(A/N): Well, I wrote a chapter today, and then I realized I forgot my notebook IN THE CAR when we got home. After I had been looking for it for around three hours.

And then the login server crashed. THE SECOND TIME THIS WEEK. GAH!

Anyway, here it is!

PS: I'm surprised no one has reviewed the gift-giving chapter or the Ghost Children chapter yet... believe me, at the pace I'm updating, it's WAY WORTH IT to get a Story Subscribe :)

So, here you go!

PPS: So, anyway, I've got A LOT of stuff planned a far ways ahead of now. Like, I've got the end of this first plot, and the first two chapters of the next plot, and the epilogue, which shows... events... that are sad. Very sad. Of course, if you weren't expecting Tragedy, you wouldn't be reading this, right?

Continue on!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BEAST

Coraline was blinded by the light outside the chamber momentarily while her eyes adjusted. When they had, she found the Other Melanie standing there, crying.

"Hurry!" she whispered, blinking back tears. "Mother is angry!"

The two ran down the halls together, with Coraline running straight ahead while the Other Melanie was jerking her head around, searching for something.

In the middle of a hallway, the Other Melanie stopped running. "Save yourself!" she screamed, as she doubled over in pain.

Coraline stopped running and turned around to face her Other Sister before running back to her side.

"No! No! Don't go near me! YOU'LL DIE!"

Coraline kept running to her, even as the Other Melanie's pained, doubled-over form began to grow and change, and her saddened cries began to shift to angered snarls.

"NO! GO HOME OR - ROAR!"

Coraline stopped in her tracks when she saw the beast that once was her Other SIster. It was ten feet tall at the shoulder, with curved claws about a foot long, and huge gnashing teeth. It had a lupine head with blood-red, fiery sockets where its eyes should have been. It had coal black, matted and tangled hair covering every part of its body. It had a strange, serpentine tail with a fiery tip the same color as its eyes.

The creature appeared to be blind, telling from the fact that it was looking right at Coraline and wasn't running at her. Coraline ran from the hall just as the beast gave a paranormal hunting howl. She fled up the stairs and through the door.

Arriving home, she waited, slumped against the door, for her heartbeat to slow. She figured that Melanie would be worried sick about her.

Coraline walked around her home, looking for Melanie.

She should have been home.

Then she saw a pot of boiling water on the stove.

Where was Melanie?

She had a theory, and she didn't like it.

A few hours later, Coraline finally decided just to shut the pot off and go to bed.

In the night, a noise awoke her.

"Coraline..."

Someone was calling her name.

"... Coraline..."

She followed the voice downstairs.

"... I know you're there, my darling..."

She went in to the kitchen.

"... Do you like them, my dear?..."

Coraline shot awake. She was dripping in a cold sweat.

Climbing out of bed, she walked out her door and down the hall to Melanie's.

When she opened the door, no one was there.

Then she heard a noise downstairs, almost like a hand banging on a wall.

Following the noise, but being very wary of what she was doing, she walked downstairs and tried to locate the source of the sound.

Eventually she located the source of the noise: an old painting on the wall in the hallway. It had come with the house.

Coraline lifted the picture off its hook, and looked into the face of her sister behind several inches of glass.

Coraline awoke.

She knew where her sister was.

And she didn't like it.

(A/N): So, for those of you who know a bit about mythology, the Other Melanie turned into my version of a hellhound: a huge, firey, lupine beast.

Also, and I was debating about putting this detail in, but the sockets aren't completely empty. The buttons just fell inwards.

So, yes, this was a bit of a filler. I just needed to let Coraline figure out that Melanie was gone, and figure out a theory on where she was.

AND I JUST HAD TO ADD AN INCEPTION REFERENCE XD (You know, the dream within a dream? XD)