The photo Roxi had shown her was very flattering, actually. He was old, bald with hair from the side swept over it, high cheekbones as if botox-ed, skin glossy as if oiled, small blue eyes, a nose crooked like a boxer's and long straight teeth behind thin lips. He wore a very square dark navy-blue suit.

"Heeeello, ladies and gentlemens!" He said, jovial, gruff and loud. His voice would have been more fitting for a WWE announcer than a lawyer.

"Welcome, Mikhail." Marius offered a handshake.

"Oh, please! Call me Mikky!" He replied.

"Mikky Duță...?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Nominative determinism, am I right?" He said and laughed kind of like Mr Krabs.

"Yeah, yeah, cool." Mirabela stood up. "Let's head to the station."

"Ah, mmhyes, your protected witness." Mr Duță said and turned to look at her. Garofița wanted to duck behind Roxi and Mihai. "Where did you procure her, again?"

"She lives with the people of the homeless encampment we told you about." Mirabela said, playing with her pearls. Garo didn't like the idea of these two talking about her.

"Lovely girl!" Mr Duță suddenly smiled. "Like a flower blooming out of concrete."

"Don't talk weird." Marius said, which Garofița was grateful for.

"I'm not." He said. "Most homeless people look horrible. I had to represent an alcoholic one time and she looked like a zombie out of a B-rated movie."

Garofița did not like this man at all.

"She had the weirdest name ever too-"

"Alright, let's go and get this over with." Bălașa stood up with a sigh, smoothing down her dress.

"Let's send Gabriel to a nuthouse!" Mr Duță said, fist-pumping the air.

Marius whispered through his teeth to Mirabela: "Where the hell did you find this guy?!"

"Online." She whispered back, coming out hissy because of her teeth. "He's never lost a case!"

"Jesus, Mary and fuckin' Joseph..."

Garofița looked around the building and the public park vis-a-vis the hotel, half-expecting to see the deer, but Mihai gently pushed her with a hand on her back to keep walking to the car. The police station in Lăutari was not far at all, but Mr Robert drove them to a back entrance. Garofița thought to herself that she should have expected something legally shady to happen. She hated being involved at all, but when does anything she ever want happen? Except for successfully running away. And DIY-ing her house. And being friends with Vitalis and Roxi. And-

She huffed at herself and thanked God for being the only normal person. In the next thought she wondered how Buddy and Walker were doing.

Gabriel Eghedi, or inmate no. 072, found a suitable home in the jail's library. The novelty of being a supernatural expert had worn off after the first day and most of the other men left him alone, returning to the usual soul-draining boredom. Every couple of hours, though, one or two of the jail's ghosts would pop into the door frame to ask a question.

"Hypothetically speaking, if a mermaid and a werewolf had sex, would the child turn into a wolf underwater?"

"No??" Gabi scrunched his face. "What?"

"It'd be kinda messed up, right? Percolate on that."

"Y-You can't just say percolate."

She left and Gabi sighed. Please, God, get him out of here soon.

The jail library was surprisingly well-stocked in the fiction genre, but there was no literature that could help him figure out the mystery of Aurora while being stuck there. Gabi rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes.

Recap no. 1978421:

The cult

Live and fuck without a care about afterlife repercussions

Aurora joins at one point

She lives there for a while, doing God knows what

She somehow dies

Her body is buried and it's decomposing in the ground, he saw it, he saw it with his own eyes, it is certain

"Aurora" somehow appears again

She runs away

She kills that cultist in Văleni

Tries to leave, but dies in the Văleni KFC parking lot

She comes back to life and leaves again

Arrives in Ferești

Hides in the forest, dying and reviving again as per what the fairy Garo met said

Gabi let his forehead fall on the table, his skin burning with the pain. What is sheeeeee

He tried to think of every myth and legend and paper he had ever studied about life and death and ghosts and revenants and strigoi and walking dead and possession, but none of them quite fit. One or two details matched, but then a third ruined everything. He metaphorically dug with his fingers in his own brain, one lobe at a time, but he couldn't squeeze out any hidden idea that would finally fix everything, coming out from between soggy brain wrinkles surrounded by a halo of golden light. With his bachelor thesis he at least had the devil spawn in front of him, willing to be interviewed and consensually prodded.

