Chapter 1

Her blue eyes were scanning me and her lips formed a small smile. She threw her blond hair over her shoulder and straightened out her new, white shirt. Her short and dark blue skirt matched her light pink eye shadow. Her black boots went up to her knees and her white stockings went to the middle of her thighs, so she looked a little intimidating.

"Come on Emma, we got to get to work soon and you're not even dressed." Christine said and sighed at the end.

"Yeah yeah, just stop hanging over me." I answered with a sour tone. She leaned on her left foot and crossed her arms.

I picked up my plate and glass and placed it in the sink. I stumbled to the bathroom where I took a quick and cold shower. I enjoyed to shower in cold water in the mornings, especially when I was going to work. That way I woke up easier.

After the shower I hurried to my bedroom which was messy. Clothes covered the floor and the desk. I could hear from the hallway that Christine was tapping her foot.

The clothes lying around were clean, I was just too busy to put them in the closet. Actually I was just lazy, but two sides of the same coin.

I found a pair of black jeans and a white shirt. We had been told by our coworker to use a white shirt on the job. Why? I didn't know. I put on my red Converse and ran out to Christine who was waiting in the hallway. She was holding my black leather jacket.

"Thanks." I said and tried to smile to her, but she was angry with me, just because I waited too long in the mornings to clean myself up to work, but I couldn't do anything about it, because I enjoyed my morning coffee.

"Let's just go." She said cold and walked outside and waited for me to say something that I forgot, and she was right. I had forgotten my phone. "I'll be right back, just go in the car." I said and she rolled her eyes at me; the same routine as always. I ran back in to my bedroom and found my phone under my pillow. I picked it up and ran outside to lock the door. I gave the phone a glance and someone had tried to call me. One missed call was frozen on my phone screen. I locked the door and ran to the car where Christine was waiting. She was the one to drive today so I gave her the keys. She unlocked the car and we both climbed in. She put the keys in, turned and the engine started to roar.

"I'm just going to make a quick call." I said and she looked at me with her I-don't-care face. I knew she loved me, but she didn't always show it.

I unlocked my phone and saw that Joe – a friend of mine from the job – had tried to call me. I dialed the number and placd the phone to my ear.

"Emma! Hey, how are you?" His voice sounded raspy and tired.

"Hi Joe, are you alright, you sound sick." I was concerned for him; he was a good friend of mine.

"Oh, yeah, I'm not coming to work today, I caught a fever yesterday." He said and coughed into the phone. The disgusting sound scratched through my ear.

"Okay Joe, I'll tell the boss. Hope you get better. Bye."

"Thanks Emma, bye."

I clicked on the phone and put it in my pocket.

"Is something wrong with Joe?" Christine asked curiously. She turned to the left and a man honked at her, she just gave him the middle finger. I looked at her with big eyes. "What, it was my turn." She said.

"Anyway, Joe is sick and can't come to work today." I waited for a reaction. A smile started to grow on her face.

"Yes finally!" She said and started to dance in her seat. I shook my head at her.

She was happy because Joe was always looking at her… well, cleavage.

"You know, he wouldn't look at your cleavage if you didn't wear clothes as you do." I said carefully.

She looked at me, like I had done something wrong. "Do you call me a whore?"

"No, I'm not saying that, it's just that, you wear clothes so people can see your cleavage, then you can't complain that he is looking, he's a man you know."

"I wear clothes as I do to get attention and to get a cute boy that can hold me and love me. After working with him in three years he should have grown tired of my cleavage." She said and made a final nod.

I knew it was nothing more to argue about since she was a very grumpy, self-obsessed and stubborn as a mule, but I loved her like a sister. We have lived together for four years, having a normal relationship at the beginning, but as the years passed by, we came closer. We even found out that we liked the same music; rock, punk and alternative. I never would have thought that about Christine, since she's very blond and sweet. She even liked video gaming when she was desperately lost or bored, but I enjoyed it all the time. We both liked to read special books, like sex, death and the supernatural, but sometimes I could drown in the books, reading about love, history and injustice.

Christine drove in to the parking lot to our job. A reserved spot to our car was waiting for us. She parked the car and we climbed out of it. As always she locked the car and threw the keys over the hood to me and I professionally grabbed them every time.

