I never really liked dogs. Or lions. I mean, lions look fluffy but obviously they're dangerous. Sometimes I think, what if the rest of the canine family hates me because I killed one of them with my friend's itak? Then I think of the feline family and how both cats and dogs would hate me. That's okay. I'm not an animal lover.

Oh, you want an explanation? I'm getting to it. So we start somewhere in late 2019, when me and two friends were walking down a street in our neighborhood.

My best friend Laurence kicked a pebble forward and it landed a few steps ahead of me. I kicked it too, but as usual, I messed up and kicked it too hard. It flew to the middle of the road.

"Oh, wow," he said, nodding and putting his fist in the air. He would have clapped, but he was holding the handle of his scooter in the other hand. "Amazing."

It was easy for him to say that. He had been the most athletic person I'd known since we were 8. Well, I was 8 and he was 9. In the 4 years that we had known each other, we had gotten used to how the other person would act.

I rolled my eyes, bumping his shoulder and smirking at how he was still a little shorter than me. "Shut it."

"Can you not show off?" Mia grinned playfully on my left side.

"I'm not showing off," Laurence complained.

"Tell that to 9 year old me," I muttered.

"You're making this worse, Diana."

"And did I say I would be on your side?"

Laurence, or RenRen, gave up, got on his scooter and went ahead. On our 2 o'clock, the sun shone brightly above the houses and buildings. A short distance ahead on our left stood a gate leading to the street me and my friends would always play. Well, mostly just RenRen, me, and his sister because he's my only friend who lives close enough for us to go on "adventures" where we would roam around or play. That street was a good area because one end was gated off, which meant not as many cars would pass through as they would on a regular street.

"Diana!" RenRen called.

"What?!" I yelled back. He gestured for us to follow, swinging his scooter over the lower bar of the gate.

"You go first," I told Mia. Once she got through, I pulled in the front half of my blue bike by the handles, then grabbed the seat and lifted the other half in.

When I found Mia and RenRen, they were hiding behind a parked car. Mia was grinning at me.

As I opened my mouth to ask a question there was a loud bang and someone cursed.

"Hey! Diana, right?"

I cursed even louder in my head. My crush Philip was standing in front of me while RenRen and Mia hid out of sight. I made sure to put on my mental to do list to dramatically tell them how betrayed I felt later on. Why Philip wore the high school's complete P.E. uniform on a Saturday, though, I don't know.

I sucked in a sharp breath. "Yeah. You're...playing?"

He hummed in response. "Aerron's here too. Aerron!"

"What?" Aerron's bulky figure appeared beside Philip, holding a basketball. Seriously, does that kid ever take off his hoodie?

"That's Diana," Philip said, smiling at me. My cheeks burned.

Aerron greeted me with bored eyes behind round glasses. "I know."

I put my bike on its stand, embarrassed, and pulled RenRen out from behind the car. "And this is-this is Laurence."

"That's-" RenRen glared at me and pulled Mia out too. "-This is Mia."

"I thought you were RenRen?" Philip asked.

"Laurence to you," RenRen replied stiffly.

Aerron looked at me and smiled, which made me panic a little. He nudged Philip with the basketball. "Isn't he the one who-"

"The one who pushed me, yeah. I think so." He stared at us and I stared at RenRen. Oh no. Haha, oh no. Yikes.

Basically, after RenRen found out I liked Philip, he went to my school and bumped him on purpose, just to see his reaction. Looking back on it, that was a bit of an asshole move.

Oh my God, this was getting so dry. Suddenly a low bark barked at us from the shade of the trees, where the gate and a wall met to make a corner. There were a lot of dogs in our neighborhood, especially in this street.

"Oh no. Is it mad?" I asked.

"How would I know if it's mad?" Aerron snapped back.

I tried not to roll my eyes. "I wasn't asking you in particular," I said lowly.

"Okay." RenRen picked his scooter up from the ground and put Mia's hands on the handles. "In case we get chased, you take that."

Mia shoved it back. "Why?"

"Because! Chivalry isn't dead!"

Mia frowned. "You take it. I can run fast."

"Everyone here knows I can run faster."

"Uhm-" I gestured to Philip and Aerron, but he ignored me.

"RenRen-"

"Mia."

Mia gripped the handles and asked, "What now?"

"Walk the other way?" I suggested. "But do it calmly. If you panic and shout, they'll chase you."

