Chapter Three - The Unknown

[Skylar's POV]

"What are you doing, Skylar?"

A sharp, familiar female voice suddenly shattered the quiet, smoke-filled tension of the kitchen.

I jumped completely out of my skin, my slippers squeaking sharply against the tile floor as my head snapped toward the kitchen entrance. My knee banged hard against the edge of the granite island as I tried moving my position, sending a dull ache shooting down my leg.

"Ahh!!" I exclaimed in pain, bending over to rub my knee to ease the sharp throbbing.

Standing right at the entrance were my three best friends: Chloe, Maya, and Tiara. They were frozen in a row, staring at me as if I had completely lost my mind. In their hands, they held an assortment of party decorations, a metallic royal blue birthday banner, glittery party poppers, and a white medium-sized bakery box wrapped in a bright blue ribbon.

They had clearly planned a birthday ambush, but instead of finding a peaceful morning birthday girl, they had walked into a cloud of burnt bacon smoke and an eighteen-year-old girl furiously yelling at an empty room.

"I was practicing!" I squeaked out, my voice jumping an entire octave before I caught myself and forced it back down. "For... an audition! School theater! The drama club!" I blurted out, throwing the excuse together without giving it a single second of thought.

Chloe and Maya exchanged a slow, deeply concerned glance. Chloe's hands slowly lowered the blue banner, letting the metallic letters droop toward the floor. They all stepped forward with extreme caution, carefully placing the items on the counter as if disarming a bomb and fearing I might snap and attack them. They settled down on the wooden kitchen stools.

"Right," Chloe said, her voice dropping into a slow, measured drawl. "An audition. For an indie play where you stand alone in a smoky kitchen and scream 'Shut up!' at a burnt breakfast?"

She raised one hand and mimicked my exact angry posture from seconds earlier, throwing her head back and barking out a loud, dramatic "Shut up!" to illustrate her point. If they had arrived a bit earlier, they'd have seen a lot more drama and action.

"Ugh, Chloe, come on, my ears!" Tiara groaned, wincing and pressing her palms over her ears to block out Chloe's mock dramatic shouting.

"It's an experimental production!" I lied, forcing a bright, completely unhinged smile onto my face while my cheeks burned hot with embarrassment. I adjusted my posture, crossing my arms over my sweat shorts and trying to look composed. "Very deep. Lots of subtext about internal conflict."

They nodded all together in unison, which only made it more obvious that they didn't believe a single word I just said.

'They don't believe a single word of what you just said, and honestly, what kind of terrible lie was that? You're a terrible liar. We need to work on that.' the voice, my stress-induced hallucination, chimed in with an amused, mocking chuckle. 'Your heart is pounding against your ribs like a drum. Chill. Also, their aura smells like fake strawberries, cheap hairspray, and stale morning coffee. Gross.'

I squeezed my eyes shut tight, my knuckles whitening as I gripped my elbows, mentally slamming a massive iron door on the voice. You aren't real. You are just a stress-induced psychotic break because I turned eighteen, my brother is thousands of miles away, and my life is going nowhere.

'I am very real, Skylar,' Lyra replied instantly, dropping her playful tone into a sharp, offended huff. 'And I am offended, but more than that, you're starting to really irritate me!'

"You're irritating me too!" I snapped out loud.

My teeth clamped together a second too late. I had tried so hard to keep my outburst locked behind my lips, but the words burst past my teeth anyway.

The kitchen went dead silent. Chloe froze mid-movement. Maya stopped unribboning the bakery box. Tiara lowered her sunglasses to the tip of her nose, her dark eyes wide. They all staring at me in total bewilderment.

Then Chloe coughed loudly, breaking the thick tension in the room.

"Yeah... audition," Tiara said, her voice dripping with thick, heavy sarcasm as she adjusted her jacket. "And I'm the Queen of England."

"Anyway!" Maya chimed in loudly, clapping her hands together with a sharp pop that shattered the awkward silence. She marched straight up to me, snapping her manicured fingers right in front of my face to drag me out of my trance. "It's your eighteenth birthday! We are not going to let you spend it hiding in a smoky kitchen losing your mind over fake theater auditions."

She grabbed the bakery box, flipped open the lid, and pulled out a rich cake with dark blue frosting and two sparkler candles stuck in the middle.

"Eat some cake, get in the shower, and put on something hot," Maya commanded winking at me as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. "We're going clubbing tonight. You're finally eighteen, which means you can actually get past the velvet ropes!"

