21Helena was a dancer- a ballerina, to be precise. It showed in her walk; the grace, the elegance that she possessed. Her hair, a rich golden blond that went past her waist, shimmered in the light of the full moon that was filling the sky while she walked home from a late night session at her gym. She had decided to take a short cut through the back-alleys that separated the apartment complexes and the newly built strip mall so she wouldn't have to be out in the middle of the night, walking around for ages, just to get home. Her bag was thrown over her shoulder and she had one iPod headphone in, her head bobbing to the beat of the music.
She was about halfway home when she started getting the feeling of someone watching her. The hair stood up on the back of her neck and she felt like a little girl, lost in a big scary concrete forest. Helena also began to hear muffled footsteps every few seconds, barely making it over the sound of her music and her rapidly beating heart. She grabbed her bag's strap for reassurance, and sped up her pace. When Helena had reached the street separating her from her apartment complex she paused, and let out the breath she hadn't known she was holding in. Looking both ways, Helena stepped off the sidewalk and onto the empty street. She had just reached the middle of the street as the clouds slid over the full moon, making the street even darker and the shadows from the streetlamps stretch to loom nearer, as if to swallow her whole. Shivering, she looked around before continuing to walk at a brisk pace towards the opposite sidewalk. From there, it would only be a short sprint to the gate of her apartment complex. Helena began to power down her iPod and wrap the headphones around its body, when she heard a high-pitched whine. Stopping right before she stepped up onto the sidewalk she looked around, searching for its source.
She looked down the cracked asphalt of the street, and searched as far as the murky light from the street lamp would let her, but still she could see no source for the pitiful whine. Helena shrugged it off, turned around, and took another step towards her apartment gate. Right as she set her foot on the sidewalk, she heard it again. She whipped around, causing her beautiful hair to fly about, giving her an ethereal look when the clouds gave the moon back to the night sky. With the moon relighting the sky, Helena could finally see the source of the whine- there was a large dog standing in the alley she had cut thru. It limped forward, and Helena gasped. Not only was it a huge dog, but she had never seen any animal coloured like it. In the moon, the dog's thick hair was spectacular- there were so many colours, you couldn't even distinguish them all.
Helena snapped her thoughts back to the dog itself, and dropped her bag to run forward. Loving dogs since she was a little girl, Helena could never leave a wounded one alone. She just had to find out what was wrong with this mysterious creature. The dog had slipped back into the alley, out of the moon, but Helena followed, softly calling to it.
"Come 'ere, pretty thing... I won't hurt you. C'mon, baby..." She had finally gotten close enough to the dog to touch it, but Helena still couldn't see anything that could possibly be wrong with it. The dog wasn't wearing a collar, but it looked far too healthy- and big- to be a stray. Helena wondered if she should call a vet, but then realized if she was going to do anything to help this poor creature, she needed to get it somewhere safe. Somewhere that it couldn't run off if it happened to get spooked. Hearing another whine from the dog, she made a quick decision. Helena would get the dog into her apartment, and keep it in the kitchen until it was a more reasonable time so she could contact a vet and get the dog help.
After a while of sweet-talking the dog, Helena finally got it to follow her through the apartment gate and up the stairs to her apartment door. She struggled to get her door open while still keeping an eye on the dog, but she eventually pushed her door open, and got the dog inside. After slamming the door shut and locking it, Helena turned on the light to get a better look at the dog.
"Wow…" Helena gasped. In the light, the dog was even better looking. Someone had to have noticed it missing. Stepping closer, Helena kneeled down. "So, pretty baby… Are you a girl or a boy?"
She felt foolish, not even referring to the dog by a name or anything like that. Looking over the dog, Helena leaned back to look at it more fully. "So… You're a girl, eh? Well, I guess I'll call you… uh… Sandy! That's a good girl dog's name!"
'Sandy' gave Helena a look that made it seem as if she fully understood what Helena had just said and didn't like the sound of it, one bit. Helena ignored this, and tossed her bag onto the loveseat in her small living room.