"How do you know so much about that?"

I sighed, eyes glued to the ground. "We got chased last February."

"Yeah, cause Elize started running," RenRen added.

"Don't drag her into this. If she were here, she'd blame you."

"There are three now." Philip glanced over my shoulder. "They look weird." Aerron cursed.

"I thought you were cool," I said, beginning to walk away when I heard the rumble of a dog's growl behind me.

"He is cool," Aerron claimed. "Just not now."

I scoffed. "What, he has a schedule?"

Finally the cord snapped and all the dogs barked at once, making me jolt and hop on my bike. RenRen ran ahead and Mia was on his scooter. I thought we had lost Aerron and Philip, but they appeared a little behind us riding their bikes. I pedaled faster, hoping I zipped up my backpack properly.

"Drop the basketball!" RenRen hardly sounded out of breath. His Avengers shirt flapped as he ran. "Leave it!"

"No!"

"Aerron, please!" Mia yelled. No reply. Then I heard the sound of a basketball bouncing on cement followed by a car's alarm going off.

"Oh shit. Oh shit. They look really fucking weird, Diana!"

"What am I supposed to do about it?" I complained.

"I wasn't asking you in particular," Aerron mocked. I frowned, taken aback.

"Shit!" Philip hissed and turned back.

"Language!" RenRen said as we turned the corner. I rolled my eyes. Up ahead, I saw a familiar Mickey Mouse shirt. Apparently my classmate and friend Elize was too lost in thought to have noticed our situation.

"Hi Diana!" She grinned. "Ano gawa niyo? Pwede ako sumali?" ("What are you guys doing? Can I join?") She stepped off her mom's electric scooter, the kind of scooter RenRen always longed for, and held up a white plastic bag. "Mom told me to buy something."

RenRen stopped in front of her, catching his breath. "Are you-are you sure you want to join?"

"Ano bang meron?" ("What's going on?")

I caught a glimpse of Elize's confused expression before I leaned forward and rested my head on my arms, panting. The barking became louder and I said, "'Yan yung meron." ("That's what's going on.")

Philip was steering his bike with only one hand, which I'll admit was impressive. In the other hand, he held what looked like two big branches.

Elize raised her eyebrows at me and I shook my head. "Oh, an adventure. Okay, sige, game!" I hope she didn't mind the dogs. But if she did, she didn't say anything.

Aerron nearly fell off his bike in haste to get off. "Take mine."

Elize blushed and slipped her hand through the handles of the plastic big and threw a leg over the bike. I smirked, knowing she liked Aerron. She muttered something under her breath, frowning.

"Can we go now?" Mia asked as RenRen picked up Elize's scooter after she made him promise to be careful with it.

Philip threw one of the branches back and Aerron caught it without missing a beat as he climbed onto Philip's bike. "Of course!"

The dogs nearly caught up to us again but we sped off. Aerron said they'd need a big area and RenRen and I seemed to think of the same thing: Circle Park.

Laurence led the way and I was a little surprised that Philip and Arjon trusted us. He left our school the same year Aerron transferred to our school, and Philip just came this year. We barely even knew each other.

The guards at the gate nodded at us and let us in after seeing RenRen's face. They seemed to notice the dogs as well, but didn't do anything about it. Adults, am I right? (Just kidding. I'm sorry. Well, they can be pretty clueless sometimes.)

Circle Park isn't really a park. It's just a big round platform with weeds and tufts of grass growing here and there, and a gazebo. A ring of houses stood around it, facing away without any windows on the inside but there was a part where it opened into a street, like a Greek Omega. Like this: Ω. The flat side is the street.

Mia and Elize arrived there first, with Mia stumbling and dropping RenRen's scooter a little too hard. He scowled.

Philip and Aerron had trouble getting off the bike at the same time, but at least Philip did it more gracefully. Aerron's hoodie got caught on the handles and when he fell, he accidentally pushed me to the ground and both our legs were stuck under fallen bikes.

RenRen helped me up. My knee stung. "This is why I keep asking you for your reason to wear short shorts on our adventures," He scolded.

"Mainit kasi dito, noh!" I retorted. ("It's hot here, alright?")

"Excuse me," Philip said, and we stepped away. the dogs came back and Elize reached for Aerron's bike. Something wooden clattered to the floor, then another thing that sounded like it was made of thick cloth fell too.

