dog$

Last day of carts. Bring on the new job. Also, this first day of waking up early to do exercise immediately in the morning seems to have worked. I hope I can manage to do this on a regular basis.

Draft. (Note: Previous dates 19320825 21:44:36 and 19320909 22:12:48 have been respectively changed to 19350822 21:44:36 and 19350906 22:12:48)

19351004 23:07:06

MT-N-7600 alleyway

"Get a load of this! A girl hanging out with these guys! Hey, girl, are you the group whore for these pricks or what eh? Hah!"
"No! I'm their fri-" Helen Allegra had her response cut off with a gesture of Quentin's hand, as he stood facing forward and held it out to his side. He didn't want her to get into the middle of this situation. The dog walked from behind Helen and stood beside her and glared at the intruders.
"Whatever, it's time for you little boys and girls to fuck off now. This is gonna be our spot now. So move it." The squat loudmouth gave this edict with a thrust of his thumb backwards and a curled lip making a smirk.
"Make us." When Quentin said this, he reached into his pocket, which was the signal for Arnold and Bill to do the same; instantly, the three boys snapped their wrists out to let the blades of the stiletto knives protrude from the handles. The four boys standing in opposition responded by bringing their own knives out to wield; the tallest of the group unsheathed a large Bowie knife from a holster that was supported on his belt and underneath his shirt, the other three had stilettos of their own which were promptly brandished.
Quentin stepped forward and approached the group while his friends flanked behind him at an angle, while the quiet leader of the other boys responded in kind and had his supporters follow closely behind. Helen kept her position firm and watched the two lines converge. Once within a yard of each other, they stared at each other unwaveringly, breathed harder through clenched teeth and flared nostrils, and began to pace side to side in an imagined circle. The silence in the alleyway allowed each sidestep that was dragged through the dirt and loose gravel of the road to echo against the buildings around them. Suddenly, the loudmouth dashed behind the tall leader and ran straight for Helen. The sudden rush caught her by surprise and before she understood that she should have started to run, the boy grabbed her by her hair to arch her head backwards and expose her neck, against which he held the blade and pressed into the flesh enough to make a small incision. Helen felt choked up as the small trickle of blood rolled its way down her neck.
"All you queers drop it now or I kill her! I fuckin kill her right now! Like a fucking pig! I'll do it!"
Immediately in response, the dog started to growl loudly and snap its fangs at the loudmouth boy. The hair stood up at the back of his neck as he hunched down on his forepaws and pinned his tail to the ground.
"Aw, fuck off, you mutt!" The loudmouth pulled the blade away to swing it towards the dog to scare it away, and the tip of it scraped under the dog's chin. The dog immediately felt the cut and retaliated. It lunged forward to pounce upon the loudmouth and wrapped it's mouth around the boy's neck as they fell to the ground. The boy kicked the dog off of him, but didn't try to stand up or scurry away. He waited. The dog recovered from the kick and lunged forward again to jump on top of the boy, and before he landed the boy held the knife up to the dog's chest and pierced the blade through the dog's body up to the hilt. The dog's cry of pain echoed sharply through the alleyway and into the night air. Now, the loudmouth boy pushed the dog off of the blade and rose to his knees to kneel over the dog, and proceeded to slice the dog's neck from the top to its bottom. The boy took a deep breath as he rose to his feet with his eyes joining the rest of the group watching over the dog as it lie twitching in the expanding pool of blood on the roadway.
Helen, for that instant moment, stood completely motionless. She stood without a processed thought, without a breath going into or out of her lungs, without her eyelids closing shut to blink. She continued to watch the dog lie dying and felt her body run cold. She did not scream. She did not whimper. She did not cry. She felt her body lean forward without the balance of weight on her feet, and she twitched as her body convulsed from the lack of involuntary breathing. A small breath came out of her mouth.
Then, her lips peeled back from her teeth.
Helen remained silent and kept her eyes on the dog as she stepped to her side, and reached over to the hand in which Arnold held his blade. Before he noticed that she had moved beside him and was reaching for the blade, it was out of his fingers and within her grasp. The loudmouth boy had only enough time to look up as he saw Helen's hand thrust down towards his body. The point of the blade found its way over the collar bone and dug into his neck. The boy screamed out and reflexively contracted his body inward, but Helen now knelt her body on top of his to keep the blade held in its target. The other two assailants remained motionless while the tall leader started to move towards Helen with his knife ready, but before he was close enough to attack, Helen screamed out with all of the force that her lungs could produce, yet did so with her eyes still fully open. The whites of her eyes contrasted brilliantly against the darkness as her face and screaming mouth took on the form of a banshee. The taller boy stopped in his tracks, and the two friends were transfixed and startled enough to let their blades loosely fall from their fingers and drop to the alley ground.
"Out!" The single word that she yelled caused her friends to focus their gaze towards the three standing boys and watch for their response. The taller boy felt an instinct to try to recover his friend and curled his knife back into the sheath before he walked forward again. Helen ripped the knife out of the boy's body, bringing a trail of unseen blood splattering from the wound to the tip of her blade, and shot her body straight up to stand up against him. Her mouth quivered as she held the knife directly forward in front of her and the boy's blood dripped from the weapon onto her hand.
"Out!"
The tall boy took the instruction to heart this time and quickly turned around to run away. Once she understood that he was gone, Helen slowly turned her head back to the boy on the ground, whose own body was now twitching involuntarily as the blood poured forth from his neck and formed a pool around him. Helen did not want to watch this boy die slowly. She blinked once, snorted one breath through her nose, and thrust her body over the boy to kneel upon him. She rocked her knees upon him to get him to lie upon his back, then she took the blade into both of her hands and plunged it straight into his chest. The boy's groan of pain was barely audible. She pulled the blade out and repeated the attack to stab him again. And again. And again.
Bill ducked away backwards and began to vomit as Quentin and Arnold stood motionless to watch Helen stand up and face them. Her clothes were soaked with blood and her face and body trembled. She flicked the knife away from her hand to toss it to the side. Bill finally recovered to stand with his friends to stare at her, and didn't know what else to immediately do. Nobody did for a moment. Finally, Helen blinked several times while she looked down her body to see it painted red, and looked over to the ground at her side to see the lifeless dog and boy lie in the alleyway. She darted her eyes around the area and coarsely swallowed a few times before she was able to speak.
"We need to throw him out."
"Th. Throw him out? But where? Here? I don't wanna handle no stiff." Quentin said this with strong trepidation, as he was still in shock.
"No. I meant the dog. He can get eaten by the rats for all I fucking care." Helen looked over the garbage cans that were lined against the buildings and soon pointed at one near by. "One of you hold that open. I'll do it."
"Throw out the dog? You, you want to just throw him out? Wouldn't you want to uh, like, bury-"
"Bury? Arnold! We don't fucking have two shovels and two hours to dig a fucking grave! Now one of you go hold that god damned can open for me! Now!"
Quentin walked backwards three paces before turning around and walking over to the wall of the building and waited by the garbage can.
Helen looked down at the dog and paused for a brief moment. The feeling of emptiness came over her again, but she managed to suppress it from overcoming her body. She closed her eyes and struggled with the weight of the still warm dog corpse for a moment before she managed to drape it over her arms. Quentin held the lid open as she laboriously walked over to the can, then gingerly lay the dog inside of it. All four remained silent and motionless again, but Helen quickly spoke to break the void.
"We can't return here. Meet in the MW alley in a week. We gotta split up now." Helen gave these orders with a dryness that would come with speaking a passage from a school textbook. She walked away without looking back to see if any of them had moved.

