Rachel’s breath caught midway in her throat as she ran. The threat of an anxiety attack loomed. She needed to calm herself. She needed to relax. She couldn’t relax.
Three hours remained before she would hand in the rough copy of her Ethics Thesis. A rough draft shouldn’t cause as much stress as it did, but Rachel couldn’t convince her swiftly beating heart of that. Her perfectionism prevented her from tranquility, until her absolute best was achieved.
In desperate moments such as these, the library, a wealth of resources, became her only salvation. She needed more information than books or computers could provide. She needed Scarlet.
Rachel burst through the doors of the library. Where, oh where was he? She turned the corner. Several students sat at tables, studiously cramming their heads for upcoming finals. Scarlet sat near the back of the room, in a corner by himself; the rims of his spectacles hung loosely off his feminine nose. He yawned, and turned a page of “Cannibalism through the Ages.” Rachel made a beeline towards him.
“Scarlet I-…” she began,
“What draft of the essay is this? I lost count at seven,” he taunted. Scarlet kept his nose buried in his book, so all Rachel could see of him was the top of his fine, auburn hair.
“You’re very funny,” Rachel retorted, slinging her purse over her shoulder. She sat across from him and shoved the papers onto the table.
Scarlet lowered the book and glanced down at the thesis. He smirked. “Have you thought about someone’s counter-argument to this?”
“Please, just read the damn thing,” Rachel said, glaring at him.
“I mean, your whole premise rests on the idea that predators are natural selection’s tool to eradicate weaker species: their prey,” Scarlet continued. He took the glasses from his face, and shook his neck-length cherry hair. “Some might take offense to that.”
“Read. It.”
“The predator, as you argue, is the perfect species, but try explaining that to something that’s about to become its hors d’oeuvres,” he went on, “Would not the prey view the predator as…monstrous?”
“Ugh!” Rachel exclaimed, alerting the attention of several nearby students. She snatched her essay from the table. “Fine, I’ll turn it in as is.”
“Wonderful!” Scarlet beamed. He lowered his book and produced two tickets, “I was going to make a trip to the Butterfly exhibit downtown, would you like to join me?” He finished with a Cheshire-cat grin.
Rachel glared. She imagined him exploding into several tiny, opinionated fragments. She turned her back on him and began walking away.
“Rachel, please don’t leave, I’m curious.”
She turned back around. “What?” she spat.
“Does your fetish with perfection stem from your mother’s constant, harsh abuse, or is that just a genetic thing?” he asked, giving a little chuckle, revealing his flawless teeth.
“Bastard,” Rachel mouthed, before storming off, her high-heels clipping heavily against the floor.

***

The panic attack occurred in the women’s restroom, shortly after Rachel had turned in her thesis. Like before, her lungs tightened up. The world spun around her. Time slowed the seconds down to small eternities.
Breath escaped her. Her knuckles went white as she clenched her fists into tight little balls. Her heartbeat thudded rapidly within her bosom.
“Calm down. Calm down. Breathe. Breathe,” she told her mind.
A few agonizing moments later, the attack subsided. Rachel shakily clawed her way to her feet. She coughed repeatedly, and waited until she no longer felt like a drowned rat.
A quick look in the mirror revealed her disheveled appearance. Snot dripped from Rachel’s nostrils and trailed down her lips and chin. She quickly splashed some water and soap on her face, and waited for the color to return to her cheeks before she left the restroom. Rachel allowed no room for flaws, even in her appearance.
Control and determination were the values ingrained into her by her late-mother, a widely-respected chairwoman. Rachel’s mother had cleverly known how to inflict a slap where none could detect. She’d known just how hard to hit, so the skin wouldn’t bruise. Once, a high-heel had “accidentally” crushed Rachel’s toes; she’d made a B plus on a test when only A’s were acceptable. Rachel had never worn a frilly dress, but business-style suits like her mother, or formal skirts. Even playtime had been forbidden to prevent scrapes and bruises. Rachel was taught to cover all blemishes.
A week before Rachel’s mother had died, Rachel had fought back. She’d moved out, gaining independence from her mother’s oppressive rule. Fearing any sort of hand her mother might have in her life again, Rachel had obstinately refused to buy a cell-phone. Her mother insisted, over and over again, but Rachel was stubborn in her will. Rachel remembered hanging up the phone, after that argument, and hearing about her mother’s death the next day. It had been as if Rachel’s mother had died on purpose.

***

Several hours passed as Rachel agonized over her paper in the library. She only realized the time, when a librarian had kindly patted her on the shoulder and informed her that the library was closing. Rachel gasped. She scooped up her things, fled the library, and raced towards her car.
The sky was black. It looked as if someone had thrown tar over the stars, blotting them from existence. Rachel regretted her parking choice, but old habits died hard. Like her mother had always done, Rachel had parked the red ’97 Honda a good distance away from the school. Rachel’s mother believed that parking too closely exhibited signs of laziness. She juggled the myriad of books and papers in her hands, while trying to shuffle through her purse for her keys. Some of the books slipped through her arms and thudded against the concrete. Rachel cursed under her breath and proceeded to scoop them up.
As she proceeded to scoop the papers into her arms, Rachel noticed a few papers that were alien to her folders. She held them, several sketches of red butterflies, in her fingers, and stared. She pursed her lips. Scarlet’s name was scrawled along the corner of each drawing.

