Crimson sally's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Crimson Sally licked bunny blood off their teeth and studied the men through the window. The unicorn wanted bad humans, and bad humans were easy to find in a room like this. Six of them lounged in their underwear, beer cans stacked like trophies. They laughed at a video game where boxers punched each other flat. One man belched and high-fived another. Crimson Sally's horn caught the light. Dinner. Sally had hunted cruel people for weeks. A butcher who kicked stray dogs. A landlord who locked out families. Each one screamed the same way. But these men were different. They wrestled over the last slice of pizza and called it war. They flexed for no one. They were loud, lazy, and harmless. Sally pushed the door open. The rainbow behind them dripped red onto the carpet. "I hunt bad humans," Sally said. "Which of you is the worst?" The men stared. The one on the red couch set down his beer. He had a beard thick as a broom and a scar over one eyebrow. He looked exactly like a villain. Sally lowered the horn at him. "Whoa," the bearded man said. He raised both hands. "I coach kids' soccer. Saturdays. You want bad, you got the wrong den." Sally paused. The horn stayed level. "You look bad." "Looking bad and being bad ain't the same," he said. He nudged the man beside him. "Tell it, Marco." Marco nodded fast. "He drove me to chemo. Every week." Sally circled the room. They sniffed each man for cruelty. Beer, sweat, corn chips. No fear-smell. No guilt. One man offered Sally a slice of pizza. Another scooted over to make couch room. They were rude and sweaty and dull. But none of them were bad. This was the problem. Sally had built a whole hunt around a simple rule: cruel humans smell wrong, and these men smelled fine. The rule had never failed. Now it had. Sally's stomach growled at a room full of the wrong prey. The bearded man leaned forward. "You're hunting bad people?" He wiped his hands on his shorts. "My old boss. He stole wages from every worker on his crew. Fired my brother for asking about it. That's bad." Marco spoke up. "He's got a name. And an address." Sally lowered the horn all the way. The blood on the rainbow dripped slower now. A room of harmless men had just handed Sally something better than a meal. A target. "Write it down," Sally said. The bearded man tore a corner off a pizza box. He wrote a name and street. His hand shook, but he wrote it. Sally took the paper in their teeth. Sally backed out the door. The men watched, silent, beers forgotten. Sally had come to eat the worst human here. Instead they left with a paper that named a worse one somewhere else. The hunt had changed. Now Sally knew exactly where to go next.