The following morning, two things had disappeared: Antoinette and my coat.

Memories of what happened after Kristina went after Claire were fuzzy in my head, but when I went to sleep that night, Antoinette was still inside 1-A. She must have left again afterwards, and, like before, I couldn't find her on the map.

Of course I worried about where she was, but if she said she was fine and couldn't explain, what choice did I have? I couldn't help but wonder, and it didn't help me that the next morning, while I searched for my coat, an uncomfortable conversation took place.

I had just found the wrapping paper for Antoinette's gift underneath the table (and no necklace, mind you) when I heard a knock on the wall.

Kristina was leaning at the doorframe, arms crossed

“Morning,” I said out of instinct, not because I wanted to talk. Any conversation would feel tense after yesterday.

“Hello, Sebastian.” She approached me and took a seat nearby. “Antoinette's room is empty, and she's not on the map.”

“You noticed as well?”

“Any idea where she might be?”

“So you can enact punishment on her?”

I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. She didn't seem to mind, fortunately, and continued impassively.

“That's not my job.”

A silence neither of us wanted to break fell over the room as we both glanced at the screen, turned off at the moment, but always watching.

“She ran away,” I said, moving the subject away from unthinkable possibilities.

“Did she?” A hint of surprise rose in her voice.
I nodded, and Kristina looked thoughtful. She exhaled deeply out of her nose as I glanced over.
Before I could ask what she had on her mind, she joined me at the table.

“I can't say I'm surprised,” she said tiredly.

The words left my mouth before I could think about them.

“Is that really all you can say?”

“What do you expect, Sebastian? She was the one that brought it up.”

“Because of things you two did.”

To my surprise, she didn't bite back with any remark. I looked at her curiously, watching the conflict flicker in her eyes.

“Maybe we did go too far,” she said.

I hadn't the chance to congratulate this change of heart; I heard Claire from the hall.

“We didn't do anything wrong!”

I was really starting to see her stance on this. Kristina dismissed the comment with a call.

“Claire, honey, do you want to come in here?”

We both looked at the hall, waiting for an answer, and saw her fingers curling round the corner of the wall, then her head, eyes locked to the floor.

I stayed quiet, looking at Claire like one would a frightened deer. She nodded faintly and joined us — joined Kristina — at the table.

There was a bit of shuffling as Kristina embraced her with one arm and Claire reciprocated by leaning on her.

A pang of guilt washed over me seeing this, and not being able to do anything about it — not even being able to tell the truth, what little I knew of it. I felt as if telling them would make them as confused as I was, and screw over whatever Antoinette was doing. She placed her trust in me, after all, the least I could do was keep this secret.

I focused back on the girls, noticing the tear streaks on Claire's face, her red eyes, and her tired expression, something uncharacteristic of her. She hadn't even bothered to put on proper clothes, not that I would be the one to point this out, what with their current emotional state.

“She was just being mean,” muttered Claire. “How would we know she didn't like it?”

I exhaled deeply, watching Kristina stroke the saddened girl's hair. This wasn't a conversation for me. I got up and went to the kitchen, preparing the hot water for tea as they talked.

“Our best wasn't what Antoinette wanted,” said Kristina. “We suffocated her, apparently, and...” Something made her hesitate. “Sebastian has told me she ran away. She's not on the map, so we don't know where she's gone.”
L
I looked out of the corner of my eye just in time to see Claire sit up like she'd been tased. She grabbed Kristina by the shoulders, looking frightened.
P
“She's gone? What do you — What's that mean? She can't just be gone, I — I don't wanna lose another roommate!” she cried, latching onto Kristina as though she, too, could vanish at any moment. Kristina handled the situation the way I expected her to, putting her hands on top of Claire's and getting her to calm down.

“You won't. Antoinette will come back, she would never run away from her problems like this for too long,” said Kristina, but I could see Claire threatening to cry at any moment now.

“I don't want her to leave,” she blubbered. “If it's all my fault, then I'll apologize. I'll say sorry a hundred million times if that's what it takes!”

Part of me wanted to speak against this idealistic and, frankly, ridiculous ideal, but I didn't want to make things worse.

The water was ready then, and I served two cups of tea which I brought to the table for them.

“It'll help you keep your nerves,” I said, apparently not having read the mood right. They didn't even spare me a glance; it was like I wasn't there.

I sat back down either way.

“It's alright, Claire. She's going to return. And when she does, we'll be able to sort out all these differences.” Kristina did a good job in keeping Claire at bay, or maybe it was because it was Kristina herself. Whatever the reason, Claire didn't seem about to freak out.

She buried her face in Kristina's chest, but I could see the light trembling of her figure.

No one said anything for a while, and a silence, only broken by the occasional shuffling, filled the gap.

Then a knock came from the door.

“It's her!” Claire nearly jumped out of her seat were it not for Kristina holding her down. I got up instead, hastily shushing her down as I made my way to the door.

“Calm down,” I said, reaching the handle. “You're going to freak her out again.”

I opened the door, but there was no Antoinette.
They must have seen my surprised reaction, Kristina spoke up first.

“Sebastian? Who is it?”

“Oh, she's here,” said the person in the hall. “I'm not here for either of you traitors, I'm here for Sebastian.”

I shushed Anya as well, suddenly stuck between a rock and a hard place, but my efforts were in vain.

“Anya? You need to leave, we are not in the mood to deal with you today,” barked Kristina.

“I haven't done anything wrong! Honestly, this is no way to treat a guest. Sebastian, say something.”

“Sebastian, don't you dare take her side in this.”

