Darkness, pitch black. That's all you see. You sniff the air, breathing in and then letting out a cough. Smoke starts to fill the air and your lungs. The loud crackle of fire tickles your ears as you turn slowly to see a large wall of black and white flames forming around you. The heat from the flames has caused your body to start to sweat as you scoot back slightly from the wall that is before you. As you step back, you feel the wall had grown behind you, enclosing you in this large circle of dancing flames. There seems to be no way out of the fiery fence. You then hear a loud cackle, dark and mysterious from beyond the far side of the flames. Squinting, you see a very tall, dark, black silhouette of a figure. You can't make them out very well nor do they bring any kind of familiarity to you. "Why don't you just give up! You can't win! We will beat you no matter what!" You turn your head sharply to your right to see a glowing white silhouette of another figure. This one not tall or as mysterious as the other, but yet you don't recognize the voice nor do you have a clue of who this is. All you can tell is they are a male. It's a bit of a deep tone, but sounds very angry.
The black figure then speaks out with a loud evil cackle. "HAHAHA! BUT I HAVE ALREADY WON YOU IDIOT! FOR YOU SEE, YOU HAVEN'T BEEN PROTECTING THE ONE KEY THAT CAN HELP DEFEAT ME!" The figure then turns in your direction, you see bright glowing red eyes glare daggers at you as they cackle in your direction. Before you have a chance to think or ask what was going on, "….." The last thing you saw was a large blast of red come from the figure and shoot right into your heart, and out the back. Your eyes flew open wide as you started to fall to your knees. The male next to you screamed out "NOO! NO NO!" You start to fall further to the ground, but feel yourself being caught by someone. Your body now resting on the ground, head on something that makes you relate to as a lap. Your eyes open softly to look up to the almost blinding white glow of the figure holding you on their lap. A glowing hand comes up to your cheek and cups it softly. You then hear what you know as sniffles. The white figure was crying. Why? Because of you? Who were they? Why did they care you were shot? The white figure let out a sob as they stroked your face, "No…no please…stay with me…please…please hang on…" You look to your chest and see a reddish almost heart shaped object float up from your chest. You turn your attention back to the white figure and try to speak, only to cough up blood and try to breath, but slowly failing.
The white figure speaks again, only this time a sadness full of anger, "I CAN'T LOSE YOU! YOU CAN'T…YOU CAN'T DO THIS…YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME" they sob, their form shaking as they hold you, "please…please don't go…please…." You slowly bring your left hand up to the figures face, it almost vanishing from sight from the brightness of the glowing figure. You part your lips, and choke out, "I…I…I lo….love….you…" with one final exhale of breath, your life drifts away, as your eyes shut into darkness once again. The last thing you hear and feel is a pair of arms pulling you to a chest tightly, heavy sobs, and "…n…no….NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Your eyes fly open and you practically throw your body up to a sitting position. Sweat running down your forehead and down your neck, causing your black tank-top you wore to bed to stick to your breasts and chest. Hands running against your chest in a frenzy, you finally exhale and calm down. "It was a dream…only a dream…." You hear "Partners In Crime" being played next to you on the nightstand. Reaching over to bring your phone into view, you see you have had 3 missed phone calls from Meghan, your best friend. She was calling you as her ringtone played in your hands. You slide the 'answer' button over and brought the phone up to your ear. "Hey, Megs, what's up?" as you let out a yawn. "_! Where are you?! Did you over sleep again? You're late!" She sounded as if she were in the bathroom stall or trying not to be very loud, but a bit of anger in her voice. "Wha? No….I…hold on I know I set my alarm." You moved the phone from your hear and brought up your alarm app on your phone's screen. Looking at the time you see that you forgot to set it to 3PM instead of 3AM, and you also forgot to turn the alarm on to even go off. Good job _! The clock in the upper right corner of the phone read 4:30PM Your shift started at 4PM "SHIIIIIIIT! Uhm, I'll hurry and be there, just…Megs please cover for me til I get there!" "You owe me! Only cuz you're my bestie and I love ya!" You then heard a click and silence.
With the phone call ended and you were aware of the time and how late you were, you rushed to the bathroom, stumbling over your randomly discarded shoes and clothes. Upon seeing your reflection in the mirror, you bring your hands up into your tangled mess of hair. "No time to shower, gotta make this quick!" you said to yourself as the brush was pulled from the drawer and drug through your hair.
