Chapter 1

On a semi-industrialized planet in the Pegasus Galaxy, Elita sat in the bar nursing her drink, she started to think about how her life had taken such a bad turn. Elita's day hadn't start off good, and it hadn't gotten any better.

She'd woken up late; the shower was only putting out cold water again. She'll have to see her landlord after work. All she could find to eat was a freaking granola bar. As she walked out the door she stepped into the present the neighborhood dog had left her, after scrapping that off, she arrived to work 30 minutes late. For that her boss, Marilla, yelled at her. Since this was her third offence, she'd gotten a write up too. "Because it is policy," said Mrs. Marilla smugly. This was also her third write up, one more and she was out of a job.

Elita went out to her station at the grocery store, she worked in produce. "What a rewarding job this is." She sarcastically thought, as she picked through the piles of beans throwing the bad ones into a waste pile and leaving the good ones. "But we have to have a job, or we can't pay rent or eat," she reminded herself.

An hour or two passed by and Elita had gone through all the beans and was now working on putting out the shipment of potatoes that had just come in from one of the farms. When one of the front counter clerks came up to her and said, "Hey, Elita, The evil one wants to see you at the front desk. You have a customer complaint."

Elita silently cursed to herself and left her station to walk up to the front. As she rounded the aisle she could see the customer. It was old Mrs. Regin, a cantankerous old bitty that had nothing better to do but harass store workers. It was like she lived just to annoy and waste the time of young people. In fact, Elita had a theory that this woman was part wraith. Besides how else could she be living off of sucking the life out of other people? Mentally bracing herself Elita stepped up to the front counter. "How may be of help, Mrs. Marilla?" She asked in her most curtious manner that she could muster.

"Elita, Mrs. Regin bought this tomato yesterday, and when she cut into it, it had a worm in it. You are in charge of inspecting each vegetable that comes into this store. What do you have to say about yourself?" Mrs. Marilla said in a very accusing and looming manner. This woman was great at looming; in fact she had perfected the art. It didn't hurt that she was over 6ft tall, and insisted on wearing high-heeled shoes, black of course. Poor Elita was only 5 ft 3, and was wearing flats, with good treads, of course.

Frowning, Elita responded, "I had inspected all the fruit that came in that day. There is no way I could have known that there was a worm in it."

"I said vegetables, not fruit. You sound as if you want to blame our loyal customer of just having bad luck."

"Mrs. Marilla, I don't mean to be disrespectful but a tomato is a fruit. It has seeds. I don't mean to accuse kind Mrs. Regin of being unlucky. But anyone could have ended up with it. Perhaps we could just swap it out and everything will be fine."

Mrs. Regin seized her moment to drain more life out of poor Elita, like she always did, "Everything will not be fine. Because of that rotten vegetable, I could not complete my soup for dinner last night and I was forced to feed my guests canned soup instead, the indignity of it all. It's entirely your fault. The youth today just don't know how good they have it. In my day we had to harvest our own vegetables."

Elita was pretty sure that this tomato, fruit not vegetable, was probably only meant to be a sandwich and not some fancy hoity toddy soup. Since when did this old bitty get guests. And how dare she blame Elita for her luck.

"See what you have caused, Elita? It is your slacking that has caused Mrs. Regin such an offense. Now apologize to Mrs. Regin, and go and fetch five replacement tomatoes," barked Mrs. Marilla.

"I am sorry that this fruit, caused such an offense to Mrs. Regin, and I will gladly go and get the replacement fruit," Elita said as she bowed slightly and rushed back to her department.

"It's not a fruit, it is a vegetable, you dumb girl!" yelled Mrs. Regin.

Elita stopped in her tracks. Something just snapped in her; she had hated this job since she got it four months ago. The pay was pathetic, she was quite sure Mrs. Marilla hated her and was out to get her. So many of the customers were grouchy old people and just were there to suck the happiness right out of you. Guess that's what we get for letting the wraith sleep so long, no one's been culled. People got the chance to get old and bitter. She was pretty sure she could get another job somewhere, even if it was farming.

Turning on her heel and marching back to Mrs. Regin and Mrs. Marilla. Elita stood up to her full height. "Listen here you old crone, I know you are only doing this to be a pain in my neck. You live off of oither people's misery like some kind of freaking wraith. You come in here ever week complaining about something. Last week you came in complaining that the milk you bought 2 weeks ago had gone sour. Poor Kerwin got written up for it. He only started working here a week ago. Now you come in here to ruin my day that already started off bad. Pfft, no I don't have to put up with you. And a tomato is a freaking fruit, you old canterous bitty. Go bother someone else!"

