Chapter 1
A New Job
A loud ringing sound devastated the silence. Macromet extended a pale hand from under her
magenta covers and picked up her cell phone. "Hello?" she asked rather sleepily, trying to stifle
a yawn as she brought the phone into her long, tangled blonde hair. "Hello? Is this Macromet
Lorette?" came a nervous female voice. The reply seemed to rush at top speeds from the other
end, as if frantic. Concerned, she answered, "Yes. This is Macromet. What's wrong?". The voice
on the other end made an audible effort to try and calm down before saying, "It's your sister,
Maxime. She was in an accident and is in critical condition. She is being taken to St. John's
hospital.". Macromet dropped her phone in shock. Not my sister she thought, Not now.
In the past few years, Macromet and Maxime had seen everything really go down the drain.
Everything except their relationship as sisters. Their parents had been killed in an awful bus
accident, forcing Macromet to take on a second job to help provide for her younger sister, who
would soon be turning fourteen if she would survive the collision she had just had on her
bicycle. All of these stressful questions and thoughts raced to and fro in Macromet's head as
she made a dash through the apartment to dress herself and leave. Her half-day off was going
to have to wait.
I'm so stupid! I should have woken up earlier to take her to school in my car! she gritted her
teeth as she hopped into her sky-blue bug and backed out. The world rushed past her window
in what appeared to her as no less than a simple blur before she found herself parked and
leaving her car in the hospital parking lot. She did not even stop at the front desk longer than to
scrawl her name on the guest list and ask where her sister's room was before taking off down
the hall. As she hurried past with her keys jangling and hanging from her pocket, several young
men whipped their heads around as if to double check that she had really just run past them.
Macromet knew what was going on, but she had no care in the world- aside from her father,
she had never known a man to think with anything else beyond, well, the thing he should never
think with. Besides, even if she had cared, they would never matter more to her than her own
sister. She bolted into her sister's room, really panicking now, and quickly made her way to her
sister's side.
Maxime lay there in the white hospital bed, barely breathing, looking more broken and frail
than a fractured mirror would appear if it were held together by tissue paper. "Maxime, stay
with me!" Macromet blurted out, tears rolling down her cheeks as she leaned a bit over the
rails and a doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. "I know you can hear me, sis! We can get
through this! If we could get through the time when we lost mom and dad, we can get through
this together!" she sobbed as the doctor gently led her away and sat her down, saying, "Ms.
Lorette, try to relax. We will try everything we can to help your sister.". To her, his words were
cold and clinical, but he was right on one thing- what good would it do to just stand there over
her sister when she needed real treatment and surgery? So Macromet forced herself to
become quiet and as the team filed out of the room with her sister in tow, the waiting began.
Eventually, Macromet drifted off to sleep because the first surgery was taking so long. Then, a
soft shaking motion brought her back into reality and she saw the doctor walking over to her
sister, motioning for her to follow. "Will she be alright?" Macromet bit her quivering lip as she
rose to join the doctor. The man sighed and shook his head. "At this point, we don't know for
sure. The only thing of which we are certain is that for now, she appears to be stable." came the
nearly emotionless voice from behind the mask. "But, I have hope that we can help her even
still. The only thing you should be worrying about right now is making sure you will be able to
pay the bill when the time comes, because we are going to try everything, as we have already
said…" his voice trailed off as he witnessed the change in Macromet's expression. "The bill?"
Macromet's voice was filling with anger and frustration, "The bill?! My sister is in trouble and
you think all I have to worry about is the bill?!".
Catching herself before her anger got any worse, Macromet brushed past the doctor and
rushed home. Perhaps it was because she needed sleep, perhaps it was because she needed
food, or maybe it was just because the hospital was closing. Whatever the case, the way that
the doctor behaved so nonchalantly about her sister's predicament agitated her greatly. When
she arrived home, she went straight to the bathroom to wash up. She felt that sometimes a
good cleaning could be a good stress reliever. Macromet was easing herself into a nice,
steaming bubble bath when something caught her eye by her vanity. "Huh?" she said aloud to
herself, "That's strange… I thought I just saw something creepy moving about in my mirror…
Ugh… Must be the result of all this ugly stress…" she groaned as she tossed her hair back and
began washing it under the faucet of the tub.
Now, Macromet was never a believer in the strange and unusual, but for her, a fairytale might
as well have been about to come true. A week prior, Macromet had sent in an application for a
job working at a local casino located on the Strip, so she had placed her phone on a small
wooden chair beside her towel just outside of the tub. She jumped a bit with fright when it
began ringing before she dried her hands on the towel and took up the phone to answer it, half
hoping it would not be those jerks from the hospital again.
"Hello? Is this Ms. Lorette?" came a much calmer, much friendlier voice. "Umm, yes. It is.
Why?" she replied after switching the phone to speaker and setting it back down on the chair.
"I am calling to let you know that we have decided to hire you here at Snake Eyes' Casino as
one of our dancers. I know it may seem awkward that we never requested an interview, but we
are really short on our team here right now and would like you to start working tonight at eight
pm sharp. A nice outfit and all of the accessories will be waiting for you in the dressing room."
the woman bubbled before promptly but hurriedly hanging up. Macromet could not believe it.
It would be tough to work three jobs, but at least maybe now she would be able to afford her
sister's hospital bill, seeing as that would eventually be a problem.
Eight pm was coming on fast and would be upon Macromet within little over an hour, so she
quickly dressed herself, ate some dinner and was back out on the road again, heading towards
her new job as a dancer by seven fifteen. She eagerly walked right into the casino through the
back door and found herself already in the dressing area for the girls. There was a really cute,
sparkling pink outfit folded on one of the chairs, covered in several pearl and diamond
accessories with purple-magenta feathers, with a note sitting on top that read "For Ms.
Lorette.". She took up the outfit and slipped into it in one of the separate little dressing rooms
to find that it seemed to adjust itself to her form perfectly, even if it was a bit uncomfortable
for her to think about how much skin it was showing.
She was just leaving the room when a voice boomed out on the stage from beyond the closed
curtains to everyone in the casino that in five minutes the girls would come out to put on a
show featuring a new member. "Ooh! You excited, Macromet?!" a beautiful girl next to her
smiled and shuddered, "I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it! We're about to be on!
We're all gonna knock'em dead, I just know it, though!". Macromet grinned back and tried to
forget any worries she had for the time being as she said, "Yeah! Let's get out there and
show'em what we've got!". The curtains parted and flooded their sight with bright light from
the flashing night life of the casino as the girls all stepped forward and the beat began booming.