Alley after alley, bend after bend passed her by, all of them the same in the darkness. Her heart wanted to jump out of her chest, die from exhaustion, but fear drove her, fear of the two men coming after her.

The woman was running through the narrow alleys in the residential area of the craftsman’s terrace. Everyone living here was probably still at the celebrations. She had been a fool to take this path home, at night, alone.

It came as it had to. She took a wrong bend and found herself in the hands of one of them. She could have sworn the narrow back alley stairs up to the merchant’s terrace should have been here. She was wrong.

The man pulled her by the wrist, twisted her arm and brought her to the ground. The other one, fatter, uglier, arrived and started to tear silver and gold off her neck and ears. All she had saved up for.

“TAKE IT, PLEASE, LEAVE ME BE!”

But their voracity was only spurred on by the easy pickings. The first man pushed her against the wall, his hand pulled up her dress, his other one grabbed her by the throat, forced her legs to spread wide. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the horror.

But the horror never came. A sudden jolt seemed to tear the first man’s hands off her, an outcry of anger from the men. The screaming began before she could even open her eyes to see what had happened.

The first man was on the ground, a creature sat atop him. Long sinewy limbs, clawed fingers, blinking fangs, a long devilish tail and knife-like ears. The creature dug its claws into the man’s throat and tore off bits of skin until it reached the windpipe. Blood gushed, covered the ground, the walls and the woman’s clothes. She pressed herself against the wall as far as possible, the man lied and twitched in a pool of his own blood, empty eyes staring into the night sky. The second man tried to run, but with two quick leaps, the creature caught him too. It turned his arm on his back. He screamed in pain and fell. And the creature kept twisting, until a sickening CRACK separated bone from joint. And the creature kept twisting. With bites to the shoulder and violent tearing, it finally freed the arm from the shoulder. The second man tried to crawl away with his remaining arm, but bled to death after a few inches. The screams of fear and agony died down, but the women could not look away as the creature burrowed its fangs into the soft meat of the arm, tearing of strips and swallowing them whole. Its throat bulged as it forced the chunks down into its stomach.

The sound of slurping and tearing crept through the tight alleyways. The woman only slowly regained her awareness of herself in this situation. While the man-eater was busy with its meal, she hurried down the alleyway to safety. She sought the wide streets and the sound of celebration. She screamed for help, someone had to hear her! Anyone! She glanced over her shoulder, but nothing followed her. She ran even faster, fear still drove her.