Mona wipes her brow with the back of her head, clearing up some of the dripping sweat. Rehearsal was excruciating work– then again, it always is. She lowers herself to sit on the practice room floor with the other dancers and begins to take off her pointe shoes. Others leaned against the walls and untie the ribbons around their ankles. Mona's feet ache as they always do after rehearsal. An Epsom salt soak is in her very near future. A young brunette bounds over like a graceful gazelle and deposits herself next to Mona. She smiles at the girl and keeps taking off her shoes.
"Are you auditioning for Sleeping Beauty?" Clara asks.
Mona nods. "I've seriously thought about it. I think I'll try for the lead… Are you?"
Clara has been Moan's longtime competition and friend. The two have trained together since they were in middle school. Mona had been dancing since she was four, Clara since she was six. They competed for boyfriends, roles, grades, scholarships, and through all of it, they remained friends. Yet, she found her long-time friend's expression was difficult to read.
The brunette leans in closely. "I've been practicing for Aurora since I found out, two months ago, that we would be showing it." The smile on her round face was full of smugness.
"Months? They only just announced it, Clara."
Clara rubs her newly released foot and smiles like the cat who got into the cream. "That's what being friends with the director gets you. Early information." She winks at her dark-skinned friend.
"Just what exactly do you mean by friends?"
"What do you think?" Clara laughs and stands up so she can sashay from the room.
She should know never to put it past Clara to do anything to get ahead. With a grumble, she slips her socks and shoes on. Her feet will kill her tomorrow if she doesn't get them soaked tonight and it's already approaching ten. As usual, Mona is the last one out of the studio. She hates walking home alone, especially when it was dark out. She exits the practice room into the lobby of the old theater. The velvet carpet looks as new as the day they put it in. The lights were dimmed, turning the windows into a two-way mirror.
The instant she steps outside she regrets not bringing her umbrella. The gray clouds tinted orange by the city lights spoke of rain. It would have been nice had the weather report mentioned that. The wind whips her black relaxed hair out of her bun and around her face harshly. In the course of the day, the temperature has dropped nearly twenty degrees and the wind chills her dark skin. The clouds above her swirl violently, threatening to drop rain on her at any moment.
I should have worn a trench coat.
The sky above her booms and she jumps in surprise. On any other day, Mona loves storms. They calm her. Something about the rolling clouds, the thunder that shakes her chest, settles her. But this one. This one feels different. It's almost as if there's some sort of electrical charge in the air. She doesn't like it. Her gaze follows the abandoned street up and down, checking for stragglers before she places her headphones in. I Vampiri leads in softly with steady drum beats and she hurriedly starts walking home. The next bout of thunder rumbles through her chest and even under her feet. She pulls out one headphone and starts to take the shortcut home. It leads through an alley behind warehouses, but it was quick.
"Fuck," she sighs exasperatedly when she feels the first drop of rain smack her forehead. "And there goes my hair."
Mona quickens her steps and buries her iPod deeper into her pocket. Crying. She stops in the middle of the cobblestone alley and listens. The song goes quiet for a moment, and she still hears nothing.
"Hello?" Oh, great Mona. You're like that dumb white girl in a horror movie. Just draw attention to yourself, that's fine.
She starts off again, her steps quickening. The mouth of the alley gets further and further behind her. She stops again. Something feels off. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up like nazis raising their hands to Hitler. Just keep walking. You're already in. Just keep going. It's the quickest way home.
It isn't until she's halfway through the alley that she hears the crying again, louder this time. Garbage cans rattle behind her and she spins, reaching for the pepper spray inside her bag. There, behind the cans, a young girl stands crying into the sieve of her hands. She has blonde hair that curls at the end where it isn't plastered to her skull. Her bright pink cheeks against pale skin make her look like some kind of china doll.
"Jesus, kid!" Mona takes her hand out of her bag and stands up straighter.
"I can't find my mom," she cries and rubs her face with balled up fists.
Mona takes a step towards her. "What are you doing down here? It's dangerous for you to be out here alone." She can't be more than seven. "Come on. I'll walk you to the police station." She reaches her hand out to her and the blonde looks at her skeptically. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to take you to the police so they can help you find your mom." After a few minutes of silence and the girl staring at her, Mona speaks again. "My name's Mona. What's yours?"
"Patricia."
"Hello, Patricia. It's nice to meet you. Let's get out of the rain, okay? The station is just two blocks over there and they'll help us."
Patricia takes her hand and lets Mona start to lead her out of the alley. On a list of things she wanted to do today, helping a creepy kid in the middle of a thunderstorm, was not on it. Abruptly, Mona is jerked to a halt. She turns around and looks at the little girl, a scream lodging in her tight throat.
Blood.
Patricia is covered in it: it sticks to her blonde hair, it runs over her arms and legs, it stains her blue dress. Her once dull teeth are sharp points like a shark's teeth and poke out between cracked lips. Her nails have grown four inches and taper off as jagged points. Blue eyes have turned completely black. The little girl's talons thrust sharply into Mona's arm. Blood spills from the deep gaping wounds and onto the pavement in steady streams. Mona screams and desperately tries to pry Patricia's hand off of her arm.
