SOS (Anything But Love)

[Xaldien†]

((Clive and Lilah continued from It's On))

The moments were passing by as life slowly slept away from the young woman. Her dreams, unfulfilled. Her hopes, now nothing more than a fleeting thought. Her life, now reduced to nothing at the hands of the apocalypse.

Lilah lay on the floor, beaten and in pain from the bullet wound on her stomach, her blood escaping her as if it wanted to come out at any moments notice. It was funny how despite the pain, and the despair of seeing Clive with a sad look on his face, she still could see death as easy, almost as if she were falling asleep, really. About the easiest thing that she could have ever done was lay there and die.

She looked in Clive's direction. He had no look of glee. No spark. Nothing that he would have gotten out of killing any other person. Cruel and sadistic though he may be, this was not done for pleasure. This was a debt repaid. And one she realized he didn't honestly want to take.

"Thanks."

Clive simply looked at her. All the antagonism he provided for her seemed to have been wasted. He played a game with her that she wasn't eligible to participate in. Any other person would have receive a cruel and violent death at his hands, but he could only oblige with the rules the two set up, both out of respect for their agreement and for the slight love he had for her, which he kept hidden from the world.

He apologized for what he did to her in her ear. Said his goodbyes. Then took the Sig Sauer used for the challenge.

As she gave him the only smile that meant anything, he aimed the gun at her head, and she rested finally.

Boom.

Lilah Morgan - Deceased

**********************Moments Earlier***********************

"Would you mind slowing the fuck down, girl?"
Immediately after leaving the witless wonder and his lusting little girl at the trail, Lilah made her way to the caves in order to find at least one place where Clive could leave her in peace, but it didn't seem it was happening as he was clearly intent on talking to her. But, on some small level, she was worried about the wound on his arm, as even though he was applying pressure to it, it was still bleeding a hell of a lot.

She made sure that there was no one around the area, which aside from the dead bodies, there really wasn't any. So she rested her personals and asked Clive to sit next to her as she lay on the floor, going through her bag.

"Remove your shirt, Clive."

Even at a moment where it was clear she was playing Doctor, Clive couldn't help but be the chauvinistic ass that he is.

"I thought we would have sex BEFORE the break up, not after, but if you really want to."

Lilah was more than expecting such a childish remark from him. The boy was the age of a man, had the body of a god, but the mindset of a twelve year old after finding their dad's playboy stash.

"Come on, Lilah, laugh. Like when I was your Romeo and you my Juliet. You used to laugh at all my jokes."

"Well, since we're using those characters as an analogy, go drink some poison and I'll stab myself. Because that's what's gonna before I laugh at one of your jokes."

Clive smiled at her and removed his shirt.

"Now tear a long piece off so you can wrap it around your arm, but before you do that, let me get some of this on it."

She pulled out a bottle of antiseptic that she had gotten from the hospital during her FIRST encounter with the idiot. One of the few things she managed to grab before her collar started beeping. She proceeded to apply the antiseptic to the wound, but found that she didn't have a single thing to remove the bullet from the wound itself.

"Think you can live with that there?"
"Probably."

She took the piece of cloth that he tore up and tightly wrapped it around the wound itself and took a slight amount of pleasure in making sure it hurt when she did it.

After grunting and taking the very obvious pain she had briefly inflicted, he simply shrugged and got on with the fact that he probably deserved it.

"Why are you helping me, anyway? Shouldn't you be busy trying to kill me?"

Not a response was uttered. Lilah simply went back to her little spot where she just sat. And thought.

Clive, realizing that there was something he wanted to talk about, sat down next to her.

"You weren't even going to try and kill him, were you?"

There was only one person who knew how to get inside Lilah's head, and that was Clive. Any thought she had could be read by him like an open book. There was always some sort of sick satisfaction he got from mindfucking her. But now it was just for information's sake.

"Clive... I can't do this. This game, I thought I could play, but I honestly can't. Everything that I've ever believed, everything that I've ever dreamed of being will be destroyed here. I wanted to become a person who put evil people to justice. Do not kill. Do not rape. Do not steal. These are codes of behavior that everyone can live by, but--"

"If you had attacked Guy, you would have killed him. And would have hated yourself for becoming what you hated most: A killer."

Lilah gave a slight smile.
"Still finishing my sentences."
"Old habits die hard."

Lilah continued.

"You, on the other hand, CAN play this game. You could probably win, too. You're cold, calculating, strong... I found this out a long time ago."

