Chapter 3: Right Place, Wrong Time

Skyler grew tired of waiting for Shiloh to come back to see her or at the very least, call her back. She kept looking at her door, half expecting to hear a knock but of course that didn't happen. When she left a year ago, Skyler never stayed in touch with anyone, so she wasn't expecting people to be waiting for her when she got back. She had so many stories to tell, so many experiences to share yet, she had absolutely no one to tell those stories to. She sighed heavily as she sat on the chair by the kitchen counter and as she did so she felt an empty void of loneliness in the inner depths of her soul.

When she left town a year ago, she really didn't have time to feel lonely because she was always so busy. When she wasn't training, she was competing and when she wasn't doing any of that she just slept due to exhaustion. Shiloh thought that she had lived the picture perfect life but she did not know the half of it. In the dancing world, it was everyone for themselves and people would do everything and anything to get ahead of another person. Skyler was disliked by many because of her talent and always winning first place in each and every competition didn't help her at all. The few people that she thought liked her were only using her to their own advantage, so her life during that one year had been filled with nothing but snakes.

She had to fight against stress and pressure everyday and she honestly had no idea how to deal with it all since she had never been through such situations before. Yes, when she was in the group with Emily, they were constantly under stress and pressure but it was nothing compared to what she had been through that whole year. There was the pressure to be the best, or the pressure to maintain a good image in society and the hardest part of it all, the pressure of not blowing up in front of the press. As she won competitions, more and more companies wanted to work with her and when that happened, the media tried to eat her up alive just so that they could identify any flaw that she may have. She was classified as 'the hot new sensation' so everybody wanted to know every single detail about her with no stones left unturned.

Skyler couldn't count the number of times she had picked her phone to call Shiloh to tell her how hard everything was and that living her dream was not what she had expected, but of course she never did make the call. She knew that Shiloh would most likely tell her that she was reaping what she sowed and would not have one comforting word to tell her. Yet despite wanting to talk to her sister about her own life, Skyler never even tried to keep tabs on Shiloh, at that time she didn't even know what Shiloh was doing to make a living. All she had done throughout that whole year was think of herself and her life and the worst part was that Skyler never thought that there was anything wrong with her attitude.

"Shiloh has every right to be mad at me," she said to herself, "I am a bad person. She is right to hate me and stay away from me, I'm the worst sister in the world." Skyler got up from the kitchen counter and made her way to her bedroom and opened her wardrobe. She was so restless that she decided to finish the day by going out. Maybe another walk could help her really clear her thoughts, maybe the night sky would inspire her to focus on her next project instead of always thinking about Shiloh. She quickly got changed, abandoning the dress that she was wearing for a pair of dark blue skinny jeans, a black top and a black hoodie. She also decided to wear old school converse shoes from the nineties, Skyler had always been a fan of vintage objects.

"Okay, I think I'm ready, let's see what the night life in this city has to offer," Skyler thought to herself with little enthusiasm as she left her bedroom and grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter.

The night was beautiful, the sky was filled with an endless canopy of stars which illuminated the city in their own special way. In fact the night sky seemed to hide all of the city's imperfections and a sense of innocence could somehow be felt in the atmosphere.

"Okay where do I go? There isn't a single interesting place in this God Forsaken city," Skyler muttered to herself as she looked from left to right, obviously the feeling of innocence in the atmosphere didn't affect Skyler at all. She walked for a couple of meters when she noticed the park and thought that it would be a good idea to just go sit down and observe perfect strangers. When she got there, she saw that an event was just about to begin, it was free of charge and stands had been placed for people to sit down and watch.

She made her way to one of the stands and found herself a seat and a few minutes later a man came and sat next to her, in Skyler's opinion, he was too close for comfort. Much to her dismay, there was no where else to go as the stands were already full, apparently just like Skyler, a lot of people had nothing to do with their lives that night.

"So this will be interesting," the man suddenly said.. Skyler looked at the man, she wasn't sure if he was talking to her or not, so to play it safe, she decided not to reply and looked the other way.

"You know, I love talking so even if you keep sitting like a stone next to me, I'll just keep talking." Skyler gave the man a frustrated look, couldn't he see that she wasn't interested in talking to him?

"Okay..." he persisted, "I'm Ben by the way; I live four blocks away from here. I have two pet fish and I love playing football. My favorite football team..."

"Look here... Ben... I don't really care about your fish and your favorite football team okay? So how about you just leave me alone? I mean, I would get up and go myself but the stands are already full," Skyler interrupted in an annoyed voice.

"Wow! Rude much? Look, I'll b honest with you, I was walking by and I noticed a beautiful lady in a hoodie sitting by herself and I got intrigued. Not many women wear hoodies these days and vintage converse shoes. So I said to myself, 'I need to introduce myself to this beautiful lady'," Ben replied with a grin on his face.

"Ok so you decided to just judge me based on my clothes?"

"No I... Well I..." Ben stammered. "Euhhhhh.."

