Clean-up
Matt was laid out on the bed with his arms at his sides. His body was bare but remained unaffected by the cold; Adel's room always needed to be a little on the chilly side. It helped to preserve the boy whose body had ceased living long ago. Where it had once been bright and full of peach-colored life, Matt's skin had gone unnatural pale and carried a grayish tone. His eyes were sunken, the surrounding area darkened like the color of caked blood. It gave him a sickly appearance Adel had long since grown used to and now carried no aversion to. Even if he was cold to the touch and looked as unsightly as any corpse ought to, the necromancer bore only a reminiscent sort of smile when he approached.
He'd made sure to pile extra blankets onto the bed before lying a sheet of plastic over top, so when Matt turned to look in his direction it crinkled beneath him and Adel tried to give him a reassuring expression. "It won't hurt" was unnecessary; they both knew he had no sensation of pain anymore. This whole thing was practically routine for them by now so without hesitation Adel pulled the surgical mask over his face.
His hands gloved more to clean dishes than the dissection he was about to perform, Adel reached over Matt's body and placed a fingertip neatly against his sternum. For a just a moment purple crackled like electricity beneath his digit, then he began to slowly drag it down the blond's front. As as it moved flesh split and pulled apart as it would under a surgeon' scalpel until a long, thin cut ran from chest to naval. The smell of decay hit Adel's nose despite his mask but he did not grimace. He was long since used to the scent; so much so that he hardly noticed anymore.
It was routine to him now. As soon as he had his first cut he drew his finger sideways across Matt's torso twice to carve a horizontal "H" into him. Once that was accomplished he carefully peeled back both sides and began to inspect the organs now bared to him. As far as his intestines were concerned nothing was amiss, but both that and his liver were definitely being imposed upon by the cause of the exercise: his bloated stomach.
"He fed you way too much..." Adel muttered sourly as he gingerly pressed down on the area and frowned at how firm it was. It was probably about ready to burst. Any normal human would have been in immense pain by then if not in the hospital.
"I'm sorry Adel..."
Adel glanced back up to Matt's apologetic face and allowed his own to mirror it. "You can't help yourself. I haven't met a single zombie that wouldn't eat meat if it was put in front of it. Trust me, it's normal." He didn't bother to explain that one wouldn't normally meet a zombie and simply set his lips in a firm line as he readied his finger again and slowly pulled it across the moist, blackened flesh of his stomach.
Immediately the flesh he'd consumed, now rotting burst forth and pushed its way out of the incision--gases too, if the horrid stench was anything to go by. It took all of his willpower to suppress the urge to vomit as he worked quickly to widen the cut so that it spread across Matt's stomach from one side to the other. And as more of the decomposing meat pushed outward to reach freedom he reached forward to grab it, pulling whole chunks from him and lying them at the blond's side. He managed to pull three handfuls before it was no longer bursting, and another two after that before his stomach was normal-sized once more.
By the end he'd retrieved at least four pounds of it from the blond. It had taken a sizable amount of time too, but he knew if Matt had possessed any form of working digestive track he'd have to work through each bit of intestine as well. All in all he considered himself lucky--everything but the smell was tolerable.
"Am I done soon?" Matt's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
"--Oh, yeah. Sorry, let me just get you fixed up again," Adel nodded quickly. He returned his hands to their task of cleaning but his gaze remained on the blond's face. "...Hey, Matt?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you...I mean, are you...happy?"
"Huh?" Matt cocked his head to the side cluelessly. Adel had to wet his lips before continuing.
"You know, being...like this."
"I like being with you Adel!"
"Ah, no..." He hesitated for a moment. "I didn't mean like that."
"Being in the Tower? Yeah! There's lots of good-smelling people here and sometimes I can even find animals to play with."
"Play with...?? You mean like wild animals?"
"Uh-huh! This one time I was outside by myself except I wasn't for long because there was a bird. It landed nearby, so I played tag and I won!" he grinned, and Adel again copied him with a strained imitation.
"You ate him."
"Uh-huh! He wasn't very meaty though..."
"--Hey, Matt." Adel cut him off as he removed a smaller handful of wasteful remnants. "Do you remember what it was like in our village? With my mom and your parents and everything? How we'd all go and have picnics sometimes."
"Do you think next time I could eat something meaty like a person Adel?"
"It was a lot of fun, wasn't it...? We'd play in the stream while our parents cooked the crayfish we caught..."
"Can it be Patchman next time? Dog won't lemme eat Miss Bounty Hunter."
"--And then! Afterward our parents would make castles and stuff in the mud and clay with us--"
"Can I eat the people here Adel? Since my stomach's empty I can have food now right??"
"We would all have fun as a family together--!" Adel's words came out loud, strained and agitated. A cracked, sympathetic and guilty smile curved his mouth as he stared down at Matt's blank eyes and curled his hands into tight fists in the plastic. He looked perplexed; confused and uncomprehending of his sudden outburst.
And when he spoke, the necromancer's shoulders shook.
"Adel, I'm hungry."
"....I know. I know, Matt..."
"...Can I eat soon?"
"..."
"Adel?"
"--Yeah. ...Yeah, soon. You can eat...soon."