JAVA
She stood, sure-footed, yet insular, upon the ageing, crumbling balcony of a once palatial, now wholly derelict third-floor apartment. Down below, the building’s antiquated stone walls, some centuries old, bore an ingrained watermark, etched low upon its base, ripened by years of ebb and flow, tide and time. Green-slimed waters frothed and eddied in a swirling ballet beneath the loggia, brilliantly illuminated by the benevolence of a full moon.
A dank foul stench rose up from the canal to greet her. She sniffed at it, nostrils flared, her full pale lips curling into a viper-like smile, as if the stink were some rare, enticing perfume she was unable to resist, her eyelashes fluttering with anticipated ecstasy.
Her paper-thin ears, each aural hair a-quiver, suddenly picked up on some high-pitched sounds and vibrations emanating from across the glittering waters. They were calling her towards the warm-blooded prey – now waiting, in blissful ignorance on the other bank, for the prick of a rabid bite. She extended a swelling tongue across two razor-sharp incisors, closing a set of bloodless eyes to envision the potential food source ...
* * * * * * *
The girl had appeared in the early evening, standing in the middle of a large bustling crowd on the piazza. There was nothing special from the norm about her, no thrusting beauty or sexual allure, just a pair of flushed pink cheeks and a high-pitched laugh, which rang out on the crisp evening air to centre upon a guy's radar. Her blonde waves caressed those flushed cheeks, acting like a theatrical curtain, a game of peek-a-boo. It was then she spotted him, pale, interesting, and in her world, fair game...