Naomi was awoken by the sound of what sounded like a glass bottle shattering outside her window. Aside from the proximity of the local beach, her basement level studio apartment offered little to be desired in terms of neighbors.
She heard laughter and whoops following the shattering sound and pulled her weighted blanket over her face and turned to her side to place her back towards the small window opposite of her bed that the noise originated from. Despite the rude awakening, she was not about to let anyone, or anything ruin the sweet embrace of sleeping in on her one day off in weeks.
Despite the rowdy neighbors, the loud pipes, and the occasional roach or two, the apartment complex Naomi cautiously decided to reside in was the most affordable out of the several more luxurious apartments that surrounded the tourist-ridden town. She knew that it was a temporary situation, and the weather along with the opportunity to run on the pier every day was worth dealing with most annoyances.
Crash.
Another bottle shattered. This time closer towards her window.
“No. Not today.” she muttered to herself.
Crash. More laughter.
“Just ignore them. They can’t stick around all morning.”
Crash. Crash. Thump.
She lifted her blanket and turned towards her window. She saw a pair of sneakers through the grime that the window had built up from the outside. Despite her best efforts from cleaning it from the inside, the window was in a perpetual state of filth. She could hear the crunch of shattered glass being stepped on by the shoes and the wearer kicking the shards around. While not minding his space, either out of rudeness or because of his mid-morning drunkenness, he managed to kick her window.
“Ok, screw this.” She said with all the tiredness she was feeling drained and replaced with anger.
Despite the building itself being in a state of disrepair, Naomi had prided herself on how clean her studio apartment was. The condition of the studio compared to when she first moved in to now was night and day. The previously dirt-coated walls and carpet had been scrubbed and vacuumed respectively until they managed to look like the original color they both were installed in. The kitchen was also scrubbed and the small tile floor mopped to a shine when she finally got done cleaning out the rancid oven cavity that she had spent the better part of an afternoon alone on cleaning.
Next to her bed was a modest desk with her laptop and neatly piled journals. The desk itself was the cleanest thing in the apartment due to her near-daily use of the desk for school or just late-night scrolling. She always dusted the desk with each use, both before and after her nightly use.
Naomi threw her blanket off, and swung her legs over the side of her bed to dangle her feet over her panda-faced slippers. After sliding them on, she grabbed her jacket that was draped over her desk chair and angrily put in on. Her keys, as always, were in her jacket pocket. She placed her hand over the key check to verify all of the attachments were still there, despite knowing that they always were.
She walked over to the door leading out of her apartment, looking herself over in the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the door. Her dark brown hair was in a messy bun, various strings of loose hair rebelliously draped down the side of her face. Her caramel skin on her face was smooth and blemish free due to her frequent, if obsessive, nightly skin care routine. Her jacket covered her arms and torso down to just below her upper thighs. Despite appearing as though she was only wearing the jacket to cover herself, the black running shorts she wore every night in preparation of her morning workout routine covered her lower half.
She opened the door and then slammed it out of frustration as she turned the corner into the long hallway. At the end of the dimly lit path, she went up the stairs towards a door that let out of the lowest floor of the complex. With her left hand, she reached out to grab the door handle. She paused as her hand made contact, and felt the contents of her right jacket pocket to verify she had what she needed.
A small, metallic keychain attachment brushed against her fingers as she checked. The pink bunny-faced object had two holes where the eyes should be, and sharp pointed ears designed for last-ditch self-defense. She was skeptical about purchasing the item since she never wanted to be in a situation to use it, but her living situation seemed to push her to click the online advertisement that brought it to her attention during a late-night internet binge.
She looped her index and middle fingers through the eye holes, and kept the object and her hand in her jacket pocket to avoid giving away her last line of defense. She turned the door handle, and went out to confront the situation.
Once outside, she turned her attention the left where the original noise had been coming from. As soon as she did, she saw four figures, each boasting at least a full foot taller than her shorter than average 5’1 height, and wearing matching dark green clothes. The outfits weren’t exactly the same, but the four men wore either dark green hoodies, long sleeved shirts, or in one case a dark green bandana over his head while sporting no shirt at all.
She let the door close behind her and made her approach.
Each man was mid-twenties to thirty years old, and were all holding various brands of beer bottle while standing next to half-empty cases of their respective brands. Glass shards covered the asphalt around them. Some starting to pile on the ground-level basement window that led into her apartment.
She marched with purpose over to the group. “Hey, fuckwads.” She shouted as she closed the distance to the men. They looked at her as she came closer, each had a look of confusion on their bloodshot eyes and then immediately began to smile.
“Why the yelling, little lady?” The shirtless man asked. “Aint it too early for that kinda volume?”
“Yes. It is” she said, stopping a couple meters away from the gaggle of drunks.
“Which is why I’m out here in the cold instead of in bed warm and asleep. You morons being loud and drinking first thing in the morning isn’t what bothers me, what bothers me is the fact that you are risking my security deposit by kicking my window!” She jabbed her finger in the direction of the window behind one of the members of the group, who looked towards where she was pointing and laughed.
