I was looking for a breath of life
another taste of divine rush
The blood is still hot at the back of her throat as she smiles a gluttonous little crooked smile and closes her eyes in a moment of bliss. Satiated, the thirst inside her id retreats for awhile, while the rest of her body floods with endorphins and it makes her very, very happy. Happy enough to find the roots of a tree and lay her big-ass, spotted body down to digestive her almost purely liquid meal. She hums in the back of her throat, gazing up at a cloudy sky and almost barren tree limbs before the world goes dark.
Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree tops… when the wind blows… the cradle will rock…
Shaytan wakes to a tauntingly coy voice, telling her to choose. Choose what? Oh, the doors. Well, since she asks so nicely. It’s kind of what she imagines Straia’s voice to sound like, somewhere in her darkest fantasies. Even though it doesn’t, and she knows it. But a girl can dream, can’t she? Shaytan looks to the doors and oh, how lovely! One is dripping with something dark (she assumes it’s blood, that’s just how her brain works) and the other is glowing. The answer is obvious isn’t it? Shaytan points to the (bloody) red door with a faint half-smile, never paying attention to the fact that her hooves are now hands and feet and she is a verified (though auburnesque) ginger. She is naked at the moment, with a boyish figure, all straight lines and small breasts; barely a womanly curve on her. A flesh and blood composite of a melded Ken and Barbie. Which is fitting, for Shaytan.
The door opens by itself, silently inviting Shaytan to cross its threshold. She has no choice, of course - there is only forward. But she does not hesitate, not with the possibility of more blood on her mind, and steps through, with the world going dark again.
Shaytan once again comes to, but this time the world is vastly different. Briefly, her mind flits back to the toybox and the melting and the pain - but this place is not like that. It stinks. It reeks of body odor and piss and smoke and other unidentifiable things. She’s alone in an alley, and when Shaytan pushes herself up off the cold, wet, cobbled ground, she finds herself wearing loose pants, boots that are slightly too large for her, a finely woven shirt… and nothing else. No smallclothes, everything very… free. Oh yes, she services men with a very particular taste… She reaches around to feel her hair, and finds it mussed, unruly and falling out of a high knot. With practiced ease, she twists it back up and under a hat again. Huh. Dressed like a man. That in itself is unusual. It’s dark, save for the faint glow of gaslight coming from the street, and a slightly ajar door in the back, left hand corner of the alley. Something tells her that that place is not for her - it is too warm, too pleasant. The smell of roasting meat drifts from the opening and it makes her belly rumble, though it is immediately drowned by the noise of London’s evening crowd (hawkers, whores, and the clip-clop of horses).
No, not that way. Not towards gentility. That is not her. She is a whore of the night, so out - out into the city streets.
Shaytan takes a few steps, and finds that her legs ache, particularly between them, and that her knees are stiff and then - that a purse swings between her unbound breasts. While still in the shadows of the alley, she pulls the leather coin purse out and empties it into her hand, finding a handful of coins (six shillings and three pence), an old, but small skeleton key, a lock of hair tied with twine, and a white feather. Weird. She empties it all back into the pouch and hides it in her clothes again, continuing back out into the dirty, dark streets of London.
“For fuck’s sake, Shay, wot took ya so long?” an impertinent, demanding voice assails her as soon as she comes back into the gaslight of the main street. Shaytan (henceforth known as Shay)looks to her left, and there’s a practically bare-breasted, painted woman (woman is generous - she couldn’t be more than fifteen) holding another little (and absurdly well dressed) girl’s hand. It isn’t what she expects (and who knows what Shay ever expects?); something clicks in the back of her mind - team, friends, and oh - their names are Rachel and Mary. “Yer John left ten minutes ago. Wotcha doin’ back there? Find a drunk un’ and steal ‘is purse? Or were ya getting yerself off?” Mary cackles wildly and Shay just rolls her eyes; friends is a loose term - they work the streets together, protecting each other instead of paying half their wages to a pimp. The girl isn’t a whore (yet), just some cute, grubby beggar child that took to tagging along. They turned Rachel into their main source of income, dressing her right and turning her loose to be a lost little well-off child. She’s turned into quite the regular pick-pocket though; those sky blue eyes and freckles sure do beguile the kindhearted, good ladies and men of London. She makes more money than any other five year old they know.
When Shay fails to retort, Rachel deems it safe and reaches out from around Mary’s’s skirts and inquires quietly, “Mummy?” Her small, thin, grubby face peers up at her. “Mummy?” Rachel calls out into the darkness, “Are you my mummy?” She giggles to herself, using the very words that beguile the old ladies and send them looking around - whilst she grabs the purse and runs.
The giggle quickly turns into a fit of coughing, and Shay looks at her with concern. She grabs the child’s face, looking into her eyes for glassy signs of fever, feeling her forehead for any extra bit of warmth on this cool, fall evening.
