September 15th, 2018, 6:12 A.M. Bright Harbor, the River Shack complex, room twenty.


Bea opened her eyes slightly as her phone emitted a constant buzzing sound, she probed her hand around the area her phone was buzzing in which was currently out of her sleepy sight. She eventually grabbed hold of the plastic, cold, and hard rectangular phone, she held it in front of her face and turned it on, the sudden bright light from the phone's screen practically blinded Bea but she recovered quickly. Once she unlocked her phone she saw why it was buzzing, she hadn't turned off her alarm that would normally remind her to wake up an hour or so before the store was supposed to open, now it only woke her up really effing early in the morning which pissed her off.

Bea sat up in bed still very groggy, she looked over to her left and saw Mae still sound asleep next to her, Bea was about to question why Mae wasn't woken up by the alarm's buzz but she remembered that during one of their sleepovers when they were younger Bea had wanted to keep Mae up all night so they could go hunt for Bigfoot in Mae's backyard, and after several hours of trying almost everything to wake Mae up young Bea eventually gave up and went to sleep along side her friend. That memory made Bea grin slightly, she had tried literally almost everything she could to wake Mae up, she even caused physical pain to Mae which only caused her to swat Bea's hands away each time she did, Bea gave Mae a quick and friendly kiss on the top of her forehead before sleepily saying to the cat "Sleep tight, Maeday."

Bea then climbed out of bed and placed the phone back down on the wooden nightstand that sat next to her side of the bed. Bea walked over to her suitcase and pulled it open, she grabbed a black, baggy, short sleeve shirt that had a big white Ankh on it's chest area much like the rest of her tops, even her dresses. She then grabbed a pair of dark blue jean capri pants, as well as a pair of fresh underwear for her to change into, she then walked out of the guest bedroom and back into the living room, on the pullout bed was Lori and Selmers who were both still asleep, Lori was curled up into a fetal position like shape, and she was snuggled up closely to Selmers who was just laying there spread out on the pullout however she wanted, Bea silently mumbled to herself "You two are lucky I don't wake you up with a buzzing phone."

She then walked past the pullout looking around the apartment trying to find the bathroom so she could change, as she searched around she saw that the kitchen light was on which caused the white tiles of the kitchen to almost glow when compared to the darker colors of the rest of the unlit apartment. Bea poked her head into the kitchen and she saw Angus sitting at a fold out table, he was holding a black Pickelhaube helmet that belonged to Gregg, which looked like a bike helmet that had a metal spike on the top of it, on it's front side there was a bullet hole in the place of what looked to have been silver colored engravings, on the back of the helmet directly across from the front was another bullet hole, and on it's right side was a large circle sticker that had a big red "A" on it either signifying anarchy or something else that Gregg liked. Angus himself was still in his blue stripped pajamas although now he wasn't wearing his glasses which was something Bea hadn't seen him do often. His eyes were colored green and looked bloodshot from crying, Bea slowly entered the kitchen, normally she wouldn't want anyone to see her in her pajamas but Angus was a very close friend... and he was gay, Bea stood inside the kitchen still holding her fresh change of clothes she wasn't sure what to say or do to get his attention so she decided to clear her throat which did catch Angus's attention, Angus looked over to Bea slightly surprised and possibly even startled "Oh.. Didn't see you standing there."

Bea walked over to the table and sat down across from Angus "It's fine... Can you even see without?"

Angus placed the helmet down in his lap before answering "Kinda, everything's just kinda fuzzy, like I can make things out but my glasses let me see things clearly."

Bea nodded as she placed her clothes down on her lap "Couldn't sleep?"

He nodded "Yeah... Well, kinda I did get some sleep but it wasn't a lot. I just couldn't sit still without thinking about Gregg, it kept me up, I'm just so... Scared."

She reached across the table and placed her hand on Angus's "Angus you're not alone, I'm sure Mae is just as scared as you are.. Hell if you gave her the chance I'm sure she'd freak out more than you did."

He raised an eyebrow in confusion "How so?"

