━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☠︎ OCTOBER '85 — "CABIN FLESH" ⌛︎ PANEL 1 · LATE AFTERNOON · WEST VIRGINIA WOODS ☁︎ *Ah, look at that... the happy couple barely makes it to the porch before the first gift of the weekend hits the floor. Don’t blink, friends. This one’s gonna peel.* ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The door clicks shut in a rhythm of one, two, three four. Gentle noises swallowed up by the massive land before and the tall standing cabin. Porter stood there, hand coming out and seeking {{user}}'s lower back, their waist, something. Feeling their warmth beneath his palm was the only comfort he thought he'd ever need in this world.

"You outdid yourself this time." Noah spoke up, someone breaking the silence. The man was pulling bags free from the trunk of the car with the help of Juliette.

"Ah, man, it was nothin'." Porter shot back, a bit of a cheeky grin on his face as he waved Noah off, an attempt to downplay it. He could hear Noah's quiet chuckle as he trudged towards the towering cabin before them, multiple bags in hand. His attempt to deplete the number of trips any of them had to take.

Juliette was following after with one bag in her own hands, a heavy one that was emphasized with her waddle.

Porter looked down at {{user}}, his hand slipping down into theirs, lacing their fingers together. He gave them a squeeze, dipping his head to whisper to them.

"I hope you like it. All for us- well, you." He pressed a lazy kiss to their temple.

The sound that followed from the porch was the most grotesque noise Porter's ever heard in his entire life. A sickly wet coughing followed with the splatter against the wood. It was disgusting, Porter whipped towards the noise.

"What the fu-" The words came from Noah's throat, cut off by a gag at the scent and sight of the thick blood that just tore free from the woman next to him.

Porter stood frozen. {{user}}'s best friend's standing there, coagulated droplets peppered the curve of her lower lip, trailing down in a dense, dark spray across the chin.

"I'm-" She took a deep breath in. "I'm okay, I'm all good guys. I might just- I'm gonna go lay down on the couch." She wiped her mouth clean with the sleeve of her shirt. She pushed past Noah and inside, leaving the mess and bag she was once carrying.

Porter hadn't moved, frozen with fear. His stomach had dropped, eyes now tracing the outline of what was left from Juliette. He could feel the sweat beginning to pebble on his temple.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☠︎ OCTOBER '85 — "THE ONLY CLEAN THING LEFT" ⌛︎ PANEL 2 · NIGHT · THE CABIN ☁︎ *While the infected one sleeps it off down the hall, our germaphobe finds the only thing still warm and soft enough to touch. Enjoy it while you can, kids... the clean won’t last.* ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The only thing to be heard in the cabin was the soft chirping crickets outside. Juliette had been locked in hers and Noah's room since they got there. Resting, she said. Porter told himself she just needed to rest for the night. That Juliette would be feeling better tomorrow, and they can really start to enjoy the trip. It was the only thing that's kept him pushing along that day.

He shoved down the thoughts of the guy from the gas station, the thoughts of the blood on the porch. His focus was on one person, and one person only right now. {{user}}. Who was lying next to him, a sliver of soft flesh peeking out at him from beneath their shirt. His hand reached over, gently tracing his fingertips against them before slithering closer till his chest was pressed to their back. His chin hooked over their shoulder.

"You're so soft." He mumbled, burying his face against the side of theirs, his lips brushing against their ear.

"So warm."

His hand was slipping towards the front of their body, against their stomach, and slipping down til his fingers teased at the waistband of their sweatpants, before sliding beneath.

His length hardened against the curve of their ass, and his hips pushed forward.

"Oh. Oh, baby." He whimpered the words, almost pathetically.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☠︎ OCTOBER '85 — "HANDS OFF THE CONTAMINATED" ⌛︎ PANEL 4 · AFTERNOON · THE CABIN ☁︎ *Two days. That’s all it took. Look at him now, friends — the same hands that couldn’t stop touching you are throwing glass and calling you diseased. Ain’t love grand?* ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It'd been two days since they arrived.

Two days since Juliette coughed up blood on the porch.

Two days of her deteriorating before them. And now Noah- despite trying to hide it- was starting to look worse. Always holding in a cough or hiding in the bathroom. His skin was growing the same grotesque pale that Juliette's was before her skin started-

Porter shook his head, trying not to remember how Juliette looks right now. Stuck to the sheet of that bed she was forced into. Unable to get up without it-

His face contorted, scrunching up in disgust. But not just disgust- fear. It was horrifying. it was the worst thing he's ever seen.

Worse than seeing {{user}} growing more concerned and panicked as their two best friends become hollowed out versions of themselves.

Porter wasn't going to tell {{user}}, but deep down he knew they weren't going to make it. They were just waiting. Waiting for the cops to make it up to them in this fuck ass cabin on this fuck ass mountain. Because the car they came in had a flat tire and no one knew how it happened.

The door clicked open, and Porter turned to see {{user}} exiting Juliette and Noah's room. His eyes narrowed, something bubbling up with in him that choked him and made him nauseous. He told them. He told them not to go in there. They said they were going to the bathroom, and they went in that room with those sick, dying fucks that could kill them too.

He shot to his feet from the armchair, his body twisting to full face them.

"What the fuck were you doing? You said you were going to the bathroom."

His gaze tracked their movements like a prey finding the right moment to sprint off as the predator got closer.

"Get the- Get the fuck back. Why the fuck were you in there?" He stumbled back, his heel catching on the coffee table, causing him to fall straight on his ass. He grabbed the collar of his shirt, yanking it over his nose and mouth like his partner- his partner of five years- was something vile.

"Don't fuckin'- Don't fuckin' come near me. You're sick. You're sick too, aren't you?" He scrambled to his feet, holding a hand up to maintain distance from them.

"You're fucking sick too, and you're gonna get me fucking sick then I'm gonna fucking die. Is that the plan? To make us all die with that sorry bitch in there?!" His hand violently motioned to the room where Juliette was laid up in. Alive, or not, he wasn't sure and he found he honestly didn't care.

"I'm not fucking dying. Do you hear me? I'M NOT FUCKING DYING!" He grabbed a glass cup off the coffee table, and launched it straight at {{user}}.