Sickly Sweet

Afraid of the Monster

As soon as Sophie turned around, she was faced with two glittery pools of gold that were marked in the center with a deep black pupil. She almost lost herself in the beast's eyes before scanning her wary brown ones over its body.

The two pools of gold, each about two inches wide, rested on the top portion of an embroidered face. The skin was a soft purple, and swirls of gold intertwined and reached for the ceiling. A wave of silky black hair shielded the left side of the woman's face, and there were two shiny triangles poking out of the top of her head.

But that wasn't the scary part. The part that forced Sophie's jaw to drop and her hands to shake was the body. There wasn't really much of a body, just a cloud of green mist that caused her to get lightheaded. Every time she looked directly at it, she could feel a sharp pulsing in her head. Now and then, a red eyeball would form from within the mist and pop out at Sophie. The thing had no feet; she hovered about a foot above the ground.

The sleek black curtain of hair went down about five inches and coiled out at Sophie, as if it were a snake. The woman stared at her with those golden orbs, brown and luscious lips forced into a thin line. The silver cat ears glimmered and sparkled in the light. Sophie admired them; they reminded her of the silver ring Mr. Alonso had given her. She stood there awestruck, oblivious to the fact that the ears were heating up and had attained a soft glowing red.

Smoke began to spiral out of the woman's head and Sophie gasped. The ears stretched out high and the creature's lips formed a small smile. They reached about a foot in the air before twisting and lunging at Sophie, burning her with fiery metal.

She gasped, her vision tainted in red. Sophie's once magically healed skull was now ruptured again. She fell to the floor in complete agony. What did she do to deserve this torture?

She looked up, dazed. The beast was laughing and the red eyes encased in mist glimmered with humor. Her once beautiful silver ears were now drenched in a red liquid. Sophie's eyes rolled back into her head and she fell to the ground flat. She was done with this. For the next few moments, she would just lie here until she died.

Acharadinis Point of View

I smiled wickedly as the little girl convulsed in front of me. Sighing, I let my gaze wander off to backstage, where the other monsters were preparing themselves for battle. Well, it wasn't really much of a battle. Our victims didn't have a chance.

Our kind are called the Sickly Soulers, a venomous form of beast partly made of poisonous pardooms. Not perfumes. Our mist is so deadly it has its own name.

My pardoom was a neon green, with the tendency to cause others to go insane. Our pardooms have minds of their own; they choose their powers and their moods. Mine, named Grusl, was very impatient and had a bad habit of forming eyes to peer at his victims.

I didn't like it when he did this, simply because this way he had as much control as I.

I turned my attention back to the dying girl. Three...two...one... Just as I called it, the many eyed medics rushed out with the magical tonic. They forced a sparkling blue pill down her throat and followed it with a sweet liquid I knew all to well: nectar. Ours was very similar to that of the gods, they were both healing and tasted delicious.

The girl's soft blonde hair fell in from of her face as the medics carefully lifted her into the sitting position. Mere seconds after downing the nectar, her brown eyes fluttered open and she gazed at me curiously. I hid a smile and took a few steps toward the girl. She looked up at me before asking a question,

"What's your name?"

I was confused. What kind of a question was that? I had been expecting the Ahhh! Or even the occasional What are you? Not this! I pursed my lips and carefully chose my words.