"I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me."
She jerks Mona's arm, pulling her violently until she falls to the stone.
"I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me." One of Mona's fingers snaps under the pressure and she screams. "Ouch! She stung me!"
She continues to drag her further and further into the alley.
Fight!
Mona spins herself around on her butt, leggings ripping as she turns. She kicks at Patricia's leg over and over again. She nearly vomits when on the seventh or eighth hit to the child's leg, a bone breaks out of the skin. Patricia doesn't even seem to notice and continues to drag her down the alley, her stride now distorted.
"I'm squishing up my baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me."
With strength she clearly should not possess, Patricia squeezes Mona's hand tighter until she can feel a bone crack in her wrist. The black girl's scream is lost to the thunder.
"I'm squishing up my baby bumblebee, ew! What a mess!"
Despite Mona's thrashing, her screaming, her kicking, and hitting with her free hand, she continues to be pulled down the alley. There's no one to help her. She tries desperately, again and again, to pry the girl's hand away. Tears roll from amber eyes as the pain continues to rip through her arm. She gets twisted around again, her arm stretched over her head, the nails ripping more and more. The mouth of the alley can no longer be seen through the rain pouring down on them. She's going to die. Ripped apart by a child of all things. She's being drug up steps. Her head smacks into one with a sickening crack.
When she opens her eyes again her feet are crossing the threshold of the building. The heavy metal doors slam shut, muffling the sound of rain and plunging them into darkness. She's lifted. The back of her ankles graze the floor before she is thrown, her body smacking into a cement pillar. The floor is a welcome feeling when she falls down to it. Mona tries to stand, to move, to blink, but every muscle in her body screams with pain when she moves.
Candles flair to life around them.
Patricia stands in front of her, slowly crossing the space between them.
"I'm licking up my baby bumblebee, won't my mama be so proud of me," she sings as she licks the blood from her nails. Mona's blood. "Ich! I feel sick." She giggles when Mona moans in pain, flinching away from her approaching form. "You're for my mama," she tells her happily.
What was once a little girl chants slowly and sadistically. The words fill Mona's ears like slime. The hair stands up on the back of her neck. Her muscles are so tense a single touch might shatter them. It's hard to tell what part of her is causing the pain when all of her hurts. In all her years of suffering for dance, her body has never hurt this badly. Every fiber of her being tells her to run, but her legs won't move and her head won't clear. Her neurons fire faster than ever before, but the signal is lost in translation.
Bloody symbols on the wall start to change and swirl, twisting and curling until they aren't recognizable. Patricia starts to float inches off of the floor, her toes point sharply to the ground, arms stretched out like Jesus on the cross. She tips her head back so she looks at the ceiling. Whatever language she's speaking comes faster and faster. Hurried whispers that light Mona on fire. Slowly, starting in the middle of her hands, holes appear. They widen and gape open until all of her palm is a black hole.
Mona's stomach churns violently. She tries to scream when two eyes appear in the holes of Patricia's hands, but her throat feels like she's got thick vomit in it. It's getting harder and harder for her to breathe, to scream. Desperately looking around the room for a means of escape or anything that will help her, she realizes she's about to die. The smell of rotting meat fills her nose and her mouth. It makes the urge to vomit worse. A low rumble starts to fill her ears. The louder it gets the more it starts to rattle her bones. It's coming from beneath her. She's losing too much blood. It pools around her and then seeps into the cracks when the floor starts to break open.
Do people even have this much blood?
Burning. On her back, her hip, her stomach. The more she breathes the worse it gets.
An image of her grandmother coming to visit her comes to her like a mirage. It's winter and the snow falls like soft cotton from the sky. Mona sits on the screened-in front porch, a small wood stove burning next to her. She's watching the snow fall when her grandmother walks from out of the woods, no snow covering her. She makes her way across the earth, holding her hands out to catch the frozen drops. She comes in, crossing the distance from the woods to the house in seconds. The old woman smiles, touching Mona's hair gently.
"You have a great destiny before you, Mona," she whispers in her ear after she kisses her cheek.
Mona smiles at the memory, briefly allowing herself to be lost in it. She turns her head, looking at her outstretched hand dangling over a crack in the cement. There, in the center of her palm, is a snowflake.
Patricia's voice changes into a gravelly whisper that sounds like a chain smoker. Soon after, what seems like a thousand other voices join in with her chanting. A horrendous ringing fills her ears until she can't hear the echo of her own heartbeat. She flips onto her back and her body stiffens like a shirt with too much starch. Her muscles ache with the tightening and strain of holding them so still. All she wants is it to stop, she would give anything.
The ballerina lets another scream rip its way out of her throat and into the room. Her lungs burn and she realizes she's been holding her breath. The inside of her mouth feels dry and tastes strongly of blood. Her head slams back into the cement floor, sending pinpoints of light swirling in front of her eyes. Is it minutes, or seconds? She can't tell: time has either slowed or sped up and she isn't sure which. Something wet is oozing out of her ears. Her heart beats fast and wild against her chest cavity. She pictures a cell exploding from too much saline.
