After a life altering event that left her bloody and broken, Zena vows to never let herself be that weak again. She needs no one to defend herself. She needs no one to save 'the damsel in distress' anymore. At least...not from humans...
Xai'an is a...
The drawing of Z I've been doing is not complete. I shall occasionally update it as I finish it, but you will get the gist of her appearance. Xai'an is still only in the sketch phase.
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***END AUTHORS NOTE***
I woke up in a pool of my own drool. Well, that was nice. At least I didn't have to suffer from the embarrassment of someone seeing me like this. I simply wiped my face and sat up.
My body ached and cracked with protest, telling me further that I had slept hard. I slowly rolled my arms and neck, wincing slightly at the resistance of my own muscles. This always happened to me when I put off sleep for too long.
I allowed myself to really look around the room and it took me a second to realize that it was dark. Fuck! I had slept well past what I had intended to! What the hell did I do with my phone? I glanced on the table and didn't see it there. Damn it. I left it in the truck, didn't I?
Running my hands over my face helped to wake me up a bit, but my body protested me getting up. I was surprised that Sosha hadn't come in here yapping his need to go outside. I had left the door to his cage open and he had a tiny bladder after all.
I had to turn on the hallway light in order to navigate through the darkened house. I grew up here, but it had been several years since I had been inside these walls. It was a lot quieter than I remembered, but it was also void of four other people. Both my parents and sisters. It made things a lot more lively.
I found Sosha sitting in his cage. He didn't so much as sniff a growl at me. Whatever freaked him out this morning seemed to have tamed his temperament. I'd take it.
"Come on, Sosha. Let's go outside." I tapped my hand on my thigh, beckoning him to follow me. He did. His little collar chimed as he waited for me to open the door for him.
I watched him as I approached the truck to make sure he didn't wander very far. Owls would love to just swoop down and grab him. When he squatted down to do his business, I turned to open the truck. I always left it open when I was down here. Small towns just didn't have crime like they did in the suburbs.
Right there in the center console was my phone. I snatched it just as the ground shook. This wasn't a small tremor. This thing rocked the ground so hard that it set off my truck alarm and not just mine. The houses next to mom's all had alarms going off.
What the hell was that?
I scrambled to my glove box which had a secret compartment that I kept the spare key in so I could silence it. I glanced back for Sosha and my heart stopped. He was gone.
"Sosha?" I hopped out of the truck and started to go to where he last was. "Sosha?"
Nothing.
"Son of a bitch! Mom should have just gotten a damn cat!" I snapped at the air and bent to look for Sosha again. A soft whimper turned me toward mom's rose bushes. There he was. I let out a sigh of relief.