At that moment, the gaslight goes out, leaving the three of them in the shadows. A cool breeze sets her hair on end and sends goosebumps all over her body. All of a sudden, Shay notices that the three of them are all alone, which never fucking happens in London. Then there is scrabbling… scratching… the sound of something on the cobblestones in the alley behind makes her very uneasy. Too uneasy. “Come on, let’s move,” she says to Mary, picking Rachel up into her arms in a very uncharacteristic move. The sudden movement sends the girl back into a fit of coughing over Shay’s shoulder, and she shushs her irritably. Together, the three of them hurry down the street and back into the light. But as they reach each lamp, they all go out with a hiss. Incredibly unnerved, Shay glances up at each post and then behind her, and does not miss the bright red eyes that seem to glint back at her from everywhere she looks.
And when the bough breaks... the cradle will fall...
The eyes - the unearthly flash - the cobblestones - Shay catches a toe on the edge of an uneven one and goes stumbling forward. Instinctively, Shay reaches out to stop her fall, letting go of Rachel in the process, but with the little girl’s arms around her neck and her legs around her waist, the extra weight throws her off balance and the two of them go crashing down. Rachel shrieks, high and terrified, until her head hits the ground, the full force of Shaytan kept off her as she partially catches herself. But it’s enough for them to hear a couple of cracks, and to make the girl go silent. Mary spins around, hearing the commotion, and her own hands fly to her mouth in shock. But there is a growling behind them, a vicious, low sort of snarling that neither of them have ever heard before. The slobbering, piss-inducing sound comes from their nightmares, and when Mary looks behind Shay to see what it is, she too staggers backwards, screaming in terror.
Rachel’s hands are no longer clasped around her Shay’s neck, and though her head rocks back and forth upon the stones, leaving a sticky red smear beneath it; while her breath comes in soft moans, Shaytan’s all but forgotten about the girl beneath her. Flight or fight kicks in, and Shay doesn’t even think twice. The beast is stalking forward - some soft of monster with red eyes and a mouth full of teeth, with long razor-sharp nails; the form of it grows and then shrinks and then bristles and then walks like a man, and then slithers - but those murderous implements, they stay the same. As quickly as she can, Shay scrambles forward without looking behind her again, pushing Rachel down and accidentally (or is it?) kicking her head with flailing legs in her haste to save herself. The girl is doomed. The beast can smell her blood.
It’s either Rachel’s skin or hers; in that case her own will always win, because that is the nature of truly selfish beings. She wants it all - she wants Straia and she wants to live. Shay’s movement seems to wake Mary up and her partner turns to flee, intent on saving herself too. Shay manages to pull herself up to all fours, and is on her way to being fully upright - but the beast, the beast is just as greedy as Shay is, and one body is not enough. He lunges over Rachel and reaches for Shay, sinking a sharp talon into the leather of her shoes. “No!” she screams, kicking harder and more aggressively. “No! God, no! Mary, ‘elp!!”
Mary doesn’t give a fuck and doesn’t turn back, running as fast as she can (which isn’t very fast) in her whoring hells. Luck seems to be on Shay’s side, however, because her lady-sized foot is able to pull and pull and squeeze out of its cage. The moment she is free, she darts forward and starts sprinting away. It snarls at her, but doesn’t pursue, instead morphing into a devilishly handsome man with her boot in his hand. He calls out after her sprinting form, “You can’t hide from me!” before turning back to his snack. The little one is hardly a full supper…
It doesn’t take long before Shay catches up to Mary, and pulls her to the side. They are surrounded by people now, and her partner’s headlong sprint is turning quite a few heads. “Calm down and follow me,” Shay hisses into her ear, as she leads them around several corners and down a few more streets before stopping at a small wooden door, that is clearly the back entrance to a rather nice house. She pulls out the coin purse and fishes for something, pulling out the small skeleton key without an explanation. “Wot the fuck is -” Mary tries to ask her, but Shay interrupts with a very curt “- shut up and be quiet.” She unlocks the door and cautiously opens it, pulling Mary inside. After she just as cautiously closes it and locks it again, Shay slumps against the door in exhaustion. “Where are we?” Mary asks again, trying to discern objects in tthe dark (there are no candles or gaslights in this entryway).
“You know Mr. Davros? The gun merchant? ‘e’s my haf brover. ‘ates me, but family is family. in case of mergencies, gave me the key. We should be safe for - “ Unfortunately for Shay, she spoke too soon, because the childish, and now very eery voice of Rachel comes through the door behind her.
“Are you my Mummy?”
He found them. And realization of how easily he found them sends pure terror into their eyes.
And down will come baby.... cradle and all....
Shaytan
so many lives
so many pairs of eyes