Mrs. Regin had a look of shock at first and then it slid into a smirk of a smile. She had finally made someone blow his or her top this week.

"Elita, how dare you speak to a customer in such a tone, you were walking on thin ice as it was. You are fired!" Mrs Marilla shouted red in the face.

"Fine, I never liked this job anyway!" Elita fired right back just as loudly. Taking her apron off and throwing it at Mrs. Marilla. "You are just as bad as her. You live off belittling people and making their lives miserable. I hope you get fed on by a wraith! Oh wait, they would probably rather make you their Queen since you are such a bossy angry cranky woman!"

Elita turned on her heel and threw the door open to the shop and walked out into the sun. "Nice one slick, we are out of a job now. Oh well, no point in looking for a new one today, it's already afte noon. Guess I might as well go home and change and go to a bar and try to get some free drinks to drown my sorrows in," Elita thought.

After stopping at her small studio apartment, Elita stepped out the door in her best dress. A long sleeved low cut v-top with a skirt that went down to mid-thigh made out of black satin. Cause you couldn't get free drinks without showing a little bit of skin. She also had her favorite shoes on to; black high heels with steel tipped toes and steel stilleto heels. She has a bad habit of breaking normal heels, so she had spent the extra money to get them.

Elita headed towards her favorite bar in town, 'The Crowbar.' It wasn't the classiest of bars, but Elita couldn't afford to look the part for the classier joints. Besides 'The Crowbar', had it's own unique atmosphere, meaning as long as you didn't look at the floor or lean against one of the walls, you could be assured of no scary surprises. Most people didn't get into the bathroom till after half a dozen drinks so the bartender never really worried about its cleanliness. You could always be assured thare would be at least three men there wanting to buy a lone female drinks in the hope of getting lucky themselves.

As soon as Elita walked in, several of the guys looked up. "Hmm this looks promising." Elita thought. She sat down at the cleanest stool she could see. Within seconds Purvis, the bartender was delivering a drink to her from one of those guys. Elita lifted her glass and nodded in the general direction of the men to show her thanks. "Yay for being female and getting free drinks!" thought Elita.

Several rounds later, Elita was feeling quite good. "Who cared it she didn't have a job anymore, pfft, maybe I could start working at a bar…yeah that sounds nice."
Out of the corner of her blurred vision Elita saw Otis wedging himself in between the other guys buying her drinks. Otis works as a butcher at the grocery store that Elita use to be employed at.

"Hey Otis!"

"Elita, baby, I heard what you did at work today. Great job, you are an inspiration to all of us there. I wish I could tell those two off like that, but with a baby on the way you know…"

"Yeah got those darn responsibilities," Elita was mildly impressed with herself. That was a big word and she was quite drunk right now. "Hey. Why are you at the bar, shouldn't you be home with your wifey?"

"Ainsley wanted me out of the house for a bit, says I've been smothering her. Let me buy you a drink for your valiant efforts today." Otis order one of the stronger drinks and handed it to Elita.

Not realizing what it was, she chugged it down, and then gagged. "Ehhh, what was that!?"

"Oh you haven't had a Feeding Slit? They're great! They suck going down, but produce an awesome feeling shortly afterwards." Otis shot his down.

"Well, you can have as many as you want, but I think I'm good right now." Elita said as she steadied herself with the bar.

Otis ordered 2 more for himself, and downed them quickly. Elita had to admit those darn things packed a punch.

She didn't remember how she got there, but she went from sitting on a bar stool to dancing with Otis and one of the other guys that had bought her drinks. They danced for a while; till Elita figured it was time to head home. She was starting to sober up a little bit.

Otis offered to walk her home, because "I only cume to bar to congretulate youz." He slurred drunkenly. Which he barely got out, he had a couple more drinks after they'd started dancing.

As they stumbled down the street, trying to hold each other up Elita squinted muzzily at the street signs to try and figure out the way home. She always ended up doing this, even through the bar was only 3 blocks and one left turn from her house. After walking those three blocks, Elita went up to a purple door and tried her key in it. It wouldn't turn; she tried a couple more times. "Stupid door! You betray me!" Elita pounded on the door in her drunken rage.

"Hey! You drunken idiot! You're at the wrong house! It's 11 o'clock at night and some of us have to go to work in the morning!" was yelled out of the second floor of the house.

Elita felt like an idiot, the fact this house had two floors should have been a dead give away, but darn it their door was the same color as hers.

