“Thanks for breakfast by the way, Joan,” Marko said, smiling at his empty plate. He then grabbed a hair tie and bundled his long black hair into a ponytail.

“Holly helped,” Joan pointed to her and smiled genuinely. “Thank her too.”

“Thank you both then,” Marko said and everyone else followed his example. The girls didn’t take their praise modestly and took the moment to really flatter themselves.

“Oh, it was nothing!” Holly asserted with a hearty smile, flicking her long bushy brown hair behind her shoulders.

“Oh! Before we all go—” Enrique exclaimed suddenly. “None of us really have anything going on today. I’m thinking we should split up in groups of two to figure out what we can about the rain. It would be better than doing it alone because having another person to debate with might help us get to more meaningful conclusions today.” Enrique never stopped strategizing. There were probably hundreds of complex ideas about how to approach the rain.

“Sure,” Joseph agreed confidently. “That sound like a plan to me. You and me, Marko?” He asked looking over to him with his eyebrows raised.

“Of course, bro. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he nodded and smiled.

“Perfect.”

“You and me, Holly?” Joan asked, making the very predictable choice. Holly quickly agreed, nodding her head politely.

“So that just leaves the master strategist and the dumbass,” Joan said with a smirk, feeling incredibly proud of herself. “That seems like a perfect balance.”

“As long as I ain’t paired with you, it’s a good ass day,” Josh riposted entirely unphased from Joan’s insult.

“Okay. Jokes aside now,” Joan said with a serious attitude. “Enrique, you claimed that you were entirely confident that this rain has to be something supernatural, right?” She asked. “How can you be certain? How do you know that this isn’t just some really weird acid rain or something and the disappearances are completely unrelated?”

Enrique looked back at Joan with vivid intensity in his dark brown eyes, thinking about how he could explain his thoughts best.

“Well. I’ve never mentioned it before, but—” he paused as his gaze shifted down at the wooden table and then quickly back at Joan. “I’ve encountered the supernatural in my own home once, and the feeling that it gave me is the same feeling I get when the rain comes,” he explained with hesitation shaking his profound voice.

“You’ve encountered the supernatural before?” Joan asked, taking Enrique very seriously. “Was it like a ghost or...?”

“Kind of,” he responded with uncertainty. “I don’t think it was a ghost more or less, but it was like a shadow. In fact, it was my own shadow.” Everyone around the table looked incredibly confused and curious. The thought of a simple shadow invoking a supernatural suspicion didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to them at first.

“Well look. The weird thing about it was that I was in my room with just my desk lamp on, and I was sitting at my computer. I noticed my shadow on the wall, but it wasn’t doing the same things I was. I would raise my right hand just to test it, and nothing would happen. This started to seriously freak me out, so I started to walk a little closer to it, but it just sat there. I then placed my hand on it and it literally vanished. The whole experience gave me incredibly cold chills and I felt like I was standing in a freezer.”

That last sentence got Joseph incredibly riled up and his bold green eyes lit up like a traffic light. “I’ve felt that before too!” He exclaimed with a multitude of energy in his voice.

“What do you mean?” Enrique asked, swiftly turning his head to Joseph.

“Remember when I told you guys about how my comforter randomly caught fire when I was sleeping?” Joseph waited for a response and everyone nodded hesitantly, being very confused as to where Joseph’s story was headed.

“Well,” he continued. “I didn’t talk about it much because it was really confusing and I didn’t know how to put it into words until now, but when that happened, despite practically being on fire, I felt cold—like I was literally sitting in a freezer, just how Enrique put it.” Joseph seemed almost excited to explain, but at the same time, his voice shook with nervousness. He even began to sweat in several places on his body.

“Wait wait wait,” Josh intervened. “You were practically on fire but you felt cold? How’s that make any sense?” He shook his head with disbelief as Joseph focused his attention on him.

“It doesn’t!” Enrique and Joseph both shouted in harmony. Joseph then continued to explain, “That’s the whole point. This is why we’re thinking there has to be some supernatural shit going on. Comforters don’t just randomly catch fire when they’re nowhere near a heater or anything that can set them ablaze, right? And I was FREEZING. That’s like the number one rule of supernatural encounters—feeling cold.”

“Hmm,” Joan thought to herself and then looked around the room with her cheeks glowing red beneath her deep-sea blue eyes. “Are you saying this is also how you feel when the rain comes, Enrique?” She asked stiffly.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he responded assuredly but with his eyes still wandering the room.

“That’s how I feel during the rain too,” she said. “I think we all know the feeling.”

“Okay. Now that everyone has successfully freaked each other out—” Josh added with a charismatic tone that shattered the awkward and depressing mood floating in the room. “Let’s just figure this rain shit out and get on with our little research project. We should be proactive, right, Joan?” Josh spoke genuinely this time without the intent to antagonize her.

“Yes. Exactly,” she said. “We’ll meet back here tonight at 6:30 for dinner and we’ll discuss what we found.”