Aaaaaaaaa the volumes of cheap mystery thrillers and travelogues were mocking hiiiim

"Pheee-euw! It smells like fried brains in here!" Third cousin Mitică walked into the room, theatrically waving a hand in front of his nose. "Won't you take a break?"

"I probably should..."

"Good, because officer Gelu is looking for ya. You got a visitor."

"Professor Ozsvar?"

"Yeah, the Hungarian guy!"

The ghost from earlier popped into the doorframe again. "Okay, but what if a mermaid had a child with a harpy? Would it be a bird that can swim too?"

"Oh my God..." Gabi groaned and let his head down again.

"Get outta here!" Mitică shoo'ed with his whole arm.

Officer Liliana Hodoș drank every last drop of the iced latte she ordered when she started work. She glanced at her watch and it was still several hours before she could go home. She groaned out loud and threw the empty cup in the bin under her desk.

Another day, another example of a bullshit case she was warned about while in the academy. At least it was confirmed to her that, with enough money, you could do anything and she too was willing to do a lot for extra money. Fuck it, nobody would build her statue in the town square for good behaviour.

There was a knock at her door and the protected witness of the Gabriel Eghedi case arrived. She was a 13 year old girl, but by her stature she might as well have been 11. She had long jet-black hair and very dark brown eyes, to the point they looked black as well. She had a gentle face with chubby cheeks and she wore a fuzzy purple shirt that looked very comfy.

The girl sat down in front of her with an anxious smile. She looked alarmingly innocent. That vamp Mirabela is hiring goons younger and younger with each generation?

"Nice to meet you, dear." She clicked her pen. "I'm Officer Hodoș. You can call me Lili. What may I call you?"

"Uhm, Lady Gaga." She answered.

"Really?"

"It matches my initials!" She giggled.

"What the hell, sure. Now, tell me everything you know about Gabriel Eghedi and that undead girl."

She did. The girl was well-spoken.

"What is your opinion of Gabriel Eghedi?" Liliana asked.

"I like him! He has always been nice to me. He's very funny, although he can be kind of... intense... and neurotic. M-More than anything, he was really tired with the research about the cult and the pedophiles and... you know, everything."

"I know the feeling..."

"He wanted to help Aurora, or at least speed up punishing those guys, in a way..."

"I understand, but two negatives don't make a positive."

"... the mayor of Văleni should be punished too. For hiding his nephew."

"Don't worry, Bălașa will probably get to it soon."

"Not you, ma'am?"

"It's out of my jurisdiction."

"Yes- I-uh, I mean you as in the police. Sorry."

Liliana sighed. "I can't say I know what goes on in Văleni. Your vamps seem to rule those places."

"Y-Yeah, kind of..."

"You're a runaway, right? How did you end up in Ferești?"

"Randomly, to be honest. I like it there, so I stayed."

"Why did you run away from home?"

"My parents beat me."

"Did you ever tell anybody about it?"

"I did." She dryly said, a slight twitch in her features.

"...and?"

"Nothing happened. A policeman came and left. Then they got worse, so I ran away."

"Understood." Liliana nodded. "I'm sorry about that."

"I'm sorry too."

"Damn. Out of all places, you landed with Mirabela and her crew."

"I'm not with them." She quickly said.

"Sure..."

"I'm not."

"Are you, like, okay in Ferești? Do you live at a shelter or something?"

"Over the winter, yes. And I stay in the homeless encampment. They look after me." She smiled.

"Even better company..." Liliana sighed and shook her head.

The girl's smile fell and her dark eyes grew somehow darker. Liliana wondered what nerve she had struck, but there was no time for that and, truth be told, she didn't really care.

"What you have said matches the statements made by Roxana Serea, Mihai Caraiman and Marius Bujor, as well as records from the Ferești police station. This girl, Aurora, is just... running around the woods. Freaky..."

"Have you seen a lot of supernatural things working in the police, ma'am?" The girl suddenly asked, something mischievous in her tone. Liliana tried to figure out what that was about, stalling a second to answer.

"Yeah, more than I can count, honestly." She responded.

"What's the most messed up thing you've seen?" She smiled with teeth, crinkling her eyes.

