Saturday Savior

Chapter 3

The bookworm was shocked to see that Natsuki was no longer standing where she left her, nor did she seem to be anywhere nearby. She poked her head over to the café; MC was there next in line to order, but Natsuki wasn't with him. She walked over to the manga section thinking she went back to look around again. No sign of her. She pulled out her phone and gave Natsuki a call. When it went to voicemail, she sent her a text. "Hey, where did you go?"

She made her way to the fantasy novels. No sign of her there, either. After scouring that section, she called again. Voicemail. She sent another text. "Natsuki? Where are you?"

She ran to the horror novels. Nothing. Voicemail. Text. "Natsuki, seriously! I can't find you, and I'm starting to get really worried." She searched the entire library, upstairs, downstairs, every section, every nook and cranny, all the while desperately calling and texting Natsuki. Still nothing.

She ran up to MC as he was getting his drink and frantically asked, "W-Where'd Natsuki go?"

"I...I don't know, I thought she was standing right by the...door...?" he replied. He let his gaze drift to where Natsuki originally was, and his face contorted to confusion when he didn't see her. Yuri ran to the cashier as another customer was stepping away.

"Excuse me? Did you, by any chance, see where our friend went? The girl that came in with us?" Yuri questioned.

"Um...n-no, I'm sorry. I'm not sure. Pink hair, right?" the cashier replied. The other two nodded. "Well, I...I thought I saw her step outside and sit at the outdoor tables, but I didn't see where she went afterwards. I'm sorry I couldn't be much more help."

"That's quite helpful, thank you!" Yuri responds, making a run for the door. She throws the door open and looks around frantically. The tables were empty, and there was no sign of her on the sidewalks.

"Found anything?" MC asked, finally catching up to his clubmate.

"No, nothing!" Yuri cried. "I-I-I have no idea where-"

She paused. Her blood ran cold. She stalked over to a table on the far left, finally noticing something wrong about it; one of the chairs had been knocked on its side, as though someone stood up from it in a big hurry. There were two books on the floor by its side: a dense and ominous-looking novel, and a cutesy magical-girl manga. The manga was spine up on the ground, and some of its pages were bent...the kind of state that Natsuki would never, ever, under any circumstances leave a manga.

"A-Are...are those...the books we...just got?" MC stuttered, also starting to worry. She barely heard MC's question, let alone answered it; his voice was quiet and muffled, echoing in Yuri's head like cave walls as panic settled in. The books shook with her trembling hands, and all of the alarms in Yuri's mind were going off. Dots were suddenly connecting...she just prayed she was wrong.

She immediately pulled out her phone and opened up her messages. She quickly fired off an SOS to Monika and Sayori that read, "An emergency has come up. I am contacting the authorities of this now, but I need your help in the meantime. Please try to get in contact with Natsuki. She recently disappeared, she is not answering my calls or texts, and I have reason to believe that she might be in serious danger. Please keep reaching out to her; if you hear anything from her, please give me a call as soon as possible. Also, if either of you happen to have her address, please send it to me; it might be a big help."

After closing her messages, she rapidly dialed a number into the keypad. The phone rang three times, Yuri rapidly praying that the receiver picks up, before cutting off.

"Hello?" an airy voice greeted. Yuri sighed with relief.

"Katy! It's Yuri!"

"Oh, hi sweets!" Kaitlyn replied cheerily. "I wasn't expecting you to call; I thought you were gonna wait for me to call you!"