***

Heavy rain nearly blinded the road from Rachel’s view. Her headlights proved useless against such a monstrous onslaught. Darkness ruled her vision. Anything could come at her, and she’d be powerless to prevent from wrecking. It would be best to pull over. She slowed, and pulled off to the side of the road to wait for the rains to cease.
Scarlet’s drawings crawled back to her memory. Rachel’s eyes narrowed. She flipped on the interior lights of her car, and grabbed the manila folder containing her notes and essays. She produced the drawings of the butterflies from them again. An image flashed into her mind of him walking behind her, and slipping them between her notes.
Rachel huffed, “He would do something impish like that.” The comment was not without disdain.
It was not that Rachel despised, Scarlet. Instead, she despised her dependence upon his superior knowledge. He aced every test without blinking, or batting an eyelash, and went on to lord his success over the other students in the class. Rachel often wondered what lurked behind his massive ego-complex. Was he covering up for insecurities? She thought.
After several minutes of excessive pondering, the rain ceased. Rachel was pleased, now that she could see the road again. She leaned forwards to turn the key in the ignition and start the car again. Nothing happened. She bit her lower lip, and turned the key again; again, nothing. She did this three or more times, before letting her hand fall to her side in bewilderment. She stared at the key.
“Odd…” she said, trailing off.
She tried turning the key once more. The car refused to start. Rachel slammed her palm against the steering wheel. She began to regret that infamous cell-phone argument with her mother.
“Maybe there’s a phone somewhere I can use,” she muttered as she undid her seatbelt.
Rachel crawled out the car. She looked around. There was a store, directly across the street from her. Blue neon letters lit the night as its sign, “Butterfly Dead.” Rachel assumed it was some sort of nightclub, or a bar. Rachel gaped, as she saw a red butterfly flutter past her. It disappeared into the darkness as it flew off. Rachel’s heart skipped a beat.
She placed a hand on her chest, “Just a butterfly, just a butterfly. Just a coincidence.”
Rachel took a deep breath and marched across the street. She opened the door to the nightclub, only to discover it wasn’t a club at all. An old light-bulb flickered overhead, casting an eerie green glow over the room. Rachel shivered, and took a step forwards, kicking up several layers of dust across a checkered-tile floor.
“Hello?” she called out.
Rachel took a few more steps inside. The door slammed behind her. Rachel heard a sudden flapping noise. Her shoulders tightened as she tensed. She gulped, and brushed a curl of black hair behind her ear, something she did when she was nervous.
“Hello, anyone there?” Rachel called again.
A retching noise came from the back of the store. Rachel gasped. Someone was in pain. She began racing towards the sound, stumbling as the room grew darker. She turned her head, and noticed for the first time, that butterflies were overspread along the wall, kept in place by thick long nails. Rachel nearly collided with a figure in the dark. She placed a hand on the person’s shoulders as he doubled over, heaving and vomiting into his open palms.
“Are you all right?” she asked in a panicked voice.
She noticed suddenly, the redness of the person’s hair, as well as his feminine frame. Scarlet. He gave one final heave, and vomited something large and pinkish in color. He turned and gave Rachel a wild-eyed grin. He held something that looked like a large fetus with great black eyes, and several razor sharp teeth. It turned its translucent pink eyelids on Rachel. She fainted.

***

“Rise and shine,” she heard Scarlet’s, unnaturally smooth voice whisper.
Rachel opened her eyes. Scarlet was standing over her, running his fingers through her hair. He smiled warmly. Rachel tried to lean up. She couldn’t.
“Wha-?” she began.
She looked down and screamed. She was bound by several leather straps to a blood-stained gurney. Rachel shook at her bonds, but only managed to chaff her skin. She looked up at Scarlet, wide-eyed with horror.
She shrieked, “What are you doing?!”
Scarlet chuckled, “My children are hungry. You will feed them.”
For the first time, Rachel noticed tall shelves on either side of her. Each shelf was stacked with twelve inch high jars, filled to the brim with a preservation liquid commonly used for pickled chicken feet. The fetal-like creatures—Scarlet’s offspring—swam around inside these jars, eyeing Rachel hungrily, placing their inhumanly long fingers against the glass of the jars. Tears ran down Rachel’s face.
“You, you can’t be meaning to do this!” she cried, “You’re insane! You’re a monster!”
Scarlet bellowed. He threw back his head in an uproarious laugh. “Monster?!” he said, “Oh, Rachel you’re so predictable. I knew you’d change your mind about the perfection of species once you were placed in the proper situation, abused and ill-gotten child that you are.”
“You surely can’t feed me to those things!”
Scarlet leaned down and grabbed Rachel’s hair and held it up to his nostrils. He inhaled as he spoke, “Not you, Rachel; just your blood.” He tapped a finger against a long plastic tube that ran out of Rachel’s arm and into a large ten-gallon bucket in the center of the glass jars. Pipes ran from the bucket to the jars.
Snot poured down Rachel’s nose as she cried, watching blood pour out her arms and into the pipe. The butterflies on the wall roared to life, beating their wings madly. The creatures in the jars turned their coal-like gazes on her, and began gnashing their teeth in earnest, eager for their supper. Some of them beat against the glass jars while Rachel screamed, her voice drowned out by the flapping of butterfly wings.