Bea grinned slightly as she thought about how Mae'd react if she were in Angus's position "Well... Gregg'd want you to be calm, to think rationally that's why he loves you, you think things through, you keep him out of trouble. But Mae, she'd flip right the fuck out. She'd grab a bat and run all over town threatening anyone that so much as looked at her wrong, and Gregg'd want that. He likes Mae because she's a maniac, he likes her because she used to get him into all sorts of trouble when they were younger."

Angus also grinned slightly as he too imagined Mae's reaction. He suddenly realized that Bea had asked him why he was still up but he hadn't asked her "So, why are you up?"

Bea took her hand off of Angus's and placed it on top of her fresh clothes "I forgot to turn off my work alarm on my phone so it woke me up, and once I wake up it's hard for me to go back to sleep so I decided to just start my day earlier then I would've liked to."

Angus nodded as he sat back in his chair, his hands placed on Gregg's helmet, the two of them sat there in silence for a while when Angus grinned after remembering something from his past "Heh... So on me and Gregg's first bike date Gregg wore this helmet so he could, I guess impress me. But anyways, we biked all the way to Fort Lucenne and we stopped in the city's biggest park, and well, we were just sitting on a bench minding our own business, Gregg still wearing his helmet. When some lady stomped over to us and, who I could only assume was her boyfriend, followed her, and when she got over to us she pointed her finger right at Gregg and practically screamed at him "How dare you wear something that glorifies Nazi oppression" or something like that, well Gregg hopped up onto the bench, took of his helmet, held up high above his head, and screamed out "IT'S NOT A FASCIST HELMET!" before throwing it onto the ground in front of the lady, Gregg then pointed his finger at her and said to her "Now get lost before I oppress my fist into your face." and when he said it the lady looked like she was gonna snap and her poor boyfriend was trying his best to calm her down, but before she could say or do anything else Gregg hopped off of the bench, picked up the helmet, grabbed my arm and led me away saying "Come on cap'n this lady doesn't know the first thing about what she's supposed to be mad at." and as we got back onto the tandem-bike and peddled away I think Gregg either shot her the middle finger or possibly a sieg heil salute because she started to yell at us even as we left the park."

Despite the fact that the memory should've been awkward to retell Angus couldn't help but smile as he reminisced over Gregg. Bea was also smiling "It doesn't surprise me at all to know Gregg did that."

Angus nodded "He's really defensive over this helmet."

He pat the sides of the helmet as he talked about it, Bea then finally stood up still holding her clothes, as she walked away Bea realized that she still didn't know where the bathroom was, she spun around on her heels facing Angus again "Hey where's the bathroom?"

Angus pointed out of the kitchen and towards a door in the living room she hadn't seen yet "It's over there just be careful, Gregg's kinda broken the hot water nob so it's may fall off."

Bea nodded as she turned back around and walked towards the bathroom door.


9:22 A.M. Guest bedroom, room twenty.


Mae opened her eyes slowly as she woke up still very sleepy, she was lying on her back and staring up at the ceiling, she hadn't noticed last night but there was a window with had it's shades drawn, the sun's rays poured into the guest room and some of them landed on Mae's body. One of the rays landed on Mae's face hitting her directly in her eyes, Mae rolled over onto her right side to get her eyes away from the sun, once she rolled over Mae saw that Bea had, at some point in the night, left bed, Mae relaxed a little as her body tried to go back to sleep, due to her relaxing a little she could smell, as well as hear the sounds, of food being cooked which quickly woke her back up. Mae hopped out of bed and walked out of the guest room. Once she left the guest room Mae saw that the leather couch pullout bed was still... pulled-out, and sitting on the bed looking towards the kitchen was Lori, she looked really tired and even from a distance Mae could see massive bags hanging under Lori's eyes, Mae walked over to Lori and sat down at the end of the bed "Hey."

Lori looked over to Mae and waved slightly "Hey."

Mae scooted closer to Lori "Sleep well?"

Lori shrugged "Yeah, just not a morning person."

Mae nodded "Yeah, if I wasn't so wound up all the time I wouldn't be a morning person either."

Lori yawned and stretched her arms out "How so?"

Mae shrugged "From like when I was born till around eleven when ever I woke up in the morning I'd always be on the verge of tears, and we never knew why."

Lori raised an eyebrow "We?"

Mae nodded "Me, my parents, and my- my grandfather."

