Snippet #937766

The washed out streets of Typhoon City lay empty, as always. People had always avoided walking during the frequent, powerful storms that racked the city all the time, making it more a water world than a human habitat. Even less people walked the streets nowadays, due to the new threat of being assaulted and likely killed by the new residents of the city; demons. Mai's hometown had turned into a place that she would once have thought to only be a setting to a cheesy horror flick. In a movie, it would have been the setting to a cheesy horror flick, but this wasn't a horror flick. This was real, and the first thing Mai had learned with the demons was that this new reality was in no way "cheesy." She had heard horrendous tales about what demons did to those that they caught. The tales were always bloody and violent, death always coming slowly but inevitably to a poor human who had wandered the streets or had gone by himself to the bathroom. You might think just this would make the streets entirely deserted, but this wasn't always the case. Mai, for one, still used the streets as much as she like, not seeming to care about her life.

In truth, there were many things at work that made Mai wander the streets. One was the fact that, even after hearing all the horrible stories of what happened to men (and women) who crossed demons, she had never actually met one herself. This led to a little it of denial about the fact that she would ever meet one. Another was the fact that she felt she still had to proceed with her life, even with all the bad happening around her, and you needed to walk to go forward. But, really, the main reason she walked the cold and damp streets of the city was because she liked doing it. She like the rain, like the cold, liked the thunder cracking around her. She liked the dark, liked the streets, and like the wind howling into the night. Even she thought this was crazy, but she couldn't control that part of herself any more than one could control how they breath; it just came natural to her, and she just couldn't always fight it. She had to go out, she had to stroll the streets, just like she was tonight. On this particular night the rain was nice and light, as was the normally ferocious winds. Thunder stilled rumbled at regular intervals, and lightning cracked upon some of the taller buildings nearby, but, all in all, the weather was better than usual. Mai had felt good for most of the night so far, and she figured it would be no different for the rest. But she was wrong. A sudden twist in her stomach made her look around nervously before continuing on, then looked around again as the feeling coursed through her a second time. The sudden sound of strange footfalls from close by told her exactly what it was. It was her first demon. As she spun around, something hit her side, sending her sliding across the perpetually wet asphalt and cement and into a building on the other side of the road. The world quickly started to dim, and even through her groggy thought process she knew she was doomed. As everything faded to black, she felt a faint prick in her arm as a silhouette passed across the remaining light that could be registered by her eyes. It was only a heartbeat later that she was out cold.


Richter pulled out his cellphone, leaning over the body of a bloody demon. It had been fairly easily caught, even for a mere low-class demon. This particular demon had been distracted by his dinner, and oblivious to him as he had come from behind. With the element of surprise, it had gone down with less of a fight that they normally would have; that didn't mean to much, though. He glanced over at a body of the girl/attempted dinner, then shook his head. He flipped out his cell phone and spoke with authority. "Get over to the docks now. I just acquired a new test subject, and I want to get him out of here ASAP so he doesn't make a mess in the lab." As he shut his cell phone, he grabbed the demon with a hand to hoist him over his shoulder like a sack. The docks weren't too far away.