"Yeah right answer... Euhhhhh," Skyler said as she imitated Ben. "What if I judged you by the way you look? Would you like it? Like I say to myself, ooh blonde guy with crystal blue eyes and to top things off his physique screams gym! He must be a lady's man, probably has a girlfriend for each day of the week! Ahhh! Must stay away." Ben didn't know whether Skyler was joking or not due to the unreadable expression on her face.

"Oof, you are something but I got something positive from everything you said" Ben teased. Skyler looked at him in shock, she had tried to be as mean as possible so that he would just go away but there he was finding something positive in what she said.

"Yeah, and what positive thing do you get from what I said blondy?"

"Well... I'm just sitting down and you think my physique screams gym! I guess all my working out has paid off!" Skyler rolled her eyes before she burst out laughing, Ben did have a point there. "And I should add, the same applies to you even if you are wearing a hoodie. I can tell that you workout a lot too," Ben continued with a goofy smile on his face.

"Huh, well I can't deny that, I'm a dancer, so I need to keep fit," Skyler replied with a small smile.

"Yes! I got the pretty lady to smile! I got an idea, you pretended to judge me by my looks so I'll do the same..."

"What?"

"You have beautiful long straight black hair and your fair brown skin illuminates your face and let's not forget the fact that you have the most amazing eyes I've ever seen. So judging by that, I should say, your parents are probably realllly good looking!" Skyler was almost speechless, she actually wished people would judge her like that everyday, it actually made her feel nice inside.

"So, do I get to know your name now?" Ben asked.

"Skyler... And thanks by the way, your kind words really helped me feel better after the crap day I've had," she told Ben with a grateful expression.

"No problemo Skyler. So I guess you're here for the dance competition since your a dancer and all."

"Dance competition?" Skyler asked as her eyes opened wide in shock.

"Yeah, to help promote local dance crews and other crews from other cities. It happens on a monthly basis... I thought you knew," Ben causally replied.

Before Skyler could respond, the announcer took center stage and started to introduce the different crews in the competition. Skyler then saw Emily and the rest of the crew; they did not notice her in the stands. Skyler thought that it was best that they didn't notice her, she would just lay low and watch the competition. After thirty minutes it was Salvation's turn, that was the name of Emily's dance crew. Skyler's eyes widened as she watched her old friends dance, they were completely amazing and she was sure they were going to win the whole thing, the routine had a mixture of old school street dancing and ballet.

Salvation looked better than ever and that made Skyler feel a little better inside because she could see today that they never really needed her, they just counted on her too much. At the end of the day, she was the culprit that hadn't been letting any of them grow to their full potential as dancers. Just as Emily was about to do a very dangerous yet unique somersault, an explosion was heard in the park itself and everyone who was in attendance starting to panic whilst Skyler looked around her to find out where the explosion came from but there was absolutely no evidence of a bomb. There was no smoke, no fire, nothing that could indicate a bomb had just been set off.

"You better get out here," Ben told her urgently, but Skyler didn't hear him. On stage she saw something attacking Emily and without thinking she ran towards her. Skyler could almost hear Emily's screams from afar as the chaos had separated her from the other members of Salvation. Skyler could see that Emily was struggling to free herself from whatever was attacking her so she decided to dart towards Emily as quickly as she possibly could.

"Skyler get back here!" Ben yelled, but she ignored him, she knew that Emily hated her with every bit of energy in her body but Skyler wasn't about to runaway from this opportunity to help Emily. However when she finally got to her she saw that Emily had fallen to the ground and tiny little creatures where biting her. Frustrated that she had not been fast enough she headed into danger without hesitation and approached a screaming Emily. Skyler then got down on her knees in a flash to try and push the bugs off her former best friend but her efforts were in vain as the creatures kept coming back on Emily's body.

"What are you doing here?" Emily asked in pain.

"I'm trying to help you Emily," Skyler responded as she kept pushing the creatures off Emily.

"Save you energy for someone else, I don't need you... AAAHHHHHHH! ALL THIS HURTS!!!" Emily proceeded to bite her lips and close her eyes as the pain she felt was indescribable. Skyler on the other hand was so hell bent on trying to save her former bestie that she didn't notice that a few creatures had entered her hoodie via her sleeves and proceeded to bite her.

"Ouch!" Skyler shouted out painfully as she stopped trying to help Emily and proceeded to take off her hoodie to get the creatures off herself.. "What the hell are these things?" As she was doing so, Emily shrugged and opened her eyes and to Skyler's shock Emily's eye color had changed from light green to blinding white as what seemed like a ray was about to come out of them.

"What the..." Before Skyler could finish her sentence, Emily pointed her eyes towards Skyler's direction and blinked and a powerful electrostatic wind, as powerful as a bomb came out of her eyes. The force blew Skyler several meters away from Emily onto a pavement and her head bounced off the pavement very hard. Skyler became immobilized with pain and could do nothing to stop the creatures that were around her from invading her body. She slowly fell unconscious and could do nothing to stop anything else that could happen to her.

"I hope... I hope someone can save me," was the last thought she had before she fell into the dark prison of artificial sleep.