...Seven Hours ago...

Time: ...3:00 AM…

"Ahem."

Adrian's hand immediately shots to his bow, but relaxed when he realizes it was just his sister, looking straight at him.

She was dressed in a simple shirt and shorts. Her hair was a bit tousled from sleep and her eyes had a hint of crimson in them. Annabelle looked really tired.

She raises her eyebrow at him.

"You're up late again."

She didn't state it as a question.

Adrian sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "I know and I'm sorry. I just couldn't sleep..."

Annabelle rolled her eyes. "It's alright. I don't blame you. I only went to sleep after I drank a Dreamless Sleep Potion."

"You should stop taking those—you can get addictive. How did you know I was awake anyway?"

She snorts so violently, Adrian was pretty sure her nose almost broke. "You snore. Loudly. I woke up and was about to drink another Dreamless Sleep Potion when I noticed it was a bit quiet and got suspicious."

Adrian didn't bother to argue. This was the girl who lived with him for nineteen years. She is the person who knows him the most.

"So why are you here?" Annabelle suddenly asks.

He blinked. "Pardon?"

"Why are you in Angel's room?"

Adrian stays silent. He was hoping she wouldn't ask that, but Annabelle's way too sharp for her own good.

"Well? Come on, Adrian, you can trust me. And don't worry about anyone listening in. I put silencing spells all over the room."

Damn, she really thought over this, Adrian thought. Then again, he shouldn't be surprised anymore. She is his twin sister after all.

"Alright fine, I came here to investigate Angel's murder."

"Ah, so you felt that shadow presence, eh?"

"How did you—"

"I felt it too, dumbass. But I didn't want to investigate it in case it was too dangerous. Apparently, you didn't listen to the danger and head straight in without any protection."

"I—"

"Don't even bother to defend yourself. I know you. I bet you were aware of the danger but because of curiosity, you decided to check it out anyway."

Adrian sighed and didn't confirm or deny it. It was no use lying to her anyway. She knows him too well.

She took his silence as an affirmation.

"Honestly Adrian. Anyway, I tried to tell Ann about the presence, but she snapped at me and continued researching the shadows."

Adrian smiled slightly. "Well, she looks really tired and stressed out, and you know how Ann is with lack of sleep. Remember the time her family went to Universal Studios?"

Both of them winced at the memory.

"Yeah definitely," Annabelle sighed.

"Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I was searching for the shadow presence, felt frustrated with the lack of evidence, destroyed the floorboard—"

"Oh yeah," Annabelle said, glancing at the hole in the floor. "I was wondering about that. Continue."

"Haha. And I found this underneath."

He slowly handed Annabelle the paper in his hands, who took it and flipped it over to read it and watched the blood drain from her face when she finished.

There's a spy.

The spy is human

Don't trust anyone

Not even your friends.

~Angel

The paper slips from Annabelle's fingers. "What in the—?" Her head snapped over to the hole and said, "The hole was near her arm, right?"

"Yup."

"Left or right?"

"Left."

"Angel is left-handed… Oh, my Hecate—do you think it's the reason why Angel was killed?"

"Has to be… there was blood splattered all over the paper."

"How the hell are you so calm?!"

"I dunno," Adrian said bitterly. "Maybe I'm channeling my old self."

He sees her flinch violently and immediately he feels bad because she changed around the same time as he did.

"Sorry," He says softly. "I didn't think."

"It's okay," Annabelle said quietly and she plops next to him and runs her hands through her hair. Adrian could almost imagine the burns on her skin four years ago after he dragged her out of a fire of pit when he shoved her in.

There were a few moments of silence, before Adrian spoke up, "There are more letters, you know."

"What?" Annabelle said sharply.

"Yeah, but it's all in some sort of code. Here's one of the letters."

He handed her one of the letters from under the floorboard and watches her eyebrows shot up to her hairline.