"Are you ready for work?" She asked as we approached the door into the mall where we worked.

I worked at the gaming store and Christine at the bookstore. The bookstore where right above the gaming store. "I'll talk to you later. Lunch together?" Christine asked. "Yeah sure, twelve o'clock. See you at the cafeteria." I said and nodded to her. She took a right turn and I took a left. On the way in, Kurt greeted me.

"Hey Emma, it's good to see you today." He said and gave me a hug.

"Yeah, it's good to be here too. Uhm, Joe is not coming today, he caught a fever."

Kurt looked a little disappointed, but I pretended that I didn't see it and just smiled to him.

"Well, that's disappointing, I was hoping he would take the lunch job today, but apparently he can't. Well, I just have to do it then. Okay, back to work now." He said and walked back to the counter where someone stood waiting to pay. I rushed into the small break room and placed my bag and jacket in the closet and went out to work. I walked to Kurt and he looked at me weird. Suddenly he started to laugh.

"What is it?" I asked and looked at him angry. I didn't like it when people laughed at me.

"You really don't have to use a white shirt, Emma. At first I thought you just liked to wear white shirts, but now I just see you thought that we have to wear white shirts. You can put on regularly clothes. We are a gaming store, not a market place." He smiled and walked away to place some games to its right places on the shelves.

I shook my head. What's his problem? I thought and waited for someone to come and buy something. Usually it wasn't many in our store, except when it came out new games many had waited for. Sometimes it was very crowded because some famous gaming makers came to sign new games. Most of the gamers were guys, something that didn't surprise me. I liked to discuss gaming with boys and tell them that I'm better than them when it came to certain games. I liked how their expression went from being the best, to being beaten by a girl.

A young man with short and brown hair – with too much wax in it – came towards me with a game in his hand. He looked a little shaky and was looking around himself by every step he took towards me. He shakily gave me the game and gulped. I looked at him. He looked from me to the game, back up to me and down to the game again. His green eyes were filled with tears and fear.

"Are you alright?" I asked and scanned him; I did nothing, but just stared at him.

"No-yes-I-don't-know." He said quickly. I could barely hear him. He was whispering.

"You are not alright, what is wrong?" He swallowed hard.

I looked over his shoulder and saw a security guy strolling towards us.

"Just tell me, darling. Don't be afraid. You haven't done anything wrong yet, so you can't be punished." I whispered, attempting him to say it. He gulped again, some sweat pearls ran down his cheek. He nodded one time and I leaned forward, over the counter to hear him whisper.

"I am s-supposed t-to steal the g-game. If I d-don't, they'll b-b-beat me up." I looked at him.

"Who is going to beat you up?" The security guy came closer and looked at us suspicious.

"The guys standing b-by the p-pole there, a-all of them w-will beat m-me up." He finished. His eyes were flowing with water. I stood up and walked around the desk and gave him a hug. The security guy stopped by us and looked at us.

"Is something wrong here?" He asked and pulled his jeans higher up. I looked down at the boy and he nodded one time to me.

"Yes, those guys standing by the pole there are making this boy do something he shouldn't have done, I want them thrown out of here and I don't want them to come back." I said and looked at the man angry.

"What are they making him do?" He said stiff and seriously.

"They are threatening him by his life. They will beat him up if he doesn't do as he is told by those guys."

The boy looked at me. A tear had escaped his eye. It was slowly rolling down his cheek.

"Okay, I can warn them, but I can't throw them out without any proof." The man said and walked towards the guys. They understood now that it was time to get out of there. They ran out of the mall, and I lost the sight of them all.

His tears were running down his cheeks. They had all escaped.

"Let's get you something to drink." I said and we walked together in to the small break room. Suddenly Kurt came bursting in and locked the door behind him.

"What is going on?" He asked furiously. The boy jumped and hid behind me.

"Well, this boy was threatened by his life, give him some space Kurt." I barked back at him.

He ran his fingers through his brown, half-long hair. "Well then, I'm sorry. Just got a little worried when the guard came up to you guys." He took a small pause and glanced at the boy. "Hi, I'm Kurt, and you are?" He said firmly and leaned a bit down. The boy peeked from behind my back.

"I'm T-Tom." He said and shook Kurt's hand.

