Leo
"Come on, Leo, just talk to him!" I said to myself.
I was pacing in front of Aquarius' room, wondering if I should go in or wait for him to come out. At last, I mustered up my courage and went into the room.
Aquarius wasn't there. Nobody was in the dorm. That was when I realised that it was free period and everyone was in the free period classroom.
Dang Leo, I told myself. You're so obsessed with your crush that you forgot the schedule.
I ran from the dorm all the way to the free period classroom, which was on the other side of the school building. Surprisingly, my friends weren't shocked when I ran into the room panting. Gemini and Libra were even chatting with each other quietly in the corner of the room.
"Sorry- forgot-" I said in between breaths.
Aquarius looked up from his book (and I resisted the urge to blush). "Well, it's a good thing you're here. Otherwise you'd be like the missing trio."
"Come again?" I asked, confused.
"My sister's been missing all day." Aries explained. "So have Cancer and Pisces."
"That's strange." I remarked. "I just chatted with my brother last night. He couldn't possibly have just vanished like that."
"Well don't ask me where they've been." Sagittarius was surprisingly able to speak clearly even with a marker cap between her teeth. "But do y'all think there's something going on?"
"They wouldn't all just disappear without a trace." Virgo stated. "I'm sure of that."
"But they would've told us." Taurus argued.
Capricorn, who had been silent until then, spoke up. "Unless... It was the middle of the night when they disappeared, right?" He looked at me and I nodded. "Come on, we all know Pisces. She'd only wake one or two people up if something was really important. Scorpio would- and I quote- 'wouldn't give a damn'. Cancer would probably just tag along with the other two."
"He does have a point." I said. Everyone else murmured in agreement.
Gemini and Libra chose that moment to join our conversation.
"What are we talking about over here?" Libra asked.
As Virgo filled the two girls in on our situation, the rest of us just sat down and worked on our homework.
But I had other ideas.
Alright Leo, I said to myself. If you can't even be near Aquarius without turning red as a tomato, why don't you write to him instead.
Great idea Leo, but that sounds really stupid. Another voice in my head (which sounded like me) said. Have you even talked to the guy?
I buried my face in my arms and sighed in frustration. Aries noticed my frustration and asked, "What's up?"
"Eh, nothing." I lied. "Homework."
"I see." I could tell that he wasn't convinced.
Free period was surprisingly boring, as the unusual things that happened usually happened during free period. The nine of us either got on with our homework or talked about why Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces went missing. After free period, we just returned to our dorms as usual.
While the others were doing homework, I dumped all my homework aside and got working on a love letter to Aquarius. (Cue the "she needs to sort out her priorities" scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone but it's said by Hermione Granger instead and the she is replaced with a he. Yeah, I could totally imagine that happening.)
"What's a good way to start a letter?" I asked myself. Naturally, I didn't respond to myself, so I just wrote a bunch of random letter starters. "Let's see. 'Dear'- no that sounds like we're close. 'Hi'- no that's too casual. 'To whom it may concern'- no that's way too formal!"
At that exact moment, Aries walked into the room. He found me sitting on my bed talking to a piece of paper.
"What the-" He started.
"I know, I'm hopeless." I interrupted him, hiding my blushing face behind the sheet of paper.
Instead of looking confused, like most people would, Aries let out a laugh. Now I was the confused one.
Aries looked down at me, grinning. "I'll help you. How do you plan on starting the letter?"
"Wha- how do you know?" I asked, surprised.
"It was pretty obvious." Aries replied.
I scoffed. "I'm not that predictable, am I?"
"You kind of are." Aries sat down at the end of my bed. "So how do you want to start the letter?"
Time flew by as Aries and I continued working on the letter. I lied down on my bed holding the letter up in the air and read it over and over again.
"I think ending the letter with a good old 'Sincerely' would do." Aries suggested.
"Okay." I scribbled the word at the bottom of the paper and re-read it.
"Are you planning to put your name at the bottom of the letter?" Aries asked.
"Nah." I replied hastily while re-reading the letter for the third time. "I think I'll drop this off at Aquarius' locker. I'll see you soon."
The trip to the sixth floor was uneventful, but I spotted something on the twelfth floor as I headed back to the dorms. It was a phone with a sea-blue phone case. I knew without a doubt that it was Pisces' phone, but why would she leave it lying around?
I unlocked the phone with no struggle needed. Pisces had written the passcode to her phone at the corner of her phone case. It was as if she wanted it to be found. The first thing I saw on the phone was the wallpaper with a message on it: Watch the latest video. Clicking on the app "Gallery", I easily found the video Pisces was talking about.
Pisces' smiling face looked up at me from the screen. "Hi! If you've found this video, it means that we're okay. Don't worry about where we've been. We'll let you guys know if we've found anything interesting. In case you wanted to know, we crawled into the tunnel in the wall hidden behind that vent panel. That's where you found the phone." I looked at the wall in front of me. There was indeed a vent panel in the wall which wasn't secured properly. "Don't bother going into the tunnel to find us. We'll be fine. If you find Scorpio, Cancer and I missing, now you know why. See ya later!" And with that, the video ended.
"I've got to show this to the others." I said to myself, sprinting down the halls to the dorm rooms.
~~~
"But why would they just go off like that?" Gemini asked. It was Saturday morning in the cafeteria, and we were still talking about the video Pisces left. The missing trio had gone missing since Thursday.
"The video says that she, Scorpio and Cancer have gone into that tunnel." Taurus said. "But that still doesn't explain why."
"I think the real question is why she didn't bother to find the rest of us." Sagittarius mentioned.
I was about to say something when my phone received a notification. I picked the phone up and saw a message from my brother.
Cancer
8:30
Hey, can you grab Virgo and Capricorn and head over to the Statue of Liberty? In case you haven't seen Pisces' message, we went into that tunnel at school and somehow it brought us to the Statue of Liberty and we've found something. Don't ask questions, just come over.
I started to panic. Were they in trouble? Did they find something dangerous? What did they even find?
Despite my worries, I did what Cancer asked me to and didn't ask questions.
"Virgo? Capricorn? Can you two come with me?" I looked at the two of them.
"Sure, what's up?" Virgo asked.
"We're going to visit Lady Liberty." I replied swiftly. "Don't ask questions. Come on."
"But-" Capricorn started.
I turned back to look at the others. "I'll tell you guys later. Don't tell anyone where we went."
And with that, I ran out of the cafeteria.
~~~
Chapter 17 done! Yes, I've been having writer's block again.
I want to take the time to thank all of you for reading this book, even if you didn't enjoy it (I won't blame you if you don't like it, it's full of cringe). We're at, what, 1.6K reads now! Thank you all for supporting me on my writing journey!
Have a good day/night!
Peace out,
The author owo