"That will be four dollars and fifty cents."
Sasha brushed her dark hair out of her face and reached out to take the money from the patron. Every time Sasha got a new customer she would look them up and down and immediately make a judgment as to what kind of customer they would be. Sweaty and breathy meant there was no time for small talk. Designer clothing and a good dye job meant the world had to come to halt for his or her needs. Then there were the few oddballs, the kind of people you don't really expect to see in Merry Mary's Muffins Pastry Shop.
For instance, there was a woman would wear her headphones with the sound turned all the way up and she always wore and inexplicable windbreaker, despite it being either too hot to be tolerable, or insufficient against the cold wind. Her name was Mary Beth and she would peruse the display before, inevitably, ordering only a small coffee. Then there was Bruce, who was always on his phone, openly discussing with one mistress or another how he was planning on leaving his wife. To Sasha's knowledge, Bruce was not married, and was rotating approximately five would-be mistresses.
Sasha handed Lenny, a older blonde and lanky regular who always ordered a blueberry crumble muffin and a black coffee with a dollop of foam, his order. He flashed her his usually half smile; of course this was in conjunction with the quick glance at her breasts. After two years of seeing Lenny do this, Sasha was actually wondering why he doesn't she openly gawk like she suspected he wanted. When Lenny left the shop was empty, save for Alex in the back. Sasha felt grateful that closing the shop was going to be easy that night. Trying to close while dealing with a long line of customers who don't what they want was a nightmare.
Sasha drew a deep breath and reached for the keys to lock the front door from behind the register. She walked over the front door and locked the deadbolt. She looked up the glass and studied her faint reflection. Overall, she felt happy with her looks. She had an olive skin tone, which was nice and even. Though she not the thinnest woman in the world, she was by no means overweight. She had a soft elegance about her - her almond shaped eyes fit well with her pouty lips, the arch of her waist met smoothly with the curve of her hips creating and hourglass figure. Though Sasha would have given anything to be a bit taller, standing at 5'1 made reaching things on the shelves difficult and made it hard to be taken seriously.
She began to collect the trash and dishes not picked up in the last sweep. Alex, her friend whom had gotten her this job, was working in the back scrapping out plates and throwing away unsold pastries. The policy was two days, and it had to go.
"Hey Sash, would you mind bringing me the trays in the display cases? I think those scones have seen better days." Alex called from the back kitchen.
Sasha gathered two trays, all she could hold, and walked through the double doors. Alex had taken off his work polo, and was wearing and undershirt. Sasha could never understand how Alex could have such a toned and tanned body despite being the laziness son of bitch she had ever met. He worked the bare minimum, and when he got home all he did was smoke pot and, well, that was it. With his dark blonde hair, brilliantly hazel eyes and beautiful body made him almost unreasonably attractive. Their coworkers all found it extremely odd that Sasha had never slept with him. Sasha did, too, in fact.
Alex looked at Sasha with irritation when he saw at her bounty of two trays.
"God damn it, I forgot you're a munchkin who can't carry jack's worth of shit. You stay here and bag all of this, I will bring back the trays or else we'll be until midnight."
"It's only five-thirty smart ass." Sasha sniped back.
"My point exactly!" Alex quipped.
"Screw you!"
Alex raised an eyebrow as if to say "yeah?"
Sasha turned away and felt her face get hot. The real reason she had never slept with Alex was because she was too intimidated. What if she was bad at it? What if he saw her naked body and immediately decided he could do better? She was no virgin, but damn if he didn't make her feel like one.
Sasha turned back to face Alex but he had already gone through the double doors, back into the shop front. Another shot lost.