"Oh, I don't think it's appropriate for you to hear that."

"I saw a skin-walker with a fresh new skin in the forest."

"... ...Did you, now?"

"Yeah! He smelled really bad." She giggled.

Officer Liliana nodded and gave a strained smile, breaking eye-contact as she put the papers in order. When she looked back up, the girl was still staring at her. Her body hadn't moved either. Not literally frozen, but standing very still.

"I sure hope you reported it and that thing was caught." Liliana cleared her throat.

"Are you scared of skin-walkers, ma'am?" She inexplicably asked.

"I think most people should be."

"It's an animal."

"A pretty dangerous one."

"They're kind of like cheetahs, aren't they? They have long and thin limbs to move fast. If they get injured, they are pretty much done for."

"How do you know all that?"

"The skin-walker I saw had a broken leg." She said, still smiling sweetly.

Creepy-ass kid.

"Let's get back on track." She cleared her throat again. "Is there anything else you know about Gabriel or this Aurora? Other things you've been able to recall?"

"No, that's about it."

"Alright, then you-"

"Oh! I know something about the police station in Văleni!"

"What do you know?"

"Officer Flavius Bundar cheated on his wife with one of Mirabela's employees."

"O-Oh." She wasn't sure what she expected, but it wasn't that.

"Have you ever fallen in love, Miss Lili?"

"Alright, you can go."

"...You won't tell people about me, right, ma'am?" Garofița asked, innocent again. "I-I can't go home."

"Don't worry, I won't." Liliana said, softer. "Like I said, it's out of my jurisdiction. And Mirabela paid me enough to shut up about you."

Garofița nodded, visibly uncomfortable, and let herself be walked out. The hallway was dark because the lights were off as they would be in an unused area.

"Mirabela and the others should be in the room over there." Officer Liliana pointed with a nod. "You can wait in the chair over here, if you like."

"I'll wait here." Garo said. Don't get involved more than necessary, she thought.

"I'll head there with what you've said." She said, straightening the papers again. "Don't worry, nobody walks around here."

"I am!"

Liliana jumped when she saw Mihai behind her. How did he sneak up on her like that? She didn't hear a thing.

"All done, Gaga?" He asked the girl, laughing a little.

"Yes!" She grinned.

"Awesome!" He said and glanced at Liliana, staring a moment longer than necessary. She furrowed her brows and drew her head back. "Gaga is a good kid. We want her to be out of trouble as much as possible, but sometimes it can't be helped."

"Indeed."

"You can probably figure out who she is, right?"

"If I felt like doing it."

"No need to do it." He smiled.

"Can you back up a little?" Officer Hodoș scowled. "And no need to intimidate me. Who do you think I am?"

"A friend." Garofița said from the chair she seated herself on.

Lili blinked in bafflement. "What's your deal? Genuinely?"

"I don't have a deal." She pouted.

"What's your problem, then?"

"Oh, a lot."

Liliana just walked away.

"How are you holding up, Gabi?" Mr Ozsvar said as he put the dark receptor to his ear. Gabriel thought about how he could never get used to this, talking with a wall of glass between them like in movies.

"I'm okay." He replied. "Mostly bored."

"I can imagine."

"I feel so irritated just... sitting here and doing nothing."

"Well, you probably shouldn't have done it then, son."

"It... It was a lapse in judgement... Like after my parents died..." Gabi said, expression turning more melancholic as he spoke.

"It probably didn't help back then that the ghost girl had you wrapped around her finger." Mr Ozsvar said, in an uncharacteristically light tone.

"Heheh, yeah... I sure know how to choose 'em."

"Eh, your taste in women can't be worse than mine. Don't worry. Truth be told, it's good to have bursts of mad audacity like yours sometimes. It gets things done. And the vampires shouldn't be left to rest too easily for too long."

Gabi laughed a little. "How are they doing? Can they get me out?"

Mr Ozsvar leaned back in his chair, glancing up at the ceiling before speaking. "This new lawyer Mirabela hired might be able to pull something off. Right now, he's putting together your defense. You were not 'in the right state of mind' when you broke into the station, stuff like that."

"I see...."

"Until then..." He raised his eyebrows as he leaned back. "Just be yourself."

