Brisk walking back to the vending machine, Falis found himself standing alone in front of it.

Jen was gone.

Falis looked around, but Jen wasn’t, from what he could see, anywhere near the vending machine.

“Where did he…”, Falis accidentally said aloud.

Well there was no point in him running off too, so Falis decided to wait where he was.

Five minutes went by and no one came.

Ten minutes later, the end of the lunch period was approaching and Falis was about to make his way back to his classroom.

Standing up, he brushed himself off and was about to buy himself a drink when two pairs of rushing footsteps came from the opposite side from the staircase he had used to go to the classroom.

Falis turned around, trying to figure out who it was that decided to have a game of tag in the hallway.

“AAAAAAAAAH! DONT TOUCH MEEE!”

A girl, whom Falis recognised as Loria, screamed as she passed Falis, behind her was the vice president of the elevator club, who much unlike her was completely silent.

“What the hell…?”.

“Falis! Quick go after them!”.

Falis, bewildered, looked to see who was shouting at him.

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What he saw was Jen, with Synth in tow, and clutching her hand to her face which seemed to be-

“Bleeding.”

“I don’t know what might happen if Neri catches up to that girl! Follow them and I’ll fill you in later!”

Without thinking Falis found himself chasing after the pair up the stairs where he had seen them go previously.

As he ascended he heard Loria's screaming get louder, a door, the door to the roof, banging as it was pushed open, a rush of cool wind blowing down the stairs, then Loria stopped screaming.

Falis began to move faster, a sense of foreboding crawling up his spine, slithering through his entire body.

Once he had reached the top of the stairs, he found the door wide open and Neri walking menacingly towards Loria as she stepped unsteadily backwards towards the roof edge, crying and mumbling.

“I-i d-didn’t mean…. S-she wasn’t suppose…please..stop.”

Neri didn’t stop

“I’ll d-..do anything..”

Images of that night flashed through Falis’ mind. He didn’t want to see it happen to someone else.

“H-Hey!”

Falis had called to him but Neri didn’t turn around.

“Hey! I’m t-talking to you…Neri!”

He wasn’t really sure if that was his name but Falis thought it might get his attention.

It worked.

Neri stopped, Loria dangerously close to the edge.

“What do you want.”

His words were cold, uttered in a way that Falis would have never expected from him, he had always been upbeat, for the day or so that Falis had known him.

“You shouldn’t do this… you… you will regret it.”

silence.

Loria made a dash for the door.

Neri didn’t move.

The two of them stood in silence, even the wind was calm.

Falis was about to say something when Neri turned around.

“Why so serious? Your face is all scrunched!”, he said smiling and laughing softly to himself.

Falis relaxed a little but couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that he had felt coming up the stairs.

“Wh-what was that all about?” Falis asked tentatively.

“Don’t worry about it~ ,just a little hallway chase, nothing b-”

“Why are you trying to play it off like nothing happened!”

What was he doing, it really had nothing to do with him, he should just go back downstairs…

“S-sorry for yelling…”

Falis, his eyes glued to the floor walked back down the stairs through the open door.