When we arrived at the airport, I left the car right where my mom would pick it up tomorrow. While my Titanic sister had no issue whatsoever with her luggage (or our own), Aston rapidly sprung to action by flaunting his wealth and after slipping a fifty greenback bill straight into the pocket of an unassuming stewardess who had been nearby, got us a big cart and even pushed it for us. This was truly a display of the strange influence my best friend packed. One thing was that he was rich. The other one was convincing people who otherwise wouldn't do something to do so even though they have better things to do. Even wealth didn't do that sort of crap.

We had the woman wheel our stuff to the counter while Aston went to the clerk to try and fix the seating around. Something that worried me, as I could see a mischievous glint in his eyes before he left, claiming he would find me a comfortable window seat like I had asked. Though I was a bit worried, I couldn't complain. I wanted to have a view of a city I had only seen in pictures (to be fair, my mother wasn't a native of Madrid. She was from Burgos, so it isn't like she knew much about the city either, even if she did know far more than I did).

The terminal was crowded when we arrived. Our group had gathered near the customs area in a circle. Everyone was watching something on someone's phone. There seemed to be some sort of conmotion around it. The sound of steel clashing and echoes coming from the phone made me think it must've been from a movie or something. Well, at least it sounded that way.

When I stepped in closer, I could hear everything more clearly. Fighting sounds, blades swinging in the air... it sounded like one of those swashbucler action movies.

I looked at the footage more closely before it caught my attention. Two girls, both blondes, seemed to move around a bullring, which was already worrying. However, things worsened when I heard one of them speak.

Spanish, with the same accent as that of me, my mom and my sister.

Oh, and the girl in the footage was beautiful. Hell, she might have been even better looking than Selen- No, that's just not possible.

Upon even closer inspection, I noticed the place was gorgeous. Even through the shaking camera's image, I could see the entirety of the ring clearly. The arena was clearly the bullring known by the name of 'Las Ventas', which was also the largest bullring in Spain and the main bullring where we were headed.

She seemed to be fighting another girl, who was dressed in red. This one had longer hair tied in a ponytail. The girl who had spoken, on the other hand, was veiled in white and black, her own hair a bright and lovely shade of blonde that seemed to change from white gold to dirty blonde as she moved. The long sleeves of her white crochet bolero fluttering wildly in the wind. Her enemy, on the other hand, dressed in something resembling a revealing Matador outfit. She used a short sword that contrasted with the humongous one the girl in black and white was slinging around one handed.

It was the most impressive thing I had seen in forever. The way the combatants moved seemed almost unnatural. They essentially danced in each other's personal space until one backed off. The other would try and attack from the side right then and there. When the would be target dodged, however, the offensive actor would withdraw, allowing the other to force the attacker back and counter with their own assault.

Every step they took seemed devoid of imperfections. This seemed like the kind of thing some of the nerds over at the AV club would be able to pull off. Well, they'd be nerds in a normal school. In our school they were basically potential directors and they would act like it, down to yelling at everyone and being the closest thing we had to bullies. But the more I saw of the video, the stranger and more surreal everything seemed.

When the video ended, I told them to play it again. Apparently, I must've been more forceful than I felt, since everyone seemed taken aback by the way I said it. Well, at least they already noticed I was here.

When the video played, I saw their movements more carefully, taking note of their choreography... then realizing there was zero choreography to their movements. The lightning was also off. The way the pieces of debris fell was also not something you'd see on a movie set.

It looked real. Like, actually real. As in 'that really did happen' real.

I almost grabbed the phone myself, but I suddenly noticed the crowd had gone from chirpy to being dead silent. I looked around me and then noticed why.

For one, the girls in the crowd suddenly seemed apprehensive. One of them looked towards me, blushed and then looked away. I couldn't help but feel she was hiding something. Then I looked at the white iPhone carefully and asked the guy who was carrying it if he wouldn't mind letting me take a closer look. He handed me the phone and I grabbed it in my hands, with a familiar scent overloading the tip of my nose.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I wasn't holding an open flame, but it suddenly felt like I was. I almost tossed the phone back at the guy.

Before the crowd could disperse, I heard footsteps. Footsteps I just knew all too well. The clicking of expensive, open toed heels that had made me sigh whenever I heard them on the hallway at school. The cadence of a loose yet firm gait, as if she was walking down a runway. Those were all things I associated with her. Just her. The love of my life was close. I felt my breath fail me suddenly and a smell of brininess that always followed her around filled my nose, a fragrance that not only was incredibly alluring to me, but also acted as a borderline aphrodisiac. Then I felt a really soft and small hand resting on my shoulder and I gave way.

My queen was here.

