Sweet Luxuria

1

a/n: yikes, this starts off really strong. Anyone who is sensitive to sexual assault should continue with caution or perhaps not at all.

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Erela walked calmly along the cracked pavement. He frigid fingers were stuffed deep into the front pocket of her worn hoodie. Perhaps she should have dressed warmer than the thin joggers and sweater she wore. The last lingerings of Winter had left a stubborn chill in the air, and while most of the snow had melted away, a few small, icy piles remained every once in a while. The days were still short, as darkness consumed the city at only seven in the evening. 

She was on her way to the nearest convenience store after a long day of babysitting a bratty kid named Elliott. He had torn up her house earlier that day, breaking her living room lamp and staining her light carpet with his grape juice. Erela had spent almost an hour trying to scrub the stain away, while the child had merely sat and played with his toys, having felt no remorse. 

Needless to say, Erela had had a long day. After so much frustration, she felt the need to consume her body weight in food and spend the night watching movies. She kept her head down as she continued the short walk to the store. She never felt safe walking alone at night, something not unusual for a woman to feel. It didn't help that the city she lived in had been reported as having high crime rates.

She would have to deal with it though, seeing as she didn't currently own a car. Knowing it was not extremely late helped ease her worry slightly, but the darkness was what made her uncomfortable. Things could be easily concealed under the cover of darkness and the thought of something bad potentially happening put her on edge. She felt stupid for worrying about such silly things. The chances of anything really happening were quite low, especially with the many cars still filling the streets. Erela just picked up the pace, she would feel more secure inside the convenience store. 

She reached the building within a few minutes and pushed the heavy door open with her cold hands. Breathing out a sigh of slight breathlessness from her brisk walk, she made her way deeper into the store to look for snacks for the night. She grabbed anything that caught her eye in the slightest, not finding it in herself to care about prices. 

No wonder she didn't have a car... whatever.

Her arms were quickly filled with food of all varieties and a large two-liter of pop, which she took up to the counter and placed down for the worker to scan. Ringing everything up, the man told her the total and she pulled out her wallet to pay. Within minutes, everything was distributed into two plastic bags hosting the store's logo and Erela was leaving the building. 

She clutched one bag in each hand and began her walk back home in the same fashion as the trip on the way to the store. Her fingers only became colder as they were exposed to the chilly air to carry the bags. Erela kept her head down, focusing on her walk home and thinking excitedly about what she planned to do tonight.

She was almost halfway home when she felt the presence of someone walking behind her. She felt her body stiffen in worry, her mind immediately resorting to the worst possible scenario. Did she jinx herself? The person could have easily been heading in the same direction, but the sense of danger she was currently feeling made that idea seem very unlikely.

Erela tried to glance behind her nonchalantly, taking in the person's clearly male stature. Everything else was hidden by a dark hood covering his head, the light from the moon allowing a shadow to cast over his features. He was a fair distance behind her, but he was still there. 

She tried to brush it off. Her paranoid nature often made her think situations were more than they were. The person behind her most likely didn't care about her in the slightest and was simply headed to their own destination like her. She tried walking faster just to give herself peace of mind, but she heard the man quicken his steps as well. Alarms were going off loudly in her head and she felt her heart jolt with anxiety.