Sabrina – Part 1

Down in a tunnel that lay beneath Leeside, a rat scurried energetically across the wet surface in search of food, every now and again pausing to raise its nose up to the air. It did not see nor hear the webbing that shot from the darkness, trapping the small mammal under a blanket of spider silk.

The rat squirmed and squeaked desperately trying to free itself, but its attempts gave no rush to Sabrina who hunched low in the shadows. She pulled slowly at the string like a fisherman might pull at a rod when lining a fish. She watched in interest as the rat’s attempts to escape grew weaker and weaker from exertion, eventually pulling the rat up to suspend upside down in front of her.

Sabrina jerked away from its vicious attempts to bite her face, then bit back brutally to devour the small thing. The rat’s tail flailed a moment, then went still. Sabrina chewed and was sated of that unyielding desire for hot blood. The taste of living flesh in her mouth was on par with absolute bliss, the like she had never experienced before, and she indulged it with pleasure. She had indulged this pleasure the moment she returned to the sewers with Theo.

At first, she wanted some time alone, but when she happened upon a dead rat, mostly consumed by whatever killed it, she began to feel the seedlings of her desire to take root. The same yearning that struck her at Brock’s bar when she saw that suspended rat, began to emerge once again. Now, however, under the cover of darkness and in the solitary comfort of secrecy, she had reached out and brought the dead rat to her lips. Instead of disgust at the putrid flesh, she felt hunger and nibbled tentatively.

After that first proper bite, she could not halt or obstruct the growing longing for such delights. Then her journey into the shadow began, and it all tasted amazing.

When Sabrina was done chewing up her fresh snack and slurping down the tail like one might slurp down spaghetti in one of them fancy restaurants in Leeside, Sabrina sniffed around for more delicious rats to hunt. Her senses had grown exceptional in the last few days since she left Theo, and she had to admit, the time had flown at an alarming rate. She was not sure just how many days had passed exactly, given the fact she had not felt the need to sleep in some time.

Admittedly, she was overblown by the sudden change in her anatomy, being able to produce spider silk from her tonsils; but more importantly, she had become completely consumed by the pleasures of simply eating. Every few hours that passed felt like days without food, and fresh, living flesh was as enjoyable and stimulating as well…anything she had experienced before.

No one had come looking for her either, not even Theo, so she simply kept hunting and experimenting with her newfound abilities. She discovered she could move without detection, stick to surfaces as if she weighed no more than a feather, and of course shoot spider silk from her mouth. Her aim had gotten better too, with the amount of practice she had had it was not at all surprising. She also found sometimes, particularly when eating, her mouth would secrete a milky green liquid. The liquid hissed when it met flesh or fur and produced a small cloud of noxious gas as it melted away everything organic it touched, except her own flesh that is.

Sabrina rushed down the sewer tunnel when her sensitive nose picked up more prey, she dashed as quickly and quietly as the wind, using her arms as legs to travel faster. She found she not only moved faster this way but in addition had more control over her movement. She then came to a painful obstruction. The obstruction was enough to halt her mid-stride and cause her to screech painfully.

Around the corner she found a wide beam of sunlight cut through the darkness like the trunk of a tree. It beamed down from the surface and hit the floor of the sewer, illuminating a ladder. Sabrina wanted to charge, to attack whatever was responsible for disrupting the comfortable darkness. Then she saw the cause of the issue.

At the base of the ladder stood a child, no older than perhaps nine. His rough spun tunic was ripped and when the boy heard Sabrina screech, he turned in terror. His friends called down from the street above, but the boy in the sewer only peered out into the looming darkness and saw Sabrina, who stalked closer despite herself.

The boy looked on, too terrified to move and silent tears began to form on his naïve face when he realized, he was in danger, that something dark and terrible had found him.

“Erik!” came a childish call from above. “What was that noise Erik”

Erik, the kid, did not respond and only watched on as the monster pressed its advance, too scared to breathe let alone talk.

Sabrina pressed her advance, more out of interest than with malicious intent. It was the first time she had properly smelled a human up close since her rapid changes. The need to feed grew sensationally the closer she drew to the small boy, and Sabrina felt her mouth flood with saliva. It was not until she looked into the boy’s eyes and saw the fear, and more importantly, the familiarity of her species—she retreated. Her instinctive desire became surmountable and she melted back into the dark, as silent as a shadow.

When a few seconds had passed the boy, Erik, ascended the iron ladder hurriedly to re-join his friends on the surface, his hastened steps sent loud thur-thunk, thur-thunk to ripple down the tunnel. Whether any of them would believe Erik’s tale of what he saw, was unknown. Sabrina only considered the one pressing issue she had, which was just how much control she would have over these new desires of hers. Whether or not she would have the resolve to retreat next time. The knowledge of how easily it would be to…slip, to surrender to her basely desires frightened her and she raced down the tunnel, as far away from the open grate, as far away from the children as possible, before any of them decided to investigate further and test her.