Elita turned around and went back into the street to find Otis leaning against one of the lamp post. "Wrong house?"

"No, I figured I didn't want to sleep in my own bed. Come on, I am only few more doors down."

"You could sleep in my bed, and then I might get some action." Otis said with a small hip thrust, which almost caused him to fall down.

"What are you talking about?" Elita asked as she walked up to the single story house with a purple door. As she put her key in the door she felt a hand on her rear. Turning around sharply she came eye to eye with Otis. Who was now leering over her, supporting himself with her front door.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? You have a wife and a baby on the way. You don't need to be grabbing other women's behinds!" Elita said, she had defiantly sobered up more since the door issue, having unwelcome hands on your ass will do that to a woman.

"Since Ainsley got all prego, I haven't gotten anything. So I toldz her that I waz going down to Mardie's house to play some cardses. When really I was hoping to get some pokey pokey." Otis was leaning closer and closer to poor Elita.

Elita thought to herself "Great! Now I got a guy twice my size trying to have his way with me. How much worse could this get?" Just then a noise came across the sky. She had never heard one herself before but her parents had always told her what it sounded like, somewhere between a whistling kettle and cat crying, it was a dart.

Otis had heard the sound also, and instantly sobered stood up straight. Elita looked down her street as a dart beamed down a squad of wraith. Elita turned around and quickly began to fight with her door. Just as she got it open, one of the wraith was upon them. "Damn they move fast," Elita thought panicking.
It tried to grab Otis as he pushed past Elita and slammed her own door in her face.

"You coward! That's my house!"

"Grrr…little pretty human." She could feel him breathing down her neck. Turning around quickly she delivered the blow she was about to give Otis a moment earlier, knee to the breadbasket and a steel tipped toe to the groin, the poor wraith male doubled over in tear inducing agony.

Elita took off down the street in the opposite direction of other wraith. She rounded the corner and ran another block back towards the bar. She glanced back to make sure nothing was chasing her when with a thud she ran smack into an unmovable object, bouncing off and falling down onto the ground. As she stared up into the sky, a larger stout green man appeared in her sight. He reached down and picked Elita up by the neck. Slamming her into the wall he drew back his feeding hand. "Oh crap this is it…I can't kick this one" Elita thought hysterically.

Just then he stopped, turned, and looked in the direction Elita had come from. The wraith she had kicked in the groin was rounding the corner and making pretty good time.

"That's my human!" said the first wraith.

"She ran into me after she escaped from you and your incompetence." He said as he lowered Elita down, but kept his hand against her.

"She kicked me in the prong. She deserves to die by my hand!" He had puffed up to his full 6ft 3 stature.

Releasing his hand from Elita, the second wraith turned to face the first one head on. "There are plenty of humans to feed on here, move along!"

Elita knew while they where arguing was probably her best chance to run. But her body decided to betray her. She felt the rumble in her stomach. "How many drinks had she had, and then running. Oh and no decent food today, none of this went well together." Elita leaned over and promptly threw up on the second wraith, then dropped to her knees because she couldn't stand any longer.

Stunned, because he probably never had a human vomit on him before, the second wraith stared down at her. While the first one just laughed. Elita knew she was going to probably die now, but at least she would have a good story to tell when she saw her folks again. As she looked up at the two wraiths, one still laughing and the other looking quite pissed off, a blue light flooded her vision and everything went black.

When Elita awoke her head was pounding. "Oww." Grabbing at the sheet that was covering her bottom she pulled it up to her chest. Thinking to herself, "Damn, it's cold. Hey where's my dress?" Carefully running her hands over herself she started checking. Snap. "Well I still have my bra," reaching down to her bottom "and panties on, so that a good start." Opening her eyes really didn't help Elita figure out where she was, the room was pitch black. "Well I am in a comfy bed, better than mine really, and I am alive. Maybe all the wraith stuff was just a bad hallucination caused by that darn drink Otis gave me. Oh crap, did I go home with Otis. Well I still have my underwear on so I couldn't have done anything too stupid. Besides if this is his bed, I want to know what that witch is paying him, cause there is no way I could afford a plush bed like this."

Elita rolled over from the pillow she was on to another one. "Damn he got a lot of pillows." Placing her hand on the pillow she realized something. This pillow is warm, and moving. She poked this pillow with her hand. A low growling came from the top of the so called pillow. "Oh crap. Pillows don't growl…" Elita said in a trembling voice.

"Hello my little human. I see you have finally woken up."