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Ellie had lost count of how many times she’d killed Abby, or been killed by Abby.
This wasn’t the same beach she had first arrived at; everything around flickered and faded as they fought — the burning Rattlers resort on shore, the pillars hung with corpses, the mounds rising along the edge of the sand, and those two boats. Every time Abby stopped breathing, her body would vanish, like sugar melting in water. Ellie gripped Abby’s neck tight but couldn’t stop her from slipping away like seawater through her fingers. In the end, all she could do was face the endless grey sea and meet her own demise. Sometimes hypothermia, sometimes a tsunami, sometimes just sitting quietly on the shore, dying slowly in eternal solitude. Death — or rather the wait for death — dragged on so long that Ellie lost all sense of time.
Sometimes Ellie failed. Usually, it was Abby’s relentless punches knocking her out, or Abby strangling her and drowning her underwater, just like Ellie often did to Abby. The saltwater stung Ellie’s eyes, the overcast sky blurred Abby’s features, but in the warped reflection, Ellie saw the fate in Abby’s eyes.
Abby was caught in the same loop.
A death spiral neither could break.
And after countless deaths, they both came to the same conclusion: the only way out is to finish each other off.
Though this could mean many things.
This time, Ellie didn’t intend to kill Abby, she loosened her grip just before Abby suffocated. Abby burst from the water, gasping hard, scrambling away on all fours. She coughed violently until she spat out the last bit of water, then straightened, slipping back into her usual guarded stance. Ellie watched her in silent.
Neither made a move to attack. The grey beach stretched empty and eerie, the low sky hung like a glass dome pressed over a pinned moth. The air was deathly still. Thick fog wrapped around them, the seawater at their feet growing colder, and both felt the pressing need to leave here.
Abby stepped toward Ellie. Ellie shook her head, saying nothing. But Abby kept approaching, slow and deliberate, closing the gap between them until she could reach out and touch Ellie’s shoulder.
A strange, heavy understanding passed between them, a silent conspiracy, tinged with wickedness and moral decay.
Ellie looked at Abby’s outstretched hand, and the heavy stone in her mind suddenly tumbled down with a crash, shattering into shards and rocks and flinging themselves at her. She saw herself at the mountain’s base, face battered, skin open, jaw slack, one eye swollen shut. Ellie snapped awake, smacked Abby’s hand away sharply, stepped back to keep distance, and walked toward the beach. She’d rather keep up this Sisyphean torment than stay close to Abby.
Then Abby spoke: “I can’t let you leave.”
“I’m not doing this.” Ellie looked back, voice tight like a guitar string about to snap.
A suffocating, unspoken tension filled the air. They both knew what the other wanted, but neither was willing to give in.
Abby took the first move, lowering her body and charging, ramming Ellie hard in the abdomen with her uninjured shoulder, knocking her over at the waist. During the scuffle, Ellie found an opening and landed several punches on Abby. The cut on her cheek split open, and fresh blood streamed down the lower half of her face.
Abby pressed a bony forearm to Ellie’s throat and whispered: “Yes, you will. You made yourself a part of this.”
The words they’d repeated countless times before their duels. But now the roles had reversed. Abby’s blood dripped onto Ellie’s face. Ellie felt that tearing phantom pain again, a wild, wicked laugh bubbling up uncontrollably. She arched her back and threw Abby off.
“Okay.”
Ellie didn’t know how long Abby had been hanging by the sea — those once intimidating steel-like muscles were gone, and the Valkyrie braids shaved to a buzz cut. This Abby was nothing like the terrifying monster who’d knocked her down twice. Ellie straddled her, feeling the sharpness of Abby’s protruding hip bones against her. A frail, bony Abby, almost unimaginable and unfamiliar. Ellie wasn’t used to this Abby. But it didn’t matter. The only thing she wanted was to get out, to leave this vulgar parody of a black comedy.
Ellie chuckled softly, like a true psychopath. The sound vibrated through their pressed thighs, reaching Abby, whose legs twitched uneasily, as if only now realizing she was being straddled by the enemy she should hate to the guts. She knew what Ellie was going to do — she could even say she forced Ellie into it — but she didn’t know how far Ellie would go, nor had she thought Ellie might choose to torture her.
“Just get it over with.” Abby said, turning her head away, refusing to meet Ellie’s eyes.