TW9uc3RlciBqdXN0IGNhbWUgb3V0IG9mIHRoZSBUViBhbmQgaXQncyB0cnlpbmcgdG8ga2lsbCBtZS0tClBsZWFzZSBoZWxwLS0=

"It's Base64 Code…" Annabelle said eventually. "That makes sense… she's a hacker, so she must know all sorts of codes."

"Do you know what it says?"

"Unfortunately no…"

"Maybe we should take it to Rin. She's a hacker too—"

"NO!"Annabelle shouts so suddenly, Adrian jumped about a foot in the air. His eyes dratts to the door, before remembering the silencing spells, then drats back to Annabelle.

"Why not? She's a werewolf and Angel clearly wrote that the spy is human. We can trust her—"

"I know what Angel wrote, but Rin trusts everyone in the lodge. Except for maybe a few others, but you get the point. Rin can keep a secret but what if she tells someone she trusts and that person turns out to be the spy?"

"Well, we can ask her to not tell anyone," Adrian said, but even as he said that it knew it wasn't true. Rin was way too stubborn on her beliefs, and if she believes the person is trustworthy enough to know the secret, she'll tell him.

As if she could read his mind (which she probably can), Annabelle gives him a look that says 'See?'

"Okay," Adrian says eventually. "We're not going to tell Rin. But Rin is the only other hacker besides Angel, how are we going to decode Angel's letters?"

Annabelle's eyes gleamed with determination. "We do what we have to do. We're going to learn Base64 if we have to. We have to decode her letters."

"I… right."

Annabelle's brows furrowed. "Adrian, are you alright?"

"I don't know… Anna, will we be able to get out of here? We only managed to win three of these stupid games and with our luck lately, I'm not so sure if we can win…"

Annabelle paused for a few moments, then said, "I won't lie to you that I'm positive we'll get out of here. But we have to try. If we try, then maybe a miracle will happen."

"I just wanna see Neko again," Adrian said, sounding choked. "I wanna go home and endure another trip to the Mall and we can be happy and forget that this entire fucking situation even happened in the first place—"

"I know," Annabelle said quietly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "I know. We all want to go home. I want to go home."

"It's not fair," Adrian said, shaking and for the first time in a few days, he finally let the stress out of their situation get to him. "Why us? All we wanted to do was hang out and find a potential Persona User, but this shit happened and we're stuck here for Hecate knows how long—people are dying and we have no idea what to fucking do—"

He felt his head being pulled down until it was resting on Annabelle's shoulder. Adrian remembered the times when he would steal her leather jacket and ruin it in some way and she would yell at him. Yet, here he was, crying on her shoulder, soaking her jacket with his tears, and she didn't even say anything.

"I'm scared, Anna," Adrian whispered, feeling her gently rubbing circles on his back. "I'm scared of losing Rin and Ann—I'm scared of losing you again."

"You won't," Annabelle said casually. "I've been thrown in a pit of fire, remember? And I survived. You won't be losing me anytime soon."

But even as she said that, Adrian could feel her barely holding back a flinch at the incident four years ago and noticed how her voice hid a hint of uncertainty. She was just as scared as he was of losing him and was trying to hide it from him.

It was weird being comforted. Before the fire incident, Annabelle was usually the one being comforted. She was more emotional and he had to lend his shoulder for her to cry on several times. But after the incident, she changed, and suddenly, she had to lend her shoulder to him.

It still felt weird being comforted by her, even though it's been four years.

"Who knows," Annabelle said, snapping Adrian out of his thoughts. "Maybe Angel's letters will help us with these stupid games. We could win and get out of here."

"If her letters have anything," Adrian said bitterly.

"Hey, don't be like that. We will find a way to get out of here. I know we will. We just have to hold on to hope."

"That's easier said than done."

"Haha," Annabelle said sarcastically. She got up to her feet and pulled him up. "Come on. Let's go to bed. You look tired."

"Mmm, okay fine."