Snake Skin

I met my best friend in a sex shop

The fall from a second-story window isn't necessarily a far one, if you know how to land it. Käärme, for one does not know how to land it. The balls of her feet smacked hard against the pavement of the alleyway, along with her right knee and the heels of her hands. She can't stop yet. Ignoring the pain, she jumped back up and ran. As she runs Käärme can hear the voices of several men behind her. Calling out to her and to each other.

It had rained the night before so the cement was wet and slick and the men's footsteps behind her were easily heard in the splashing puddles. She took hard lefts and hard rights trying to lose them. Taking alleyways that she never seen before and alleys that she had been down a thousand times. As soon as she heard the men's voices start to fade she decided to stop beside a large dumpster. Clutching at her chest, trying to catch her breath she slides down the brick wall to the ground.

Where she had fallen on her knee her jeans had split along with her skin, soaking the fabric with her blood. She watched the blood pour out as the flesh slowly stitched itself together. With a huff thinking about the massive scar she just gained. She leaned her head back against the wall, taking a few deep breaths. The men must have split up to look for her by themselves because over her ragged breaths she couldn't hear the single man approach and grabbed her by the throat. He hauled her up by the neck and slammed the back of her head into the brick wall. Once, twice, three times until she was watching black spots eat up her vision. Her ears rang and her teeth vibrated. The man must have asked a question because his lips repeated the same message twice. After the second time when she didn't respond he spun her around and clasped a hand over her mouth. His lips only inches from her ear, this time she heard him. Hot foul breath brushing her neck.

"How about you and I have a little bit of fun before I call over my boys?" he slowly licked up the exposed column of her neck. Käärmes sharp teeth grazed the palm of the man's hand in warning, and when his grip only tightened around her in response she sank her teeth through the flesh of his palm, slowly at first but then, hard and fast her teeth clanged together as they completely removed a chunk of his meat from his bone. He threw her from him, her chest smacking hard against the dumpster the torn bit of flesh flew from her mouth. she spun around to face him and his hand was already pouring blood down his forearm onto the ground. He was screaming in agony as he slammed his own back against the brick wall, convolving and wailing, cradling his hand to his chest her venom already coursing through his veins; he collapsed to the ground. Käärme spit the remainder if his blood in front of his face. She hoped that shed given him enough of her venom to kill him.

The sound of the screams must have alerted the other men because she heard their pounding feet echoing off the walls of the buildings, closing in on her. Across the alleyway, next to the lifeless body of the man was a steel door. she slammed into it and luckily enough it was unlocked. She slid into the dark and shut the door behind her.

She stood there for a moment in complete darkness waiting for the sounds of confusion and anger to subside on the other side of the door. After about 5 minutes of silence she ran her hand along the wall in search for light switch. When she found it a red colored light bulb lit up the landing she was standing on. She wasn't in a room but a small landing of a staircase illuminated in red.

"Looks like something out of a crappy fun house." she was on a staircase that led up about 12 steps to another door all eliminated by a red light. She firmly grasped the railing of the stairway with her sore palm and walked up the stairs towards the door. She placed her hand the cool metal of the door knob and turned it when she opened the door she was meet with another dark room, not as dark as the room before it because of the wall of windows that let the street light stream in through the store. She couldn't really make out anything other than a few shapes outlined by the street lights. She could tell that she was in the back of some store. There were many objects hanging up on one wall from floor to ceiling and a glass counter with a large cash register on top. As she was looking around the rest of the store, her gaze snagged some on on the other side of the store.