But Ellie grabbed her by the jaw and turned her face back, her voice shaking with a strange, suppressed tremor: “If we don’t get out this time, I’ll treat you like you treated Joel.”
Her eyes were dark — maybe from the dim sky, or the overwhelming sense of their shared inevitable fate, pupils so dilated the original colour was lost.
Contrary to what Ellie said, her movements weren’t violent; instead, they carried a kind of twisted patience, something extremely rare for Abby. Abby knew she shouldn’t resist Ellie, yet she instinctively writhed under Ellie’s touch, even though it was just through the clothes. The steadily dropping temperature sparked a forbidden, filthy thought in Abby’s mind, an instinctive longing for the only warmth on this empty, eerie grey beach, even if that warmth came from her foe. Ellie’s right hand was steady and strong, showing no sign of the countless deaths her body had endured. She rolled up Abby’s blood-soaked tank top from the hem, pushing it upward until Abby’s entire chest was exposed. Her dry fingertips gently rubbed Abby’s nipples, barely needing any pressure to make them harden. Abby shivered, but they both knew it wasn’t from the cold.
Ellie said nothing, but her eyes sparkled with a light that made Abby flush with embarrassment. Abby felt all the blood rush to her head—which, in a way, was a relief, easing the pressure elsewhere—and her ears throbbed from the pounding. She couldn’t take it anymore and struggled, curling her legs tight and thrusting her hips, trying to buck Ellie off her. One hand grabbed Ellie’s right wrist, the other caught Ellie’s left hand as it lunged toward her neck.
“I said, get it over with. Cut the crap.”
Ellie let out that twisted, psychotic laugh again. The duel had made her bleed heavily, blood trickling down her split upper lip stained her teeth red, making her look like a mountain lion suddenly lifting its head from devouring prey. Abby was no longer worth Ellie’s effort. Carelessly, Ellie broke free of the left hand and slapped Abby across the face.
Then came a sharp, crushing pain in Ellie’s knuckles, radiating from her injured ring and pinky fingers.
Only then did Ellie realize how deeply focused she’d been on Abby—her mind so locked in that she’d forgotten everything around her, even her own wounds. The cruelest irony: the one who had just bitten off her fingers was now her own natural painkiller. Thinking that, Ellie leaned down close to Abby’s face, as if trying to memorize every detail: a thin, healed slash above her cheekbone, which Ellie didn’t remember cutting in the theatre; a fresh, torn wound across the middle of her cheek, bright red blood mixing with the dark blood from Ellie’s severed fingers, creating a chaotic, almost mocking pattern.
“You asked for this.” Ellie muttered thickly from her throat, but Abby heard every word clearly.
After getting slapped by Ellie, Abby stopped struggling for a while. The feeling of the two broken knuckles hitting her face was alien, even more unbearable than Ellie rubbing her nipples. She secretly hoped the cut on her face would bleed more to wash away the twisted touch. What comforted Abby, or disturbed her, was that Ellie quickly pulled off the final layers, and it seemed that she did not intend to prolong this embarrassing process, but Abby knew there was a catch. There had to be a catch to Ellie's seemingly well-intentioned behaviour.
The catch was Ellie's warm breath sprayed between Abby's legs.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
Abby braced herself for another beating the moment the words left her mouth. But Ellie didn’t punch her. She didn’t even let out that psychotic laugh.
Instead, she spoke in a tone so eerily calm, even puzzled, that it made Abby’s skin crawl.
“You said to get it over with,” Ellie said. “This is the fastest way I know.”
She sounded genuinely confused, as if she couldn’t grasp why Abby was reacting so strongly. That raw, earnest bewilderment made Abby’s scalp prickle. Abby took a deep breath to steady herself, to stop the spiral from pulling her under, though maybe she was already too far gone, and just hadn’t realized it yet. Abby let out a slow, defeated breath and covered her eyes with one hand, refusing to engage with Ellie any further.
And Ellie leaned down again, her breath haunting on Abby's vulva—hot, maddening, barely there. Abby felt her stomach seize, a violent clench that spread upward and downward at once, as lust and guilt crashed over her in a single, sickening wave.
What did hatred taste like? Saltwater, sweat, and the iron stench that flooded the inside of her nose. Ellie buried her face between Abby’s thighs, not caring if the blood on her lips smeared across her pubic hair.
She was going to ruin Abby—physically, mentally, completely. The thought came to Ellie with a terrifying calm.
