#| bye |

[honorwinning]

[enkotobuki]

If you care to take a look outside, you'll see that outside your door is a small basket full of chocolate hearts and .... Is that FunDip? Anyways, the card attached to it has the words "Happy Valentine's Day!" On the back it showed a hand drawn picture of you and Maria holding hands.

     Her eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

     Once she saw the small basket, the only thing that she planned to do is throwing it. She wasn’t interested in Valentine’s day and besides, she wanted to be careful when she was recently taken to this unknown city. She didn’t trust what she could find around here, more less the scientists. After all, those were the ones who created all this. Also, the idea of an experiment was a bit strange for the redhead. Like some people said, “Better safe than sorry”. She didn’t want to risk her life pathetically.

     But, something stopped Ange. As soon as she took the basket, she could notice a card with a drawing on the back. Holding the basket with one hand now, she used the other so she could take the card and observe it better and, once she took it, a little but muted gasp escaped from her mouth, not believing what she was seeing at the moment.

    On the drawing, she could see herself and her cousin Maria, holding hands. At the beginning, Ange thought this could be something coming from the scientists but, would they really do this when the style was as identical as how her cousin usually drew? Besides, the chocolate and the FunDip… they were some things that could represent Maria — some things that Maria would give. Was she here? Was she alive all this time and she didn’t know about it? No… that was impossible, right? The only person who returned and survived was Eva in the end. The rest couldn’t come back… But, what if the redhead were dead? What if this city were a place for people who were dead?

    Ange left the card where it was and embraced the small basket, lying her head on it. She didn’t know what was happening and she didn’t know if her thoughts were right but anyway, she wanted to believe she was here and that she could see her cousin again.

    Was Ange crying because of this? You couldn’t know. You couldn’t see her expression if she was lying her head on the basket. Who knew if she was crying or not. Probably she was.