"Well, looks like you're staying with me tonight, Sandy… Sorry, but since I don't know where you've come from, you're gonna have to stay in the kitchen tonight, darlin'…" Helena flipped on lights as she walked through her cozy apartment, leading Sandy into the kitchen. It was a small, and efficient room with a sliding wooden door that would keep Helena's temporary new roommate away from anything that she could harm, or get herself hurt with. With that, Helena closed Sandy in the kitchen, and went into her bedroom. She took a quick, hot shower to ease her muscles from the workout she had earlier, and headed off to bed.
After a few hours of light sleep, Helena woke to the bed by her feet dipping down, as if there was something heavy resting on it. Groggily looking at her alarm clock, Helena wondered what was going on, and if she was still dreaming. She then noticed two amber orbs floating at the foot of her bed. Not orbs, she quickly realized. They were eyes! Helena blinked rapidly to clear the last holds of sleep, and realized that it was Sandy sitting at the foot of her bed.
"Sweetie, I thought I closed you in the kitchen…" She sat up and reached forward to pet Sandy, who was slowly crawling forward to be closer to her. "Aww… Such a sweet lil girl, ain'tcha?"
Helena then let out a blood-curdling scream as she tried to scoot back. 'Sandy' had lunged forward and sunk her teeth into Helena's forearm. When Helena tried to get away, Sandy hadn't let up, and ended up ripping flesh and muscle away from Helena's struggling limb. Spitting the bits of Helena out of her mouth, Sandy let out a deep, paralyzing growl. After staring at her in shock, Helena leapt out of bed and scrambled into the hallway, slamming her door shut on the way out. Stumbling over her own feet, Helena raced into the kitchen, holding her arm to her chest. She went to grab her corded phone, but realized that the cord had been gnawed through. Panicking, she forgot about her cell phone until a deep-throated growl made her turn around, and face the dark living room.
Thinking she could outrun Sandy, Helena ran towards her gym bag, praying the whole time. It seemed as if her prayers had been answered, as she grabbed her phone and flipped it open to dial. Right as she hit 9 to dial 911, her vision went blurry, and she felt her knees buckle. To make matters worse Sandy chose that moment to pounce, knocking Helena forward, causing her to hit her head on the coffee table and lose consciousness.
Helena awoke to the disgusting sound of slurping, like someone was messily eating spaghetti. Opening her eyes, she realized that the noise was in fact something eating… It was Sandy, ripping her stomach open to feast upon her innards. The shock of being eaten alive was so enormous, Helena didn't even think to try and harm Sandy and just tried to back away, using her hands to push herself backwards. The floor was so saturated with Helena's blood, though, that she couldn't gain any traction, and slipped back down.
Helena tried again to move away from Sandy, but it was all in vain as Sandy pounced forward, and with her front paws on Helena's chest, slammed her back to the ground. Helena's vision went black for a second as pain overwhelmed her. When she opened her eyes again, she screamed, as seeing herself being eviscerated was a bit too much for her. As the pain was about to swallow her whole, Sandy let out a deafening roar. The last thing Helena saw was Sandy's jaws coming forward to rip away more of her delicate, unmarred skin.
After Sandy had ripped out Helena's throat, Helena's golden hair had turned into a ruby- red, like the finest wine had been spilled onto Helena's head in the shape of hair. She turned away from Helena's corpse, and ripped the necklace from her neck. It was a delicate pair of ballerina slippers, surprisingly not too covered in blood. Backing up a few steps, she started running and smashed through the window, out onto the stairs leading to the apartments. 'Sandy' then ran off into the night with the sound of police sirens drawing closer and closer to the apartment.
A/N: Ahh... Finally, an update. XD
Took absolutely forever for me to post this, but I'm getting there! Special thanks have to go to my FH, Violent Messiah, for helping me edit this chapter, and not letting me delete anything till he took a look at it... I may have complained about it, but it really is a good thing he didn't let me... =x
The next update won't take me as long to get it out, I swear. As always, let me know what you think, and reviews are ALWAYS welcomed =)
~Caecilia Bellz
(p.s. also thanks to Fights-With-Words, and TheMonomaniacalGoblin for bugging me to work on Calyx's story!)