Chapter 1: The Night Everything Changed
It was a quiet night in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Three young middle school students were running down the sidewalk.
"Come on, Come on!" A tan girl with curly brown hair said while looking at her phone for the time. "I can't be late again!"
"Don't look at me, Anne." The blonde girl in front said to defend herself. "It's not my fault that dumb store didn't have windows."
She then turned to the third girl in the back with short black hair searching for something on her phone. "Yo, Marcy, find any shortcuts?"
"You know it, Sas," Marcy says after finding a quick route to their destination. "If we cut through the park, we can cut our arrival time in half." She explains, showing them the map on her phone.
"You sure this will get us home quickly? Because my parents will ground me if I'm late for dinner again. Anne asked.
"Don't worry, Anna Banana," Marcy assures her friend with a silly nickname. "I'm certain if we hurry. We should be there on time, bar any distractions."
"Well, what are we waiting for, a taxi?! LET'S GO!" Sasha ordered.
-x-
The three girls ran as fast as they could. They jumped over things left by people during the day and were almost out of the park. Only for Anne to see a small black shadow jump in front of her from the bushes.
"WHOA-WHA!" Anne says, tripping over the small object which made her friends also stumble over.
"OW! What the Heck, Anne!" Saha groaned.
"Sorry, something in front of me jumped out of the bushes," Anne explains to her blonde friend. While those two argued, Marcy went to check what Anne tripped over.
It was a black dog around the size of a Golden retriever. But Marcy could tell it wasn't a retriever. It didn't appear to resemble any known breed of canine to her.
The dog appeared to have hurt its leg when Anne tripped over it. She stepped over to check up on the dog, just as Anne and Sasha stopped arguing and saw their friend approaching the strange dog.
"Marcy, don't you dare," Sasha said, trying to deter her friend.
"That's not your dog." Anne followed up.
"But guys, I think it's injured." She argues.
"Well, it's not our fault it decided to jump out at us." Sasha countered.
"Besides, we're running a bit late. REMEMBER." Anne reminded her friends anxiously.
Despite her friend's warnings, Marcy is not just going to leave it here with its leg hurt. So she reached her hand out at the dog's leg. It sees her doing this and growls a bit. Marcy moved her hand back. "Hey, Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just checking on your leg."
She managed to graze the dog's leg lightly. But that alone was enough to cause its pupils to dilate and bite down on Marcy's hand before any of the girls could react.
"EEEE YYYY AAAA UUUU GGGGHHHH!" Marcy screeched out in pain, trying to get her hand out of the dog's mouth.
Sasha and Anne immediately sprung into action to save Marcy again.
"MARCY!" Anne screamed, grabbing onto the dog's muzzle to get it to let go of Marcy.
"Anne, WAIT!" Marcy tried to warn her friend.
But Anne didn't listen and tried to poke its eyes. In doing so, the dog lets go of Marcy, who clutches her hand in pain. It then pounced on Anne.
"AAAAHHHH UUUU GGGGHHHH! IT'S GOT ME!" She screams at the top of her lungs.
Anne struggled to get free from the dog. In the heat of the struggle. It bit down on Anne's elbow when she was flailing around.
"EEE AAAAAHHHHH! IT'S GOT MY ELBOW! ANNE'S SPORTS ELBOW! BAD DOG! BAD DOG!"
At this point, Sasha had enough of this dirty hound attacking her friends. "ENOUGH!"
She rushed the dog, knocking it to the ground and off of Anne. "LEAVE THEM ALONE!" She demanded.
The dog growled and tried to attack her. But, Sasha was quicker on her feet due to cheerleader practice.
She managed to deliver a massive kick to its stomach. The dog then took a bite on Sasha's foot and lower ankle. Unfortunately unable to pull her leg back.
Sasha gritted her teeth in pain, trying to hold back a cry of pain. Instead, she uses this opportunity to punch the dog in the nose.
It let go and scurred near the bushes. Sasha sank to her knees out of energy and fell over on her back, panting.
The dog then turned to the girls. It appeared to be ready to try and attack again. Sasha moved in front of her friends.
But just as it was about to, something made the dog's ears rise into the air. It looked around instantly and retreated hastily into the brush.
Once, she couldn't hear it anymore. Sasha slumped to the ground next to her friends. The trio lay there for a while. Until Anne raised her uninjured arm into the air, pointing at the night sky.
"T-This is why I-I'm a Cat P-person…" She weakly deadpans before falling unconscious from shock.
Sasha herself starts to lose consciousness. The last thing she sees is what looks like a night jogger running up to them and talking into his phone, calling 911 she assumed as everything went to black.
Author's note: Let me know what you think, and as always. Constructive criticism is allowed. Trolling is not.
