Different Kind of Venom

Chapter III

For a newly grad lawyer, Aria sure hated her job. It wasn't that she didn't like the practice, or she was a bad lawyer. No, in fact, she had graduated with a near-perfect G.P.A (she took mighty pride in that). It was simply that her current boss was a damn hissy bitch. That ugly old hag for snakeskin for a face used Aria's intelligence and worked her raw.

It wasn't that Aria couldn't exactly find a better firm to work for, either. It was that she couldn't find a better one — downtown Boston. She had to do this. Had to stay here. Until her dad got better at least.

Her dad wasn't that old or anything. Mark Everett had a car crash back in March, and, although his physical injuries were almost perfectly cured, he was currently in a coma. So, she had to quite her last job in Manhattan and apply for one here in Boston.

She was afraid that, if she had kept her Manhattan job, she wouldn't be here when he woke up(that's what she liked to think: that he would eventually wake up).

Aria and her father always had each others' backs. She never knew her mom; Mark had said she bailed out on them when Aria was still an infant. Her father and grandma were all 5he family she had, but that was until her grandma died when she was eighteen. Now, he was her only family; showing no short than immense pride and unjudging support of her no matter what.

She had to stay in Boston, even if she hated it. She had been ranting to Virgil — her boyfriend of six months now, and the most promising one yet — about exactly that, when his crazy mind spun out the idea of discovering the west forest. Even though she objected the idea at first, it was what she liked about Virgil. The spontaneousness.

And so, they went out discovering the woods on a late Monday evening. If it hadn't been for GPS showing the old hospital/school, their evening would have been wonderful. But of course, Virgil got curious.

Now, it was Friday, and Aria still didn't even know what to think. She needed to know more. She had been trying all week to shove that day far deep in her mind, but the image she saw when she looked back in that corridor flashed in her mind every time she closed her eyes. She had been ignorinh that monster — woman? — but she couldn't anymore.

She threw away the Amory case file next to her on the couch. Started her laptop and placed it on her lap where she was sat comfortably criss-crossed on her dad's couch.

She started with googling "creatures with snake-like hair"; nothing matched. "Large white wings"; that creature was not an angel, so she could rule that option out. She kept researching away in the night. It led nowhere, because the only thing that matched her discription was not real. Honestly, a thousand-year-old mythical creature would not be staying in an abandoned property just outside Boston!

But... What else would explain the almost-too-real statues of men with their faces in terror? Or the snakes? Or the wings? The beautiful woman's body? What else would explain how Virgil felt as though its voice was "hypnotic and kept pulling him in"? And she refused the possibility of it being a demon or some angry spirit haunting the hostipal, as her boyfriend had suggested at some point.

She rubbed her eyes, sighing. This was getting sickening. She needed to know more. But for now, she needed sleep. She would deal with the monster in the morning. And so, she shut the laptop down, and got upstairs to her old bedroom — she hadn't used that room since high-school. She had changed into some simple white tank top and gray sweats earlier when she got home, her long brown hair tied back loosely. She only had to brush her teeth and get into bed, trying hard not to think of what could happen to her tomorrow.

The next morning, Aria drove herself to the old Belchertown State School, she parked in front of the mighty rusting gates. Aria noted the large-enough holes in the fence by the woods, in case she needed them. There were three of them; the one nearest to the gates — and her car — was the smallest. The other two were dispersed in the green terrain that surrounded the estate.