1 Season 1 - Orphans

Fate is a Woman with Permanent PMS and No Chocolate (Sylvia)

'Why am I doing this to myself?' I ventured the question to my psyche for the 800th time that night. This was day 11 in my streak, and I was just about sick of seeing the store more than I had seen the back of my own eyelids. I swear if I didn't love being around books, I would have told them to find the nearest copy of 'Mein Kampf' and shove it up their asses.

"Speak of the devil." I chuckled, straightening a copy of the Hitler manifesto on the shelf.

"How's it looking over there, Sylvia?" Tammy's voice twinkled into my ears from across the sales floor.

She was a sweet woman, a lot like a second mom to me. It was nice, having a mother figure looking after me. My own mother was dearly departed, which left me a little lost and out of sorts. Tammy was always so patient and kind with me, though. She was there with me through a lot and I was hell bent and determined to pay her back somehow.

"It's fine, Mom." I chimed. "I'm just straightening one more thing in—"

A loud rustling cut me off. Was that from the kids' section? I sighed and rolled my eyes. Apparently, people didn't know how to listen to announcements. I was in kids' in a few steps, looking at a trail of books that led to a dark corner. Seriously? I literally just finished over here. I brushed my unruly mane of hair out of my eyes as I picked up my new little trail of horrors. That's when the noise came again, only much louder.

"Hello?" No response. Of course, they're not going to answer, stupid. I scolded myself.

I cautiously stepped around a shelf, only to be pounced on by someone. Her teeth latched on to my arm and I screeched in pain. Damn, those things were sharp! The books in my hand went flying everywhere and I could hear my coworkers calling out to me. I tried my damnedest to get this cuckoo bird off my arm, but she was strong as hell for such a little thing.

She finally let go, stumbling back almost into the dark corner. In the dim light, I could vaguely make out long, matted hair and my blood dripping from her mouth. I blinked and she was nowhere to be found. How the hell did she move so fast? I left kids' just as I heard a crash from the back of the store.

"What the hell was that?" Shane bellowed. He sprinted past me as Tammy and Bonnie came to check on me.

"Honey, what happened to your arm?" Poor Tammy looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head.

"I don't know! I thought I heard something coming from kids' and when I went to check it out, some crazy bitch jumped out the corner and bit me!" I cradled my injured arm, which was starting to burn, closer to my body. I was almost too afraid to let anyone touch it. Tammy led me to the front as Bonnie jumped on the phone. Shane joined us at the front of the store soon after.

"Whoever it was is gone, but—holy shit, dude!" He looked down at my arm in horror.

I finally looked down at my injury and it was as bad as I thought. I tried to keep myself from hyperventilating, but that was a tad difficult with the gargantuan amounts of blood pouring from the gash. Sadly, the fun was just getting started. This was night when my life started going all to hell in a rocket ship.