Blood Queen Reborn

Leaving the game, Erin rushed over to find Layla. By using their family connection to one another, she was able to get a sense of how close to her presence she was. As she was in the middle of searching for her roommate, Erin received a notification.

[A family member has grown stronger]

Instantly, Erin knew what it meant, and so did Quinn.

{Quinn} What happened to Layla?

{Erin} I’m searching for her right now.

Turning a corner into a secluded hallway, Erin found her roommate hunched over the remains of a student, her back facing her. Although Erin couldn’t see what happened, she could definitely smell and hear enough to figure it out.

Biting and ripping apart its flesh like she hadn’t eaten in years, Layla was ravenously gobbling the boy with the perfectly combed hair. Although, his hair wasn’t very combed anymore, and there was a massive gaping hole where his chest was. Blood splattered against the walls.

[2/7 unique humans consumed]

{Erin} Found her.

{Erin} She’s near the janitor office between the gaming room.

{Erin} Be prepared to dispose of a body.

{Erin} I... I failed my promise to Layla.

Erin didn’t get a response back from Quinn, so she just had to assume he was on his way. She also thought that the system voice would have something to say about what just happened, but it remained silent, which she was grateful for.

"Layla—"

Her body flinched upwards, and twisted like an animal caught in the headlights. The moment Layla saw it was Erin, her body relaxed, but only for a second.

"I’m so sorry— I— I didn’t want to do this," Layla cried.

She crawled away from the corpse, afraid of her own actions.

"I didn’t think— Oh god, I just killed someone—" The horror crept in more and more as Layla kept speaking, then down at her hands, bloodied, "I’m— I’m a monster."

To kill someone like that, with her bare teeth and claws, didn’t feel like the Layla she knew herself as. Layla would never hurt someone like this, she would never rip someone apart, she would never let her emotions get the better of her.

And yet... She did. Worst of all, she enjoyed it.

Before Layla could spiral more, Erin gripped her shoulders and stared into her eyes.

"Quinn is on his way, but right now we have to focus on dealing with the body. How long has it been?"

Layla’s eyes wandered over the corpse, then she shut her eyes closed and gulped. The numbers were running in her head about how they were going to hide all of this. Should she eat the last of the flesh? What about the watch?

"Quinn isn’t going to be enough," Layla quickly replied, then pressed her fingers to her temples, only to remember that they were still bloodied.

"Crap, okay okay, think, Layla, I killed him one minute— no, let’s just say its been two minutes, how much time do we have?"

She brought her watch up to check the time, 2:03 PM.

"Every 10 minutes throughout the day, a signal is sent from the watch detailing our locations. So long as we get out of here before it’s 2:10, we should have time," Layla said, then added, "I hope..."

This was knowledge that Layla was driven into her back when she was at Pure. They didn’t think that she would need to kill someone on her mission, this knowledge was just in case a situation would arise where she ended up in a place where she wasn’t supposed to.

The 10 minute interval was a request made by powerful Original families as they didn’t want their kids to constantly be monitored. A small sliver of luck for Layla now.

Suddenly, they heard the sound of footsteps coming their way. Layla lowered her body, prepared to defend herself, but Erin held her hand out.

"Don’t worry, this is help," Erin reassured, and Quinn stepped into view.

He saw the corpse next to the two girls, but instead of being worried or concerned, he looked determined, already knowing what to do. Despite having questions, Quinn knew they were going to need to wait.

"Quinn, hold on", Layla raised a hand, indicating to stop, "I know what we need to do. Erin, place the watch in your shadow. Because it can’t detect a heart beat, it’ll send a signal to this location in 5 minutes."

Then, Layla corrected herself, "Actually, 2 minutes now."

Erin nodded, and placed the watch inside of her shadow space. She wasn’t able to store organic things for some reason, just like she couldn’t store the dalki hand from long ago, so she couldn’t do anything about the body. However, that was Quinn’s job.

He used his earth ability to open a massive hole in the ground. While moving and stretching his hands, he was able to dispose of the body in the depths of the Earth. He closed it up, clapped his hands together and said, "Ok, gone without a trace."

"Okay, okay, we need to get out of here," Layla said, then looked down at her clothes, "Crap, how are we going to hide this?"

Layla was wearing a light colored casual outfit, meaning that the bright red blood was very visible on her. Thankfully, it was mainly concentrated on the upper torso.

"Quinn, turn around!" Layla whispered yelled, and began removing her shirt.

In any other time, they would’ve been embarrassed, but they didn’t have the room to be so. Quinn simply did as told, and removed his own jacket. He handed it over his shoulder to Layla, and put it on while Erin placed her bloodied shirt in the dimensional storage.

Not having another moment to waste, they ran out of the dark hallway.

On their way to the girl’s dorm room, Erin couldn’t help but wonder how Layla knew so much about what to do in the situation. It was something she was going to need to ask her about later.

When they arrived at their destination, neither of the girls were able to smell Cia’s scent, meaning the coast was clear. Layla quickly ran a shower, leaving Erin to inform Quinn of what happened.

She explained everything through the system chat system, just as an extra measure of security. When she was done, the clock struck 2:10pm. If what Layla said was true, then the watches would’ve shown that they were nowhere near the body, that is, if they even knew there was a body to begin with.

Speaking of, Erin couldn’t help but want reassurance on the dimensional storage skill.

{Erin} System, will the dimensional storage make it so they can’t detect where the watch is?

"I believe it will. If it wouldn’t have, then I would’ve spoken up about it sooner," the system said.

She didn’t like the fact that the system didn’t seem so sure of itself, and neither did Quinn, but they were just going to have to be hopeful they did everything in their power to not get caught.