Black Webs

Bright Lights, Burnt City

My moon, oh, my moon,
not even into
another eternity
will you stop your lovely orbiting.

xxxxx

t h i r t y - o n e

L y d i a

ONE WEEK AGO

New York was a dark place without it's city lights, and the lack of electricity felt like it was going hand-in-hand with the lack of oxygen reaching her brain.

Evacuations had begun, people were clearing out of the city in hoards, roads were jam packed, homes were emptied.

"You've got to promise me you're going to leave the city as soon as possible, sweetie. You can grab a flight to California, stay with your aunt in Beacon Hills for awhile until I get back," said her mother on the phone that evening.

Lydia's phone was only working because of the portable charger she'd timely charged only the night before the black out, but soon the charger's battery would die out too, taking her phone with it.

"I promise, mom. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. California isn't necessary, I'll just be staying with a friend down in Jersey, it's totally safe," this was a lie, but her mom was out on a business trip in Taiwan, and there was no way she would find out her daughter was deciding to stay put, traipsing about a dangerous city.

Under better circumstances, Lydia may have listened to her mother and left, under better circumstances she would've pulled her hair and screamed at the top of her lungs and persuaded her friends to leave with her.

These were not better circumstances; and if Allison, Stiles and Scott were staying behind, so would she. Only she hadn't heard from Stiles all day, which wasn't at all like him. Especially not after the night they'd had.

Lydia sighed, finally deciding to go over to Stiles' place to make sure everything was okay and aid them in whatever way she could.

She took a quick look at herself in the mirror, touching the pendant Stiles' had gifted her the night before lightly.

It gleamed like a diamond studded in light, even though the sun was past it's meridian and the city would soon be bathed in blackness.

Driving down the city roads now made her feel like she'd been plopped into a horror movie, there was smoke in the skies, everything was the color of ash and soot, shadows nestled in every corner, the rest of the people, the ones still in the process of evacuating, were rioting, mobs were being held back by city officials, screaming and pumping their fists in the air in clear defiance of the authoritative measures being taken, holding up placards reading 'INJUSTICE' and 'STOP THE MUTANY'. Helicopters zipped noisily overhead.

It felt like a new world, a disaster zone.

When she finally got to Stiles' house, relief swarmed in her gut. Seeing him was the only thing that kept her days from becoming absolute nightmares, by being swallowed by the blackness of everything else; quite literally.

By the time she'd taken to get there, it was already quite dark. The moon dangled half-heartedly in the sky, there wasn't a star in sight. The clouds looked heavy, almost as if they were guilty of some unspoken crime.

Lydia walked up to his front door and knocked a couple of times. When nobody responded after a minute had passed, she pressed for the door bell, completely forgetting that there was absolutely no electricity anywhere, before she could knock again though, louder and harder this time; the door swung open.

It was Scott.

"Hey," she mustered a smile, even though she'd been expecting Stiles.

"Oh, Lydia. Hello, hi. Uh... What are you doing here?"