"Huh, so Tiffany already figured the plan out," muttered Kaitlin.
She was holding the water parchment that Tiffany had sent. Shaking her head, she looked around the huge dressing room full of clothes. She had been looking for something to wear at the Masquerade but found nothing. Sighing, Kaitlin got up from her white leather sofa in the middle of the room and went in search for her dog.
Kaitlin exited her wardrobe and walked all around the first floor of her glass skyscraper apartment. She had the top two floors and the roof for her to live in so that her 2-year-old Corgi Aussie could have room to play around, she didn't bring him outside that often.
"Emerson! Where are you!" shouted Kaitlin as she walked through the first level to her house.
No reply.
"Emerson! Come out buddy!"
She climbed her glass staircase to the next level above and began searching. Still no signs of him. She had begun to worry and yelled more franticly, he couldn't have gone off somewhere. The only way to get out of her rented levels was to go down from the elevators, but those were outside of her front door, so no possibility there. Emerson wouldn't have been able to unlock the front door, that was just plain impossible.
Kaitlin kept on searching the second level and when she neared the entrance door, she gaped at it. It was open.
She hurried over quickly and zoomed out the door, a thousand thoughts running through her head. How did Emerson open the door? Did someone open it for him? Who? Is Emerson hurt?
Once exiting, she immediately heard a barking noise, slightly high pitched.
Following the sound, Kaitlin hurtled down the glass hallway, at the end of it, there were three glass elevators and two emergency stairs. She smelled out the scent of her Corgi Aussie and opened one of the slightly ajar stair doors further, she sprinted down the steps.
She slowed down once she reached the 29th floor of the skyscraper, three floors down from the highest one, and gasped at the scene before her.
The corpse of a woman lay on the glass ground. Her complexion was entirely drained of color with blank brown eyes. Her lips were the color of light blue with tight leathery skin surrounding. She had been dead for a while.
She didn't show any signs of injuries and Kaitlin wondered how she died. No blood anywhere, no rope to cut off her breathing, she was just dead with a look of horror and something else in her face.
Emerson was bounding around the body and yelping. Kaitlin ran over and scooped up her Corgi Aussie, trying hard not to look at the corpse, but she caught a whiff of the smell, it smelled like roses and something else. Something else like… like… then it hit her.
The weird smell was the scent of frozen apples and roses combined; the scent of dark magic.
* * *
Jackie was at Souldine Beach, walking on the clammy rocks and looking far out into the sea. She was tempted to go for a swim or sleep, but with all the things that will begin soon, she couldn't rest.
A dolphin leaped out of the aqua colored ocean off in the distant waters, a glistening tail sprayed water through the clean air. As the dolphin dived back in the sea, Jackie grinned and stepped down from the rocks and walked carefully to where the waves brushed onto the land and the rocks were eroding.
The silver dolphin appeared out of the surface of the water once again but this time, she was swimming towards the shore where Jackie was, waiting. Glittering like a diamond in the wide expanse of ocean, the dolphin neared Jackie and whistled to her.
Jackie laughed and replied in the same whistling noise. They related to each other how things have been in their lives, the troubles, their wishes.
After an hour of hanging out on the rocky Souldine Beach and talking to her dolphin friend, Jackie said goodbye to the dolphin and decided to go to Kaitlin's house to check out a dress to wear for the Masquerade.
Since there was no one on the beach, Jackie twirled her hands and spun in a circle into a void of light and disappeared from the beach to reappear in front of Kaitlin's expensive skyscraper apartment house. Luckily, no one was in front of the skyscraper at that moment so that Jackie didn't have to explain to them the flash of light and a girl suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
Smiling to herself, Jackie walked towards the glass entranceway and pressed on the button summoning an elevator. After a short while, the middle elevator dinged and opened, just as she was walking towards the elevator to enter, someone burst out and almost knocked her over. She looked to see that it was Kaitlin, clutching Emerson to her chest, looking wildly about and grabbed her gently.
"What's wrong Kaitlin?"
"Someone… someone is laying on the 29th floor and… and they're not waking up, someone go!" yelled Kaitlin loudly.
People walking by them stared and whispered at each other.
"Johnston, can you… can you come with me please? I had already called… um… the ambulance and cops." Kaitlyn managed to gasp out.
A security officer, Johnston, strode over hurriedly from his post and followed Kaitlin into the elevator. Jackie started to follow but Johnston raised his hand and said, "Stop."
Kaitlin shook her head, brushed his hand away, and ushered Jackie inside the elevator, "She's fine, she's my friend." Then pushed the button to close the doors and pressed on the 29th floor.
As they were inside the rising elevator waiting for it to get to its destination, Johnston questioned Kaitlin about when she had discovered the body and if anyone suspicious was there.
Jackie listened to their conversation and silently watched the number in the screen in the elevator telling what floor they were on.
Once they reached the 29th floor, the officer strode out of the glass elevator first, then followed a shaky Kaitlin clinging to Jackie. Kaitlin tried desperately not to look at the woman while Jackie peered at the corpse with scrutinizing eyes, brows furrowed ever so slightly.
Johnston leaned over to the woman and checked her pulse and breathing; there was none. He shook his head at Kaitlin and Jackie, Kaitlin began trembling and Jackie hugged her.
After a few short minutes, the police and ambulance came, except the body had already been confirmed dead.