"It's nice to meet you Tom." He smiled. I smiled to Kurt and Kurt just looked at the boy. "Well Tom, we could have used you as an assistant, would you like to work here part-time?" Kurt asked. I was surprised by his question. It was very generous of him. Tom nodded fast.

"Great, can you work now?" He asked.

"Yes Sir." Tom said and smiled. Tom and Kurt walked out of the room. I took a deep breath.

Thank God that went well. I thought and smiled for no reason. I went outside and saw Kurt instructed Tom how he could check if we had got all the goods.

Kurt came towards me with a smile. "So tell me, what happened?" He whispered.

"Well, he was supposed to rob a game. The reason he was supposed to do that was because he was threatened by his life by a gang of boys." I explained and looked behind Kurt and on Tom which were counting goods.

"Well, I will take care of him, get him home and to work. I think he will be a good assistant. Good whatever you did. Oh, and Emma…"

"Yes Kurt?"

"Next time, call me over to you if something like this ever happens again." He smiled and walked back to Tom.

I looked at the clock, it was a little over twelve and I got panic. Shit, Christine. I ran over to the cafeteria and saw Christine sat there. When she saw me she smiled. Hopefully she hadn't been sitting there for too long.

"Hi, Emma, time to eat." She said and I sat down by her. "Yeah, I'm mighty hungry." I smiled. She laughed a little before she found her purse and took out her wallet.

"I'll buy today, what do you want?" She asked me and stood up.

"Well okay, I would like a waffle with sugar and a glass of cola." I smiled up at her. She nodded and went to the ordering area. I sat there and my stomach rumbled for food. "Be quiet." I looked down on my small belly, but not even talking to it would help.

Christine came back with my waffle and cola, she took the usual as always; sandwich with ham, cheese, salad without butter, a coffee with two sugars and a half deciliter of milk.

"Here you go." She said and handed over the food. I licked my dry lips and took a sip of my cola to clean my throat. I took the first bite from my waffle.

"So, Emma, I have something for you. It's not coming out before next week, but I sneaked it out to get it for you." She said and started to look in her purse. I wondered what it could be, but I knew it had to be a book.

She took out a big black book. Nothing was written on the cover, just pure black. She handed it over to me and I didn't notice my eyes were all widen out after a moment of staring at it. I opened the book and the script in the book started to form. The truth about the book was real. It has been said that as you read, the script would occur on the side, but when you turn the page, it's gone what you just read and the script starts to appear before you again. The book was called; pure darkness. I had waited for this book to come in three years. It was only sent ten books out in all stores in the world so it won't be many of them.

"So do you like it?" Christine asked excited. Her eyes were glancing at me. I felt my lips formed to a big smile.

"Of course I do, I have waited for this book in years. I can't believe I'm holding it." I said and gave her an unexpected hug over the table. Everyone started to look at us, but in my opinion; I didn't care.

"So is it true? Does the script occur and disappear?" She asked and tried to look over the table.

"It's all true, I just can't believe it. Thank you so much Christine. I promise you that you can read it after me." I smiled over at her. I wanted to hug her again, but with that first unexpected hug before, I didn't think that was a good idea.

We ate up while I was just smiling all the time, I just couldn't stop thinking of the book.

"Well, I guess my lunch is over now, I better get back to work." I said and stood up. "Yeah, me too." Christine agreed and we walked back to our jobs together. I put the book in my bag and went out to keep on working.

I took out my bag and pulled on my jacket. Christine stood outside, waiting for me. "Bye Kurt, bye Tom." I said while I smiled to them. Tom came running to me and stopped me. "Thank you so much Emma, I don't know what I would have done without you." He said and gave me a hug. I gave him a hug back. "I don't know if you know, but I lost my parents not too long ago and was placed at my grandmother. She doesn't live too far away from here, but she really doesn't know how to take care of me, because she is so old. Now that I got work here, I can take care of both of us. Thank you so much again." I smiled down at him.

"You're welcome, Tom. Take care of yourself and your grandmother." I walked to Christine.

"Who is that?" She asked. I sighed, too long story to tell.

"I'm too tired to tell, just our new assistant, that's all." I said and we walked out of the mall and to our car. We climbed in to the car and Christine started it.

"Well, you can tell me later." She said before she drove out of the parking lot and home.