Chief Bolinteanu stood behind Officer Corbea, the tech expert, as he checked over Gabriel's phone. The battery was drained constantly and put to be charged for small bursts of time, except for the very last time before Garo found the phone, when it was charged overnight. Aurora left dozens of tabs open in the Safari browser. Some were understandable for her situation, like "how to live off the grid reddit", "how to know if you're having a stroke -ai", or information about what became of her cult. Others were a little more damning, like "does fire get rid of fingerprints", or "how long until police does a wellness check".

Gabi's phone also had about 160 new photos in it, of various places around Ferești: streets from behind trees and fences, bus schedules, the front entrance to Amante, Mrs Delia's store, the town hall, the forest - all of them at night. They could recognize the back of Roxi's orange hair, Gabi in his winter coat, Mirabela and her clique heading to the New Years Eve party.

"She's been taking photos of us?" Roxi brought the tips of her fingers to her mouth in shock.

"That's what my posture looks like?" Mirabela raised the veil off her face to see better. "Oh, God! Why did none of you tell me?"

"The undead girl seemed to be looking into you as well." Officer Corbea said.

Marius hummed, coming out gravelly. "What does she want?"

"I don't think it's malicious." Ciprian twisted his lips to the side.

"Maybe she wants to talk to us?" Roxi said.

"God help her." Bălașa mumbled.

Mirabela was about to speak, but paused to glare at her before she continued. "Is there any way to look up where she had been, like... IP stuff? I don't know, I don't know technology."

"You're an old lady." Officer Corbea gave a soft laugh, then his smile dropped, scared he just said something offensive.

"Oh, yeah." She thankfully replied. "After 1990 I gave up keeping track."

"I'll have to get some tools that aren't in this office." Officer Corbea continued, unplugging everything. "I'll see what else I can find. I'm guessing she would go near stores or gas stations and steal the wifi."

"Is it stealing if it's public?"

"Debatable. But I'm not a cop." He joked.

Mirabela smiled, looking the young man up and down before turning to Mr Duță. Chief Bolinteanu stomped on Officer Corbea's foot and he had to stifle a wince.

"What do you think?" Mirabela asked the lawyer.

He rubbed his chin with his thumb and index finger, one eye squinting more than the other. "It's cooking, it's cooking..."

"Is there evidence of the undead girl going back to Văleni since she first passed through it?" Bălașa asked the policemen.

"I'll check that too, ma'am."

"Thank you, dear. Let's leave the gentlemen to it, then." She said and began to turn around as Traian reached to open the door.

"Don't tell my people what to do." Mirabela hissed. After a short pause, she said "Let's get going, y'all."

Gabriel was walking through the common area when an inmate he had not seen before caught his eye. He was sitting by himself at a table in the corner. He looked young. Like, really young. He looked like a highschooler.

"Hey." He went over to Mitică. "Who is that?"

"Oh, him?" Mitică responded. "That's Alex Bortiș. He comes around every few months. He's from Ferești, actually!"

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

"Huh. I don't recognize him. Jesus, how old is he? He looks like a teenager."

"He turned 20 a couple weeks ago, I think."

"Yeah, he's a real troublemaker." Mitică continued. "Brawling, robbery, arson, destruction of property by means other than arson, car-jacking... Mmh-mmh, that's one bad egg. And I've met plenty of them while in here."

"Damn." Gabi said as he returned to his chair in the library. It became his chair.

Garofița swung her feet as she sat on the chair and waited. The wall in front of her had one of those large windows on the inside of the building, revealing an empty room full of stacked chairs. She wondered if the glass was opaque on the other side.

As she looked at her faint reflection in the window, she tilted her head from side to side, watching the way her own hair draped. She wondered what else she could do to be offputting.

Her eyes were not huge and intense like Bălașa's. Mirabela's rival also had a small rounded face with a small mouth and a straight nose. Her eyes were the biggest feature. She kinda looked like an icon in a church, which helped in making her look spooky.

Garo studied her own reflection. Dark hair and dark eyes had spooky potential, especially in the medium darkness of the hallway. She opened her eyes as wide as she could, until she could see the whites all around her pupils. It was kind of uncomfortable to sit like that. She brushed her bangs off her forehead and tugged the hair on the sides of her face until it was straight.

