Starlight City’s Central Mall.

It is Starlight City's largest mall located entirely within the central district of the city. In it customers and employees alike explore the bustling mall, checking out the four floors filled with unique stores. On the first floor, there’s a giant ice rink, the second has a giant arcade, the third has an aquarium, and the fourth holds a movie theater.

It’s in this crowded mall we find Elizabeth Moore, trying to make her way through the swarm of people as she looks at the list of stuff she needs to get for her family

* A bottle of rare olive oil

* A new picture book for Nhung

* A new game controller for Hai

* A new grater

After putting the list back into her pocket, she continues through the mall looking for a store. Whenever she’s gone here she’s always done so as errands for her family. Looking at the families going to the movie theater, the kids staring mesmerized at the fishes, the couples skating across the ice, and the friends messing with one another at the arcade; it makes Elizabeth realize she’s never truly gone here just to ‘have fun’–

Before Elizabeth can continue down this train of thought, she bumps into someone walking the other way.

“Oh I’m sorry-” Elizabeth begins to apologize as she turns to see who she bumped into.

To her surprise though, she sees that it’s Sammy Becken, a fellow member of the club she is in. Sammy has her hair in a ponytail and is wearing a black long-sleeved crop top, ripped orange cargo pants, and blue tennis shoes.

“Sammy?” Elizabeth questions.

“Eli?” Sammy remarks.

Sammy walks over to Elizabeth and gives her a quick hug before saying, “I’m glad I got to see you! I was getting bored just hanging around here all by myself!”

“I see,” Elizabeth says through her discomfort, “And please just call me Elizabeth?”

“Okay okay,” Sammy says as she sits down at a nearby bench.

Elizabeth sits next to her and her mind starts to race. While they’re both in the same club the two have rarely interacted, which usually is fine because they have some other friends with her then. But here? It’s just the two of them, and Elizabeth has absolutely no idea what to discuss with her. She doesn’t know her interests, her hobbies, her passions, what she dislikes, absolutely nothi–

“Hey, I like your tracksuit you got on,” Sammy says as she sips a can of soda, “You wanna make good use of it?”

Elizabeth looks a bit confused at Sammy’s remark.

“I mean do you wanna hang out?” Sammy questions.

Before Elizabeth can even process the question, forgetting that she isn’t supposed to draw attention to herself, she agrees with a, “Yes.”

Hearing those words a pit of dread fills Elizabeth’s stomach as a playful grin escapes onto Sammy’s face.

“Then what are we waiting for,” Sammy remarks as she grabs Elizabeth’s hand and runs through the mall, “Let’s have some fun!”

Elizabeth, not wanting to get dragged, runs alongside her as the two reach their first destination; a Moon Shadow Affiliate outlet store that has several clothes for cheap.

“You wanna try some stuff on?” Sammy asks as she looks at a nice burgundy-colored scarf.

“To be honest,” Elizabeth sighs, “N-not really, I just had a whole fashion show with trying on outfits for the homecoming.”

“Oh okay,” Sammy sighs as the two move on to the next store, her eyes taking one last glance at the nice burgundy scarf.

As they walk to the next store, Elizabeth begins to wonder if maybe she should have just gone in the store, Sammy seemed to really like that scarf, and even if she didn’t want to go, Sammy did-

“Nice glad to see they got some new stuff,” Sammy remarks as she marches into a toy store.

Elizabeth looks at the cheeky wooden walls, the kids all begging their parents to buy them toys, and Sammy standing in the crowd looking at a Rubix cube. Elizabeth walks into the toy store, making sure to not trample over any of the screaming and sprinting toddlers, and makes her way towards Sammy.

“I didn’t know you were a fan of toys,” Elizabeth remarks.

“What, you think they’re too kiddy?” Sammy proclaims.

Elizabeth falters as she says, “Well- No- I-”

“Relax Eli,” Sammy says, “I’m just messing with ya. I just like playing with them because they make me happy. Whether it’s Rubix cubes, fidget spinners, beyblades, dominoes– heck even board games, playing with them brings me a sense of joy, y’know?”

“It’s Elizabeth and yeah I guess I can see that,” Elizabeth says as she looks at the Rubix cube, “Y’know I think my little sister has one of these, maybe you two can compete with one another to see who can solve it faster?”

“Really?” Sammy says as her eyes sparkle.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“I was just kidding,” Elizabeth sighs.

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In the aquarium, Elizabeth walks around, her feet hitting the cobblestone below them, as she stares mesmerized at all of the fish swimming all around her. The aquarium is like one giant loop where all the walls and ceiling are a part of the large fish tank. A school of angelfish separate as they avoid a starfish, tiny hermit crabs make their way across the sandy floors of the aquarium’s tanks, and bright orange clownfish swim through the vibrant coral decorated across the tank.

“Pretty cool right?” Sammy says while trying to solve her recently bought Rubix cube.

“Yeah,” Elizabeth exhales as the blue of the waters in the tank illuminate her face.

The two teens stand there for a bit, watching the fish swim by,

Homework, studying, club meetings, buying some groceries, and all the other worries that the two have wash away as the tranquility of the place lets them get absorbed into the moment.

That is until, Sammy finally solves her Rubix cube which causes her to exclaim a triumphant, “Yes!”

_____________________________

The next place Sammy & Elizabeth go to is the movie theater.

“You wanna see if we can sneak past security?” Sammy teases.

“What?” Elizabeth questions.

“Yeah it’s actually pretty easily done,” Sammy explains, “My cheapskate of a half-brother and his girlfriend do this all the time when they watch a film together.”

Elizabeth is a bit hesitant to go along with it, and her concern only heightens when she sees a security guard start to approach them. However, it isn’t just an ordinary security guard but one for the mall.

