Ok I got this idea earlier this morning and decided to roll with it…Let's see how this goes! Please review after the chapter but no flaming. I prefer to see nice comments if you could! Enjoy!

Erin threw open the child's powder blue door, leaving the terrified pest to the fortification of her perplexed parents. This was her final scare before her lunch break and by the look of it she had done very nicely. The furry, grey, cat-like creature had stricken gold with a door James Sullivan himself had suggested she make an effort with. Sure enough the child inside was a fair haired girl with an illogical phobia of everything, making for a more potent scream.

Erin's assistant, a petite snail looking monster, straitened the dark blue glasses perched unsteadily on his two lengthy eye stalks. He had been watching the scare leader board for quite some time, making sure every point Erin earned was tallied.

Erin watched as her partner frowned and checked the scream capsule hooked to the side of the door's holding unit. He tapped the yellow barrel several times then looked back to the board.

"Erin we have a problem!" he stammered at last, unhooking the capsule to see why it was not working. "This is the third one today that hasn't captured any scream!"

Erin put her clawed hands on her hips. "What are you talking about Dominic?" she exclaimed. "Didn't you check it before it was hooked up?"

Dominic swallowed nervously. "I was positive I had it right this time…"

Erin crossed her arms and growled to herself. "How are we supposed to get ourselves ahead on the board if we can't catch any scream?" she asked angrily.

Without waiting for her partner to answer she spun around and examined the board herself. The enormous blinking numbers screamed out every Scarer's position on the floor. Regrettably she was third… A close third at that. Ever since his arrival, Sullivan had taken the top but a certain reptilian creature had slithered into second, Erin'ssecond; Randall. Erin sneered to herself at the thought of her competitor. They had never spoken but had led an unvoiced brawl for many months now, and Erin was finally closing in on his title. Of course something had to have gone off beam at the last minute.

The monster rubbed her temples as the earsplitting train whistle signaled all the workers to take their lunch break.

"Go to lunch Dominic," she instructed her bashful friend, "I'm going to take a look at our station. I think it may be busted."

Dominic wrung his fingers nervously. "I'm so sorry Erin! If I pressed the wrong button, or…ohm…" He looked down in humiliation, causing Erin to crack a tiny grin.

She punched him frivolously in the shoulder. "Hey, I'm sure it wasn't your fault!" she reassured. "Just go to lunch."

Dominic didn't seem so sure, but nodded meekly and began to slither across the floor to the great room where everyone ate their lunch and mingled about.

As soon as she was sure everyone had left, Erin let out a sigh.

"Stupid thing!" her voice echoed throughout the Scare Floor as she tinkered with her docking station. She had fixed it before and could probably do it again.

The annoyed monster popped the casing off of the machine and studied the circuit board absorbedly. Everything seemed in working order. Not even a single insulator seemed out of place. Erin shook her head, causing her pointy ears to flop slightly before slumping against the chilly metal. Once again she found her eyes drawn to her score on the glowing board far above her head. She was nearly five-hundred points away from Randall's score. Why did she have to be so close? If she was a sizeable distance behind it may not have stressed her out as much but this…Being so incredibly close she could almost taste the conquest was nothing short of torment.

A voice behind the machine rocketed Erin out of her thick miasma of thought. She peered around the framework and grinned. Dominic had been unselfish enough to bring her lunch, even though it was a consommé she had never favored.

"Thanks." She huffed, taking the Styrofoam bowl from his hands and opening it.

Dominic cocked his head. "What's wrong? Is the damage really that bad?"

"That's just it…There's nothingwrong!" Erin took a sip of her soup before continuing. "I don't understand!"

Dominic straightened his glasses again as the slipped. "Can I look at it?" he asked uncertainly.

Erin nodded and moved over as the monstrous snail looked over the circuit board. He began to mutter to himself, running through every mechanical problem he knew of in his mind. Finally, it appeared as if something had caught his eye. He reached up and traced his finger across a black tube poking out at a peculiar angle from where the scream capsules were to be hooked.

"Did you put this here?" he asked gradually, pulling the lengthy tube away from the machine and holding it up.

Erin's ears twitched in misunderstanding. She set her bowl down and took the mystery into her own hands, examining the corrugated surface by tracing it with a claw. "I did not. What was it doing here?"

Dominic pointed to the leader board. "If I am correct, someone was siphoning your scream for their own gain." He explained. "I was watching your score quite carefully this morning, and it hasn't changed since yesterday."

Erin shot up, un-alert that Scarers were returning to the Scare Floor once again. "Who on earth would do that?!"

Dominic swallowed and pointed behind her. "Every time you hit the jack pot, his score goes up…"

Erin blinked and turned around slowly, not overall astonished by who he was referring to. Randall stood with Fungus, his partner, scolding him about his poor door choices.
Erin's jaw dropped as she raised a claw to her adversary. She had been rendered speechless and could only snivel out a few syllables now and then as she turned from Dominic to Randall and back again. Never before had the monster's ire been so massively escalated to force her to call someone out in front of a full Scare Floor.

"RANDALL YOU LITTLE PRICK!"

Ok please try to keep comments nice! No flaming! Hope you liked it...Bye for now!