Mihai, who had been sitting on the chair next to her, laid his head atop of hers and looked at his reflection too, his eyes looking vertical. Garo made the executive decision not to mention it.

"We can walk around Lăutari until we go home, if you want!" He said.

"Sure!" She said. "Is Roxi coming too?"

"I think so."

"Here is the girl's statement." Officer Liliana said in another room, tapping the folder. "If you'd-"

"Gimme it." Mr Duță said with a very high-pitched voice.

Liliana stared at him, then handed it over, moving her hands away quickly so they would not make contact with him.

"Thankiesss." He grunted, moving to a corner of the room.

"...If you'd please follow me and Chief." Liliana said.

"Of course, let's go. Thank you, Lili!" Mirabela smiled, rubbing her arm as she walked past her. Liliana didn't move away this time.

Robert, who had been behind Mirabela, pouted and raised his eyebrows at her. Liliana's brows furrowed in indignation.

"Roxi, dear, you can go back to the hotel and pack things up." Mirabela said.

"Thank you, Boss!" Roxi said and skipped her way to Garo and Mihai.

"Oi." Liliana cautiously walked up to Mr Duță.

"Mmmmyes?" He intoned as he read.

"That girl with the black hair. Is she supernatural or something?"

"No, she is human. A peculiar one, but human nonetheless. Perhaps an autist."

"She was freaking me out..."

"Oh, yeah, there's a lot of weirdos here today." He said, placing a hand on his hip.

Liliana didn't say anything.

"Hey." A voice came from the doorway. When Gabi looked up, he saw that it was Alex Bortiș.

"Oh, uh, hello!"

"You're from Ferești, right?"

"Uh, yep! How can I help you?"

He walked over to his table, awkwardly sitting down. Honestly, Gabi thought, he looked like he couldn't hurt a fly. "Nothing, just... how are things over there? I haven't been in Ferești in years."

"It's goo-ah, well, uhm... Ehhhh, technically, it's not weirder than usual. You know how small towns are."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..."

"It's 'okay', all things considered. The cult in Călimari caused us a lot of trouble too, we had to eliminate two of them personally, heh, but things have been pretty calm for a few months! Right now we're looking for the undead girl."

"So I heard."

"Dooo youuu perhaps know something?"

"Oh, no, no. Sorry. I didn't even know that was going on until I heard the guys downstairs gossip about it. I just... I don't know. I got kinda... excited when I heard someone from home is in here."

"I understand." Gabi smiled. He searched in his pocket from some of the coffee candy Mitică smuggled in. "You want one?"

"Yeah!" Alex perked up. His green eyes glittered.

Lăutari was much louder than Ferești, a constant murmur of cars and people talking and wind quickened by the tight spaces between buildings. The first thing Garofița saw as she, Roxi and Mihai walked out of the police station was Mr Ozsvar heading inside, who waved at them. The second thing she saw was a man in a black robe and cowl running down the street at full speed.

"Huh?"

"No idea, girl." Roxi said.

"It's the second time we've seen him. He's always running." Mihai shrugged.

They window-shopped a few clothing stores, an ice cream parlor and a second-hand book store run by an old lady with an eyepatch. Roxi bought "Dumnealui și Eva" by Constantin Cuza for Garofița because she read it a long time ago and it was very silly. There was a Michiduță character in it too. They crossed the street because a man (another one) was lying down on the concrete in front of another store, his body badly painted grey, with paper cat ears on his bald head and a paper tail hanging from his grey underpants. Roxi and Mihai put their hands over Garo's eyes and blindly guided her until he was out of sight.

They enjoyed a promenade under blooming linden trees for a while. They saw Melinda on a walk with her son and her sister. She waved at them with a soft smile. Garo had never seen her so happy. They informed her they were leaving later that day and it was fine with her too. Melinda said it was best she left before she "messed up" again. Her sister lightly shoved her.

They went to the park next to the hotel and bought big pretzels with sesame seeds, then sat all three on a bench. Aside from the cloaked guy running between the trees in the distance, and remains of metal crosses of an ancient cemetery from before the town modernized and expanded jutting out from the grass here and there, it was a very beautiful green place.