The guard has a navy blue security guard button-up shirt over a white t-shirt, a navy blue hat, blue cargo pants, and black loafers. The guard also has long shaggy hair dyed neon red which is tied up into a ponytail, white skin, fang-like teeth, and a pretty muscular body.

Not wanting to get kicked out, Elizabeth grabs Sammy’s hand and runs out of the movie theater. The guard yells at them to stop but Elizabeth keeps on running.

“We gotta go!” Elizabeth says.

“Uh, okay!” Sammy replies as she begins to run too.

Though as Elizabeth continues to run, Sammy slowly catches up to her, her fear of getting caught slowly begins to fade away as a new feeling takes over…excitement.

However, that excitement wouldn’t last for long as the two would hear someone snarl, “HALT!”

Elizabeth & Sammy look behind them to see that the security guard is running on all fours straight towards them, and he’s fast. Real fast.

Elizabeth & Sammy quickly take an escalator down a floor, however, the security guard hops onto the railing of the escalator and grinds down to where Elizabeth and Sammy are. He hops down on the step ahead of them.

There’s nowhere left to run.

“Wh-what do you want?” Elizabeth asks, frightened.

“What do I want?” The guard begins to pant, “I need you to…”

Elizabeth stops as she recognizes the man’s voice, the guard takes off his hat revealing he is none other than... Crunch Backson?!

“Zip up your pockets! We’ve been getting reports about pickpocketers lately,” Security Guard and manic Junior of Starlight High Crunch Backson reports.

“Oh thank god,” Elizabeth sighs in relief before asking, “Crunch? How come you’re here?”

“What happened to your hair?” Sammy questions.

The three reach the bottom of the escalator and Crunch explains, “I got a job here as a security guard, they told me I couldn’t have green hair so I had to dye it.”

“I think they wanted you to dye it to a normal color,” Elizabeth sighs, “But still thanks for the input.”

“No problem, safety first!” Crunch remarks as he begins to walk away.

As Elizabeth also scurries off to somewhere else in the mall, Crunch decides to check his notes that his supervisor left him.

“Remind people to zip up their pockets if they can, tell people safety first, yadda yadda yadda,” Crunch reads off, “And make sure the banned people from the mall don’t enter. The two people banned from this mall are Alex Smith and Eliza-”

Crunch’s eyes widen as he reads Elizabeth Moore’s name on the list. Crunch quickly looks around but he doesn’t see Elizabeth or Sammy anywhere.

“So they wanna play cat-&-mouse huh?” Crunch sighs as he puts his note back in his pocket, “No worries, I love a good chase!”

The other mall goers who are by Crunch quickly walk away, a mother holds their child closer as they pass by the very strange man.

__________________________________________

On the first floor, Elizabeth and Sammy catch their breath as Sammy shouts, “Wow you can run real fast!”

“Thanks,” Elizabeth gasps as she puts her aviators into her pocket, “I try to keep a good cardio.”

“Well if you wanna get some great cardio I know just the place!” Sammy shouts.

Elizabeth looks at Sammy confused.

__________________________________

Her legs shaking, Elizabeth clings to the wall as she and Sammy are one of the several people in the ice rink at the mall. Being a hockey player, Sammy has no problem skating across the ice rink. But for Elizabeth? She’s holding onto the wall for dear life as she slowly shimmies her way across the rink.

Seeing Elizabeth struggle, Sammy skates on over and asks, “Hey you all good?”

“N-nope!” Elizabeth shivers as she adjusts her helmet.

“Yeah sorry, I didn’t think about whether or not you knew how to skate. This your first time?”

“Y-y-yes.”

“Well don’t worry,” Sammy says as she extends her hand over to Elizabeth, “I’ll show you the ropes, we can take things slow.’

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Hesitantly, Elizabeth takes one of her hands off of the wall and grabs Sammy’s. She begins to calm down as Sammy motions for her to kick off the wall and start to skate.

Elizabeth kicks off the wall and…she begins to glide across the ice!

“I-I’m doing it?” Elizabeth questions before realizing, “I’m doing it! I’m actually doing it!”

“Now place your other foot on the ice and-” Sammy begins to instruct.

However she won’t get the chance to finish her sentence as Elizabeth goes for the move only to immediately trip. Elizabeth falls on her face and she brings Sammy down to the ground with her. The two slowly – and painfully for Elizabeth – slide across the ice until they reach a wall where Elizabeth finally brings her head up.

Dazed and confused, Elizabeth and Sammy look a bit embarrassed at the tumble before they start to giggle. Then chuckle. And then laugh. However, someone else joins in on their laughter, causing the two to stop laughing.

As Elizabeth gets back up, she sees Sammy’s once playful face turn into one of rage.

“Hey runt, mind falling again?,” The person who laughed says as he shoves some popcorn into his mouth, “I want to get another angle of your face all pathetic-looking!”

The person who said that is sitting in the bleachers. He has white skin, light brown spiky hair, amber eyes, and black earrings. He’s also wearing a white ripped denim jacket over a sky blue t-shirt, black denim pants, a gold chain necklace, a gold chain bracelet, several chrome rings, white Air Force shoes, and he’s wearing too many belts all across his body.

There is also a person sitting next to him playing on an electric blue 3DS. She’s half-caucasian half-japanese, has dark brown hair in a twintail style, and brown eyes. She’s also wearing a Vocaloid-inspired Electric Blue Sports Bike Jacket, white undershirt, black-electric blue flannel skirt, black stockings, and green sneakers.

“You know them?” Elizabeth asks Sammy.

“They’re Parker Duggar and Quinn Overton,” Sammy growls, “A.K.A. my nemeses.”

Elizabeth takes a second to process what she said and questions, “I’m sorry your what?”

See You Next Chapter!~