He was listless, and she watched as he sort of half raised himself on the bed, seeming a little confused. There was no comment on her nakedness, and she was grateful for that, even as she knew he must have seen everything the night before. He cheeks were hot and they were not cooling. Foolishness, she thought to herself. He helped you. You can see he means no harm. Yet the thought did not help her embarrassment. Slowly she began to extricate herself from the bed, keeping the sheet around her. This encountered a difficulty when his body weight held part of it in place, preventing her from advancing towards the dresser. She glared at him a moment, and then she yanked, hard, getting the sheet from beneath him and going to the dresser with it wrapped around her.

He had nothing in her size, of course. Not even remotely.

She found a flannel shirt- yellow with blue stripes, and picked it up before realizing she would have to let go of the sheet to put the shirt on. He was still on the bed. She gave him another glare before her gaze fell on his closet door. Striding in still wrapped in the sheet, she closed the door behind her and emerged, a minute later, wearing his shirt. The sheet she left on the closet floor.

The shirt was big on her. It went down to about her mid-thigh, and she had to roll the sleeves up to get any use of her hands. Fortunately it was the kind of shirt that was designed to be worn with the sleeves rolled up and there was even a place to button it in that position. So dressed, she emerged from the closet and stood before him. It helped a little. She still felt vulnerable, barely one step above naked, though she wasn't sure what else she could do. Trying to fit into his pants was a completely lost cause.

She stood in front of the bed a moment, arms crossed beneath her breasts before she realized that was emphasizing them and she put her hands on her hips instead. He still seemed listless. She had taken blood from him. Too much? He was a big man, but there were limits. She could think clearly now. She noticed that she was hungry. If he wasn't, he would be soon.

A decision. He had helped her. Had given of himself, quite literally so. She owed him whatever she could do to help him. Stepping forward, she put an arm beneath he thighs and another beneath his lower back. Picked him up. His size made it a bit awkward, but the weight was no problem. She carried him into the kitchen and set him roughly down on a chair there. She didn't know where her phone was but she found a piece of paper and a pencil somewhere and wrote on a piece of paper for him:

SIT
YOU NEED FOOD
I WILL MAKE SOME

Alistair Lane

Anna nodded rapidly when the woman suggested she couldn't talk and gave a thumbs-up as well. At least her drunk companion seemed quick enough. When the woman suggested she could talk enough for both of them, Anna replied with a smile. Yes, this other woman seemed to talk quite a bit, though whether that was normal or simply because of alcohol remained to be seen. At the other woman's suggestion of a system for blinking, Anna leaned forward and very deliberately blinked twice for yes. It was primitive, she supposed, but it would do. She tried signing, “Hello, I know sign language, do you?”, although she didn't expect much to come from it.

As Raven motioned for Anne to follow her out of the alley, Anna took out her phone and typed on it, showing the result to Raven.



She wasn't sure that Raven would be able to read it, but, well, it was a start.

Rina Carmen

The man didn't seem worried about his dog. That was good; Anna didn't like to think that she might have hurt it. She needed blood, but she could control herself well enough to wait until she got home. The man was tall, thin, and seemed nervous. Not particularly threatening even if she had been an ordinary woman.

He asked her a question, a delicate way of asking if it was wise for her to be out this late at night. She knew why he was asking; she knew what she looked like. She was perfectly safe, of course, though she didn't intend to reveal that. She tilted her head, considering how to answer the question, and at last decided on half the truth. The reason she was outside had nothing to do with her abilities, after all.



@quinton

Anna was a light sleeper. She always had been, at least as long as she could remember. Too much of her life had been spent needing to wake up fully alert at any moment. So it wasn't at all surprising that when the dog came sniffing around she awoke- alert, and hungry.

Her need for blood was, at times, capricious. A number of factors fell into place. The awakening, bringing with it instinctive aggression and the need for self-defense, her hunger, and the sudden sight of a source of blood, all came together in a fresh vampire need. With the dog in easy reach, what she did next was no surprise. She seized its neck. And squeezed.

A few moments passed, the dog struggling between her hands, her teeth bared and a red haze of her hunger settling over her vision. In those moments she was as lost as if she had still been asleep. Realization struck her like a second wakening. Something was brushing against her fingers- something rough and leathery. A collar.