One of the dogs barked and-oh God, there were six now-and they did look strange. Their paws were too big and so were their heads, which were more feline. They had manes.

"Please don't leave," Philip said. In his hand was a long, shiny blade, thin and sharp. Aerron held one too, but it was shorter, curved and slightly rusted. One of the dogs advanced, jumping at their legs.

A bright flash of silver glinted in the air and the dog was shoved to the side, whimpering. Elize flinched.

"Did it work? Did it work?" Philip asked excitedly.

"I think it worked?" Aerron replied, unsure.

I bent down near the dog. Its limbs were weakly twitching, and it definitely had the head and paws of a lion. The gold fur contrasted with the dirty white. I wondered how and why it got to us. Elize bent down and inspected it too.

Meanwhile Philip and Aerron were still fighting, but didn't seem like they were used to it. I mean, they probably weren't. They kept stepping on untied shoelaces and their-what, swords?-kept slipping from their hands.

The dog in front of us jolted up and Elize grabbed the thick cloth from earlier and hit it with it. At the same time, a rock nearly the size of my fist flew at its head. Elize and I turned to see Mia with a rock in her hand and RenRen with more in his arms.

"It doesn't have blood?" RenRen asked. I took a quick look at its stomach where Aerron had left a cut. At first I was convinced there wasn't any blood, but I knew that it was impossible. Soon, a circle of red started seeping out of the slit, followed by smaller dots. If I looked at it from the right angle, I would see that there was a clear, shining substance trickling out of its body as well, but I ignored it because I knew that's not how blood works.

I put my hand on my knee to get up but immediately regretted it, forgetting how I scraped it earlier.

On my right, Aerron's knife clattered to the ground and I realized it was a bolo knife. My dad kept one in our kitchen, though we've never actually used it for anything, as far as I could remember.

I heard a thwack sound and Aerron called my name, shaking his hand. "Take my place," he said.

"What?"

"Take my place!"

I took the bolo off the ground and stood there just gripping it, not knowing what to do. I felt like I was standing in front of my classmates, waiting for them to be quiet while my teacher hissed at them to stop talking.

One of the dogs, lions, whatever-I'm calling them dogs whether you like it or not-one of them actually roared. It only roared and did nothing else, but in my panicked state I hit it across the face with the flat side of the bolo. It would have been funny except for the fact that it went back and bit the blade with really big teeth. I shook it off and didn't stop when it let go already, and that's when it happened.

The blade cut into its neck and it stumbled off to the side. I let go of the handle. Oh God, I just killed a dog. I killed something that wasn't a bug. I stared at it for, how long? A few seconds? A minute? My knees ached from biking uphill earlier and my ankles felt like lead. I was sweaty and my knee was bleeding. My hair was probably a mess and Philip stood beside me and-

"Diana, let's go." Philip put his sword back in the scabbard and headed towards the platform. I picked up the bolo and followed. They were all standing with Elize and RenRen arguing while Mia shook her head.

"Um, hindi yan aso! That's not a dog!"

"You didn't have to translate it, Elize."

"Okay, fine. But what's going on?"

"I thought you wanted to join! I don't know either."

Ikaw nga nagyaya, I thought. ("You were the one who invited her.")

"What are those? Why did you run?"

"Don't ask me! It's not my fault they went all samurai on the dogs!" RenRen held out his arms to aggressively point at Aerron and Philip. "And us? We ran? I'm not the one who screamed in February."

"RenRen, you're so hard to talk to. I swear it's the hardest thing I've ever fucking done."

Philip dropped his sword and angrily kicked it under the cement benches that lined the platform. That seemed to get their attention. He pointed at Aerron. "Aerron's fucking bleeding!"

"Neither of you noticed?" Mia asked, uncrossing her arms and laughing sourly.

Meanwhile my two best friends turned on each other again and I sighed. I really mean it when I say that they can't be left alone in a room without me or else they'll rip each other apart. They were so opposite, and I was the line drawn in between them.

I held my hands out in front of Elize. "Wait! Wait, okay?" I elbowed RenRen back.

"Ana, give me that."

"Give what?"

I felt the bolo be taken out of my hand and I turned around to see RenRen putting it under a bench too. Someone passed by and we all shut up and avoided eye contact.

"Okay, what happened in the first place?" Philip's voice asked as I rummaged in my bag.