After killing Abby countless times in the previous loops, Ellie had entered a state of quiet, focused madness.
This woman had once dominated her.
This woman had changed her forever.
Now Ellie had to return the favour, creatively.
Ellie slowly parted Abby’s labia with the tip of her tongue and found, unsurprisingly, that she was already wet.
A wave of smugness rose in Ellie’s chest, quickly followed by disgust—what was there to be proud of, getting your foe so turned on she loses control? Technically speaking, Ellie had the upper hand in experience, and overpowering someone (Abby? Overpowered? Ellie let out a bitter laugh in her mind) had never been her kink.
She gave two casual licks to the inner folds before needing to use a hand to steady Abby’s bucking hips. That shifted her strategy. Instead of diving in, Ellie began to trace the perimeter, lips brushing along the soft edges, tongue pressing lightly against the mound, but always skirting around the clit. She had no intention of letting this rookie come too easily.
But Abby’s trembling thighs made her change her mind. Ellie pressed her palm down, feeling the hardened tension beneath the skin and worn muscle, and involuntary shudders. All of it pointed to one truth: Ellie was getting to her. Ellie was in control. And something primal in Ellie stirred up, something dark, lustful, and twistedly satisfied.
Her fingers dug into Abby’s thigh, nails leaving five crescent-shaped marks. She pursed her lips slightly, then sealed them around Abby’s clit and sucked hard, tongue flicking over the swollen nub in one brutal stroke.
Abby bucked upward with a strangled, layered cry—part pain, part pleasure, part something filthy and half-suppressed. The sound reminded Ellie of the one Abby made when the switchblade sank into her chest, only now it carried something more, something broken and obscene, almost…expectantly.
Abby slammed her thighs shut, trapping Ellie’s head in a vice. Once, those powerful legs could’ve crushed her skull, just like they had crushed the Scar who tried to slit her open. But Abby was no longer that woman. She had long lost the body she once took pride in.
Ellie shook her head hard, slipping free of her grip, dodging the flailing hands that followed. Her nails dug into the flesh of Abby’s thigh, cruel and precise, pinning one leg down while she sank her teeth into the other, right where it met her pelvis. A low, guttural cry tore from Abby’s throat.
The blood added a new dimension to the salt in Ellie’s mouth, richer, more complex, almost intoxicating.
“Next time, I’ll rip your fucking throat out,” Ellie said calmly, “if you're so desperate to stay here.”
At the word stay, Abby stopped struggling. Like a wolf who finally understood the trap wouldn't let go, her resistance died in her chest. She went still, silent with bitter resignation.
Satisfied, or maybe just mocking, Ellie gave her lower belly a light slap and bent back down to continue what she’d started. She turned her head slightly, licking the fresh bite mark. Abby’s blood had a strange sweetness to it, something unexpected threaded beneath the iron tang.
Was that some goddamn side effect of immunity? Turning her into a vampire? Ellie wondered.
Then she pressed her mouth down again, this time with nothing held back. Her tongue swept from the base of Abby’s soaked folds to the top, grinding against her clit in a slow, firm arc. She circled the swollen nub with the tip, then caught it lightly between her teeth, and sucked, hard.
Abby’s whole body went rigid. For a suspended moment, she stopped breathing, so still that Ellie wondered—genuinely, this time—if she’d killed her.
Then Abby gasped like she just resurfaced from the freezing ocean. Her tense thighs fell.
Ellie pushed herself up and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
They were still stranded on this godforsaken beach. The sky above had collapsed, stripped of its depth, sagging like a torn stage curtain that blurred into the distant grey of the ocean. The whole world looked like a vast, silent backdrop stretched beyond the horizon, terrifying in its sheer emptiness.
There was this empty, collapsed madness in Ellie's eyes. She stared straight into Abby’s face but wasn’t seeing her, she was looking through her, like Abby had dissolved into the grey fog. That gaze passed through Abby and fell on a solid place behind her, on the beach that repeated forever.
The expression on her face was surprisingly distant: “I should’ve left you to die on that pillar. Would’ve been much easier for both of us.”
Then, in that endless stagnation and tranquility, Ellie walked into the depths of the sea.
Abby instinctively wanted to call out to Ellie, but at the very moment she opened her mouth, she realized she didn’t even know her name. A delayed fury welled up inside her, a rage born from being ignored, belittled, and unseen, like an overwintering fire smouldering beneath layers of snow, fuelled by hatred that had refused to die over a long time.
