Peachy & Friends Book 1 - The Understudy

Chapter 8: The Heart

Peachy was in disbelief, tears in her eyes. This was her fault. Panda had said over and over again that she didn't need a freaking understudy, and she didn't listen once. Now, Panda was going to die right before her eyes, and it was all because of her! She knew she couldn't let something like this happen. Quickly, she inspected the demon's back, and saw something red and veiny pulsing rhythmically. She knew it was its heart. Acting fast, Peachy grabbed a big meat cleaver off the kitchen wall, and ran behind the demon.

It had its claws fully drawn now, and it was about to relentlessly rip the life out of Panda's young, innocent body. And as the claws drew nearer to Panda's chest, she realized that now it was time to give up. The demon had her dead on and there was no way she was going to get out of this alive. She thought about what had led up to this, and the life that she could've had. She pictured her funeral, all her friends and family crying, her father holding her casket and nearly screaming because he was crying so hard. She saw herself being lowered into the ground, being slowly buried with one shovelful of earth at a time.....

When all of a sudden, the demon let out a terrible scream and dropped her to the ground. The demon screamed until all the air had escaped its vile, wrinkly lungs, and then it went limp. As it fell forward, Panda saw the meat cleaver buried in the big pulsating thing on its back. A yellow, fizzing substance squirted out of the wound, and the leathery skin turned thin and almost dissolved. The weblike material holding the Cream family to the wall disintegrated and released them. Finally, the whole demon turned to dust, which was picked up by a mysterious breeze and carried out the window into the outside world. The demon, aka Cherry Chardonnay, was gone.

There was a long silence, before Peachy softly called, "...Panda?"