“Warning. Intruders in sight.”
“Warning. Intruders in sight.”
Raven peeled one eye open, and she was assaulted by a bleary view of the room’s ceiling covered in red light. She groaned and tried to clear her grogginess away as the lights around her continued to blink on and off in red.
“Warning. Intruders in sight.”
She squinted her eyes through the hazy redness of her surroundings and managed to get a glimpse of the screen showcasing…one, two, three…three boys joking around as they walked through a trail in the woods.
“Whatzat?” she slurred out as she tried to stand up, but her legs felt like jelly. She looked down and poked at her rickety legs. They were solid, but why did it feel like she didn't have bones. Still, she fought to remain upright. Her hands flailed around, feet stepping over cans of beers as she clumsily made her way to her office chair.
“Three students have appeared inside the woods. Shall I scare them away with the usual routine?” A beautiful, mature woman’s voice came out of the computers. So smooth, like a siren's song.
“Who in the world made you?” Raven asked eagerly, her voice coming out hoarsely. “Your voice sounds so alive, clear and so lady-like. Do I know your inventor?”
“You’re the one who made me, Master,” the angelic voice replied.
“I did!?” Who knew she could make something for herself. “Sounds so shushpicious. I don’t even remember making you. But I do remember making a puzzle box for Ammy, you know, my aweshom shister. Then an ant who can lift 100 tons just for Grandad. It can carry him around since he’s already ancient at that time when I was…was it six? And a lighter that when ignited, a hundred million voltage can be released and zap someone to heaven for my Papa. And…oh, right! Nothing for snobbish Lucy… I mean, Lucash”
How proud she was when she gave one of the many presents she had for her family.
“You named me C3 and you gave me consciousness on the night of your 15th birthday at 1:03 AM. Approximately 5 years, 9 months, 6 days, 1 hour, 03 minutes and 50 seconds, Master.”
“Your birthday’sh tomorrow!” Raven’s eyes widened and she pointed a hand at whatever screen was the nearest. “I have to make something for you.”
“Intruders are nearing the cabin, Master.”
“Oh, right. I almost forgot!” She laughed sheepishly, shaking her head at how silly she was for being distracted easily, but she felt nauseous all of a sudden from the movement. “I’ll go shcare them away. You can go take it easy, I’ll handle this.”
“Will you be going out in your outfit, Master?”
“I have an outfit?” she muttered, wonder making her eyes gleam. “Ooh! I love showing up with style. Bring it on!”
Raven had always dreamed of becoming the most famed villain just like her ancestors she’d seen in the large paintings back in the manor. And here she was, out in the middle of the night, going out for her first-ever villain mission, scaring a bunch of college boys away from the angelic voice’s territory. Or her territory too, but it did not quite taste right in her tongue.
She couldn’t even remember how she became so big already. She only remembered going to her Mama’s laboratory and then poof, here she was, a young adult of twenty-one. Excitement made her restless on her toes as she watched the platform where she stood rise from the depths of the earth and up into the surface.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“This. Is. So. Fantastic!”
She even had a costume of her own! A white bandage covering her body from head to toe. Like a mummy villainess!
Once out, she looked around the dilapidated cabin and gingerly tiptoed outside.
“C3, are you there?”
“I’m here, Master.”
Raven whipped her head towards the voice and she almost shrieked in happiness at the white ball of the droid. She snatched C3 out of the air and held the droid with both hands as she ran her fingers over the smooth surface.
“You even have a beautiful body!” she whispered, careful from being too loud or the intruders, her first enemies, might be near the perimeter already.
“I think I see the cabin!”
Raven stiffened from the sound of voices. Footsteps and the snapping of twigs could be heard from her right somewhere in between the tightly knitted trees. Instantly, she smoothly moved away from the broken entrance of the cabin before climbing the tall pine tree beside it. Once upon a branch with a good view, she sat down with her legs and naked feet dangling freely.
A tall boy with a red hair broke out from the bushes and he was followed by three more behind him.
“I knew that rumor was full of shit,” a boy with an attached camera on the band on his forehead stated. “Staring eyes? Pfft, what a cheap horror joke.”
“But there really is a cabin here.” A nervous voice pointed out. The chubby one among the group.
“It's always been here.” The Red Head walked towards the cabin and pointed his flashlight into the dusty insides. “Make sure you’re taking the video right, Craig. I don't want the others back in the dorm to think we didn't reach the goal.”
The one called Craig adjusted the small camera on his forehead, raising a thumbs up to the Red Head who went inside the cabin. "This is disappointing,” he added as he followed Red Head into the cabin. “But worth it for the campus. We’ll get famous with this at the very least. Sucks for those who won this round because their dare is going to make us hotshots with this!”
Raven grinned as she watched the Chubs who was left behind in the open, fidgeting and shifting his foot around, looking right and left.
“You’re looking at the wrong direction, my dear plumpy guest,” she drawled out.
Chubs stiffened visibly and slowly looked up where Raven sat. Their eyes met, but the boy’s eyes continued to roll up into his skull before falling backward. His massive weight hitting the forest floor in seconds and the crash startled the boys inside the cabin.
“Victor? Hey! Victor!” Red Head came out from the cabin and rushed to his friend’s side, slapping him on the face. “Oi!”
“The hell’s wrong with him?” Craig asked as he took the other side, less worried than the other one, almost uninterested. “Gross. It looks like he peed himself.”
Raven clamped her mouth shut with both palms, trying to stifle the surge of giggles. But she couldn’t control herself and she burst out laughing like a maniac, slapping the branch with her hands.
“HOLY SHIT!” Craig fell on his bum and crawled backward away from his friends and the glaring whiteness of Raven’s silhouette that was enhanced by the moonlight.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Raven cooed, loving how her voice came off mature and seductive. “Out for a walk?”
“Ghost…” the pale Red Head muttered, blue electric eyes filled with so much dread.
Raven took pleasure from the taste of fear from their expressions. And the word ‘Ghost’ sounded familiar and right for a villain's name. Mummy would have fit. What with her appearance, but Ghost had a special ring to it too.
“But…but you’re dead!” Craig croaked out with shaky fingers pointing at her. “Ghost’s supposed to be dead!”
“Am I? Are you sure?” She teased and the boy continued crawling until his back hit the trunk of a tree. “Now, tell me, my dear courageous visitors, how do you want to die?”
As if on cue, a gush of wind rested its might around the woods, shaking the crown of the trees and pine needles rained down from above.
“Run!” Red Head shouted at Craig as he grabbed Chubs by the waist and lifted him on his shoulders in one swift movement as if Chubs weighed no more than a sack of cotton.
Raven narrowed her eyes at him. Red Head was a Super. This was getting better and better.
“You can run,” Raven drawled out with a grin on her face as she watched the two stumble their way back from where they came from, “but you can’t hide.”
Once the wind settled down, the boys were gone and Raven couldn’t keep herself from giggling at their display of cowardice.
“Are we going to hunt them down, Master?” C3 asked beside her.
Raven looked over her favorite toy and said, “Just the thought of a predator chasing after you is way more terrifying. Let them think as though I’m right behind them. Psychological torture doesn’t sound too bad. And besides, am no Super. If I were one I would have really ran after them."
The next day, Raven woke up with a pounding hangover and another loss of memory.