The Glitch

Chapter 1

No one believed her, the girl with the crazy stories. She'd speak of far-off lands at war where the deaths were many but the warriors didn't use guns or bombs but instead some would draw weapons from the earth, use swords and daggers, bows and arrows. She'd speak of glowing eyes, people shifting into unrecognisable versions of themselves, becoming animalistic or even copycats who'd change into someone else or something else.

These worlds were beautiful, magical but had an air of sadness to them a danger in need of fixing and an emptiness, like there was something missing from every tale but she never found it, every story ended with a cliff hanger like she hadn't figured out how to end her tale. She was waiting for an ending that would never come without her missing piece.

The last few months had been rough for Ciara she had lost everything, her anxiety had spiked, she sighed as she looked out the car window on the way to her new home watching the mountains pass her by as she said goodbye to the life she had. If she hadn't already been through enough, now they were moving her to a new city far away from everyone, everything she had ever known.

"Come on now you'll get settled here sooner than you think and there's lots of places for us to explore, this area is so big even I haven't seen it all yet." The woman stood with her arm outstretched to help Ciara out of the car was Franchessca Summers, Ciara's aunt. She meant well but neither of them knew what was to come and both of them had lost the person that meant the most to them, Ciara's mum.

It all happened a few weeks earlier they were all meant to go out for the evening, Ciara's dad had a work event to go to it was a big fancy affair, none of them really wanted to go but he was working hard on getting a promotion and this was the perfect way to get in good with his boss.

Ciara had complained the whole time about being dressed up all fancy to suck up to her dads' colleagues but she was just happy they weren't forcing her to wear a dress, luckily as long as she looked smart they didn't mind what she wore. They had been there for a few hours and she remembered spending most of the time over by the extensive table of food, they had a big meal coming but still had a plethora of snacks ranging from spring rolls to mini sliders and a bunch of fancy finger foods that Ciara had no clue what they were. But when they finally called out that dinner would be served soon Ciara began to make her way back to her parents, or at least she would have if she could find them.

"Hi, excuse me, have you seen my dad around?"

"What's his name?" A tall, dark-haired man with a deep voice that matched his exterior and menacing presence retorted as he looked down at Ciara.

She mustered all her confidence to reply to the man whose gaze made her feel as brave as a mouse going face to face with a cat who hadn't eaten that day.

"P-Peter Jackson" She stuttered not daring to break eye contact with the man looming over her. Suddenly a massive grin spread over his face washing away any menace Ciara had seen making the man in front of her look as friendly as a teddy bear. "He went back to work said he had an idea he wanted to try quickly, honestly that man is going to make us all look bad with how much he works I'm sure he'd benefit with a kick up the ass from you to tell him to stop being so antisocial and come join the party. The boss loves his work ethic but everyone needs to take a break sometimes, you know where he works right?" Ciara nodded silently as the guy chuckled and walked away telling her to tell her dad that he had sent her. Taking a deep breath Ciara composed herself and headed off to go find her dad and drag him back to the party.

She got to the building but stopped for a second as she grabbed hold of the door feeling like something was wrong, usually at this point she could hear something inside the building, faint footsteps, the whirring off machines, anything, but it was too quiet she didn't like it.