Killer Instincts

Chapter One

The scent of rain and freshly turned earth lingered in the air as the night began to form, the last bit of sunlight that painted the sky, finally retiring for the evening. On the quiet streets of the city of Tucson, as ordinary lives carried on in their usual rhythms, an invisible thread of malevolence wound its way through the darkness, weaving a tapestry of fear that only a few would dare to confront.

As Khloe Warren pushed open the heavy, imposing doors of her rundown apartment, she could feel the lingering presence of something insidious nearby. However, she ignored the feeling and pushed forward, her book bag weighing her down as she made her way towards the stairs. The building's elevator was still down despite the continuous complaints of the residents, Khloe included. She lets out a long sigh and grips the straps of her bag as she starts the seemingly long but, in reality, short ascend to her apartment. She was just grateful that she was only on the third floor, rather than the seventh or eighth floor like some of the residents in Crimson Heights, but the climb was still not an easy one to make.

As Khloe reached the final step, she let out an exasperated breath and dropped her heavy book bag off her shoulders to fish her keys from it. The floorboards creaking nearby made the hair on the back of her neck rise, and she quickly scanned the semi-lit hallway for what could have possibly made the sound but found nothing. Khloe shakes her head, cursing to herself, and pulls her red and blue University of Arizona lanyard from her bag, and unlocks the door. With another quick glance up and down the hallway, she then slips inside her dark apartment and flips the lights on. 

A warm glow quickly filled the once-dark space, and her calico cat excitedly meowed in greeting upon seeing her enter. The cat weaves in between her legs, and Khloe scoops up the small cat, her face burying into its soft and warm fur. "Hi, Calypso." She cooed before giving the cat a quick kiss on the forehead. Calypso purred in response, its small gritty tongue dragging across Khloe's cheek as she set the cat down. Khloe's hand rests on Calypso's back before she pulls away and retreats to her bedroom to put her book bag up. Calypso tails behind Khloe as she shuffles down the hallway, meowing in protest at being put down. Khloe chuckles softly and leans down to pet the needy cat's head before opening her bedroom door. The cat lets out a short meow as she slips inside the bedroom, gracefully hops onto the bed, and almost immediately curls up into a ball on top of Khloe's pillow. Khloe chuckles softly at her cat as a cool breeze nips at her bare shoulders. She immediately flipped the light switch up, and the once-dark bedroom was filled with the same glow the living room had when the light was turned on in there. Khloe shivers, her eyes falling on the open window, the curtains whipping around from the sudden gust of wind.

"I don't recall leaving the window open this morning." She mutters to herself, her hands quickly rubbing at the risen gooseflesh on her arms. Khloe holds her arms close to her body as she glides across the bedroom, and peers quickly out the open window and down the side of the building before slipping back inside the room. She shivers again, pulls down hard on the window, and slams it shut, the noise startling her cat awake. "Sorry baby." She mutters to the cat as she locks the window and pulls her curtains closed. Calypso lets out a short meow and curls back up on top of the pillow.

With a sigh, Khloe finally places her book bag into its designated space against her desk and turns to leave her room. Before leaving. She quickly calls to her cat and waits for her feline best friend to join her before making her way into the kitchen to prepare dinner for herself and Calypso.

Khloe picks up Calypso's bowl and sets it on the counter, then opens the dishwasher to grab a bowl for herself. When she doesn't find a bowl, she turns to face the sink and curses at the pile of dishes that were left in it. Groaning to herself, she sticks her hands into the pile of dirty dishes and rummages through them looking for a bowl and spoon. After roughly a minute of digging, she finds both the items and turns the faucet on. Khloe grabs her green Frankenstein-shaped scrub her Gain brand, Hula Berry, scented dish soap, and begins to scrub the soiled dishes until both the smell and stuck-on food are removed. When she is satisfied with their clean, she sets the dishes on the counter and tears a few sheets off the nearly empty paper towel roll and dries the two dishes, then places them beside her cat's bowl. Khloe haphazardly dries her hands with the used, semi-damp paper towel, then throws it towards the also overflowing trash can. She makes a mental note to take the trash out in the morning on her way out of her apartment and to her class.