-Ron's POV-

It felt nice to be back home after everything that happened. Things had become quite a mess. I had no idea who this “author” person was but it was clear we would be seeing him again. Was he really me? Was a really just a fictional version of myself? That would be pretty messed up if that were the case. To make things worse, Erica was murdered some time after I had left.

There wasn't anything I could do about that. Apparently, Cerise took off so she could quietly investigate what was going on. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to stop the murderer. From what I can tell, she seems pretty unhappy about what down as well. Honestly, all of this made harder to focus in school.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Mikaela when we were in our math class.

“Stuff.” I replied.

“Like what?” she said.

“What's it matter to you?” I asked.

“Is it about what happened?” she said.

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn't.” I replied.

“Cerise told me about it.” she said.

“And?” I said, “We couldn't stop it.”

“I know.” she said.

“If the circumstances would have been different.”

“You can't change the past, Ron.”

“If things had been like the other times, she'd still be here.”

“You weren't there, Ron. How long are you going to beat yourself up?”

“S-sorry.”

“Cerise is taking it pretty hard as well.”

“She is?”

“Yeah, she was investigating on her own, but she still wasn't able stop him.”

Eventually, the bell rang.

“I guess we should go.” I said.

“Right.” replied Mikaela.

The two of us continued to talk on our way out of the building.

“You're also worried about that one guy, aren't you?” asked Mikaela.

“You mean that guy claiming to be 'the author', right?” I replied.

“He looks just like you,” she said, “do you have a twin or something?”

“Not that I remember.” I answered.

I always though of the whole “evil twin” thing like it was some kind of joke, but now the possibility of me having one is suddenly there. To be honest, I was pretty confused.

“Ah, my head hurts.” I said.

“Or do you think he was telling the truth?” asked Mikaela.

“There's no way we're just characters in some story, right?” I said.

“Who knows?” said Mikaela.

That was the last conversation we had before winter break. At home, things were quiet. I didn't really do much, but continue to waste my time reading through visual novels like I had been doing in the summer. The days went by like this and then Christmas came. There was nothing really special going on with the team. I guess nobody really felt much like celebrating after how our last quest ended.

“Are you alive?” asked Justin.

“Yes.” I said, “I think.”

“What happened?” he said, “A girl you like turn you down or something?”

“Nothing like that is going on.” I said.

“So, it was a guy?” he said.

“No!” I exclaimed.

“Then, what happened?” asked Justin.

“Stop bugging me, please.” I said.

“Tch.” he said, “Whatever.”

I just spent Christmas with my family like I usually did, but I couldn't get rid of this bad feeling I had. Someone had died and wasn't coming back. I figured things would only get much worse from here on out.