Clive wasn't too proud to think about the things he did to her in the past. Only reason being was because this was a girl he actually cared about and fell in love with.

"The way I treated you was shit. I will be the first to admit that I am a sadist. I enjoy this game. I can't wait to bring pain, misery, and death to everyone here. But--"
"You loved me."

Clive returned the smile she gave earlier.
"Still finishing MY sentences."
"Like you said, old habits die hard."

"You were abusive, Clive. Mentally... physically... you're a sick bastard, yet once you realized I couldn't deal with it anymore, I happened to be the one person you showed remorse for. I never understood it. I thought you were incapable of loving someone."

"What makes you think I'm not playing you now?"

"If you wanted me dead, I'd be dead. Worse, if you wanted me to suffer you'd have done it by now. All this 'I'm going to mess with you throughout the game' shit easily gave it away. Had I been any other person, you would have found a way to torture and kill me when you first saw me at the graveyard."

A brief moment passed by as the two took time to read each other. Clive was blank. Everything she had just said was a truth that he was hiding.

"I can't help what I am, Lilah. I'm--"
"A cold hearted, manipulative, conniving, conquering, alpha male jackoff?"
"Well, I wouldn't go for the conniving part, but the rest was spot on."

The two actually had a brief laugh at the moment passing by.

"I couldn't deal with the fact that I loved you. I didn't know I could. I treated you like I treated any other person thinking it would mean nothing to me."

"Bound to your side. Trapped in silence. Just a possession."

"Pretty much. You were supposed to smile, look pretty, be superficial, and learn your place. But you never did. You were always strong enough to talk back, fight back, and then leave when you realized you couldn't help me. Once you realized that this is who I LIKE being."

"Did I ever mention, Clive, that you are a fucked up person?"
"On a daily basis."
"Okay, good."

"You're the only person I feel remorse over, and the only person I WILL feel remorse over. Everyone else... they'll all feel pains they never thought they could feel."

Lilah took her Sig Sauer in her hand. It's strange to think that she was given such a weapon, without a single intention to actually use it. She could never bring herself to kill people that are innocent, which a vast majority of these kids are.

"You can guess what I'm going to ask you, Clive."
"And you can guess how I'm going to answer."

She handed him the pistol as they both stood up.
"This is your game, Clive. I can't play without sacrificing what I was or ever wanted to be. Meanwhile, this game IS what you are, or ever want to be."

"When you say it that way, it's almost a negative."

He held the gun firmly in hand. He almost thought of it as a farewell gift from a lost love, or something romantic along those lines.

"So, make it quick for me, will you?"
"Oh, come on, you ask so much of me. What do I get out of that?"
"How about this."

Lilah motioned towards Clive in a loving kiss that she used to afford him back when they were fresh. Before she knew who he really was. Before she saw the monster behind the mask of the handsome boy next door. She was kissing someone who was a sadistic maniac... but she also loved him too.

Fireworks seemed to go off in her head, and in his.

The small passionate moment could have gone on forever... but Clive had a debt to pay. For making her life with him hell, he would grant her death to go to Heaven.

And the moment was ended with the gun firing off, launching a bullet into her stomach. He held onto momentarily as she took in the pain and shock that came from being shot. He then laid her down on the floor.

The moments were passing by as life slowly slept away from the young woman. Her dreams, unfulfilled. Her hopes, now nothing more than a fleeting thought. Her life, now reduced to nothing at the hands of the apocalypse...

***********************Present Time************************


Clive sat next to her body for some time.
There was nothing in this for him.
He held onto the gun that he used to kill her in his hand as he just sat and wondered why life played out the way it did. If SOTF hadn't come along, she'd be alive and avoiding him like she always did, and he would have continued consorting that Ed kid from school, who was apparently killed earlier, which ruined any fun Clive might have had with him.

The young man wanted to cry, but couldn't find the emotion to do it. Or rather, he just couldn't. Maybe he forgot how, or maybe there was something else.

No, there WAS something else.

Clive stood and gathered both his items and hers and stuffed as much as he could in his bag, including some medical supplies she had. Before he knew it he was all packed and ready to move on.

Before he left, he made one parting glance at Lilah, who seemed at peace in her death. He leaned over and moved his hand across her face, as if to say one final farewell to not only her, but to the disease of love that plagued him.

He got back up.
Gathered his items.
And left love behind.

And the farther he moved away from her, the more that devil's smile reemerged.

((Continued elsewhere))