Only the Cosmos Knows

CHAPTER III | A Meeting at the Ghost House

Abruptly teleporting onto the streets of an unknown city was not something the group had in mind.

Sometimes, you just had to make do with what you had.

Lacerta held the side of her head gently in her hand. "Apus, where did you take us?"

"The first place I could think of." Apus responded, getting up and looking around. "Please let this be the right place..."

They were standing in front of what seemed to be a large clock tower. The clock tower's faces were decorated with delicate gold designs, and the architectural structure of the clock tower was unlike anything they'd seen before.

"Woah..." said Mensa in awe, standing up to face the clock tower. "This is amazing. I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life."

"The travel magazine said this was the Prague Astronomical Clock in Prague, which is the capital city of the Czech Republic." Apus recalled. "I just thought of this place when we teleported."

Aquila groaned at the effects of the teleportation. "I thought you could only teleport to places that you've seen before."

"Well I did see this place on the travel magazine, so it should count." Apus remarked. Suddenly, they clutched the side of their head, struggling to maintain balance. "It must be quite a long way from the Academy though, I'm starting to get dizzy."

"Here, sit." Lacerta told them, helping them sit against the closest wall.

Aquila turned away from the clock, immediately raising his head to the sky above. "It's almost daytime here! I swear it was past midnight just a while ago, what the hell time is it?"

"According to the clock, it's 6am," Mensa answered. "It may be abnormal to you, but it's not strange to anyone else here. I bet most people are still asleep. The people we're seeing here are probably just out for a morning stroll or something."

"If this is some sort of landmark, we shouldn't be out in the open like this," said Aquila, looking around. Turning to Apus and Lacerta, he added, "We should move to an alleyway or something so people don't see us."

Lacerta nodded, reaching a hand out to Apus. "Come on, now, let's get you up. I'll help you stay steady."

"The world is spinning..." Apus droned on.

"There, there, it'll be fine." Lacerta gently let Apus wrap their arm around her shoulder. Turning to Aquila, she asked, "Where are we headed to?"

Aquila shrugged. "I don't know, anywhere would be fine."

The four decided to settle in an alleyway beside a bakery. The aroma of fresh bread that came from next door floated around the atmosphere, but with their important matters at hand, they were not easily swayed by it.

"So?" asked Mensa, peering out of the alleyway and looking around for anything interesting. "What now? We're out of Starfall Academy. Should we go and see the world or something?"

"It's dangerous," Lacerta warned her. "If the people know that we're... Astralites, was it? If the people know that we're Astralites, they're going to freak out and we're going to get sent back."

"It's 6am here, and it was midnight at Starfall Academy." Aquila pointed out. "It must be those time zone things we learned about back at the Academy. If we've traveled to a place six hours away from our original location, we must've traveled pretty far."

"We're probably the first Astralites to have made it so far away from Starfall Academy!" Apus exclaimed.

"Are you still feeling dizzy?" Lacerta asked them.