There was a 3-year old girl running nearby, holding a crocodile plushie, followed by another girl holding a scraggly labubu. They passed by a set of swings, where there was a little boy holding a Chiikawa plushie and another holding a teddy bear. Garofița looked around the park and every single small child was carrying one or two stuffed animals.

A little girl holding a stuffed bear with fuzzy purple fur came up to Garo's side. "He looks like you!" She said.

"He does!" Garo smiled, immediately endeared to her. "What's his name?"

"I don't know. He's not mine."

"Is it your friend's?"

"No, he's from the box."

"Every kid here has a toy, huh?" Roxi joined in.

"Yeah!" The little girl said. "I have to give it to Mr Cotton!"

"...Excuse me, what?" Garofița said with two quick blinks.

"Mr Cotton! He lives in the red slide over there!" She twisted around to point with her finger. It was a red tubular slide in the shape of a spiral. "He's an old man with a puffy face and a fluffy beard, and he's really really nice!"

"Oh, is he?" Roxi asked, forcing herself to stay calm.

"Yeah! But he only likes kids! Not grown-ups, he kills them."

"And, uh, he doesn't hurt the kids at all?" Mihai asked.

"Well, if you wanna go down the slide he stops you and keeps you there, but if you throw a plushie down the slide first he picks up the plushie, and you can go. But you lose the plushie. And! And a couple days later stuffing falls out the slide!"

"Uh-huuuh!"

The girl, as if to demonstrate, climbed up the stairs to the slide and walked to the red mouth. "Like this!" She said, chucking the bear down the slide, then sitting down to go herself. There was the sound of denim pants rubbing against plastic, then the girl emerged at the other end of the slide, before the bear did. The bear never came out.

She ran over to the edge of the park, to a large wooden box, and pulled out another old toy.

"And it's so dumb, you know!" Alex said as he ate his third candy. "What am I supposed to do? This jail is the only place I get proper food and bed and showers. Nobody will ever hire me at this point. I might as well commit something real bad and stay for life..."

"Please don't, though." Gabi said as he ate his fourth candy. He wanted to listen to Alex and he did, but his mind kept wandering back to Aurora and now his trial. He was not in his right mind. Be yourself. If he plays it up too much it might cause more trouble, though.

"I wonder if that guy David will kill himself." Alex said, referring to another inmate. "What if I stab him? Then I'll get a longer sentence, right?"

"That pedo guy?"

"Yeah, him. They isolated him from everyone else so people stopped beating his ass."

"Huh. Are the former cultists there too, perhaps? Is that why I haven't seen them?"

"Yuuup. They hurt so many people, that girl Aurora too, yet we're not allowed to rough them up even a little. It's bullshit."

"Yeah... I was hoping I could at least get something out of them while here."

"Get what? More nerves?" Alex huffed. "That David is so annoying on top of being a creep. He likes Minecraft, Loud House, My Little Pony - all the pedophile breeding grounds."

"Ugh, let's change the subject before I vomit."

"Hah, maybe while he's isolated he'll try to make a Pinkie Pie tulpa and that will make him off himself."

Gabi stared at Alex. "The what?"

"The, uh, the Pinkie Pie tulpa." Alex said, awkward again. "It was a thing online, a guy created a tulpa of Pinkie Pie and she ended up tormenting him. I, uh, I kinda liked MLP too when I was younger, but not in a weird way..."

Gabi might as well have turned to stone.

"G-Gabriel? You okay?"

"That's it." He said, breathless.

"What?"

"That's it! That's it! That's it! She's a tulpa! She's a tulpa!!" Gabi stood up, chair falling behind him. Alex hopped to his feet, confused. "She's not an undead, she's a thoughtform! Oh my God, they literally created her!"

"Uh, uhm, hello? Anyone?"

"T-T-They made her! They thought her back into existence! Their grief, t-their lust, their feelings, concentrated! That's why there's two bodies! Oh my God! OH MY GOD!" Gabi laughed like a maniac, hands in his messed up hair.

"What happened?" One of the ghosts popped in.

"What's going on here?" A guard showed up at the door.

"I FIGURED IT OUT!!!" Gabi cried out and ran to Alex. He gave him a big, loud kiss on the forehead. Alex yelped and punched him away. Gabi was on the floor, but was too ecstatic to notice.