“Pretty sure you’re losing it anyway with how shitty you clean your stuff. Look at how dirty it is already.” He gestured towards the window and started laughing at his own joke.
Naomi flashed a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Well, if you would all kindly go take this circle-jerk somewhere else, then maybe I can get to cleaning in peace.”
The shirtless man looked at Naomi, then the window, then back at her. He smiled, and walked towards the spot in question, and unbuckled his belt.
She knew what was to come and put her left hand over her face in annoyance.
The man let out a sigh of relief, as the sound of liquid hitting the window and pavement started and grew louder over time. She turned to look at her mid-stream. “Thanks, didn’t even realize this was here. Been holdin’ this in for an hour now.” He bounced quickly and closed his zipper as he finished the show of offense.
“You done?” She asked flatly.
“I’m sure I’ll have more to give in no time” he said, shaking his half-empty beer bottle at her.
Naomi thought of her options as he took another sip from his beer. She could call the police, but dismissed the thought since she wanted them to learn a lesson instead of giving them a reason to come back for more antics.
She couldn’t fight them, not because she was outnumbered, although that was a factor, but because she didn’t want to turn a bad situation into something worse by aggravating drunken idiots and giving them an excuse to stick around.
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As she was mulling over her results, thunder boomed behind her. She turned her head slightly to the right to use her peripherals to see how close the coming storm was. She read the weather report daily and knew that a storm was coming today, which made for the perfect excuse to skip running and sleep in for once. That is, until the gaggle in front of her decided otherwise.
“Well, at least the rain will get rid of the smell.” She said turning back to the group.
The group’s attention had been arrested by the dark clouds forming. They looked back at each other. “C’mon. Don’t wanna get caught up in that shit when it hits.” The shirtless man looked again at Naomi with a determined face.
“Maybe next time you can host us chica.” The man wiggled his eyebrows at her while grabbing his crotch.
Naomi scrunched her face in disgust and watched as the men picked up their various cases of beer and walked off. Once they had made the corner leading out of the alleyway next to her building, she let out a tired sigh and released her hand from her bunny knuckles in her pocket.
She had never had to use the weapon and was glad that didn’t change. When she moved to the beach town on her own though, she accepted that she would need something to defend herself. Between her stature and baby face, no one would see her as anything more than prey and if she was going to go down she would at least take out an eye of any assailant.
With newfound peace, she entered her studio once again. She looked over the tiny apartment as the door closed behind her and let out another sigh. Now that one problem had been taken care of, another came to her mind. Despite constantly wanting the day off from her string of odd jobs, she never had any real plans other than to get ready for the next gig she could find online to pay the bills. Now that she had an actual whole day off, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Scrolling the internet could provide some entertainment, but she would feel guilty about staying in and doing nothing all day on the computer. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head admonishing her for such a waste of a potentially useful day, and shook her head as if she was shaking out the nagging conscious of her head.
In the end, her tiredness won her over and she decided to sleep more and let the problem be sorted out in a couple hours. She walked over to the side of her bed, kicked off her slippers, and fell back onto her pillow. Her eyes shot open and she leaned over the side of her bed to adjust her slippers into their original position before actually getting comfortable and falling asleep.
Crashing thunder woke Naomi up as she found herself in a fetal position under her blanket. She blinked a few times before turning to her window, watching as droplets of rain could be heard hitting the alleyway outside. The morning light she saw when she first woke up had been replaced by a dark sky and the sound of trickling rain.
She debated staying in bed longer, but decided against it when she felt an ache run down her back due to oversleeping.
She sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. Turning to swing her legs over the side of the bed, she heard something in the distance that sounded like a mix of car alarms and yelling. Ignoring the noises, she slid her slippers on and stood up from her bed while stretching her arms above her head.
“Tourists.” She told herself. She had been made privy of how wild people can get during their visits, and being close to the beach meant being surrounded by snow-birds and college students who either clogged up traffic or gave the police plenty of business for drunken brawls at the local bars.
A loud crash rang in her ears as she felt violent vibrations shake her apartment. She had been through a few earthquakes before and instinctively grabbed her desk to steady herself in case there was an aftershock.
“What the fuck?”
Naomi realized that the noise originated outside her apartment window as she could hear the sound of people yelling and smell what she could only assume was spilled gasoline. She looked around for her cell phone to preemptively call 9-1-1. When she found it plugged into its charger, she tapped the screen to unlock it to call for help.
‘No Service’ was all that appeared in the top right corner of her screen.
She grabbed her jacket and threw on some balled up black slacks that were sitting at the very top of her laundry basket. She may not have had any medical training, but she could be at least another pair of hands ready to help in an emergency.
When she arrived outside her apartment, she immediately noticed a crashed sedan in the corner of the alleyway. The front was completely crumpled against the corner of the building opposite of hers, and the driver was laying face first in what remained of a deployed airbag.
Rain fell around her as she ran to the wrecked car in her panda slippers, ignoring the occasional puddle she stepped in while she made her way.