Feeling slightly defeated by her own sheepishness, Sasha turned to bag all of the old pastries when she heard a terrible cry and crash come from the front. It was Alex's voice. The scream sent an immediate chill through Sasha's body. She ran as fast as she could through double doors and surveyed the scene. There was a spurt of blood on the front display case near the cash register and a pool of blood slowly oozing from behind the counter. Sasha ran over, not knowing what she would find. As she made her way around the corner of the counter, she slipped and fell sideways into the large pool of blood that had collected around Alex's body. As she struggled to become grounded in the warm and slippery horrific mess, she crawled over to Alex who was attempting gasp for air, but could only manage gurgle through a large gaping rip in his neck.
Sasha grabbed him and pulled him up to her lap. Hot tears and sharp gasps washed over Sasha as she struggled to make sense of the tragedy that was unfolding. A moment ago she was closing the store and grateful for the quiet. Now she was holding on to her friend who was drowning in his own blood.
"Who did this to you? What happened?" Sasha cried.
Alex could offer no answers. All of sudden he was no longer moving, his skin blue and pale, coated in his own blood. Sasha looked at Alex's face and realized that whatever did this to him was still in the shop. She had to leave quickly. She crawled out from behind the counter and scanned the room. The double doors were swaying. The silence was overwhelmingly eerie. She stood up quickly and made a mad dash for the keys that were on the counter. She bolted for the front door and was struck by a force so quick and powerful she was already sliding across the floor before she knew what happened. She dove underneath a stable and hid. She knew she could not escape.
She hadn't even seen what had struck her. She looked out into shop front. There was nothing. Only her bloodily footsteps leading to the door and the streak of blood caused by her fall. Before Sasha could wrap her mind around what all was happening, the table top was ripped away from above her. All she could make out was a pair of bright yellow eyes before she was grabbed and thrown across the room with such force that she cleared the register and three dining tables before slamming in a heap on the other side of the shop against the opposite wall. Before she could let loose a scream the creature was on top of her, holding her neck so tight she she had instant tunnel vision. She raised her hand to fend off the attack, and felt, to her horror, coarse fur. Then there was nothing.
When Sasha awoke, she wasn't entirely certain she was still alive. She drew a deliberate breath. Her chest hurt. She surveyed her body - it ached. Pain isn't something you feel when you're dead, right? She opened her eyes wider to look down at herself. She was covered in bruises and a few cuts, but she was otherwise intact. Her clothes were different. She was wearing a black silk nightgown. A bit too big for her small frame. Her nipples showed slightly due to the deep neckline. She then looked at the room. It was furnished kind of like a New York loft. It was big and open, the walls a deep matte red. Except one wall, it was a glossy blue. All of the read walls had paintings, various nudes and others that didn't seems to be anything at all; just colors fighting each other. On the blue stood a tall mirror. There were shelves that held blankets, towels and various articles of clothing next to a long bench table on the other side of the room. The bed she was on was large and luxurious, like those she had seen in the period-dramas she had loved so much.
Sasha stood up quickly. Though first she was in awe of the fact that she was alive, panic rushed over her as she realized that not only was alive, but alive and in a large room which she had never seen before, owned by God-knows-who and there for God-knows-what. What was most chilling, was that this room had no visible door.
"I am very sorry about your friend." A deep voice called from behind her. Sasha jumped at the voice, and was terrified when she saw whom it belonged to.
He stood at 6'0, had golden skin, slick dark black hair and had the body of Greek statue and completely naked as such. Normally Sasha would have found this attractive, however the blood red irises of his eyes and horn like bones that ran down the length of his back made him look down right frightening. He inched closer towards her, his movement fluid and most decidedly non-human. No human could ever move with such grace. She felt at once captivated and frightened by his presence.
"My pet, Nanouk got out from this in-between. He's fairly harmless on this plane, but in yours he's quite vicious. I think your people have created the lycan myth surround his kind. Luckily I was able to catch him fairly quickly, but he had already killed your friend. I decided to bring you back here, to make sure you healed properly. You would have died on your plane. Nanouk is deadly to your kind."
The man-beast walked closer towards Sasha. She took another step back before she fell back onto the bed. Within the blink of an eye, he was next to her. He placed his hand on her leg.