Songs were better today than yesterday. Surprised I got an increase with London Affairs. Glad to get the AA with 9 O'Clocks.

Lunar Beat. Extra Mode. Double play. "@" denotes Random chart modifier. All songs are of highest difficulty type unless specified.
First line, by column; song title, EX score percentage and letter grade rank, EX score value and pass/fail, judgment readout (just great, great, good, bad poor), highest combo reached, note count of chart under Extra Mode, original note count of chart, percentage increase of Extra Mode notes over original note count, timestamp.
Second line, by column; pass count / play count, EX score percentage difference from record, EX score value difference from record, judgment readout difference from record (if current play is new record), highest combo reached difference from record (if current play is new record), timestamp of old record (if current play is new record).

Code:

			EX% & Rank	EX.p/f	pg.gr.gd.bd.pr		combo	nc	onc	%+nc 	date
嘆きの樹 @		38.16 D		1760.F	618.524.481.255.949	0061	2306			2013-09-28T00:32:58:084Z
0/12			04.03-		0186-

飛翔転生 inst ver @	36.91 D		2104.F	720.664.822.287.934	0039	2850	1093	160.75	2013-09-28T00:36:38:591Z
0/7			00.28+		0016+	10+4-17+16+67+		0008-				2013-07-21T00:16:14:460Z

london affairs @	55.68 B		1811.F	652.507.295.77.257	0146	1626	0873	086.25	2013-09-28T00:40:08:999Z
0/10			01.78+		0058+	32+6-19-1+13-		0035+				2013-07-23T00:25:26:063Z

G2 @			56.81 B		1660.F	613.434.248.42.253	0345	1461	1377	006.10	2013-09-28T00:43:46:152Z
0/1			01.85+		0054+	17+20+46-4+4-		0133+				2012-11-20T04:05:39:987Z

be quiet @		40.03 D		1490.F	512.466.463.162.685	0095	1861			2013-09-28T00:48:09:280Z
0/12			04.16-		0155-

aeventyr @		50.79 C		2298.F	808.682.483.85.462	0096	2262			2013-09-28T00:52:25:279Z
0/6			03.71-		0168-

thunder @		67.26 A		1539.F	575.389.133.13.56	0269	1144			2013-09-28T00:57:35:111Z
3/9			02.97-		0068-

海神寓拝 @		56.43 B		2428.F	885.658.381.65.324	0112	2151			2013-09-28T01:01:51:352Z
0/5			02.04-		0088-

9 oclocks @		77.97 AA	1285.P	510.265.44.0.8		0337	0824	0632	030.37	2013-09-28T01:07:21:215Z
6/6			04.37+		0041+	37+33-27-1-5+		0216-				2012-03-25T04:40:18:164Z

im screaming love @	68.94 A		1525.F	599.327.99.16.112	0099	1106	0913	021.13	2013-09-28T01:11:06:821Z
0/5			02.44+		0054+	63+72-7-3+20+		0026-				2013-06-07T03:42:39:328Z

contract @		26.99 E		1176.F	370.436.663.333.977	0061	2178			2013-09-28T01:15:56:271Z
0/5			02.84-		0124-

headache @		81.89 AA	0701.P	291.119.13.2.5		0264	0428	0428	0	2013-09-28T01:20:48:327Z
3/3			03.62+		0031+	27+23-1-1-2-		0036+				2012-07-30T23:17:10:690Z

round and round @	52.42 C		1922.F	704.514.306.94.425	0137	1833	1230	049.02	2013-09-28T01:25:20:247Z
0/7			00.65+		0024+	19+14-23-3+2+		0003-				2012-11-29T00:28:50:952Z

jack @			48.52 C		1608.F	560.488.365.73.345	0117	1657			2013-09-28T01:30:00:039Z
0/6			01.53-		0051-

traces tracing you @	48.05 C		1778.F	621.536.396.98.404	0076	1850			2013-09-28T01:36:43:495Z
0/6			01.81-		0067-