I don't own House of Anubis or any of the characters.

Introduction

I stopped and stared at the poster behind him. I couldn't believe my eyes. It read: 'Missing Person: Joy Mercer.' There was a picture of her, smiling, a few personal details, and a phone number to call under it. It was the 'Missing Person' posters I kept seeing but never looking. Joy? Fabian noticed I wasn't paying attention and followed my line of sight. "Oh. She was my friend." He told me.

I looked at him. He looked sad and worried. "What happened?" I wanted to know the 'afterlife' story version. We started walking.

"We actually don't know. She just disappeared one day." He said.

"What? She was in class, and the headmaster said 'Someone is here to see you,' but she never came back?" I told him, regretting it immediately. I was so upset I wasn't able to stop myself.

He had a puzzled look on his face. "So you have heard about it, then?" I bit my lip.

"Yeah..." I lied. We walked in silence. Why would Joy go missing in here? Why are things repeating itself? I didn't notice when we entered a classroom and I sat down. I looked around. "How'd you know this was my class?" I asked Fabian who sat next to me.

"We have it together." He said, with a small smile.

I hesitated. "Since when did Joy go missing?" His smile dropped.

"I thought you knew about it?" I shrugged. "Well, almost 3 months now. Her bestfriend, Patricia, is devasted. At first, the teachers were all hush-hush about it. They still are, but they gave up trying to remove the posters we put up." He said, sadly.

"Oh." My mind went blank. My heart broke upon hearing Patricia's name. I was expecting it, but it still hurt to know she's here, too. I really hoped this wasn't the afterlife. I couldn't bare knowing my friends died because I died first. I wasn't able to help them.

The class started. I wasn't listening, at all. What was the point? Fabian nudged me and I looked up. I realized the teacher was talking to me. He asked me a question about Function Composition. Oh. Math. "I don't know." I answered, shyly.

"Pay attention, Ms. Martin." He said to me, and he went on with the lesson. I looked down, embarassed.

"Is everything alright?" Fabian whispered to me when the teacher wasn't looking. I nodded. A couple more minutes, the bell rang for lunch. "Would you like to have lunch with me?" He asked, smiling. My Fabian would've said fancy...

"Yeah, sure." I said, my mood uplifting a little bit. We walked to the caffeteria. We got our food and he led me to a table at the back. My heart jumped as it broke upon seeing their faces. They looked at us as we approached.

"Hey, guys." Fabian greeted them. "This is Nina. Nina, that's Jerome, Amber, Mick, Alfie, Patricia and Mara." He introduced them to me in order from left to right. They said hello.

"Hi." I gave them a small wave. I sat next to Amber, and Fabian next to me.

"It's rare that we eat lunch together. We all have our own cliques, but we try to keep up." Amber informed me.

"Own cliques?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm a cheerleader. Mick is a football player. Fabian and Mara are in the science team. Jerome and Alfie are just losers." Amber explained.

"Hey!" Alfie exclaimed. "We have our own club." He said, defensively. "UFO Fighters." Alfie said dramatically.

"Ten tenen!" Jerome made a superhero sound effect impression. They all laughed. I giggled, despite myself. I terribly missed them. I also noticed that Patricia didn't have a clique, but I didn't say anything.

"So this is the Anubis group?" I said, unthinkingly.

"What?" Fabian said.

"I-I... Uh... It just popped into my head. I'm... I'm a huge fan of Egypt. You know, Anubis is an Egyptian god." I quickly made something up. I really can't shut up today, can't I, I thought to myself.

"Okay." Amber said, slowly.

"Oh. Well, that's actually what we call ourselves. We don't know how it started. It just... felt right." Fabian said.

"It's just weird how you knew about it." Mara said. I smiled, apologetically.

We ate lunch, talked, and Alfie started a food fight. I didn't mind it at all. I welcomed the oncomming food with a smile. We all aimed at each other untill a teacher told us to stop. Lunch ended and we all said goodbye. I was smiling a real smile, for the first time. I was happy to be with my friends again, even though they barely knew me and they spoke in an American accent. I loved them. I went to my locker to get a clean shirt.

I opened it and saw a locket dangling from the hook. The Eye of Horus.