The next day started out badly. I had barely woken up when I heard a knock on the door. I tried ignoring it for a few seconds, but quickly gave in when the knocks became louder and more aggressive. Yawning, I slowly got out of bed and dragged myself to the door to answer it.
"Hello?" I said, rubbing my eyes with one hand and opening the door with the other. "Oh. Hey Miles, what's up?"
Miles just stood there with a glare that I had hoped to never see directed towards me.
"David Hodall, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of Mike Schmitt."
I froze. Any tiredness I still had disappeared instantly from that one sentence.
"Wh-what?" I managed to stammer.
"I said, you are under arrest for the murder of Mike Schmitt."
The words hit me like a brick to the face. I stood there gaping, unable to comprehend what had just been said.
After realising that I wasn't moving, Miles relaxed slightly and said, "Look, David, I'm sorry I have to do this to you, but you're going to have to come with me."
Still dazed, I did nothing as he put handcuffs on me and walked me out to the police car that was parked outside. As he started the engine, I finally managed to stammer out, "Wh-why?"
Sighing, Miles took a swig from the bottle that was laying on the seat next to him.
"You're the best suspect we have, Dave. That guy'd been missing for years, so it's a little suspicious when you show up covered in blood with some crazy story about how the store mascots killed him by themselves."
My eyes widened when I realised that his explanation did make sense. More sense than what I thought I'd seen, in fact.
The remainder of the ride to the police station took place without a word spoken between the two of us. The walk into the station was also silent, with the silence only being broken once Miles led me into one of the four small cells in the police station.
"Sorry, pal. Personally, I don't think you did it, but professionally, I have to."
And with that he closed the door, locked it, and walked away.
It was a few more minutes before I recovered enough to take a look around. The cell I was in was the only occupied cell in the room, and it was clear that none of them had been used in a while. Some of the bars even looked a little rusty, which would make escape easy with a few well-placed shoves.
After finally managing to process that fact that I was now in prison, the rest of the day was exceedingly boring. The only human contact I had was when Miles brought me a tasteless and unappealing dinner, and he refused to say a word while he did so. After a few hours of restless pacing, I finally decided to lie down on the floor and go to sleep.
The next day I awoke to the sound of a key being turned in a lock, and I opened my eyes to see the door to my cell swing open. I looked up and saw Miles looking down at me expressionlessly.
"Good news. Autopsy report says your friend got decapitated with way more force than any normal human would be capable of, and we found evidence suggesting that he'd been in the basement the whole time he was missing, way before you would've been able to bring him down there. Looks like you're in the clear."
I yawned and stretched, then slowly got up off of the floor.
"But," he said, snapping me awake, "that doesn't change the fact that you were the last person to see him alive, so you're still a key part of this case. If you'll follow me, I'd like to ask you a few questions about your friend."
I nodded, and he led me through the police station to a small office labeled "Miles Peterson, Department Police Chief". He sat down at a desk and motioned for me to pull up a chair in front of him.
"Now," he said, clearing his throat, "what do you know about your friend Matthew Carpenter?"
A/N: Hey, everyone, it's been a while, which seems to be a common theme now of these author's notes. Anyway, a couple of cool things going on:
First off, someone actually went and wrote a side story for Those Who Survive. (Seriously, you guys are amazing.) It's called "Those Who Discover" by Ashdoesstories, so, y'know, go check it out. (My reaction was essentially: Holy crap, someone wrote fanfiction of my fanfiction?! This is amazing!)
Secondly, to celebrate 100 followers of TWS, I'll be releasing the alternate ending that I talked about in the last chapter as a separate story. The gist of it is that David wakes up and realises that everything was a dream, and Mike is alive, and everything is fine. It was fun to write, but it definitely doesn't fit with the rest of the story. And, y'know, if anyone else wanted me to make an alternate ending for them, I could take requests... It was a lot of fun to write, after all.
Finally, on the topic of endings, I've now written the actual ending for Those Who Survive. There's still plenty more before it, but I just wanted to give you all a heads up that "the end is in sight". If you still can't get enough of TWS, In Light of Recent Events, the other story that I'm writing, will take place in the same universe and possibly explain a few things. But before I do that, I need to finish this story first.