"You were there. We were just going on an adventure and bumped into you..." Mia and Philip went over everything that happened, which seemed pretty useless to me. I took out my unused face towel, still cool from being beside my cold water bottle the whole time, and held it out to Aerron. He had sat down now, and there was a gash on his left arm and his right knuckles didn't look too good.

He had taken off his hoodie, too. Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries Finally Unraveled, 2019 Edition!

"What for, Ana?" he asked.

"Don't call me that," I growled.

"You let Laurence call you that."

"Well, yes."

"Why, then?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Right, Aerron?"

We turned to Philip. "Sorry, what?" Aerron asked.

"We didn't know the lions were coming."

"Of course not. We just screwed around with the antiques at our house."

"Mhm. Speaking of that, I'm not allowed to touch my hwando until I'm older, but whatever. No one really cared anyway."

"I thought people would usually say geom," Aerron said.

"Yeah, but I wanna call it hwando," Philip whispered back.

Mia sighed. "None of us are supposed to be holding them in the first place."

RenRen agreed. "Yeah, aren't they illegal?"

"Only if they're double-bladed," I piped in.

"How do you know that?" Elize asked.

I opened my mouth to answer but RenRen said, "She always wants to know if she can carry a sword around like Annabeth or something."

"Annabeth carries a dagger, you uncultured swine. Sorry."

"Oh, is that who you dressed up as in English Month?" Philip grinned and Elize did too. I shook my head at her.

Turning away, I muttered, "Please, no. And that's Reyna."

"Can we focus, please?" Aerron grumbled and pushed his glasses back.

"Wow, you're actually being polite," RenRen said sarcastically.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "Laurence, no. And don't look at me like that."

"So what now?" Elize asked. "What if we get caught?"

Aerron scoffed. "By who? The grass?"

Mia stepped in front of him and silently gestured to the houses surrounding Circle Park. I was about to mention that there were no windows facing us, but the houses on the flat side of the omega made me reconsider speaking.

"So-so what, we're animal abusers now? Did that count?" I fidgeted with the hem of my shirt.

"Diana, we killed like, 6 dogs."

"Don't forget the illegal swords," RenRen added.

"Nope." Mia's voice rang out from my left. She was crouched down Philip and Aerron's unsheathed weapons. "They're single-bladed."

Silence fell over us and we all seemed to be thinking about the next move. I sat down beside RenRen, wiping my hands on my shorts. He sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together.

Elize sat down on my left and whispered, "Why's Aerron here?"

I shrugged. "We found Philip and when there's a Philip there's an Aerron. Rule of life."

"Can you please speak up?" Aerron called.

"No," I replied flatly.

Then I scanned the area and my skull seemed to shake for a moment from shock. There were no dogs. None at all, as if they had never followed us. A cold December breeze swept by and I was sure they disappeared.

"Guys, the dogs are gone."

"Yes, Diana, they're dead," RenRen replied. Elize rolled her eyes.

"They disappeared, Laurie, nawala. Faded."

"Don't call me Laurie," RenRen muttered.

Philip stood up, eyes glued to where the dogs were before. He hopped off the gazebo and kicked something. "Except for these."

We followed. On the ground lay a few bones and nothing else.

"That's our only evidence," Aerron said.

Elize nudged it with her foot. "The neighbors, too."

A few of us groaned, and I sighed. The possibility of us getting caught was already too much to handle right now.

Philip put a hand on Aerron's shoulder. "They might be sleeping, though. Taking a nap or something."

I knew we couldn't rely on just that, but I nodded anyway.

"Okay, so we didn't see or do anything. We just got chased by dogs, went here, and they went away," Aerron finished.

Mia frowned. "Huh?"

"I mean, do you agree? Promise?"

We all agreed, then picked up our bikes and scooters and went home. Philip and Aerron left quickly, going the other way.

Since RenRen's house was the closest to us and Elize insisted she could go home on her own, Mia and I told him to go ahead.

"No, I'll go with you," he had said. It was always useless to argue with him about that, so I sighed and dragged my bike along as we went back.

After Mia, it was my house next. As I was about to close the gate, I called his name.

"What the fuck happened today?"

Swearing like that with my house's gate open to someone in the middle of the street was risky, but I couldn't hold the question back.

He shrugged. "Dunno. Uh, I'll see you on Monday?"

"Yep."