"Right," she started, looking around at the crowd and then at the guy holding the white iPhone with a moon charm in his-

Hang on... there's only one person with a moon charm on her phone!

She walked straight towards the guy and took the phone straight from his hands.

"Right... As I was saying, who took my phone?"

The guy, despite his burly appearance and wide arms, seemed unnerved by the slender but still taller girl as he raised his hand. "Well, I-"

"Not you!" she hissed offhandedly as she didn't even glance his way, having turned towards the crowd. She then looked at one of the girls hiding behind the wall of female students. She looked as if she was about to be assaulted or robbed at gunpoint, her dirty blonde pigtails trembling alongside her petite body, her red hoodie not helping her look much bigger. "...you."

Now, I couldn't tell how she did it, but Selene addressed the girl in such a way that despite her soft voice and rather hushed tone, the way she spoke dripped such strong poison even I felt the butterflies in my stomach increase and my hands go restless.

"M-me?! I didn't steal your thing. That guy over there did!" the young girl, which I now acknowledged as Lexi —a third year known for her stunt double antics— argued, but Selene walked up to her nonetheless, towering over the much shorter girl. After all, Selene was 6 feet, and on her heels was literally my height. Lexi, on the other hand, was barely 5 feet by comparison and wore thin sole sneakers right now.

Selene glared at her for a few seconds as the shortie trembled in place before sighing, turning around and turning the way she came from.

"Next time you blame someone for stealing, don't laugh. I could hear your voice all the way to the bathroom." she said as she walked away, phone in hand, towards me.

I felt a hand grabbed me from behind and turned around to find Felicia and Rachel standing together. Rachel seemed mildly amused by the scene. I knew she liked seeing girls scaring the shit out of each other... and then there was Felicia, who was Selene's best friend.

Unlike my sister, Felicia seemed to be smiling in a predatory way, almost as if she was looking at a fine meat cut. I felt slightly intimidated by her gaze, wondering what she was up to.

"W-what are you looking at?" I spat, feeling strangely self conscious right now. So naturally I missed the next best thing.

Selene had been standing right next to me, looking at me with an strangely inquisitive expression as I felt my face redden, realizing how close our faces were right now.

Since I wouldn't be able to say anything, I kept my mouth shut, but my face was surprised enough to convey the message. What the hell is going on here?

Then in an instant, Selene came so close I almost fainted. Then she took a whiff of me.

I couldn't tell how red my face was, but I am sure it wasn't a healthy shade of red.

The gorgeous blonde in white pulled back, smiling politely at me in a gesture that melted my heart on the spot. Thankfully, the rest of my body held together just fine.

"You smell nice," she mentioned as she turned towards Felicia and the two walked away from me and my sister.

This put a very confused look in my face.

By the time we were through customs and into the VIP Lounge (and I had learned that Aston had also paid for us all to use it so we wouldn't run around the airport unchecked, which as you might imagine, went SNAFU as expected).

We had decided to seat together and sip on as much free coffee as we could get in order not to fall asleep on our way there. The last thing I needed was class hearing my snoring. This was about the worst thing that could happen to me, especially with Selene being around. She was a big no no in this regard. I looked at Aston's tablet as he seemed to peruse throughout the restaurant guides to find a good place for us all to eat once we arrived. He must've noticed, because he suddenly stopped to look at me.

"...what?"

"Nothing..." I lied, trying to look the other way and finding myself feeling watched by his black hole gaze.

"Don't lie to me. You wanted to ask something, didn't you?" he asked stubbornly, prompting me to sigh again as I decided I could share my doubts with him.

"I have a question." Duh!

"You don't say..."

"Was there something in Spanish news recently? Something about an incident or event at Las Ventas?"

Aston arched an eyebrow as I noticed his fingers suddenly moving throughout the screen, looking for anything online that might ease my worries.

"Well..." he started, showing me the screen, "There's a report from El Pais that mentions Las Ventas bullring was closed for repairs three days ago and... apparently they botched something, because some of the seats ended up smashed into rubble. That's a very hefty loss, the way I see it."

I sat immobile, reading the words and confirming everything he had just said... and suddenly felt I wasn't getting enough air... so I stood up and grabbed my lappy bag.

"Where are you going?" my friend asked as I made my way towards the sliding doors.

"I want to grab a bite. Something greasy... You coming?"

He shook his head, waving me off before returning to his tablet.

"Plenty of stuff to do, but good luck. Remember, we are leaving in 30 minutes!"

I nodded in acknowledgment and went straight through the set of doors, rounded a corner and once out of view, slumped against the wall.

Just what the hell is going on?!       

Hopefully it would be nothing bad... would've been what I thought if my intuition wasn't the way it was.

I knew how it would be getting soon: much, much worse.