When Mae said "grandfather" she stared down at the ground. Lori was about to say something when Selmers caught the other two girls' attention by saying "Hey Mae! How do you like your breakfast taco?"

Mae looked up from the ground and over to Selmers "A taco. Extra cheesy."

Selmers nodded and she walked back into the kitchen, before she left Mae could see that she hadn't changed last night so she was still in her same clothes from the previous day, same with Lori. Mae hopped off of the pullout and headed into the kitchen, standing in front of the stove was Angus still in his pajamas and next to him with her phone out was Bea, she swiped upwards on her phone's screen and showed Angus it, Selmers sat at a table in the middle of the kitchen, sitting in the center of the table was Gregg's not-fascist helmet. Mae quickly realized that she missed something, she looked back over to Bea and saw that the crocodile was wearing something other than a dress and some leggings, she was wearing a baggy black short sleeve tee shirt, and a pair of dark blue capri jeans, Bea turned her head and looked over to Mae "Took you long enough."

Mae hadn't realized but she was staring at Bea's backside more then she should've so when Bea spoke up Mae quickly looked at the crocodile's face "Uh, what, oh, yeah, uh, I just."

Bea turned around fully and faced Mae, she then leaned against the counter behind her "You okay?"

Mae nodded "Yeah! Just fine!"

Bea nodded as she turned around again facing away from Mae.

Mae sat down next to Selmers and laid her head down on the table, Selmers poked Mae with the eraser of a pencil "Hey, hey, what rhymes with town?"

Mae took a moment to think "Uh... Down?.. Why do you ask?"

Selmers shrugged as Mae lifted her head off of the table so she could place her arms down and rest her head on top of them "Just trying to get your head working early, it helps, wakes you up faster. Besides I wanted to see just how good of a poet you are."

Mae stared at the open notebook Selmers had sitting in front of her "You're writing a new poem?"

Selmers nodded as she started to write something down on one of the pages "Yeah, and no peeking."

Mae nodded "You got it."

She then looked over to Gregg's helmet "Why's that there?"

Selmers shrugged as she continued to write "Found it there when I woke up, Bea says Angus had it when she woke up, and Angus's been kinda busy since I've woken up so I haven't been able to ask him why he had it out."

Mae inspected the helmet, the one time she saw in in person was when her Gregg and Casey were forced to break into one of Gregg's relatives' house in September Valley, Gregg had used it to smash open a window, Mae could still see the scratches in the helmet from when it smashed that window to hundreds of pieces "I think Angus got it out so he could feel close to Gregg."

Selmers nodded "That's kinda what I thought."

There was a moment of silence between the two of them when Selmers suddenly looked at the helmet and pointed her pencil at it "Do you think it's Prussian, or Germanic?"

Mae looked over to Selmers "What?"

Selmers shrugged as she placed her pencil down on the table "I dunno, both Germany and Prussia used that kind of helmet during World War One. And I just wanted to know if you knew which one it was."

Mae looked back over to the helmet before answering "All I know is that it's not fascist, and it came from some guy Gregg's great great-grandfather shot."

Suddenly Bea placed a plate in front of Selmers, on the plate was one breakfast taco filled with all sorts of yummy things, and one biscuit. Bea then sat down a plate in front of Mae, on that plate was an extra cheesy breakfast taco, one biscuit, and two pieces of bacon. Angus then sat down in front of Mae with his own plate sitting in front of him while Bea sat at the far end of the table her plate sitting in front of her, Mae quickly picked up her taco and took a big bite out of it, cheesy several large strands of cheese stuck out of the taco and her mouth creating what looked like a bridge of cheese from the taco to Mae's mouth. After a few minutes of everyone eating in silence Lori walked into the kitchen and sat down next to Mae, Angus looked over to Lori "I don't know what kind of breakfast taco you like so I left some of the stuff out over there so you can make it however you like it."

Lori nodded "Thanks."

She then stood up and walked over to the stove and stared to make herself breakfast, Mae took one of her pieces of bacon and placed it on top of her taco's cheese before taking another bite out of it, after a minute or so Lori sat back down with a plate of what looked to be a breakfast taco filled with cheese, eggs, and sausage she took a bite out of it and looked over to Gregg's helmet, she then swallowed her bite before saying "Cool spike."

