Doll Parts

Missing

Night had arrived. The room was caked in shadows. I opened my eyes slowly, still waiting for the remainder of the drugs to wear off. I recalled the harvesting of my right eye, although it felt as if it was still there. And then I remembered, The bandaging. I touched the area of where my right eye once was and felt something rubbery. I sat up and looked at myself in the vanity mirror. Lifting my hair, I noticed that Dragonfish and Altyn had implanted a black rubber ball in my empty socket. "Yarr?"
          I honestly thought the implant looked cool. It made me look like a pirate. I chuckled a bit, but I immediately stopped and growled when the pain in my socket returned. Covering it with my hooves, I lay back on the bed, gasping through my gritted teeth as I waited for the heavy aching to disappear. When it finally did, I heard a voice from beside me.
          Rory. "Spazzy brain activity can cause discomfort," she said.
          "Thanks for the info," I replied. "Did you give me this implant?"
          "No, Dragonfish and Altyn did. I just washed you and fixed your vessels."
          I looked down at myself, at the stitches and the blue tint of my pelt. It was as if I was made of glass knowing how amazing nebular fur worked. I still hated looking at it, but I was impressed. Suddenly, Rory handed me a newsprint titled, "Newcomer Missing".
          "Oh, shit," I said. "That's me." I chuckled.
          "There's a bad man looking for you though," Rory told me. I looked up at her. "The police chief is a horrible creature. He's put dozens of innocents behind bars."
          "What for?" I asked.
          "Attempting to kill their attackers."
          "Does that include..." Fuck.
          My jaw clenched. Taking the paper, I hopped from the bed and walked to the window. Unlocking it and opening it, I tore through the screen with my teeth. It tasted like a burnt skull. "What are you doing?" Rory asked worryingly. "You'll get in trouble!"
          "So will hundreds of others if I don't do something about this bastard," I replied.
          Leaping down, I landed in a bush. I only got a few scratches from the branches, and they barely hurt. The healing process under my stitches was preventing the sticks from stabbing me too. I looked at the picture of the chief on the paper. It was in black and white, but I would easily find him wearing that cap of honor. The gold star, too, was unique compared to his deputies. Putting the paper away, I took off running. I looked back. Rory just watched me. She didn't close the window.
          I snuck through the darkness of the city for minutes on end. No one was outside. Only some rats and fireflies populated the area of the fountain. I circled the fence to find any signs saying that a permit was needed to walk over the silver circle. "Well, that was obviously a lie," I snickered. The streetlights were turned off for whatever reason. The red glow of my eyes illuminated the dark area around me. I looked up to the full moon, catching a resemblance of a dragon's upper body. It looked like it was running, perhaps after prey... perhaps after me.
          I suddenly noticed a white light appearing from an alley from the left of where I was standing. A Bai Ze appeared from behind its source. The chief. I let out a raspy owl imitation with my secondary pair of vocal cords, grabbing his attention in an instant. And then I turned and ran to the right into another dark alley. I heard him yelling after me. As I sprinted, I giggled at myself until I heard the chief shout into his radio, "Get me back-up at Gutter Northeast!"
          Once I turned a corner, I leapt into a dumpster. The chief ran right past. Dumbass. Ha! As he turned the next corner at the end of the alleyway, I hopped out, climbing a collection of poorly-placed windows. The snow-white moon had shown itself from the black clouds above. My vampire instincts are kicking in. I think I'll give these men a spook. I couldn't be the policemen's eyes, but I could sense their fear in the air around me as I howled into the sky. Four men emerged from the shadows below me. I ran around the roof of the building to try to find them. They were all grouped up with the chief near the dumpster I hid myself in not too long ago.
          "Chief, what'll we do when we find this kid?" one of the policemen asked.
          "We'll figure it out when we get him back to the station," the chief answered. "Cadette Seth, make sure we have plenty of devil's breath when we get to the station."
Devil's breath. That's a drug. Whatever they want to do, they want me to forget it. They are the attackers. They do this to stay clean. Saliva began to drip from my fangs. I licked my lips with a reptilian lisp. Well, they won't be clean for long. In fact, neither will I. I'll mangle them, inside and out.
          I rushed to the edge of the building, catching the policemen's attention. After stomping and hissing, I ran off again, jumping from roof to roof as the men followed. They tried to use their wings to reach the rooftops, but the alleys were far too small. Eventually, they reached me at a dead end, where they skidded to a stop as I stared down at them from above. I laughed sinisterly as I climbed down the wall. Standing atop of a closed dumpster, I aggressively showed my teeth to the policemen.
          "Calm down, kid!" the chief yelled at me. "We're trying to save you!"
          "Are you?" I growled. "Or are you, too, going to take advantage of me?"
          The chief looked at me. "What?"
          Before he and the others knew it, I initiated my attack. Leaping from the dumpster to the wall to my right, I got a toothy hold of one of the officers' necks. Blood sprayed as the others attempted to grab me. I stabbed another officer with my talon, biting down into another at the same time. The last deputy was eliminated by paralysis as I stabbed my horn into the back of his neck, destroying the function of his spinal cord as well as his ability to breathe. Like a little bitch boy, the chief ran away screaming.
          Now, I was covered in crimson blood. Waiting for the screams of the chief to fade, I dug into the torso of the first policeman I killed, taking out his pancreas and swallowing it whole. I grunted when I swallowed it after realizing how disgusting it tasted. Well, no more flesh for me. I looked up where the chief ran. I knew where he went. I heard each direction he took, and I knew he was hiding somewhere nearby.
          "Waiting for the night..." I sang, "to come and find you." I began walking through the alley, following the chief's steps. "Looking for the price of... trespassing the stars." I turned right, finding trash scattered around. "Ticking on the clock... is your host of dreams... while..."
          I stopped singing when I caught a noise below me. There was a crack in the ground. Underneath a few oddly-placed planks was a large hole. The chief was hiding there. A single drop of saliva fell through the crack, landing on one of the horns on the man's head. I growled, bringing my head over the moonlight so my fangs were visible in the shadows sneaking into the hole.
          "I... see... you..."
          And the chief began to cry.