“I'm ending this conversation now, go,” I said, pushing Anya out and closing the door behind me as I called back to the others. I'll explain later, words I'd grown to resent.

I exhaled roughly and looked up at Anya, who seemed to think she had won that argument.

“What is it, Anya? We're not going through the best of moments right now,” I said, stepping away from the door just in case.

Anya smiled at our misery. I think it was at that, at least; it seemed like an appropriate response from her.

“Oh, I noticed. Kristina was just atrocious. What happened? Did Juliet and Juliet have a fight? Are they finally ending that ridiculous relationship of theirs?” She seemed far too interested in that particular option.

“No, more like Juliet and...” I paused. “... I don't know enough Shakespeare to finish that, I'm moving on.

“Antoinette got fed up with their attitude regarding... something I won't say, and left. We don't know where she is.”

Her face lit up, and I crossed my arms. I knew that reaction was coming, but it still irked me somehow, so I spoke before she had the chance to.

“Oh stop smiling, you wicked woman. What are you even doing here?”

“Ah!” She put her hands together and smiled wide. “With the good news, it slipped my mind — speaking of, do tell Antoinette that if she would ever like to talk, I've suddenly found a newfound appreciation for her.”

I didn't dignify that with an answer.

She continued: “I've come for you, as I said. I wanted to invite you to our own celebration. Dean said you would say no in favour of your own incompetent roommates, but it doesn't seem like you're in much of a place to do that anymore.” Quickly, she took my hands and lifted them. “You'll say yes?”

Her straightforward invitation took me off guard, but it wasn't anything new. She always had been straightforward.

Admittedly, the idea of leaving Kristina and Claire alone while they were like that didn't sound ideal, but I knew that going back in there would inevitably lead to a very uncomfortable conversation I didn't want to partake in.

And on that note, they barely seemed to notice I was there. They rejected my tea.

The realization arrived in my head as soon as I remembered that moment: they didn't need me. They were always fine just the two of them, I wasn't needed.

I snapped out of my trance with a bothersome feelings and looked back at Anya, who had been smiling expectantly.

“...I'll say yes.”

Standing in front of apartment 26-B was much different than 1-A. We took the elevator, where she tried to get more information on what happened with Antoinette, and failed.

The doors opened and led us into a wide hall, with a long window — a long screen, I should say— running along the right wall displaying view as though we were on the 26th floor, to no surprise. The clouds looked much lighter from up here, and I could see far beyond the horizon into an endless land of green.

“I should warn you that Elora is a bit of a strange one, she likes to...” Anya paused, trying to look for an adequate word. “Let's say she has eccentric tastes, but oh, don't get me wrong: we love her all the same.”

Hearing her say something so positive about anyone may have been the most surprising thing I saw all week. I hadn't expected her to speak so highly of her friends after seeing her be so vicious to her enemies.

Regardless, I ignored the warning. I had to deal with Claire on nearly a daily basis, how much weirder could it get?

She opened the door, and inside the only thing I saw were candles set upon a table in a pentatonic fashion. The rest of the room was submerged in darkness.

I stood back, wary, but Anya stepped in, putting her hands to her hips.

“Elora, what did I say about rituals?” she called into the darkness, to what I assumed was a person sitting by the candles. I heard a sigh, and when Anya turned the lights on, the rest of the scene came to life.

At essence, the living room of 26-B looked the same as 1-A, but at the same time it felt much more lively: flower pots and ornamental Christmas lights, hanging wind chimes and fake greenery to give it a personal touch, and the most noticeable thing at the moment being the center table, where the five candles had just been blown out by a rather short girl, dressed entirely in black with a bob like hair cut that covered her eyes. She seemed to be pouting, but that changed when she saw me.

“Sokolov, who is this stranger? Why have you brought him without consulting the council first?!” she stood up, trembling as she tried to look intimidating. I frowned at this pathetic attempt.

Anya turned to me conspicuously and said: “This is the one I talked to you about: Elora. Isn't she the cutest?”

“S-Silence! I am meant to be respected, not fawned over.”

Cute was definitely a word she could use, I just wasn't sure it was the most accurate one, and pulled a face to show my disagreement. Anya smiled at me and then turned to Elora.

“This is Sebastian,” she said. “The amnesiac. Don't you remember when I told you I'd be bringing him over?”

That seemed to change everything, and from one moment to another Elora seemed to have completely changed her dynamic. She jumped and stared at me — I could only assume, given the way her hair was.

“This is —? It's him?” To my surprise, she ran up to me and bowed. “My apologies, sir! I was foolish to not recognize you at once.”

I took a precautionary step back into the hall.
“Cut the formality, I'm not about that,” I said, feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

She perked back up, smiling wide.

“Of course. I suspected you wouldn't, but you and I are but two diamonds in the rough, I've been waiting my entire life to find somebody like you: a person so unique that nobody else could imitate!”

...Was she talking about my amnesia? I felt myself about to reprimand her for saying it was something so unique until I remembered I really was the only person like this, and closed my mouth.

I leaned back, away from the little creep, and whispered to Anya, asking for Dean. Surely he could get me out of this if Anya would do nothing but watch in amusement.

She said to me that he and "Bernard" would be back soon, and that I should get comfortable instead.

I knew then that this would be a long afternoon. I had left Kristina and Claire alone for this, I'd even put Antoinette at the back of my mind for a day without those worries. She said she'd be fine, so I forced myself to believe that to not worry anymore.

At the moment I didn't know, but I was soon to find myself forced back into the face of those worries, and potentially the truth behind our so called Paradise.

But for this day, I would have to suffer through Elora treating me like a fellow golden anomaly.

Merry Christmas, I thought bitterly.