Meiko is Lost

I woke up early that day. I remember It was a beautiful morning with light rain.
I went to school with a new umbrella. I threw away the old black one and bought a transparent umbrella instead. Everyone used those anyway.

When I entered the classroom, I put my umbrella in a basket near the door and sat down.
"Jun, have you done the German homework?" Naora asked me.
I looked at her in disbelief.
"Yes I have, but at least wish me a good morning or something" I replied monotonically while handing her the notebook.
She laughed even though I was serious. As Naora went back to her desk to copy the exercises, I stared at my reflection on the desk. My hair was a little wet, even though I had an umbrella with me. Maybe it had a small hole somewhere?

I looked around the classroom. Meiko hadn't arrived yet.
She usually entered the classroom before me, but today she was nowhere to be found.
"Maybe she is sick?" I wondered.

As I was thinking about Meiko, I heard Naora talk to some other girls.
"Hey, have you heard the rumors?"
"What, what?"
"They say that there is a person that knocks on your window at night."
"Creepy!"
"I know, right? And they say he hypnotizes you and kidnaps you."
"He? It's a man?"
"Yep."
"Is he cute?"
"Oh come on!"
"Where does he take you?"
"I don't know. Nobody does."

I listened to them carefully.
"What a stupid rumor," I thought. "There's no way that's real. Where do girls read this stuff? They must be really childish if they believe everything they read online."

I continued listening to their conversation but they had changed the topic.
I was still waiting for Meiko to come. Or at least Aristel.
But none of them was present that day. Were they both sick?
Then, I began to worry. "Why are they not here yet? I don't want to believe those rumors, but I can't deny the possibility of..."

Suddenly, I see two people enter the classroom.
"Good morning Jun!" Meiko greeted me.
"Good morning!" Aristel said to me.

I sighed loudly.
"So there you are! I thought you would be absent today and leave me alone."

"Sorry, I forgot my umbrella and when I got out of the bus, the rain started and I got soaked so I waited in a random shop for a while," Meiko said. "They had a good manga selection there."
"And what about you?" I asked Aristel.
"Well, I didn't hear my alarm today. I lost even more time when I tried feeding my octopus. He was being moody as hell today. But hey, we're still early, right?" he said while chuckling.

"You guys!" I screamed. "I thought you were kidnapped for a moment."
Aristel laughed.
"By whom?" Meiko asked, raising her left eyebrow.
"Never mind. I can't believe that I seriously considered that." I said while trying to fake a laugh.

They both sat down on their seats.
Naora gave my German notebook back. She didn't even thank me. I know she's the type to dance to phone ringtones, but still, there's no excuse for acting like that. That girl needs to learn some manners.

****

At 10 o'clock, after finishing all my homework for the next day, I decided to sleep.
I usually slept late at night because I studied a lot, but that time I felt oddly sleepy.
I gave a last look to my magic wand and said a warm "Goodnight" to it. I don't know why, but I had the impression that the wand could hear and understand me.

I went to bed and closed my eyes shut. When I opened them, it was still night.
"Well, at least I have still time before going to school. Sleeping early is so good!" I thought while closing my eyes again. I literally slept with a smile on my face.
I slept for 5 minutes or so when I heard a knock on my window.
I tried to ignore it, but the knock was very annoying.
"Stop it."
The knocking continued. I opened my eyes and stared annoyed at the ceiling.
"Stop it, whoever you are!" I screamed.
The person knocking continued to knock on my window.
I got off my bed. "Alright, if you wanted to scare me you reached your goal! Now go away!'
When I saw through the window, there were two big red eyes. It was dark, there was no moon outside. and the eyes were the only thing I could see clearly.
"Not you again" I murmured while opening the window. "What do you want?"

'You don't know me, but I'm the brother of the demon you defeated."
"Demons have twins?"
"Give me the wand now."
I pretended I didn't hear that. His shiny eyes filled the room with a red light.
"Wait, you said he was defeated? Like for good? He must have been really weak to go and die from the first battle we had," I said sarcastically.

He grabbed me hard by the throat and slammed me on the ground.
"Listen, I'm not playing. If you don't give me the wand, I will take it myself and I will have no mercy. I know very important things about you, Jun. Your precious friend Meiko has already joined me and if you want to see her, you should come to the city tower and fight me."
"What does the wand do?"
"It makes anything or anyone you want to disappear."
"How so?"
"It's like they never existed."

At that moment I don't know why the name of Isas came to mind. I shook my head slowly.
Either way, I was relieved to know the real potential of the wand. It's very convenient when the villain shares his plan with the hero, no matter how vaguely.

"Well, why would you want to fight with me, when you can take the wand right now and right here?"
"I know that your room is messy as hell and it would be a bother for me to search it. Plus, I want to have a fair fight."
"But you just said you'd have no mercy for me."
"In a fair fight."
"That's unbelievably surprising. Okay, so you go ahead first, or what?" I said, confused.
"I'll go first to the tower. I'll only be waiting five minutes for you, so don't play games with me. If you come late or don't come at all, I will kill your friend and you'll never see her again. Just like I did with the many people before her."

After saying these words, the demon disappeared into the distance.
I was so worried about Meiko. I took the wand and transformed immediately.
I started crying all of a sudden. Weird. I swear I was feeling quite confident a couple of seconds ago.

Why was this happening? I didn't want to fight alone.

To be honest, I was terrified. This demon seemed stronger than the last one. I ran down the empty streets while sobbing and trembling. I wished I had some allies to help me. I couldn't understand how the wand deemed it fair to elect me with the burden of fighting alone.

I wiped the giant tears rolling down my cheeks.
And even though I wasn't feeling ready, I was going to fight until the very end.
I had no other choice, anyway.