This woman—the woman whose name she didn’t know—had ruined her life. It was all because of her. Abby had lost her friends, family, and everything she once believed in; there was no cure because of her. She was the one Abby wanted.
The one she wanted. Abby chewed on the words over and over, the bitterness filling her mouth. Guilt and regret churned in her gut as the faces of the dead flashed before her eyes, casting a dark red shadow over her vision. Yet Abby didn’t vomit like she had once in the aquarium.
She stared at Ellie’s back. Just before charging toward her, she heard herself whisper: “Yeah, you should've. But you saved me. I’ll make you regret it.”
Unlike before, Abby’s fury and remorse sharpened her attack. She truly gained the upper hand. Pressing her full weight down on Ellie, she shoved her head underwater, hands gripping her neck, feeling the struggling weaken. Maybe it was the frigid seawater, or maybe Ellie was on the brink of death, Abby’s fingers could barely feel the pulse in her carotid artery anymore. Time seemed to freeze, a second stretching infinitely before her mind collapsed, long enough for memories to dissolve and distort, as if Abby herself were the one pinned underwater, Ellie’s missing fingers caught in her throat, enough to cut off all air.
The sudden rush of seawater into Abby’s lungs jolted her awake, and she loosened her grip.
Ellie gasped deeply, her chest heaving violently. Abby imagined the heart pounding beneath, and a strange, irrational compulsion welled up inside her: she had to stop it. So Abby grabbed Ellie’s hair and bit down on her lips, as if trying to cut off her breath in another way. The kiss (if it could even be called a kiss) was heavy with the taste of saltwater and sharp sting; salt seeped into Abby’s cracked lips, sending slow, aching pain, as though she pressed her mouth not to Ellie’s lips, but to shards of broken glass.
Ellie felt herself turning into a conflagration, Abby’s lips burned her with feverish heat. As she slowly melted and disintegrated, Ellie clawed at Abby’s left shoulder with hatred, ripping open a vertical wound along the old stab mark. Abby was like a wolf with a mountain lion’s bite on her throat, barely able to let out a short howl. In a fleeting moment of clarity, Ellie slammed her forehead into Abby’s face, flipping her onto the ground, her elbow pressing down on another stab wound across Abby’s chest. Warm blood welled up like a spring, nourishing Ellie with a long-lost vitality. She felt an odd comfort in knowing she was still alive, and so was her enemy. Their sweat mixed with blood; their skin, muscles, and bones intertwined, pressed tightly together. And this damned beach ceased to matter. Ellie even secretly wished they’d be trapped here forever, endlessly replaying this intimacy.
That conflicted, sinful urge took hold of Ellie’s body. She could no longer hide her distraction; her focus clearly shifted. She released her elbow and bit down on Abby’s lips, which were trembling from pain. Blood mingled in their mouths, intoxicating them both, blurring whose blood was whose, only a boundless closeness remained. In that salty, chaotic taste, Ellie slipped into a feverish delirium. For a moment, she thought she was losing her mind and the next moment, she frantically celebrated—she had driven Abby insane. She had done it.
As they clung to each other in that sick, tangled kiss, this world made of blood and seawater quietly reset. The grey fog gave way to morning light filtering through curtains. Birdsong grew clearer.
Ellie opened her eyes to find her face buried in the crook of Abby’s neck. Abby’s steady breath brushed past her ear, her strong arm draped over Ellie’s bare waist, fingers curling slightly as if still clutching her in sleep. Ellie was confused for a moment, then remembered she’d just arrived home yesterday from a two-week short mission. Their brief separation had pushed them back into that greedy, passionate honeymoon phase, keeping them up until three in the morning.
Sunlight filtered softly through beige curtains, casting a gentle halo around Abby’s face. Her skin was smooth and intact except for a faint scar above her cheekbone, a mark left by a military drill from years ago. Ellie saw Abby’s lashes flutter and knew she was waking too.
“Morning,” Ellie whispered, kissing Abby’s cheek softly.
Abby’s eyes opened, still a little dazed, but her body instinctively moved closer to Ellie. She stared at Ellie’s face for a few seconds, as if waking gradually from the reflection in her eyes.
“Morning.” Abby hugged Ellie gently and returned the kiss.
“I had a long dream.”
“Funny, me too.”
“A nightmare?”
“Not exactly.”