Angus nodded "Yeah, despite the fact I'm not a fan of violence, I can't deny the fact that the spike is pretty cool."

Mae looked up from her taco and grinned at Angus "Really? You're not a fan of violence? You're a fan of Demon Tower."

Angus nodded "Yes, I am a fan of Demon Tower's story, characters, and art style, not really it's game play."

Selmers finished her biscuit and started to write down in her notebook again "I read a Demon Tower book once, it was pretty good."

Angus nodded again "The books are pretty good, although I prefer the games over the books."

Mae swallowed a bite she took out of her taco "Casey once one of those books to me."

Just then a loud knocking noise could be heard from the apartment's front door. Angus got up and walked over to the front door, he cracked it open and saw standing behind the door was officer Mathews, the same officer that stopped by Angus's apartment last night to ask him a few questions about Gregg. Angus let Mathews into the apartment and as the officer entered he took of his police hat and held it with his left hand, Mae turned around in her chair and looked into the living room, she saw the officer standing in front of Angus the two of them talking "What's he doing back here?"

Bea shrugged as she finished a sip of her water she had gotten earlier "He probably wants to get some more info on Gregg."

Mae tapped her fingers against the back of her chair, after a few moments Mae hopped out of her chair and walked into the living room, she hopped up onto the pullout and stared at the officer "Hey! What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out there looking for Gregg?"

The officer looked over to Mae, his stare almost suspicious "The reason why I'm here is because we need some more information on Mr. Lee, it'll help us find him faster and effectively."

Mae shot her hands up into the air "How much more info do you need!?"

The officer sighed "The department needs enough to form some sort of theory as to who would've abducted him, if anyone took him at all. He could very well have gotten lost somewhere in town, and possibly wondered off into the woods, and that's why I need more info, we don't know one hundred percent what happened to him. In some cases we don't ever know one hundred percent what actually happened to someone that went missing until they're found."

Mae let her arms drop back down to her sides "So? YOU don't have any idea as to what happened to Gregg?"

The officer raised an eyebrow in confusion "What do you mean?"

Mae rolled her eyes "What do I mean? What I mean is don't you, as a person, have any kind of theory on what happened to Gregg?"

The officer stood there silently for a moment just staring at Mae while Angus stood off to the side slightly awkward. Angus was about to speak up when the officer finally answered "Listen... I do have an idea one what happened to Greggory. I think that it could've been possible that someone from his work decided to get back at him for something, and one thing leads to another and that co-worker has to hide Greggory for whatever reason."

Angus then finally spoke up "So what you're saying is that someone from Gregg's work might have, either on purpose or not, knocked Gregg out and has him hidden away?"

The officer scratched the back of his head "Not entirely, I think it's a possibility, in fact it's probably the best case scenario other than Mr. Lee getting lost in the woods."

Mae then also spoke up "Best case scenario?"

The officer nodded "Yes, because the reason why Gregg has gone missing is because the co-worker would've panicked, and in an attempt to both keep their job and to not get arrested they would've taken Gregg somewhere and just keep him there until they recovered from whatever might have knocked him out."

Mae frowned "That doesn't sound like a "best case scenario" to me."

The officer nodded again "It's one of the best, it's either that and Mr. Lee going missing in the woods, or someone has actually abducted him and is keeping him hidden somewhere in town... Or, the worst yet, Mr. Lee's either fell into, or was pushed into, the lake and has.. Well."

Mae shook her head "I know Gregg, and I know that he can make a lot of enemies, but those enemies haven't ever physically hurt Gregg, let alone kill him."

The officer looked down at the ground for a moment before looking at Mae again "Listen, miss?"

"Borowski."

"Miss Borowski, I know you come from a small town and small towns generally feel safe most of the time.. But Bright Harbor is different, despite it's nice look, it's got a pretty bad dark side, I wouldn't be surprised if some gang here in town has Mr. Lee hidden, or possibly something much worse."

Mae was about to speak again when the officer shook his head "Right now miss Borowski, I need to talk to Mr. Delaney alone."

Mae wanted to protest but she knew that letting Angus talk with the officer was probably the best choice she could make right now so she hopped off of the pullout and walked back into the kitchen.