"Let's go now! The library will close soon," a blonde girl said standing up with a look of annoyance on her face.

"Just a few more minutes," a boy said under big thick old glasses, "I just need to find another book for my research."

"Why do you always get so obsessed?" she said with her hands on her tiny hips and turned around, "I'll wait by the entrance," and she quickly left leaving echoing her small steps in that empty library.

"Why she never understands?" he murmured to himself while shaking his head. "I'll just get another one," he stood up and looked for another book in those dusty shelves.

"Ah! Here!" he said to himself after a little while, "I knew that I would find it sooner or later," and he reached with his hand to get the book at the top shelf when suddenly everything turned black with a loud mechanical noise.

"Oh no, the lights! They forgot me here again!" and the boy reached again grabbing a book and collected his things as quickly as he could and started to run.

When he finally arrived at the entrance he saw an enraged face making an expression that he had seen many times. Far too many times for one lifetime.

"Ben!" she said cracking her voice, "I told you that this would happen!" she puffed her cheeks, "why you never listen to me?"

"It wasn't my fault Clara," he defended himself avoiding the look on her face, "anyway let's go home," and he started walking on the street.

Giving a last deep breath looking at the stars, Clara resigned herself and followed the incorrigible irresponsible immature childhood friend of hers. "Why do I subject myself to this every now and then?" she murmured to herself.

Ben could feel the silence between them growing with every minute. And that starry windy cold night didn't help at all to dissipate those emotions.

"So Clara," he said turning back to look at her, "have any plans for the weekend?"

"Oh, my God Ben. You always use the same line to break the ice whenever I'm mad. You need to learn some new tricks," she said approaching Ben with a tiny smile flourishing in her face, 'you nerd,' she murmured to herself.

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Ben lived exactly three meters and a quarter to Clara's house, as he always liked to put it. Being close neighbors, Clara's room was always the first thing that Ben saw when waking up. Since when he was a little boy he always remembered talking to Clara over the window. And never once he could remember one instance where Clara was truly mad at him. "I'm lucky," he said to himself reminiscing of the past. Even when he set her favorite white dress on fire, she could only stay mad at him for a few minutes.

A few minutes later they arrived at their house, Ben said his goodbye and entered his house. Clara looked at him entering his house without a care in the world said to herself, "he has so much to learn..."

Slowly, and mentally exhausted, she entered her house and climbed the stairs to her room. Her mom and sister were still watching the soups on the TV and didn't even notice her arrival.

Not even five seconds later she heard the 'phone', a contraption that Ben created for them to communicate across the windows. "Oh, not again," she exhaled and walked to grab the 'phone'.

"Clara! We need to go back tomorrow!" he said as soon as she picked up the 'phone'.

"Calm down Ben," she said looking at him through the windows, "what happened?"

"I got the wrong book," he said waving to her a black book in his hands.

Not proud of herself Clara facepalmed herself, not for the first time in her life, but many and many times and always with Ben.

"How?--" she started, "--it doesn't matter. The library is closed tomorrow."

"B-but my research?" he said scrambling his hair, "that book was very important."

"It was just 'research' for an RPG game, that's not important Ben."

"Hey, don't finger quote by important research," he said, "you promised to stop making fun of me on that."

"I'm sorry Ben," she said putting her hand on the windows, "anyway, what book did you get?"

Ben took the book again and looked for the first time at its contents. Flipping through the pages he saw many diagrams, circles, triangles, and a writing system that looked like greek or some old language.

"I think it's just an old alchemy book," he said finally after a few minutes.

"Anyway, it's not important. I need to take a shower and rest a little bit," she closed the white curtains of her windows.

"Alchemy, eh?" and he put the book over his nightstand. The book was totally different from the old vampire book that he was researching for his newest adventure he had been working for the past 3 months. But maybe he could incorporate a little bit of alchemy in the mix, he pondered for a while.

If a diligent observed watched that night he would have found that the night was unusually darker than usual. And if one looked closely one could find two dark beings on top of a little house in the suburbs of the city. Those cornucopians figures were barely discernible in the darkness of that moonless night.

"It finally began," one of the creatures said to the other and swiftly disappeared.

"Don't worry," the remaining creature said to the air, "I'll manage the sacrifices this time."