#hllraiser

Min-Ji met a lot of people online but the world was absolutely huge so when she found out that one of the friends she had made while playing World of Warcraft actually lived in the very same town as her, she immediately suggested they meet in person. The odds of that happening were astronomical and she was insanely curious to know who the other person on the side of the computer screen was. There was a chance he could have looked her up online, she had a high following so if you typed her username into Google all  her socials would come up but she did not have the same advantage of knowing who he was. He could very well be some really creepy weeb boy who was only interested in kidnapping her and locking her up in his basement so of course they had to meet in a very public setting like BJ’s Burgers. 

She was originally thinking that Wolfe & Webbs would be good, they could look at the comics there and see if they had any they both liked but if their conversation turned awkward or he did end up being some online creep then she could just leave but sometimes there were just random weirdos at Wolfe & Webbs anyway so BJ’s felt like the safer bet. If he was weird she could just say she was going to the bathroom and then leave. 

She got them a booth where she pulled on some bright red headphones, something she had told him to look out for so he would know who to approach, and blasted some music while she waited for him to show up, a strawberry milkshake already ordered because she wasn’t going to wait for him to get there to order what she wanted.

        “In my old town, I had one bat that I could actually call and like summon to me,” Bella told Max as they stepped into the large entrance of the caves. He’d mentioned going and Bella had asked if she could tag along, partially because it seemed, even with Max as strong as he was, going anywhere alone was dumb, but mostly because she enjoyed enticing the bats in the cave to come down from the ceilings - a big bag of fruit in the mini backpack she wore containing basically nothing else. 

         Stepping up onto the rocks with relative ease, because even though she loved heels she still understood sometimes situations required something a bit less challenging and wore sneakers, Bella continued her story. “My sire taught me if you find one you like, and you start to feed it on your blood, as a vampire, usually you can sort of get them on the same wave length as you. It took me like two years of feeding this bat my blood and I thought perhaps he’d been gaslighting me and since he was dead by then I couldn’t cheek but he was right.”

            “Do people ever think you can do that thing that movies have, where like you have an animal that does your evil bidding but you have to feed it from like a secret Satan nipple?” Bella asked as she tried to keep her balance away from the water in the cave, not intending to go for a swim that day.

        Sofia slammed the girls head against the side of the building. A human skull and she might have actually cracked it open when she threw her with such force, but a werewolf? The now injured girl grabbed at her head but was not even bleeding yet. That didn’t matter, not to onlookers. It was a violent scene and unbeknownst to Sofia the ERT had been called about a ‘a fight in South Opulence outside of a night club between a young werewolf woman who was about five foot seven hosting dark features, and a five foot one women with dark hair and tan skin who was likely a witch, siren or fae based on reports.’ She didn’t need the ERT called on her again but Sofia was pissed. 

          “Don’t you fucking talk about my sister, you dumb bitch,” Sofia stated, yanking the girl away from the wall by her ponytail, half of it fake hair. That was the thing, there were people Sofia was just not going to let strangers talk shit about and the main one was her baby sister. “Speak her name again and you’ll need dentures.” Once more Sofia dragged her against the wall and maybe the girl would have been prepared, able to put her hands up and stop it but she was still dizzy from the first hit. “You get that?”

aria was sober. it wasn’t by choice, but rather the pathetic change that stared back at her from within her back account. anxiety was a horrendous beast who bubbled beneath the surface but that you could feel linger around the corner and throughout your body. she bit the corner of her nail until it bled. she frantically searched through her cupboards, the stand next to her bed, underneath her couch, anywhere and everywhere throughout her apartment but no such luck. no ounce of liquor, just emotion, horrible emotion. 

she threw her jacket on and stormed out of the apartment, not even bothering to lock it. the only thing she cared about was feeding the beast. she darted down the stairs and out the door of the complex, the brisk air stinging her bare cheeks and nose. she was on a mission.

several minutes later, she sat at a bar, reapplying lip gloss and flicking her blonde hair behind an exposed shoulder. she turned the charm on full volume. men were easy to manipulate if you knew how to play the game and aria was a master gambler. with men, with life. she hated that part of her willing to do anything to get what she wanted, and since drinking numbed that loathing for a while, she convinced herself it was only for survival’s sake. 

she had tallied up the drinks on his tab. 7... 8... 9... 10... 11... now he wanted something from her, something she was unwilling to give in exchange for subduing her addiction. it started with subtle hints, then gradually escalated to him trying to pull her out of the bar in an angry fit. aria twisted her wrist free and ran down the street, her vision a blur. the sidewalk appeared to twist and buckle and before she knew it, she collided with a dark figure. she fell backwards in a daze, her mind spiraling and confused. she looked up and saw a man a lot taller than herself, but she wasn’t sure if that was because she had tumbled over. she looked down at the dirt gathered on her palms and brushed them off. peering back up at him, she noticed he wasn’t the same man who she had milked at the bar, and so the adrenaline began to simmer down. “i’m sorry, i was trying to get away from... someone... i— i didn’t see you there...” she explained meekly. 

“This is going to come back and bite me in the ass one day but okay. I’m not saying who is hotter than who, they’re all hot so just because I said one name first doesn’t mean they’re hotter than the person after them. Make sense? Alright. Ryden, Max, Mariah, Luke and Rosalia.”

        Bellamy tended to get special treatment when she came to the cage, she spent rather ridiculously. On drinks sure but also with her bets, it didn’t really matter to Bella if she won or if she lost, it probably should have but she actually just had a pretty big addiction to spending so if she didn’t lose it at the Cage then she’d spend it on multiple pairs of the exact same shoe - you know, in case one got dirt on it. That night she’d been laying pretty easy bets until Max came out, she’d placed bets on the man in the past but usually smaller ones because she was testing to see how well he did. He’d never lost so that night she’d put down 20K. 

         The cage had been surrounded by screaming onlookers, excited to see the destruction and potential death inside, but Bella watched from higher up, a more private booth with other big spenders, observing the fight from a distance. They’d all laid their money in various fashions, on either simply who would win, on how many rounds they’d last but Bella liked being specific, she’d bet on what would end the match based on how she’d seen max do in the past.

        All of ten minutes later and Maximus’ opponent was bleeding at his feet, pools of blood all over the mat. Bella was rich...well she already had been but the win felt good, as did watching the violence before her. The sweet and bubbly vampire tended to come across like a pure contrast to her species, she loved food, wore pink pretty much all the time, and smiled constantly but none of that had ever been capable of removing how good it felt to both witness and participate in violence. So she decided to head down and congratulate the consistent winner, leaving her chair in the booth to seek out the bloodied man.

          Pastel pink heels hitting the concrete floor of the hidden establishment Bella moved around the ground. He wasn’t hard to find, a new fight had started so the audiences attention was there and Max was obviously headed to the back room when Bella’s fingers tapped on his shoulder, long pointed black false nails hitting sweaty skin. “Got a moment to spare for a fan?” Bellamy asked, diamond choker around her throat that glittered in the LED lighting. 

“Can’t blame me for at least being interested.”