the hold, but she only kept moving through them, her pupils… shaking.
The green peacekeeper fell form the force exerted against his palms, dropping the man-catchers. The experienced one stepped back, readied his implement, and struck towards her neck.
As it closed, Rita, reacted. Jaw dropping, head tilting, and snapping shut on the clasping claw -Thhgnnghgs- with a ring of steel drumming through the air, her teeth sunk into the weapon, and she tilted her hear in a snap, -Chhrlrapth- the metal breaking apart, and the shock wave travelled back through the mancatcher, throwing the experienced onto his rear, the catcher clattering to the floor.
Rita kept moving.
“Wait, I can explain, Rita, stop.” Lin called out.
Rita kept walking, at the same pace, in the same stature that she had held, for all these years.
“Stop. Just, Stop. I am fine, get away from me,” Lin cried, slumping together into a heap against the wall. Rita walked up to her, standing before her, cents away, a towering obelisk of darkness and purpose wrapped in a stolen overcoat, with nothing to her name, with no armaments, and no words, she dwarfed the upset, derailed woman, standing.
“Stop…” Lin wheezed out, burying her face in her arms across her body. Rita observed Lin. Unblinking, calm. Moments passed into seconds, only Lin's cries echoed in the empty storehouse.
Rita's lips moved, forming a single word. “Pathetic…”
Lin shuddered, a quiver that warped its way through her hair tendrils, but she kept her face entombed in her embrace, silently whimpering.
“After all this time. This is where I find you,” Rita continued. As she leaned down, knelt to the ground, so her overly long overcoat spread out in a tent around her stature, the bottoms folding together as she came eye to eye with Lin. She leaned in, parting her lips.
“You will come home.”
Lin's quivers paused.
“We miss you. I. Missed you.”
Lin inhaled in a dirty, crying snort. “And what was the point of me being here? Locked up, unable to go anywhere, or do anything? You think you get it? You can go anywhere, it doesn't matter, who would stop you? I… wanted that. I wanted to be… alone, to be, something, go somewhere. I couldn't do anything there…”
Rita reached an arm towards her, and cupped her cheek in her palm. “I understand.”
“I am not coming home, home doesn't want me any more. It's too long, been too long, there is nothing for me there.”
Rita paused. “I do not understand. You crossed continents. We missed you. It has been years. I never stopped.”
Lin sniffled. “You-… Wait… You never?”
Rita stared.
“Rita, my girl, what have you lived off of? For how long? Wait, do you even still have a job? Did you tell anyone?”
The verge of questions hit against Rita's skin with more impact than anything had in years. “I work contracts.”
“Rita, you are a freelancer now? How is that supposed to sustain anyone? What kinda freelance can you do barefoot?”
Rita's lips twitched. “Assassin.”
“At your snail's pace? And if I'm not there you could barely have managed a handful of contracts in all these years, what do you do if someone walks away from you at a mild pace? Without me you… without… me…”
“I am aimless.” Rita confirmed.
“Rita…” Lin wheezed, looking straight up into her with tears streaming down her face. Lin threw herself against the statue of a woman, wrapping arms and tendril'd hair around them in one giant embrace. “Rita, I am so sorry, I have been homeless for years. I don't like sleeping in the rain, and eating people gets boring. I hate to say it, but I just want something with spice to it. I've been eating garbage, Rita, good garbage, some high quality garbage when I've slept outside restaurants, but that doesn't make it any less garbage, Ritaaaa,” she bawled, burying her face in Rita's shoulder.
Rita, sat there, staring, lips twitching. She raised a palm, and placed it on Lin's back. “There. I found you.”
“Rita… We… I, need to go home. On top of that, we need to get you a new job, we gotta clean you up, sort you through.”
“Same goes for you.”
Lin paused. “Yeah… If you are there, I guess I will.”
“Good.” Rita confirmed.
Lin began to stand up, but Rita hoisted them the rest of the way.
“Hang on, Rita, why are, oh come on no -mppgpghsh-,” Lin squeeled out as Rita stuffed her in face first, contorting Lin's figure down her face, through her gullet, folding her up into her cheeks and swallowing her lower body down her neck. Rita's chest parting down to the start of her stomach as Lin was lifted, squished, and folded into her maw, till nothing but a sprawling expanse of yellowed hair tendrils slotted out of the dark umber lips. Rita parted her maw, Lin's face framed in the front of her lips, throat down to match her own.
“Rita… is this really necessary?”
“Years. I take no risks.”
“Oooh, fine…” A cavalcade of bulges blooming and forming, boiling under her skin as Lin was shuffled into place, a puzzle piece wrapped in soft, pliant skin. “W-wait… we aren't walking all the way, are we?”
“Uhuhwn.” Rita said, shaking her head.
“Then who-.”
-bbwbbBBwwwtzz-.
Rita's gullet vibrated.
Lin fished a hair down into the throat, hauling out the flip phone. She looked up to Rita, then sighed, and snapped open the phone. “Heeey… it's… me…”
A chorus of voices shouted from the phone, Lin instinctively holding it out a hair's distance from her as the phone shook with voices. Once they had calmed a bit she brought it closer. “I-I know, look, I… we will talk about this, yes… but, we need… to get home… Yes, yes I am coming home. Yes, Rita is here…” she continued.
Rita began to walk, overcoat wrapped close, the faint imprint of the figure herself within displayed on her frame as she departed from the werehouse, leaving the vigilantes on the floor, staring as they left.
“If you can talk to Rita? Ehm… She's, got her mouth busy right now… with me.”
-Kkthhcng- The door shut behind them. A conversation left, trailing on the wind, as it blew further, and further away.