Joanna jogged up over the hill, slightly out of breath but exuberant. She'd jogged five straight miles! The trees whispered gently overhead, birds chirped, and she felt absolutely alive. Her light red hair was pulled up in a ponytail to stay out of her face, and her striking emerald eyes searched the path ahead for obstacles. She broke through the last of the thin forest and sped down the hill towards Canchon City College. (The popular joke among the math majors was that they all attended "C Cubed", which she'd always found mildly amusing)
She slowed from a jog to a walk, cooling down, and walked a lap around the track for a breather. She definitely liked the dual woods/city feel of the campus-- it had the comforting sprawl of trees that she'd grown up with, and the night life of the big city. She hopped the three steps up to her dorm's door, swishing inside into the air conditioning. She walked back into her room to find her roommate still asleep. Hah. Lazybones. "Taking a shower," she muttered softly, and Karen mumbled something that was muffled by her pillow.
Out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around herself and preened for the mirror. High cheekbones and a perfect nose, willowy curves and long legs. Her genes liked her. "Ahh, sometimes we're blessed!" Then she danced back to her room and let the towel drop, picking fresh clothes out of her closet and sliding into them. Mmmmm, jeans.
Karen was watching her through slitted eyes. Joanna had noticed her roommate's breathing patterns the second she walked back into the room-- it felt less full of sleep. She'd always been noticing things, little bits of information that other people ignored, but had never really thought much of it. She'd also noticed that Karen's "dates" only ever consisted of women, and that Karen had studiously avoided asking her anything remotely sexual. Yet. I wonder how far I can push her, she idly wondered. She finished hooking her bra and adjusted her breasts, bouncing several times to check. She heard Karen groan softly behind her. Gotcha. Time for the annoyed face.
She spun around abruptly and caught Karen peeking. "Did you say something?" She grinned inwardly as Karen flushed bright red and pulled the covers over her head. Joanna slipped her t-shirt over her head and inspected herself critically, then slipped on sandals and snagged her backpack, heading out the door again. "Later!" She was sure that her roommate would be getting off behind her, but didn't really mind. Total bonus for the attractiveness to either sex.
Her first class was DiffEq-- Differential Equations to the uninitiated or "math-sensitive" folk. She was fairly good at it, but not top of the class. She breezed through the lecture and copied down homework, then legged it over to The Strip to meet some friends for lunch.
Joanna came out of her remembrance haltingly, unwillingly, then the world lost its charm and flavor, sinking into the bleak saga of afternoon in this hellish place. The sun had leaped across the sky, and the boy was still sitting beside her. Her hip didn't hurt quite as much. Do I heal faster or something? She moved experimentally. Looks like it. Good to know.
The boy stood up and stretched. "Good story! Nice to meet you, Joanna! You're nice." A warmth spread across her features, a pleased sense that took her a second to place-- she was blushing! She remembered her manners and said, "Why thank you, I'm glad you liked it. What's your name?"
"My name's Anton, but everybody calls me Ant. I suppose it's because I'm small." His nose crinkled up as he looked at her. "Can we go somewhere else now? The dark gets scary." She only knew one place with living people, so she guessed she'd have to take him there. She hoped they wouldn't be demons, like the last one. "Sure, Anton. Let's go."
She stood cautiously, gingerly testing her injured leg and finding no pain, then moved around experimentally. "Got anything you want before we go? Only stuff you can carry!" He shook his head. "No, I don't want to go back in there. And I've got a bag up here in case I ever, uh..." Ant trailed off.
"Ever what?"
"Ever ran away from home. I thought about it, y'know. All the time." he seemed to be intensely interested in his shoes, until Joanna realized she was being dense. "Well, you're safe now. I'll protect you, until we can find you real people to be with."
He stepped back quickly, "But I don't want to be with them! I like you!" Her eyes watered, tears threatening to spill forth. She told herself it was the afternoon light irritating her eyes. "I know, honey, I know. But I'm kinda scary lookin', wouldn't you say?"