She let go of the dog and the haze on her vision vanished with a gasp. A collar. Not a stray then, no. Someone's pet. Someone's per she had nearly killed and fed upon. A slight dizziness passed over her. Her control- she'd almost-

The dog was running away. She didn't blame it. Run, creature. Be happy, and live another day.

She got to her feet. She was just a little bit sore. The night was as dark and quiet as it had been when she had come here. She supposed she could go home. She at least had a bed to sleep in there. She wondered if she would attract attention walking home, a small woman by herself late at night. Hungry as she was, it would be too bad for anyone who tried to make something of it.

She glanced in the direction the dog had gone. For the first time it struck her that either the dog had run away from somewhere, or it must have come here with someone. And now she became aware of another person not too far off.

The first thing the other woman pointed out was that Anna was short. It was good that she did so, since Anna might not have realized it otherwise. Anna gave the other woman a small glare, but cut it off when she realized what was happening. The woman was drunk. Drunk enough to throw up. Anna could smell it on her now that she took a moment to do so.

The fact that she had just gotten through throwing up (which couldn't have been a pleasant experience) didn't seem to discourage the other woman from drinking, though, since she proceeded to invite Anna to another bar. Anna raised an eyebrow. It didn't seem like a particularly wise plan to her. No doubt this other woman would need someone else to hold her hair for her while she throw up for a second time this night...

The thought struck her, suddenly and absurdly, that it had been forever since she had had a drink. With the thought came an odd sort of melancholy. Going out for drink... it was a surpassingly normal thing to do. Abruptly she found herself contemplating her life and the ways it had become different and strange. Being thrown into the living hell that had been Laboratory 1 had been bad enough. Yet even her escape in what could only be called a miracle of fate to this new land had not brought her any normality. She was different. It was as impossible to escape that fact here as it had been in Laboratory 1. It had been impossible to escape before the Laboratory, as well. Yet, a new life in a new land... she felt somehow cheated that the slate could not be made as clean as she might have hoped. Yet if she had desired a new start, had she really been living like a woman who pursued one? So much of her life was still ruled by where she had come from, by what she was, and she rarely considered the possibility of anything different. But this other woman knew nothing of that. So far as she was concerned, Anna was exactly like anyone else. (Well, shorter.) And that... that was very attractive.

She tilted her head and set her hands on her hips, studying the woman with a contemplative expression. A moment's hesitation, then a decision.

She turned her neck towards the woman to show the scar on it. She pointed at it, then made a motion like zipping her lips. People usually understood when she did that. Then she shaped her hand like she was holding a glass and tilted it back as if drinking.

She looked at the woman, and she smiled.

Rina Carmen

Anna's relatively peaceful walk home was interrupted by the sound of someone upchucking.

Jack had this habit of asking her to deliver packages at odd times, usually coupled with the request that she not take a lyft or uber there or back. She could ride to a distance away, but she had to walk to the actual delivery, and then she had to walk until she was far enough away to call another ride. On this particular night her walk back had become delayed. She had been unexpectedly struck with the urge not to return right away- Jack had nothing else that needed her attention for the night- but simply to wander the city. And so she had.

She had been in this modern America for many months now, and still she could not shake a small sense of wonder when she took it all in, this world of glass and concrete, plains and computers you could fit in your pocket. A world of incredible abundance, so that she could spend hours in the mall simply staring at what was for sale. It raised strange emotions in her. Sometimes it all felt so... useless, so ethereal. She thought of her own sufferings, and wondered, what did it mean to any of these people? How could they even begin to comprehend it? But at the same time she was glad she had lived to see it. In Laboratory 1 pain had seemed to be the entire world. Now she knew it was not true. The evil she had known had ended, the nation that had enslaved her had fallen into the rubble heap of history, leaving a legacy of nothing more than infamy. It comforted her to know that people lived who could forget about the USSR. It was as her thoughts turned in this direction that she heard the noise.

Turning, she saw the woman in the alley. Taller than her (but who wasn't?), black hair she was trying to grab back, and bent over, clearly about to vomit. 177 didn't hesitate. She strode over, and, reaching upward, pulled the other woman's hair out of the way so she could throw up in peace.

Rina Carmen