Hey everyone, just to clarify, most of this story will be written in Raina's point of view unless otherwise mentioned. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! It's the summer so I'll probably be updating twice a week or so.

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[1] ~ Beach-Water Blue

After being dead to the world, I opened my eyes to discover three rather disturbing pieces of information. I was lying on a linoleum floor in a building that looked too sterile to actually exist. I could have sworn a lady with blue skin walked by, and for some reason, my best friend Dustin was laying on the floor opposite me.

Apparently, he woke up far earlier than me, because he was staring at me with those huge blue eyes of his, smirking.

"Well, look who finally woke up." Messing with me was one of his favorite hobbies.

"Yeah, yeah... at least I don't have insomnia like some people I know." I threw a rather pointed glance his way.

"Where the hell are we?"

A serious look passed over Dustin's face before it was replaced by a nervous glance to the door. The door was locked shut, and had no knob or any way of opening it available from the inside.

Beginning to panic, which seems to be the only emotion I feel nowadays, Dustin began blathering to try and calm my ever-growing nerves.

"I'm sure they just didn't put a handle on the door so we wouldn't go wandering around. Maybe it's to protect us from those blue-skinned aliens or something-"

"Hold up, Dus. First things first, wasn't I just bitten by a spider in my bedroom? Why the fuck are we in a place that looks just like a mental institution?"

"Um, I'm not entirely sure yet, but I'm sure everything will get sorted out pretty soon, Rain." Dustin is an awful liar, and terrible at comforting people. Obviously, my nerves were still jittering around, seeming to have taken permanent residency in the pit of my stomach.

We waited around for awhile, staring off into space, before they finally noticed we were conscious.

I watched in awe as the door slid up from the bottom to reveal an empty passageway. An even weirder sight was what was in the doorway.

It had dark, navy blue skin, was at least twice as tall as me, and looked to be about twenty-five years old. Hair the color of an iguana cascaded from their head all the way down to the floor. Even those traits weren't the most noticeable thing about it. He, or she, had molten orange eyes that seemed to imitate the color of molten lava.

"Well, howdy there!" Okay, they were either female or openly gay.

"I bet you two have a lot of questions to ask, and all of those will soon be answered." Wow, you think?

"Why the hell are we here?" Dustin's always been a direct and right-to-the-point kind of guy.

She giggled, like this was some funny joke, and slapped her knee with too much enthusiasm.

"Ah, now don't get ahead of me, here!" She showed us her rotten yellow teeth and I am positively sure that I cringed.

We gave her identical blank looks, sending an invisible message of 'get on with it, already!'

"You two have been selected!" She looked at us both expectantly, like we were supposed to jump up and down and exchange ecstatic hugs or some shit like that.

"Well, aren't you just super excited?"

"No. Not at all." I deadpanned.

Suddenly, I remembered about the spider and narrowed my muddy brown eyes.

"I thought I was just bitten by a camel spider..? How did we both end up here?" By now, I was getting a little angered by her overly happy mood.

"What a silly girl! That wasn't a spider; it was a lookalike we programmed to transport you guys to our universe, of course." She acted like we were freaking numb nuts, and I had had just about enough of this casual chatter.

"No, it's not obvious. No, we're not fucking excited. Can you just get out of our faces?" I spat out through clenched teeth.

I can always rely on my short temper to get me into trouble. It'll be the death of me someday, and today just might be that day.

The first sign that we were in for it was when her eyes began to glow menacingly, and her skin slowly morphed into a deep red, the color of a raging fire.

"You will not talk back to me, young lady. I don't care if you two were selected or if you're the Queen of England. You're on my planet, and you'll play by my rules. Are we understood here?"

She practically sprayed her spittle all in my face and hair. I still didn't think she was much of a threat so I settled for a quickly muttered, 'yeah, whatever.'

Before I could bat an eyelash, she had me backed up against a wall, leaving less than a foot of space between us. With her scalding eyes and steaming skin, I just noticed how menacing she really was. Well, too late now, dumbass.

"For you to listen to me and obey the rules of this community, I guess I'll just have to teach you a lesson first. I could cause you the most excruciating pain you have ever experienced, just by lifting a hand and resting it on your forehead. If I wanted to, I could make your body sprout three more arms. If I so chose, you could become a Cyclops. Do you get where I'm going with this? In my world, you can either get along with me and live the perfect life, or choose to cross me. Do you want me to make your existence a living hell? Do you?"

She spoke in a quiet, controlled voice full of venom and hard anger.

I snuck a glance over at Dustin and saw that he was terrified of this lady. He sent a miniscule shake of his head at me, warning me to keep my temper in check. I still believed this woman was bullshit, but sometimes you have to trust your best bud.

After I gave her a slight nod, the woman spoke again, a little more jovially but her skin gave me an insight to what her real mood still was.

"I guess we see a little more eye-to-eye now, correct? I'll have to punish you, just to make sure." She grinned evilly, and I knew what was coming next would not be good for the home team.

She bent down on the floor, and placed one of her scarlet fingers on my pinky toe. Closing her eyes, she stroked it three times before standing back up.

"Look down at your foot, child."

I leapt back, immediately aware of a fact that I would be unable to deny.

My left pinky toe was gone, vanished, with only a small stub remaining.

Smirking, she stood back up, and sauntered out of the room.

Glancing back over her shoulder, she calmly stated, "I'm Shavette, by the way. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." And with that, her skin reverted back to its relaxed, beach-water blue, and she made her way out the door.

It sealed shut again before I could even think about making a quick getaway.

Dustin quickly crossed the entire distance between us and knelt down before me.

"What did that bitch do to you?" He was the maddest I had ever seen him in my life. Not even when the neighborhood bullies had stolen his Pokémon card collection back in third grade had he ever been this infuriated.

"Eh, she removed my toe with her magical witch-like voodoo powers. Nothing you don't see every day." I tried to ease the tension in the room with a little douse of sarcasm, but Dustin wasn't falling for it.

He glanced at me skeptically, before lying down on the slick floor and closing his eyes to meditate for awhile.

I used this period of silence to run my finger along the section of my foot where my precious toe should have been.

Will it ever grow back?How nasty would that process be?

Thinking back on her words, I sat bolt upright and questioned Dustin.

"Dus, what does she mean we were 'selected'?" I was insanely curious and slightly mortified.

"I don't know Rain; I don't know," he replied, at almost too soft of a whisper to reach my ears.

We were at the mercy of these creatures, and they fucking knew it.