'Clubbing?' Lyra perked up instantly, her tone shifting from irritated to sharply cautious. 'No. Bad idea. Very bad idea. We shouldn't go into crowded spaces with lots of strangers.'

"I don't know, guys," I hesitated, taking a step back and glancing over my shoulder at the charred bacon ash and the faint haze of gray smoke still floating near the ceiling. "I really feel like I should just stay in tonight..."

"You don't have a say in this," Chloe pointed out blankly, pulling the string on a party popper.

BANG!

A loud pop echoed off the tile walls, and a fountain of shiny silver confetti rained down over the counter, showering right into my ruined pan of eggs and burnt bacon.

"You're eighteen!" Chloe cheered, waving the empty popper tube in the air. "You're officially an adult, Skylar. You don't have any excuses. Tonight, we celebrate whether you like it or not!"

"But before that..." Tiara chimed in, drawing everyone's focus toward her as a bright smile broke across her face. "Breakfast!"

"Yeah, I'm starving too," Maya added, rubbing her stomach.

"Okay. So what's for breakfast?" Chloe said, as all three focused their undivided attention back on me.

'You've got to be kidding me,' Lyra grumbled with deep irritation. 'I don't like your friends AT ALL.'

**********

[10:25 PM – AUSTIN'S NIGHT CLUB]

My friends and I had arrived at the club hours ago, and I had to say, I felt completely uncomfortable and out of place.

The deafening, bass-heavy music vibrating through the floorboards, the flashing laser lights cutting through the darkness, and the suffocating crowd were overwhelming. The others had plenty of nightlife experience, but since I was the youngest and the newest to all of this, I had zero experience.

Right now, I was seated at the high mahogany bar all by myself, downing shots I clearly couldn't handle, my head resting heavily against the sticky counter. Maya, Tiara, and Chloe had already disappeared onto the dance floor with their respective boyfriends, wishing me luck on my way out. I definitely didn't think I had any luck left. I had used it all up just surviving the morning.

"Two... more," I muttered, raising my head slugglishly as I caught the bartender's eye. My voice was slurring terribly as he came into view.

"Are you sure, ma'am?" he asked, his brow furrowing with genuine concern as he wiped down a glass.

"Yes!!!" I raised my voice louder than I had intended, before wincing at my own volume. "Sorry about that," I apologized as he began lining up two more shot glasses.

"It's nothing new," he replied, giving a indifferent shrug of his shoulders.

Despite my buzzing head, there was one thing bugging me. The voice I had been hearing incessantly since midnight had gone completely quiet. It was like she was completely gone. The sudden silence was eerie, but it felt like proof that I wasn't completely insane after all. Finally... some peace and quiet.

I rested my heavy forehead back on the cool surface of the bar. My eyelids felt weighed down by lead. I knew I needed to get up and go home, but my body felt far too heavy to move. I knocked back the final two shots anyway, feeling the burning liquid slide down my throat, completely numbing my senses.

My stomach lurched violently. I pushed myself up from the bar stool, swaying on my feet as the room tilted dangerously. I staggered toward the back corridor, blindly searching for the restroom to wash my face and ease my nausea.

Inside the dimly lit bathroom, I leaned heavily over the porcelain sink, turning the faucet on full blast. I cupped cold water in my hands and splashed it directly onto my burning face. The shock of the cold water helped clear the thick, foggy haze in my brain just enough for me to breathe properly.

I pulled a paper towel from the dispenser, patting my skin dry as I stared at my reflection in the mirror, pale skin and eyes dilated from the alcohol.

Suddenly, a muffled, chaos-filled roar vibrated through the bathroom walls.

Screams. High-pitched screams cut through the heavy bass of the club's music, followed by the sound of glass shattering and..... animal sounds?

I frowned, pushing open the heavy restroom door. As I stepped out into the hallway, a wave of panicked people came sprinting past me, shoving each other violently as they scrambled toward the back emergency exits.

"What... what is happening?" I stammered, my voice swallowed by the chaos.

'SKYLAR!' Lyra exploded back into my head like a thunderclap, sharp, terrifying, and laced with absolute panic.

'DO NOT GO OUT THERE! GO BACK INSIDE! LOCK THE DOOR AND HIDE!' Lyra roared, her presence thrashing violently against the back of my skull. 'THEY ARE HERE! I CAN SMELL THEM!'