Nathalie quickly hurried downstairs as me and Philip followed her. Lola was outside sniffing and huffing for air, just pacing around like she was going to die. Nathalie didn't seem as concerned about her though.

"Where is Rudoslav?", she asked her.

"Behind you."

We all turned and there was Rudoslav at the entrance, his hair absolutely covered in dust. It looked like something collapsed on him.

After finishing her battle for air Lola explained: "A kitchen shelf broke and a pound of dust fell on us! That place is gross! I'm not going in there again!"

And I thought Nathalie was a dramatic type. Lola made it sound like she just survived a war or something. We all looked at each other.

"That's fine. It's time to go home anyway.", Nathalie looked at her watch.

As we all were about to walk off Nathalie insisted for us to leave the forest together. I didn't mind, it gave me time to fill the others in on what we found.

"Maybe it's a cult.", Lola mumbled while looking at the burned piece of paper in my hand.

We all looked over at her a bit confused. A cult? Was she serious or was it another one of her attempts to be funny? She didn't seem as confused or surprised at her own suggestion and just calmly, and a bit nonchalantly explained herself.

"What else could it be? Old abandoned building, candles, teeth. Screams cult to me."

Rudoslav nodded: "Yeah, probably a cult or, you know, wannabes."

A wannabe cult? Their town was pretty small so I could only imagine that word spread fast around there, so wouldn't someone already hear about a cult in the area? How do cults even work, and why does Lola talk about it like it's no big deal to have a cult near the town? She was talking about it like it was some sort of cute club group. 

Nathalie seemed to be wondering about the same thing when she asked her: "How do you know it's a cult? A random piece of paper and candles don't exactly scream cult to me."

Lola looked over at Nathalie like she was insulted she was questioning her, at least one person now knows how I feel when Nathalie questions me.

While flipping her hair she stated: "I watch true crime videos. They talk about that stuff all the time."

Her explanation made me even more confused. Lola seemed like the cutesy girly that you couldn't even imagine thinking about harming a fly, but she watched true crime videos? What are even true crime videos? I remembered my father sometimes used to watch crime documentaries on the television, but he never let me watch it with him because he was convinced it would give me nightmares. He was probably right.

"True crime videos? When do you even watch those?", Rudoslav seemed just as confused as I was.

"In class, at home, when I do my makeup. Doesn't really matter." Somehow all her answers led to more questions for me.

I chimed in, now really confused and desperate for one normal answer: "You watch true crime videos when you do your makeup?"

She flipped her long hair again as she turned to look at me, her hoop earrings swung on her ears while she chuckled: "What? You don't listen to podcasts on the go?"

I looked over at Nathalie, she was probably thinking the same thing I was.

"I don't have a phone."

Lola gasped in horror: "You don't have a-?!"

Nathalie seemed to get the message that the conversation would never end so she quickly interrupted Lola before it could escalate even further: "Guys, can we please focus?!" She quickly added: "I would suggest for you to go to the book café. There are some books with similar symbols in there."

"Cool."

What I didn't understand at first was when Nathalie made her suggestion she was also implying that she would go with me. Philip somehow thought it was a good idea to go home on his own, leaving me with her alone in there. Maybe he was stupid, or just didn't want to deal with us.

Immediately as we entered Nathalie walked straight to the front desk where a young woman was sitting. She gestured for me to show the paper. I did.

"Are there any books with this symbol?", Nathalie wondered, her voice now nicer than I was used to.

The woman did a double take as she saw the paper. She took it and stared at it for a long moment.

She handed it back: "Looks like a mythic symbol to me."

"Mythic symbol?"

"Symbol for mythical creatures. There should be some books on that in the archives.", she nodded her head towards the direction of the archives before turning back to the monitor on her desk.

A mythic symbol? Nathalie looked just as puzzled as I was. Why would there be a mythical creature symbol in an abandoned building? Maybe Lola's theory wasn't so far-fetched.

In the archives we went through what felt like hundreds of books and files. Some had similar symbols but nothing exactly like ours. One of them meant witchcraft. Okay, do cults study witchcraft? I stored that question away for Lola.

I have to say it was strange being there again with Nathalie. Last time we were in the book café things didn't end so well between us. Should I mention it? Maybe it would have relieved some of that tension between us, maybe she would actually talk to me instead of staring at the books in front of her. But I decided against it, if anything she should start, she should apologise not me. Nathalie was a lot of things but a coward wasn't definitely one of them, so she probably didn't talk about it not because she was afraid but because she thought that I should apologise. Well, I wasn't going to do that so I guess we would have to stay silent.

"Fifi."

I turned to her, thinking she was going to say something about the thing.

"I don't think we'll find anything here. Maybe I could ask my father if he has anything on it in his study."

Her father has his own study? Why am I even asking of course he had one. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a whole home theatre in their mansion. I found it funny for a moment how even when she was actively helping me she still managed to annoy me.

"Yeah, sure.", I mumbled, contemplating if I should say the next part I was going to say. Just as she was picking up her bag to leave I regretfully did: "Thanks."

She turned to me, once again not showing any reaction at all, just a slight nod.

"You're welcome."

There was a silent moment between us, but unlike with Philip or Burce I didn't really mind it for some reason. It wasn't uncomfortable, more comforting. Maybe the sound of her voice annoyed me so much that I started to like silence when I was around her. But a quiet voice in my mind told me that there had to be another reason.