After practically an army drill of getting ready, minus the shower, your hair brushed and put up in a messy bun, a bit of make up on your face, and your waitress uniform on under your pea-coat, you grabbed your purse and phone and headed out. It was slightly breezy outside, but you expected it so due to it being fall. Your job isn't far from your apartment as you run down the street, crossing crosswalks, and dodging a few cars as you cross. "SORRY! SORRY!," you exclaim as you wave your hand at the cars you practically run infront of. An occasional stranger would shake their head at you, and even a monster or two would gasp in shock at the recklessness of a human. Yes, monsters. It had been about a little over a year since the barrier to Mt. Ebott was opened and the monsters have been living amongst the humans. It was very strange at first for all you ever heard were stories from your parents about the war between monsters and humans. You have grown to accept them and love meeting new monsters on a daily basis. Mainly customers at your place of work, but you weren't afraid of them.
Running for a good 10 minutes, you finally arrive at the front door of ' ' It was the most popular dinner/bar in your home town. You worked there as a waitress for about two years this coming winter. You pushed the door open and a chime sounded. 'So much for a casual entrance' , you thought to yourself as you noticed almost everyone there turned to look at who had entered the dinner. "About time! I about had to call a search party for you, (nickname for you)" There to your right wiping down a table with a stack of dirty dishes and plates on a tray was a 5'4'' young woman, about 22, same age as you, with shoulder length brunette hair.
"Gah, I'm sorry, Megs. Seriously Ill make it up to you for staying later to cover," you let out as you headed to the kitchen, hanging up your coat in the back along the way. "Eh, it's alright. What are best friends for?" she smiled at you as she brought back a few empty plates and cups, placing them in the big sink by the dishwasher. "but you COULD buy me dinner sometime!" You rolled your eyes at her and let out a chuckle, grabbing your little black apron from the hook and tying a bow on the back of your uniform. "Alright, so here is the latest orders and other junk ya are gonna need for the evening. Max is chef for the night so you'll lock up with him," Meghan shoved a few pieces of paper with a list written out in blue ink. You scanned over the sheets of paper with "Shelly's Dinner" in fancy cursive at the top. Shelly was Meghan's mother and owner of the dinner, which she made your best friend manager of the store to teach her some responsibilities. Though you've known her for years, and known that she has been considered practically the biggest dork you know, she has done an outstanding job and made even you proud of her.
"Hello? Earth to _! Ya in there?" you heard her voice right infront of your face as you shook your head. "Sorry, zoning out again…." She let out a sigh and looked at you softly, "did you have another nightmare?" "Is it that obvious?" Meghan shrugged her shoulders at you and started to place her apron back on the hook. "You've been having these dreams for about a year now, and they never seem to get any better, except for on occasion. You look dead tired most of the time you come to work, I can't think of anything to do to help ya out, bestie." You let your head roll back as you stared at the ceiling, letting out a discruntled groan. "But hey, it'll be alright, I'm always here if you need me. Remember that?," she smiled at you and pulled you in for a side hug. "Yeah I know that, never forgetting it either." "Great! Ok, so here is the keys to lock up tonight. We've been busy so work hard and have a good night! I gotta go get checks made out and next week's schedule made up. Talk to you later!" With a soft smile and wave from you, she was out the front door.
The rest of the evening seemed to drag on for you. Taking orders from the flood of customers that came in, all humans and monsters. You always noticed a bit of a split from the species as monsters would take to one side of the dinner while humans on the other. On occasion you would notice mingled groups just enjoying a nice meal together, laughing and enjoying each other's company. Not the slightest care in the world of how they look or what they were. It made your heart swell with happiness. You yourself didn't have any monster friends but you would never turn down the chance of becoming friends with one.
The last few customers had left as you were wiping down tables and taking empty trays back to the kitchen. The neon glowing green clock above the main entrance read 9pm. 'maybe it wouldn't be a problem closing up early, it is pretty much a dead zone in here…' you thought to yourself. As soon as that thought had spoken in your mind, the chime above the entrance sounded, drawing your attention over to who or what made it chime. Peeking out through the window of the kitchen door, you saw two figures casually entering. One very tall, almost hitting his head upon the door frame coming in, and straggling behind him was a shorter figure, about your height but shorter.
Upon closer inspection, you notice the tall one is wearing a white tshirt with the words 'cool dude' on the front over his chest. On his legs were a pair of long black pants with a yellow stripe down the side and a pair of quite large white tennis shoes with a large red 'P' where you would usually find the Nike swoop. Upon his head he wore a red ball cap, facing backwards in that tough boy fashion, and around his neck he wore a red worn out scarf, that seemed to flutter behind him like a cape. The shorter visitor wore casual clothes as well, so it seemed. They wore a blue jacket with a gray hood, the zipper up to their chest to show a turtle neck peeking out. Upon their waist was a pair of cut off gym pants, black with a white strip down either side. Their style of shoe upon their feet made you kind of giggle at yourself when you noticed bright pink fuzzy slippers. "Have a seat! I'll be right with you!," you let out as you fixed your apron and pilled the dirty dishes in the sink. You then turned to head out into the lobby of the dinner, but you didn't expect to come face to face with a very tall skeleton.