"We should probably hire a temp to replace Gabi." Roxi said. The evening air was warm and heavy, stinking of linden perfume and exhaust smoke.

"We can make a flyer when we get home." Mihai said, scratching the side of his face. "Garo, do you still want to work for us?"

"No." She replied instantly. Roxi and Mihai giggled.

The three of them were still in the park. They watched the cat guy try to climb a tree in the distance. He was not athletic at all and struggled to raise a leg that lost most of its paint. A policewoman they recognised as Officer Liliana was trying to hit him with a baton, but couldn't reach. The cloaked guy passed by again. He acquired a bicycle at some point.

"I think the concierge at the hotel is a fox." Garofița said.

"Oh, yeah, definitely." Mihai said.

"Is he... like you?"

"No, no, it's different... You know what, I'll give you Gabi's bachelor thesis to read."

"You told her about you?" Roxi asked. Garo went quiet, worried she was not supposed to know.

"Not really?" Mihai rubbed his neck. "We met in a dream and we both just... went on with it."

"Oh, okay." Roxi said. "I guess Garo has already seen a lot of oddities."

"Ahah, yeah..." She awkwardly laughed. Life is weird. Should it be so weird? Is she weird? She didn't mind being weird, though. Should she?

The cat guy fell with a heavy thud on the ground.

"Good evening, Josef!" Mirabela said, surprised to see Mr Ozsvar in the waiting room. "You're visiting Gabi again?"

"Yes, the manager called me. Gabriel has something important to tell me, it seems." He said, looking a little worried.

"With this occasion, I'll see the young man myself!" Mr Duță said. "From what I've learned today, he's got the potential to be a real loon."

Mr Ozsvar viciously looked at him up and down.

"You misunderstand, Sir!" Duță continued. "This would be his saving grace! His dark horse!"

"For Gabriel Eghedi?" A guard called out. The three of them stood up.

As soon as the door opened on the other side of the glass, Gabi ran to the phone like the place was on fire. He looked insane, misty eyed and a huge smile.

"Mr Ozsvar!!" He gasped.

"Woah! Woah! Calm down! What happened?"

"She's a thoughtform! Aurora is a thoughtform!"

"A what now?" Mirabela asked.

"Thoughtform! Tulpa! She is Slenderman! That-That Lady, Alexandra de Something Neel! Sneaking into Tibet and creating the Friar John from Robin Hood or whatever and they had to kill it because it was too sentient! Buddhist Tibetan Thosophy! Thosophony! Thesph-blaghh! Shit!!"

"Gabi, chill-"

"The-oh-so-phy! There, fuck! It was in her God-damned name too all along!! You can't spell Aurora without 'aura'!"

Mr Ozsvar stared at Gabi as he rambled with his mouth agape, eyes slowly moving downwards. "Oh my goodness. That-"

"Explains so much!!"

"It does! Oh God!"

Gabi laughed out loud, tears of relief going down his cheeks. An officer threatened him to calm down. Mr Ozsvar took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

Mirabela looked between the two of them, deeply concerned. She turned to Mr Duță, who had a comically satisfied expression on his face, his lips curling like the bottom of a heart.

"Perfect." He declared.

"Perfect?" She repeated, hopeful.

"Mmmh, now, I do not know much about these thought formations myself. Most people do not. And Gabriel has been thinking about this undead girl so much, everybody knows that. You may say he's been contributing to her existence. God and Tibetans know what that does to one's mental competence!"

"Yay!"

"Are you all packed, my lovelies?" Mirabela stepped into their hotel room. Mihai and Robert were helping Roxi and Garofița stuff their things back in their luggage.

"All ready!" Roxi replied.

"Thank you, Garo, for your help!" Mirabela said. "Sorry for the trouble."

"I-It's fine." She replied.

"You're the best!" She blew a kiss and walked away. The hotel had a terrace balcony overlooking the park and it was dark enough to go without the veil. The days were getting longer, but cloudy skies helped cheat.

To her surprise, she found Bălașa alone. She turned around to look at her, then back to the cityscape, not saying anything. Mirabela quietly sucked her teeth and walked up to her side.

"Logos as manifested in Man"

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