All around her debris floats and crashes down from the ceiling. The smell of heat, blood, rotting meat, and decomposition fills her nose. Each breath in, each blink, each beat of her heart is hard fought. This is it. She's going to die slowly and painfully in a collapsing warehouse. It's only a matter of seconds now, she's sure of it. Almost. Warm, floating, pain-free bliss. She's screaming. It's not her voice. It's raspier, more of a shriek than it normally is. Her bones feel like they're snapping and reshaping inside her body, her muscles feel torn and sliced. She starts to spasm, her rigid body smacking against the floor.
Give yourself to me. Let yourself go. Stop fighting me. It will be so much easier if you stop resisting. The voice in her head is dark and twisted. Full of unspoken nightmares. You'll love the power you'll have with me. People will bow at your feet like dogs.
She clenches her jaw so tightly it feels like it's going to break with the pressure.
You'll be worshiped as a goddess. Don't you want that? To have that little bitch Clara worship the ground your very feet walk on? Wouldn't it feel amazing to have everything you have ever dreamed of wanting handed to you on a golden platter?
She screams. "No! No! No!" Her throat aches and bleeds.
You stupid little bitch!
It feels like someone is carving into her back and stomach. She screams until she can't scream anymore. Her muscles keep contracting until her back is bowed off of the floor. The back of her heels and her head are the only things touching the floor. Mona's head swirls with pain and fear. Her throat starts to swell shut and her panic rises. She struggles to recite the Lord's Prayer in her head. How does it start? What are the first two words?
"T-the L–" she can't say it. "Th –the L–Lord," her voice cracks and whispers despite the strong protest from her throat and lungs to stop. Her throat clamps shut before she can start to think of the next word.
Mona's body slams harshly back into the floor, her head pounding and throbbing with every pump of her blood. She tries to scream louder, but her voice is hoarse, nearly gone. Something claws at the back of her subconscious like a rat trying to eat its way through her skull. The urge to lie back and let herself go is overwhelming.
Go where?
Give it up, Mona! The voice croons softly in her head. Just let it go. You can stop the pain. Just give in to me. Let me make you a goddess.
She can't speak, she can't even shake her head. Tears stream down her face and she shakes uncontrollably.
Make it stop.
"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" a deep amused male voice asks from somewhere in the room.
Mona fights to turn her head. He's standing in the doorway. Help me. Help me. Help me. A thousand voices scream viciously and Patricia hisses and lunges towards him. Her lithe body flies through the air before she slams into his chest. The pair flies out of the door and Mona's body smacks back down to the floor. There's a loud crash and the clinking of bricks. Please. Please. Please. Patricia storms back in and Mona sobs at the sight. She's killed him. Her only hope.
The little girl picks Mona up by the throat, her nails digging into the skin there. Patricia starts chanting again, eyes becoming narrow slits. The older girl looks down at her. She wants to lift her arms, to grip at the hand on her throat. She can't breathe. Her surroundings focus and un-focus with the lack of oxygen. Drums thunder in her ears.
Something slams into the back of Patricia's head, breaking her focus. Mona drops to the floor in a heap as she turns to face the attacker.
"That," he wipes dust from his shoulders, "was very rude. Literally throwing my ass out into the rain." He wipes blood from his lip. "It's not very becoming of a young lady. Didn't your mother teach you better?"
Patricia lunges at him again, swinging her claws in front of her. He raises his arms. Guns.
"Someone needs a timeout."
The gunshots echo loudly in the empty space of the warehouse. Patricia drops before she even reaches him. Quickly, he steps over the body and runs to Mona. His gaze flashes to the letters on the wall, swirling faster and faster around the room. He curses loudly as a hole starts to gape open in the center of the room.
"Because this is exactly what I wanted to do today," he mutters when he picks up Mona.
She lets out a hoarse scream from the jostling. When he starts running, she nearly blacks out. The outside world is in sight and she can feel the breeze from the storm when something hits the man in the back. They both careen a few feet before he lands on top of her. She opens her mouth in a scream, but nothing comes out. Slowly, he stands up, leaving her on the wet pavement. He cracks his neck to the right and turns around.
"You can't stop this, Dante! She's already been chosen! She will be the end of you and your puny little existence." Patricia's body looks at you as it rises. "Mother has specifically chosen her."
Mona's body tenses again and she forces the scream out. It burns, it hurts. She blinks through the rain pouring down her face. Without so much as a twitch, the man called Dante draws a sword from his back and swings it in front of him. Patricia cackles maniacally at his miss. Instead of disappointment crossing his features, a sly smile takes up residence on his lips. Patricia falls in to separate pieces onto the pavement. Mona's body finally relaxes.
The ground starts to rumble and shake, the warehouse throwing bricks and broken glass down on them. Dante rushes back to her and scoops her up swiftly, cradling her against his chest. The last thing Mona sees before she passes out is the entire building sucked into nothing.