She fidgeted with her fingers, inspecting her painted fingers. I was too far away to tell what the colour exactly was but it looked like a soft blush. 

She suddenly looked up at me and questioned: "Do you stare at everyone like that?"

I quickly snapped back without thinking: "No, just people that seem interesting."

"Am I interesting to you?", she crossed her arms, covering her nails.

"No. But unusual."

She was unusual. I definitely haven't seen a person be so unapologetically rich and stuck up. That's without counting the fact that she was a little snitch. A little snitching bat killer blonde princess.

"You're saying that?", she remarked.

"Says a lot, doesn't it?"

She just once again scoffed to herself before walking off. Leaving me there to clean up all the books we left on the floor. Thanks, Bats.

I opened my eyes to the sound of those frying pans. As I sat up the air immediately hit my face, not the usual air. Hot, barely breathable air. At that moment just one word came to my mind; Heatwave.

I padded on my bare knees like they were drums as I waited on the kitchen chair for breakfast. I haven't worn shorts in a while but it seemed like in that kind of heat they were the only thing that would prevent me from dying of a heatstroke.

"Fifi Jeong without a jacket or hoodie. In what timeline are we?", Philip laughed as he walked into the kitchen and sat down across from me.

I didn't wear his hoodie that day for obvious reasons. Just my regular black tank top and those jean shorts. Fortunately my hair was short enough that I didn't have to worry about my neck being soaked in sweat, so I didn't have to tie it. On the other hand he didn't wear anything that was different from his usual clothes. A white T-shirt, a short sleeve yellow-greyish unbuttoned shirt and some pants, although made out of a thinner fabric than usual. Nothing I could comment on.

"In the timeline where your town is apparently the Sahara Desert.", I crossed my arms on my knees and leaned my head on them. 

It was too difficult to keep my head up, I still wanted to sleep. Maybe that's why the next words that came out of my mouth were so nonsensical.

"I wonder what Bats is wearing.", I jawed.

"Bats?", Philip chewed on his pancakes.

I didn't even realise Lyana already placed the breakfast right in front of me. I must have zoned out that hard. So hard in fact that I didn't even answer Philip, I just began eating away at my breakfast.

Like every morning Rudsolav came to us on his bike as we walked to school. Unlike Philip it seemed like Rudsolav actually felt the heat. He wore a thin polo shirt and some medium length dark shorts. If his outfit wasn't enough to convince you it was actually hot that day and it wasn't just me, the sweat running down his forehead should.

"Do you guys want to grab some ice cream after school?"

Before Philip could answer I quickly jumped in: "Hell yeah!"

Just the words ice cream excited me so much I walked to school faster than usual, like if I got there sooner the school day would end quicker.

The school day was just as dreadful like the others, just that time with heat, a lot of heat. Everyone was basically cooking in our classroom, everyone besides Nathalie. Since she wasn't there. Now I had two missing classmates on my hands. Burce and Nathalie. I wondered where she was, at least when she sat in front of me the teacher would notice me less. Lunch time came and she still hadn't shown. Did I say something to her the past week to make her mad? No, she definitely wasn't the type to skip school because I made her mad, actually she would probably look forward to torture me at school.

I went outside and immediately sat down at the table where Rudoslav was sitting, it kind of became like a routine for us to just hang at lunchtime together. Looking around I didn't notice Philip anywhere.

"He went to grab a drink.", Rudoslav mumbled.

Was it obvious that I was looking for him? Before I could say anything else a large shadow suddenly covered my face.

"Sup."

I looked up and saw what could only be described as the most jock looking jock I have ever seen in my life. Unlike Philip he didn't seem like the kind that was chill enough to not cause drama. His dirty blond hair slightly covered part of his face, I couldn't really read his expression since he had sunglasses on but that stupid grin on his face told me that he didn't want to chit chat with me without reason.

I stared at him. "What."

He quickly put his hands up in front of him as he chuckled: "Woah, a bit cold, don't ya think?"

I didn't really think so. If he wanted to ask me something he should have done so already, especially since he cut in while I was clearly talking to someone. Looking over at Rudoslav I thought he would back me up, but instead it seemed like he was backing down. He put his hand on his face, clearly trying to avoid eye contact with the sunglasses guy standing over our table. Was he afraid of him or something?

"I just wanted to chat.", he leaned his hands on the table, making it clear he wasn't going anywhere.

At the time I wasn't really interested in making friends, especially not with the type that would wear a leather jacket when it was that hot outside.

I glanced over at Rudoslav again, now he looked even more nervous, looking at something in a totally different direction to the guy. What's going on here?

I just scratched my neck: "Sure."

"Lola told me about you. She wanted me to ask you if you would like to hang out with us.", he gestured to a group of people sitting at a table.

"You are?"

"You're just as blunt as she said you are.", he chuckled. "I'm Tobias."

Tobias... Tobias. Why did that name seem familiar to me? I was never good with names, but this time it seemed like I should have really known who he was. Especially since he so confidently walked over to our table. He smiled at me while waiting for me to answer his previous question, it was then that I noticed a scar on his lower lip. It wasn't that small either.

That guy gave me a weird vibe, so my answer seemed obvious: "No, thanks."

His smile slowly faded from his face, like his whole façade he tried to show me slipped off. At first I thought it was because of my response but as someone loudly slammed their bag on the table I realised that he was staring at them. I turned to see who he was looking at. It was Philip, his expression not any less tense. All of a sudden it felt like we were in the middle of a post war battlefield.

"Don't talk to her."