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As the smell wafts, and she draws closer, all Natalie thinks is that her limbs weigh her down. Her bones are heavy under layers of fabric that're pointless against the ferocious Canadian winter. Without the booming effect it should, she realises that the scent is Jackie. Before she smelt of expensive perfume and hairspray but now Jackie had returned to her animal basics. The basics every human being has, hidden under make-up and polyester and jewelery. The instinctual, mammal scent of prey. Meat, fried to crisp and a twinge of pine trees. Natalie a blood-sniffing wolf, predator.
Whilst Natalie stands frozen in the snow, not soon after Shauna announces "She wants us to," her eyes flicker upwards. Natalie hears the team's stomaches gurgle in sync and looks down to see Jackie's features, but they're not as she remembers. Her large, doe eyes have been vaporized by heat, similiarly to her clothes. The sockets are now empty. Her pink lips always painted in oily lip gloss (that smeared onto Natalie's own from secret pecks) have gone the same charred as her once smooth skin. It's awful to look at. Natalie feels culpability in the same compacity as disguist. Oh, Jackie. Her soft hair is singed dry, the same way Jackie promised would happened to Natalie if she persisted in dying it as often as she did and Natalie reaches up to touch her own, greasy and tangled.
She mimics the others as they watch in awe and shock and hunger as Shauna teases the flesh with her handle knife. It slices in, sharp, and Natalie's gasp pierces as if it was her own skin. Remorse washes over her as her knees finally buck. She can't decide if it's from weakness or choice. But despite all, she's disguisted with herself. Her eyes dart from Shauna's watered mouth. to Jackie's sullied skin.
Natalie reaches out a hand to touch Jackie's ankle.
Natalie remembers the first time she saw Jackie's body bare, outside of school locker rooms. Her skin felt smoother then it did now, and not a speckle of body hair laid anywhere. Natalie reached out to carress her breast, eyes darting then as they do now. She thought Jackie cared for herself through her body, but now she knew that wasn't the reason. More or so self-hatred. It didn't feel as excitable to Natalie as other encounters did. Not out of a lack of interest, but a worry that if the situation pursued, it'd loose its spectacularity. Jackie slotted into stack of Natalie's other sexual stumbles. Natalie's stomach twisted. The myth of Jackie Taylor, Persephone of Wisayok High, and Natalie, a crack baby from some dead-beat trailor park.
Natalie watches as the knife is abandoned, and hunger guts it out, the others now tearing with their teeth. It happens much faster then Natalie was prepared for- a moment of hesitation, then a turbulence of a brutish bacchanal with reckless abandon. All of the society remaining in the girls, abandoned. It doesn't take long for Natalie to pull her hand away, mouth and teeth replacing it's focus. The simple texture of Jackie against her teeth after countless meals of broth is as pleasant as Jackie herself. And then, the sinking in of teeth. A wad of Jackie breaks into Natalie's mouth and her eyes close as an unnameable emotion wears where her heart should be.
Jackie had empathetical capacity to atleast pretend to love Natalie back. Natalie had felt understood for the very first time, despite all her shortcomings and mistakes and secrets. Natalie's mother had called her husband's death an accident in public and penalised Natalie in private. Jackie was the first person Natalie ever uttered the story to. And when she had finished with her storytelling role, Jackie placed her hand upon Natalie's own with a general phrase of comfort.
With Natalie's mouth full, she wonders if she ever really meant anything to Jackie. She hoped and thought so for the longest time. For the longest time they were secret highschool sweethearts. Jackie swore her chastity from Jeff to Natalie, and Natalie swore her own chastity from any others the same, confirmed by Jackie's dorky pinky promise. Jackie defended Natalie's wrongdoings on the field. They passed clothing back and forth. One night, Natalie had snapped the necklace off of Shauna whilst she slept on the wooden floor, and tiptoed to the only mirror in the cabin (inside the bedroom) to look at herself with it on. Jackie hadn't ever suggested she wore it, but since her passing, the urge to snatch it grew strong for no apparent reason. Natalie did return it, of course. She gave it back after a moment to admire herself.
Thinking about those memories is as good as a forest fire. Natalie's guilt is as strong as her starvation, but not as captivating. More tears off into Natalie's mouth, and she chews it down, sucking on bone and sucking fat between her teeth. It grows messy. Grease of some kind coats her mouth, cheeks and chin alongside spit as she ferociously eats. Natalie keeps eating. Because she was told it's what Jackie wants. She doesn't know why she needs Jackie's approval, but she know that she needs it bad. If that rings true, she can be forgiven. If it's not, then...
Natalie and Jackie will have a bond without any word of doubt now. Natalie was someone who watched Jackie die before her heart even stopped beating, and worsened it whenever she got an opportuinity. She didn't mean it, really. Natalie has always been a dog with all bark and no bite. But now she does bite, bite into Jackie and bites in snide remarks so she doesn't have to talk about all the things they wordlessly refused to talk about.
Sounds of hunger breathes life into all of them. It continues them all to keep going, to get more canine then beyont their wildest imaginations.
By the time sunrise comes up, all that remains is a pool of blood soaked into the wood and cleaned, white, speckled bones. A few of the girls fall back into slumber, fullness a comfort. Most don't. Natalie reaches to the step as others pile into the cabin, but collapses there.
She stares until the image burns into her mind, taste still on her tongue. Jackie's death wasn't that of a martyr, it was a stoning. It should as well have been the both of them. Neither participated in the group hysteria, but Natalie fell silent in sadness when Jackie just grew louder. Nobody had saved damsel Jackie, not even Natalie as she returned from searching for Javi. Jackie was asleep. It felt pointless to wake her up and even more pointless to present a truce of any sense of the word. She went to bed. And after the discovery of her frozen body in the early morning, she helped move Jackie to the hut. She stared as the others left, Shauna's cries loud in the distance. Her overcoming emotions presented itself as level-headedness.
Jackie always knew how to help Natalie, and she had, one last time. Natalie could now survive the winter, and hope not to end up just like her.