When she arrived at the driver-side door, she was able to see that it was an older man that had been driving. The window had shattered in what she assumed was a result of the impact, and she reached for his neck to feel for a pulse.
I think this is what you do in an emergency. She thought to herself.
She could feel a slow, but noticeable pulse on her fingers and let out a relived breath. She looked around to see if there was anyone around who could help, but to her surprise no one was around. She could hear distant sirens and thought that maybe she could flag whatever emergency vehicle it was to come help.
As she pulled her hand away from the man’s neck, she jolted in surprise as a hand wrapped around her wrist.
She turned to the man again, this time seeing a pair of panicked eyes looking back at her.
“Uh, sir are you ok? I’m trying to find someone to hel—” she started, only to be interrupted by the man pulling her closer.
“Run” he whispered.
“Sir?” she looked at his face as he was beginning to tremble and try to speak again. Words failed to leave the fragile man as he mouthed the word he was barely able to let out a moment ago.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell on the steering wheel. Naomi felt his grip loosen on her wrist and she pulled her hand back to hold in her other hand.
She heard a distant scream, and then another, more screams could be heard now that she didn’t have her focus entirely on the accident in front of her and she realized that something was happening bigger than a car crash.
She backed away from the car and turned to head back inside, hoping a quick search on the internet could tell her what to do in this type of situation. As she turned, she saw a figure on the other side of the alley.
The tall humanoid shape that was facing her direction was cloaked in a dark hood. The figure stood easily at 7’ tall and was barefoot as far as Naomi could tell. The figure had what appeared to be a necklace that had several bloody items dangling off of it. She could only discern so much from her distance though, and decided it was time to leave. Whatever situation had been going on, she knew that once enough chaos had gripped the local authorities’ attention would allow for a crime spree to go unchecked for a long period of time. She was not about to fall victim to such a spree.
Naomi turned on her heel and took off running from the opposite direction the figure without a word.
“Nope. Fuck that.” She said between quick breathes as she ran.
As she turned the corner out of the alleyway, she came onto the next street that was the main route to head into the downtown area. Instead of seeing crowds of people walking about, she noticed that there were crashed cars and buildings on fire.
She ran as fast as she could while regretting her decision to only wear slippers in the rain. She followed the sidewalk along the street looking for someone to help, only to see the street littered with glass, cars on fire, and puddles of rain water.
She had no idea where to go other than towards a mass population center where she could find help.
As she started to fatigue, she looked behind her to see if she was being followed. No figure appeared in her panicked scan of the area she just left, and she began to slow into a fast-walk rather than full sprint.
She stopped at a cross walk, where she could see the remains of a familiar local coffee shop on fire across from the corner she stood on. She was gasping for air as she leaned into a telephone pole for support.
“Where is everyone? What was that thing? Why the hell did I think these slippers were so frigging cute?” she asked herself.
She slowly caught her breath as she tried to calm down and properly assess the situation.
As she did, she heard footsteps from behind her.
She turned, to be faced with three of the towering figures in question.
Closer than before, she saw that they were each wearing a necklace, and was finally able to see that what was dangling from them were various human ears. The cloaks they were wearing were brown and looked like they were hand-woven out of some rough burlap-type material. The clothes didn’t cover their entire bodies, and showed two arms that let to hands that only appeared to have three large fingers instead of five.
The figure in the middle reached into its cloak and pulled out a crude knife that was the length of Naomi’s forearm and started walking towards her. As she turned to run again, she ran face-first into a fourth hooded figure that she didn’t even hear approach from behind. She froze where she stood and slowly looked up.
The darkness from the hood was more clear now, and she saw a pair of dark orange eyes looking back at her. The snake-like pupils were razor sharp and clearly that of a predator. She felt the large hand of the knife-wielding figure grab her shoulder, when the one in front of her raised its hand and spoke.
Za ne le uun. Aas fuhnd re. Naomi was still petrified by the situation and remained still as the creature spoke.
She felt the hand on her shoulder retreat, only to be replaced by the hands of the one in front of her. With a smooth twisting motion, the creature turned her around to face the other three. She saw the others look at her with hunger, and felt one of the hands on her shoulders lift up and move towards her jacket’s zipper. With what would be the human equivalent of a thumb and index finger, it took the zipper and pulled it down. The creature parted the two sides of her jacket to expose her shirt and chest underneath.
Kwah zi eil harth. Nabarish anrhn guhl. She heard the apparent leader of the group say behind her. The hand that had unzipped her jacket moved up and grabbed her right breast and squeezed, all the while the other creatures nodded. The middle creature placed the knife it was holding back in a sheathe that was strapped to its chest under the cloak.
The hand let go of her chest, and she let out a shuddering breath as the context of their interaction came into her head. She had her hands at her side the entire conversation between the creatures, and she slowly moved her right hand to her pocket.
Please be there. Please be there. Please…
She slowly patted the side of her pocket and felt the lumps of the keychain with her bunny fist weapon within. She didn’t know if it would be enough, but it would at least be something she could use.
As she started to feel hope, a sudden thud rocked her forward and the world went black.