P.O.V Cathia

I stepped out of the kitchen. Going towards the study room, I saw Lionel going into my room. 'He might be going to meet Leo.' I thought and shrugging, I went behind him as he asked me to make him a mug of coffee.

I was about to open the door when I heard Lionel talking to Leo. My hand got jammed on the door nob. "What? Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously."

"You asked her to become your planet?"

"Lion, that was just a dream, okay? Now, what I'm asking you is that should I ask her in real, or should I not?" 'What? Does Leo think, that was a dream?'

I heard a burst of manly laughter and internally, I wanted to laugh with Lion, feeling pity for Leo. "Shut up, Lion. Why are you laughing?"

"Because... you want to ask her... to become your planet," Lionel said in between his laughing state, making me a bit serious now.

"So?"

"What do you mean by 'so', Leo? This is not a way to express your feelings, man."

"Then how should I do that, master? I'm not so bold like you." Leo mocked.

"Idiot, tell that you love her, not that you want to become her planet..." He started laughing again.

"But..." Leo stopped and couldn't make any sentence further, and that's when my hand forced the door to open. I walked straight towards the window where Lionel was sitting and handed him his coffee. Then I looked at Leo who was sitting on the bed. It seemed like he just woke up. He looked stunned by my presence.

"Well, sorry if it is bothering you that much, but that did happen." I smiled at him and went outside because no matter what we all keep on doing, there were still other things pending to be done.

The night that just escaped from my grasp was probably the best night of my life. We all have our single beds in our rooms, so we don't have to share beds while sharing the same rooms. But Leo screeched his bed alongside mine because he fell off it, nearly every night.

But the best thing that happened yesterday was that I finally found what I longed for 7 years, for love. I always thought that love was just what I share with my dad and Ricks, but after the confession of Leo, it turned out to be more interesting. And now, I had to save this love and do what we were actually meant to do here.

Rose told me to be rational and practical in a way, as if she was hiding something from me, the reason why I was finally here, stepping in the well-furnished study room. It took me days trying to solve the clue of this big book, named 'The Apocalypse'. I was still losing.

I forgot everything around me and got myself lost in the book until Evelyn came and sat beside me.

"What are you doing?" She asked politely. I always wondered, how could she be so cute and sweet in this rough world? She's like a little angel, who got scared with every little hardship she saw.

"Just trying to solve the clues. I don't know how long will it take, but it has to get solved because the eclipse might show at any moment." I gave a reason and again tried to think.

"Okay..." Her tone looked like she wanted to talk. Like she wanted to express something, an emotion maybe. Sensing her discomfort, I closed the book and gave her my full attention.

"What is bothering you?" This was my family. A lovely family and one member needed me, so here I was. Placing my elbows on the table, I clasped my hands together and rested my chin on them.

She was fidgetting her fingers, nervous to say it out. "I... was thinking that," She looked up in my eyes. "Will we make it? What will happen if we lose? What if... XM wins?"

Her questions were depressing, but this was one single thing that we all were thinking continuously, that we all shared. This wasn't a question to smile at, so I just simply nodded. "We must think that we can not fail, and we will do our best, okay?" She nodded, heartlessly.

"And," I continued, "Even if this terrible thing happens, we must remember that we tried our best." Suddenly Leo and Darren's non-seriousness caught me, and I said, "and we must find ourselves in the heavens at the end and have a lot of chocolates and candies."

Evelyn chuckled like a little sweet girl, and I loved her that way. Eve and Darren, both were so cute and the little ones of our family too. Darren might be a little empty-headed just like his older brother, but...

Wait! The little ones!

I hurriedly looked at the caption on the book's cover. 'The last two will drop down the same as them, but not themselves!'

'What if it's something about Evelyn and Darren, the last two of our family? But we don't have anything, the same as them, right? Like their twins.' I thought but didn't notice my suspecting gaze on her.

She leaned back uncomfortably. "What are you thinking?"

"Maybe you and Darren are the last two of our clues here." I gave her my assumption without hesitation because if this was needed to be solved, it has to get solved.

She studied the clue and asked, "And how will you drop us down even if we are the hidden clue?"

"Well..." I didn't have anything. "I don't really know."

We both started doing our best, giving different proposals to solve the clue, working with the sentences, changing the phrases, entangling different paragraphs, until she said, "What about the words?"

"What about the words?" My question was straight. I didn't even think about it.

"I mean..." She turned the book towards her and read, "EVSVEEAVE. What if we remove it... Oh, wait... Yes, I know what it is!" She exclaimed making my breathing quick and my heart explode.

"What is it?" I asked with shallow breaths, maybe because of excitement. This was all we wanted to know. She didn't answer, just wrote the word EVSVEEAVE on a page and bolded some letters which looked afterward as EV 'S' VEE 'AVE' and the word came out as 'SAVE'.

"How did you..." I was speechless, literally. I looked at her, amazed by her discovery. Well, this was worthy to become a discovery.

"Look, the last two letters of each word are repeated several times in the word. Letting the last two stay, we have to eliminate all their other copies. Maybe not all, still, the ones which are making the word difficult to understand." It took me two minutes to understand. Like literally! Hold your breath for 2 minutes, or try understanding a language you never heard before, that was how it felt like.

"Oh, damn, Evelyn, you're a genius!" I hugged her tightly and after releasing her, we both started decoding the whole book. This might get done at the end of the day, but this was needed to be done before the end of the world. And I never knew that I'll slowly lose this excitement.