Hello everyone! I'm sorry this took so long, but last week was just insane! I got into this musical theater intensive and things just ran out of control. We trained almost seven hours everyday, but it was totally worth it! I loved the experience so much that I auditioned for their regular course and was accepted! But don't worry: now I know how it works, I'll keep a better schedule to keep the story going.

Enjoy this chapter and please review!

Chapitre Six

Une Force Étrange Dans L'air

Marie Sheperd loves cheesecake. Specially New York cheesecake.

For years, she told herself not to fall to the temptation of eating too much sugar, but now she wonders how she lived for so long without feeling the taste of the best things in the world.

"Marie? Marie! Are you listening?!" Paige snapped her fingers.

"I'm sorry," she apologized meekly. "But this cheesecake it's just hypnotizing!"

Paige rolled her eyes. "You weren't listening."

"I did heard something about a blur and... something red?" Marie tried to defend herself.

Her friend snorted, taking another sip of her cappuccino. They were at Paige's new favorite coffee shop at the Central City Shopping Mall, having a nice normal conversation about the weird events happening in the city. Well, at least Paige was talking about that.

"You don't want to know what's going on?"

"Paige, in my short and not so interesting life, I learned that ignorance can be a blessing." Marie said after swallowing the last bit of the cheesecake.

"Unbelievable," she said. "I can't believe that the same girl that believes in fairies and mermaids is not even curious to understand what's going on!"

Marie shook her head. "It's not that I'm not curious..."

"I knew it! Do you want to know!" Paige grabs her phone excitedly. "Raf sent me this morning. Do you see it?"

Marie leaned over the table to have a better look at the picture Paige was showing her. All she could spot was a red streak. "Uhn, yeah...?"

"Okay, I give up! You really don't believe in it!"

Marie shook her head, a small smile on her face. "I guess I only believe in what my eyes can see."

Paige raised a brow. "Have you seen fairies?"

"No," she points her straw to her friend. "But I can feel then!"

"Unbelievable."

"I'll consider that as a compliment."

They remained in silence for some moments before Marie gathered her courage and said: "I'm going to see him."

Paige's eyes narrowed. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"I have to. It's been long enough, Paige. I need to hear the story from his point of view."

Paige sighed, but didn't insist. She couldn't change Marie's opinion, at least not about this. Her phone started ringing; it was time to go back to the company.

"I gotta go," the blonde ballerina rose from her chair. "Call me later?"

"Sure. Good luck with the adagio!" Marie waved at the fading figure of her best friend. She couldn't help but feel slightly jealous: there was nothing she wanted more than join Paige and go back to the company, but she couldn't. Not now, not ever.

Figuring that envying her friend and weeping over the spilled milk would do no good to her, Marie payed for her food and followed her way to the sports equipment store she was looking for. Even if the focus were clearly on sports, they had some ballet stuff too and Marie was out of tights.

Using a coat to cover her green leotard underneath, Marie walked into the store. Even after the... uhn, accident, it was hard for her to get used to dressing normally. For years she spent most of her days in leotards, tights and pointe shoes, and was more comfortable this way than most dancers. However, she also got some freedom after leaving the company. Her first act of rebelliousness was to bleach her hair and dye it dark green. In the darkness, it looked like black, but under the lights of the studio were she worked now the green was more visible.

She also tried to use stiletto nails, but she could only handle a few accidental scratches before giving up on then. She considered a piercing or a tattoo, but it was just not her style, so it was better to just stick with the green hair.

After paying, Marie stuffed her new tights in her bag and decided it was time to go home and take a nap.

But of course that's not what happened.

She was on her way to the north elevator when she noticed the amount of people gathered around the area. Frowning, she watched as the cops tried to calm them, and then stopped her tracks as she spotted the corpse of a woman.

"What's happening?" Marie whispered to a woman watching the messy crowd.

"Some kind of poisonous gas. Poor woman," she answered in an equally low voice.

And then everything shifts.

For a moment, it was like time stopped. It was like waking up from a vivid dream: suddenly you're aware of everything happening around you, but way more powerful. She was hit by a wave of senses she never felt before: she could feel the jasmine perfume of the woman beside her just as well as she could feel the heavy breathing of a man on the other side of the room. She couldn't smell them, but she could sense their presence. Marie blinked a few times, trying to get rid of the dizziness. The woman beside her looked at her strangely, but didn't say anything. She probably just thought that Marie have never seen a dead person or something like that.

Recovering the steadiness of her body, Marie felt a rush of wind going through the crowd, but she didn't know where it came from. It was so fast that she thought she had imagined it, but she knew she didn't.

There was something wrong, and Marie knew it. She could feel a strange force in the air, something that didn't belong there.

Her legs started moving almost as if she was being pulled by an invisible strength. She had no idea where she was going, but she knew she had to. And what she saw wasn't particularly pleasant.

There was a green mist floating in the air, and Marie was sure that was the poisonous gas that killed that woman on the elevator. But before she could do anything, the mist was gone, disappearing completely.

She still wasn't sure if what she spotted next was better or worse.

On the spot where the gas had been, there was a man dressed in a red suit that looked like the best costume Marie had ever seen. Oh, and he was also suffocating. Just another regular day, right?

She hadn't the chance to do something though, because faster then the blink of an eye, the man was gone, leaving only a red trail behind.

Just like the red streak Paige was obsessed with.

It seems my words came back haunt me.