"...Well....yeah..."
"And you seemed a bit disturbed by the way I ate?"
He nodded, thrown off.
"You wouldn't want to be around people who cooked their food?"
"Maybe."
"Well, I know some good people, like me, who do that!" Her truthfulness kicked in. "Well, they would if they had a stove."
"Ok!" All hesitation forgotten, he practically bounced next to her. "Where do we go?"
She concentrated on the nearly-forgotten burning of the hunter in her mind, and found it. "That way." She led the way to a fire escape, zooming down the metal stairs to distract him from looking in the windows-- she could smell the death. She dropped the twenty feet from the bottom landing to the ground easily, pulling the fire escape rungs down. Anton clambered down behind her, and the two set out into the afternoon, following the faint trail of a hunter and companionship.
The streets were meaningless, gaps from building to building. Along the way, Joanna thought and thought over what to do about the hunter watching the survivors. If she just walked up, he'd leap on the boy. How do I know that?
For an instant, she nearly perceived the watchful haze hovering over her shoulder, but then she shook her head and kept thinking. Distract him. That's the only way. If I can grab his attention somehow-- oh. She wasn't wearing pants. Come on, girl! Think like a woman! The rough outlines of a plan sketched in her mind, she played "I Spy" with Anton for the rest of the trip.
They neared the Low Improvement Depot, with its big black iron fence circling the parking lot. She could just barely make out several reddish glows moving inside, and knew the hunter was above her. She whispered, "Alright, Ant. Your time to shine. I want you to count to one hundred, then run for the Low Improvement Depot, ok? You need to shout words as you run, otherwise the people inside might think you're a bad person, ok?"
He nodded, then hugged her leg. She stroked his head with the back of her hand, then climbed the drainpipe, shooting her tongue off here for stealth, and leaped into the window. One. Two. Three. Four...
The hunter was motionless at a window facing the store, focused completely on the hunt. She'd have to try extra hard to lure him off the scent. She snuck up on him, then whispered, "Hello again," throatily in his ear. Or in where she thought his ear would be, because his hood was up. He didn't look up, intoning, "Sziszter, returrned. Prey gone to ground. Frustration." He whined in the back of his throat-- he didn't like waiting.
"I think I can help with that..." she reached around and trailed one razored claw down the front of his jacket. She dragged at the outer layer, not quite penetrating, and he spun around. Eighty-one, eighty-two... The hunter was on unfamiliar ground-- senses long thought dead were reawakening with the sight of this, this female and her exposed...flower? He shook off the image. He growled again, but this time it was more strident, less whining. He began to circle her, and she moved with him, keeping him in sight. Gotcha, sucker. Who's the hunter now?
Her eyes betrayed none of her inward thoughts, but she wasn't so sure about this plan anymore. She heard small footsteps, quick and light, begin making their way across the lot, and saw his head swing up. She reached forward and gently—oh, so gently-- tugged at his groin through his pants. The hunter's attention swung back to her, and he growled again, reaching for her. She backed away quickly, forcing him to follow her away from the window. Circling around, she straightened a bit, cocking her hips to draw the hunter's eyes, and stole a peek at the Low Improvement Depot. Five heat glows registered-- good, Anton had made it. Time to cut this off at the knees.
"Or not! Sorry, brother, incest is off limits!" She assumed a hostile body posture and prayed she wouldn't have to live through another near-rape. And that his mind's so gone he won't get the joke. The hunter, surprised, pulled back and surveyed her. "Don't worry, brother, I'll watch over the prey. Go find yourself some dinner." Hating herself for siccing an aroused monster on some unsuspecting thing elsewhere but knowing she had to, she limped over to the window and settled into a watchful pose. The hunter growled, puzzled, and then leaped out of an adjacent window with a roar of frustration, now compounded by the sister's strange behavior. He bounded away, and she heaved a sigh of relief, turning her attention towards the Low Improvement Depot...