#welllllp

It'd been a minute since he last had someone to smooch on, let alone one as pretty as a picture like this gal. Even longer since he'd had someone writhing on his lap, grinding themselves against him with some kinda unholy desire to test his ability to withstand cumming in his britches from the friction!

"God damn," he honestly was about to embarrass himself if she didn't slow it down, so Rae took her by the hips and put a little strength in holding her in place.

"Baby, y'like a cat in heat, but this 'ol Tom wants ta take his time to enjoy you proper."

Rae's kiss bruised mouth pulled into a wide smile.

Her vision is white at the edges. The blood pulse sounds like a war drum in her temples, and the tadpole is squirming in rhythm. There is blood on her hands and her face and staining her shirt.

She feels alive. She feels powerful. She feels drunk with it, thick on her tongue.

Narrator: The body of that brave girl who earnestly swore to devote her life to your cause. Her blood covers you and its warmth feels like the embrace of an old friend.

Narrator: You recall nothing of how you ended up here, but your head pounds and aches.

There is very little of her left. Everything is the beast, roaring in satisfaction as the blood drips slowly down onto the sigil she drew in the dirt. Alfira stares up at her, blank-eyed, her stomach open just as Lae'zel described earlier in the evening in another context entirely - from navel to neck. Her guts decorate her body like gruesome tinsel.

She struggles for clarity, for anything resembling control.

[INTELLIGENCE] Try hard to remember something, anything.

Narrator: A single moment comes to you. The flash of abject terror in her eyes.

Narrator: Blood spilling from her lips. No time for last words.

The memory only makes the beast howl louder. She feels dizzy and sick and sated. The sigil on the ground seems to burn into her eyes.

[INVESTIGATION] Investigate your surroundings, looking for an explanation.

Narrator: There are dozens and dozens of wounds on the corpse. The killer did not stop savaging it, even when she was long gone.

Narrator: And your dominant arm aches. It aches from stabbing. Over and over.

Facts, implacable, inescapable, piling on each other as they always do. The picture coming into focus, moment by moment.

Narrator: No matter how it appears, the body is there, and the blood is on your hands. The question flows through your mind - who are you, really, that you could be guilty of such bitter business?

Wonder: what curse is in your heart, to kill in your sleep?

Narrator: Something wicked must have woken you. The contemptible pervert within must have lavished slash after slash upon the girl. But where, oh where, could that monster have come from? If only you knew yourself better...

Narrator: You don't have much time for reflection now. You need to act. You may only have a few moments before the others awaken and begin to cast blame for the hot sin before you.

The beast is slowly calming, enough for her to start to think. What good hiding what happened? She has been honest with them from the start, that this urge claws at the back of her brain. This should come as no surprise to anyone.

And yet...

There is a strange thought without cause or logic. She does not want them to see. They are not drawn to the blood as she is. They would see this as tragedy. And perhaps it is.

They will see her as a monster. And perhaps she is, too.

She wonders why that troubles her.

Prepare to face the others. You aren't going to hide.

She sits down next to the body, rests her elbows on her knees, and waits, staring into the dying fire.

Narrator: Your misdeed is bright and clear as the dawning day.

-----

Gale is the first one awake the next morning, and his shout rouses the whole camp as one. They gather around and stare at the horrific, gory tableau that greets them.

"By the gods themselves, what kind of nightmare is this?" Gale asks grimly.

Lae'zel's eyes have already moved past the body and are focused on Rakha, bloodstained and silent, sitting next to her. "And you're unclean," she says. "Why?"

Rakha says nothing, just stands slowly. The eyes are all on her, and she does not shy from them, but their judgment stabs as much as she expected it to, even if she does not understand why.

"I'm going to say something I'm confident we're all thinking," Gale says, after the silence has stretched for a while. "Was this your doing?"

"I don't know what happened," Rakha says flatly. "I woke up and she was dead."

Gale's eyes narrow. "I'm going to make the obvious point that you are covered in blood, friend. Point the finger where you will, but you're the one we've caught red-handed."

Another long silence. Rakha makes no objection. She has not 'pointed the finger' at anyone. That Gale can extrapolate facts is no surprise. She awaits the judgment.

Will they leave? Her eyes flick to Wyll and Karlach standing at a distance, their expressions troubled. What do they see in this, with all the baffling kindness under their strength?

To her surprise, though, no one moves, and eventually Gale huffs a breath out through his nose. "This is not beyond the remit of what the parasite might command," he says pensively.

Narrator: The worm in your head has never slept more peacefully. You know in your heart it was something deeper. Hungrier.

Remain silent.

If that is what they wish to believe, she will not dissuade them of it. She wants the assistance they can provide. She wants... their companionship, strange as it is to admit. But she will not waste her time arguing for something she knows to be false.

There is only one certainty. Something deep and fundamental is wrong with her. And the beast is far more in control than she believed.

Gale nods slowly, settling into his hypothesis. "If the parasite is truly to blame, we must be more vigilant than ever and hope this affliction spreads no further." He takes a step closer to Rakha, squints at her guardedly. "I'm keeping my eye on you," he says firmly.

Narrator: An uneasy feeling lingers in the air. As the inquisition departs, you are left alone with a familiar headache.

Perhaps it would have been easier if they had all left. She is left with lingering questions that have nothing to do with Alfira's death. This will cause them to take precautions, to form ulterior motives, to hide their opinions. She realizes abruptly that she had started to trust those who carry the worm with her, to expect them to answer her questions honestly. And, given the wary glare in Gale's eyes, that is no longer certain.

And the beast will still have free reign in her head.

Breathe deeply. You must uncover the cause of your mad spree, lest it happen again.

Narrator: Much is uncertain, but you know one thing for sure. The darkness will strike again, unless you find a light.

Perhaps. And yet there is so little light to be found. Wyll said that she carries her own, but there was no sign of it last night when she sank her fingers into Alfira's guts.