ATTENTION: IF you have not read sjskj1234's post on Chapter 2 in The Lonely Shadow book, please do so NOW! Because this is the next chapter. Look on her account, it's titled "The Lonely Shadow" for reader's convenience, please check it out and vote. Vote for this chapter as well. Thank you!!! If we reach a certain number of votes (put together) then the updates will be faster and there will be MORE. Remember we post weekends, give us feedback~♥ stay tuned. Love ya! :* -FANlovesyou365

Friends.

Frrriieeennddsss? Is that what she was? What her and Connie probably were now. What it felt like. Mother always encouraged her to go out and just magically make friends-which was HARD to do- but despite her efforts, Mia never took her seriously. She didn't need them. They were like weights, weighing down everything. You'd be better off without them pulling on your soul. According to her mom, cliques were strong back then. Much like her mom, she'd rather grow up without ANY friends...but don't get her wrong, Mia loved her mom as much as Fat Albert loved food. She just couldn't bring herself to listen well, no matter how much she tried.

"Always in one ear and out the other with you, huh?" Her mom used to say.

They always argued...but they shared some good times too!

Maybe mom was in heaven, smiling down on her from above, proud she had finally spoke to someone! The scorching burn in her ears had subsided; the tingly feeling in her stomach now thinning out. Mia wanted desperately to go to the ocean now, down by the shore...mom had always talked about living on one. As she described it: her toes in the sand, her face in the wind as her long chestnut hair blew back, the salty but sweet ocean air filling her nose, the dim, grey clouds scattered about all over the misty pinkish orange horizon...seagulls chirps soon fading to silence.

Mia's eyes clamped shut, trying to visualize everything before her, just how she wanted it to be. With mom-not dad.

"You like it, huh?"

She turned and looked up. A man wearing a greasy blood splattered-well, it looked a bit more like a ketchup and mustard stained apron tied over a velvet shirt and brown khakis with sandals strapped tightly to his feet, stood behind her. He held thin framed glasses in his pudgy fingers; a single tear rolling down his cheek. Funniest of all was his curly fry hair. "-The scenery..." he seemingly added.

The hairs on her neck stood straight up. "Uh-" she swallowed, eyes widened. Anxiety attack!! "Ye-yea. Wonderful." She gulped. There was something off about this guy. Mass murderer. She though. He shifted his stoically bland expression to stare into her fear-stricken eyes. Mia swore she could hear a pin drop in the distance.

"Hey, I've never seen you before?" He scratched his chin slightly and tilted his head. As if he were seriously thinking about it. Small city...probably haven't!

"Oh, you haven't? Uh, I uh...just moved here, actually. She smiled nervously, turning her head away from him to scan the sea once more.

"Got a phone?"

"!!!!!!" What was with people and phones, he couldn't possible want her number could he? They barely talked for a minute! "Got one? Yea-" she almost named off the brand-how stupid would that sound- but you know, TMI. No one even asks for that.

He slowly slipped on his glasses and stared her down with cold, dead eyes. Shit. He looked about ready to rob her, until his mouth curved upwards into the shape of a "u."

"THEN THAT MEANS YOU MUST KEEP UP WITH MY BLOG!!!!!! YOU KNOW, KEEP. BEACH. CITY. WEEEEIIIRRRD!!!!!!

Stranger danger. Freak alert #1. "Uh yeeaaah-no. I...uh, lemme check it out real quick." She unlocked her phone and remembered JUST briefly, no bars. "...wait. I don't have Wi-Fi here. I'll-"

"Oh there's free Wi-Fi at the Fish Stew Pizza place on the boardwalk. That's where I upload most of my creepy discoveries. BE SAFE! There's sneeeooppleeee lurrkkiiinnngg..."

Fish Stew Pizza? Sneople? Her nose turned up in disgust, but her interest was peaked. "Sneople?"

"Folloowwww mmyyyyy bloggg and you'llll knoowwwwwwwwwww....."

"I'll check it out at home." She turned back, but he was gone; however, she could see him running down the boardwalk with "ninja" speed, arms flailing out behind her. A four year old in a grown man's body...hmph, you don't see that everyday.

It seemed just that dug up another memory-

They were in the parking lot during a rainy storm that day, the radio off, sending a tiny buzz over the speakers. Cars zooming in and out of the slippery roads in front of them, stirring up a tiny spray from the puddles. The pungent odor of mold and damp sneakers filled the air. The distant downtown lights illuminating tiny raindrops and reflecting off cars. People struggling to get from one place to another, holding umbrellas against the force of strong winds and clutching their children's hands tightly.

They would point at people from behind their dark tinted windows and make up gruesome stories about their past, present, or future lives.

"Ok ok, my turn, um...that big dude right there across the street," she pointed, "he's gonna rob a bank. Pull a gun on EVERYONE and steal all this town's money. He'll take everyone hostage while keeping a bomb strapped to his chest, and the cops will be outside trying to ease him out of his decision. And then-BOOM!!!!!" she pounded her fist against the car door.

"Ah! Noo!!!!" Shrieked someone to the right of Mia.

"And no one survived!"

"I hope that doesn't come true!" Someone giggled. "Your so mean, putting innocent people to a horrible death. "

"Probably innocent." Mia said. "We could all be villians~" Mia looked over as her mom's lips curled into a small smile, the clear nasal cannula tube in her nose and behind her hair until it came down in front of her chest into one slender cord that led straight into an oxygen tank that sat neatly in her lap, regulating the amount of air allowed into her lungs. Mom's smiling hazel eyes stared back at her.

"It's not fair..."

Her mom knew. She knew everything.
"I'm okay Mia, I'm gonna be fine." She rested her hand on Mia's lap. "I promise it's not as bad as it was before, everything will work out. We'll get that new house on the beach~♥ and you'll go to that new beachside school you wanted to get into! We can have pets too!" She smiled and held Mia's cheek, thumbing away a small tear. "Don't frown like that, you don't want hideous lines in your forehead do you?"

They both laughed after that, but that was the last laugh they ever shared.

No beach house...

No beach...

No new school, free of bullies...

No dog...

And no mom...

Mia lost everything. All of it, gone. Her world, faded...

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