Jack

April 4, 201X

9:45 AM

"...Well, that was a thing."

"You didn't throw the bomb towards anything that could be blown up, did you?" Sofia asked Mia, nervously.

"Nah, just an empty patch of grass. Don't worry," she replied.

"Ding-dong! Everyone, we will be arriving in Willow Falls shortly. Please gather your luggage," came the announcement over the speaker.

"Oh, this is so exciting!" Ellie said to me as we all got our bags. "Just think: a new town full of new experiences and… new friends, and uh… new adventure! Yeah, adventure!"

"You don't sound too sure of that," I remarked.

"Well, I'm absolutely not nervous about moving! Not at all! Not even in the slightest!"

"You seem to be trying pretty hard to deny something I never accused you of," I said. "Which is exactly what someone who is nervous would do. Are you feeling nervous, Ellie?"

"WellmaybeIamjustalittlebitbutthatdoesn'tdiminishmyexcitementatallokay?!" she cried.

"Uh, are you feeling okay?"

"Peachy!" she said.

"Who even uses the word peachy?" Luis, who was also nearby, asked.

"I do! Ironically, you know? Or, maybe not ironically, but like… jokingly, if that makes sense?" she attempted at explaining.

"Well, anyway," I said, "let's just get off the train already."

"Right you are, my good fellow!" she said.

"Again, who ever even says that?" Luis asked.

As we stepped off the train, we were greeted by a yellow shih tzu. "Hello! My name is Isabelle, and I'm the mayor of Willow Falls. If you haven't gotten one yet, maps of the town are available in town hall, which is right next to the train station along with the town plaza, and if you've yet to buy a house, go to Nook's Homes on Main Street, just across the train tracks," she said. "Does anybody have any questions?"

She was met with mostly silence and a few murmured "no"s. So, everyone left the train station, and almost everyone crossed the train tracks onto main street.

"Wow, did this many people really not buy a house yet?" Evy asked, falling into stride next to me.

"Well, I know a few people here were in a hurry to leave their hometowns," I replied, having overheard at least one conversation discussing reasons for moving. Though I was less justified in having not bought a house yet; I just hadn't really bothered.

The trip to Nook's Homes was otherwise uneventful, seeing as it was a rather short walk. In fact, talking to Tom Nook was also uneventful. He told us we could set up tents where our houses would be, and we'd get an actual house when we paid the down payment of 10,000 bells. Nothing all that spectacular. We were given tents to set up where we wanted our house to be, provided it wasn't too close to an existing building or on the beach.

I walked along the cobblestone road that paved the town, finally deciding on a spot near the western cliff of the town, in between the house of a villager named Roscoe and where Evy had set up her tent. After setting up the tent and leaving my bag of furniture leaves inside, I decided I might as well look around the town to see what was there. I walked north up to main street to see what other buildings were there.

I walked to the furthest left building, which was the museum. I saw an owl standing in the middle of the lobby, clearly asleep; made sense, since owls are nocturnal and it was the middle of the day. I decided to leave him be. I walked into one of the exhibits- seemed to be for bugs, based on the sign on the carpet leading in. However, all of the displays were empty aside from a single white butterfly. I spotted Marina at the other end of the room, who waved at me.

"Can you believe this? Who ever heard of a museum with nothing in it?!" she cried.

"I guess they're accepting donations," I said, shrugging. "Maybe the villagers here don't really care enough."

"Huh. Well, guess I'll just have to care enough for everyone who doesn't!" She dashed out of the exhibit. "I'm going to catch some bugs! Well, I'll have to buy a net first, but then I'll catch a bunch of bugs! A whole lot!"

I watched her leave, silently. I figured there was no point to hang around in an empty bug exhibit and left the museum, knowing the other exhibits would be just as empty. I walked further down the street, past the photo booth and two empty buildings, noting the post office, and past the store on the other side of the stairs, called "Nookling Junction." Must be related to Nook's Homes in some way, I thought. I can check it out later. Next to it was a building with an empty second floor, with the first floor occupied by what appeared to be a clothing store. Kyle and Sofia walking out of said boutique with a bag, and noticed me.

"Oh, hey! The hedgehog lady running the place is really nice," she said, pointing toward the door of the store.

"The store is small, but it has some nice clothes," Sofia said.

I nodded, not really caring that much about buying new clothes.

"Oh, and did you see that pink building in the main part of town?" Kyle asked.

"Uh… no," I answered.

"Apparently they buy stuff from you. Seems like a good way to make money off bugs or fish or anything else you find," Sofia explained. "At least that's what Lucas told us. You just missed him, actually. Said the shop's run by a couple of alpacas. Kyle and I were going to check it out once we dropped this stuff off at our tent."

"Alpacas, huh?" I muttered after waving goodbye to them. "Well, seems like a good place to check out, anyway." I made my way down the stairs to the town proper, taking out my map. There was a river that ran from the west side of the map to the east side, cutting the town somewhat diagonally in half. The bridge was on the east side of town, and the pink mark on the map-most likely to be the shop Kyle and Sofia mentioned-was on the south side of the river. I walked south, crossing the bridge, and eventually came upon the pink building, with a sign that read "Re-Tail." Inside, I was greeted by a pink alpaca.

"Hello, welcome to the recycle shop, Re-Tail! I suppose you're one of the new villagers to move in."

"Yeah," I confirmed. "My name is Jack."

"I'm Reese, and I run this shop along with my husband Cyrus." I guess that must be the blue alpaca sleeping with his head on the workbench to the right. "We buy items and furniture to resell here. We'll also pay a premium for any high-value items listed on the board in front of the shop," she explained. "In addition to selling outright, you can set your own price and put your items on display for others to buy. So bring anything you feel like you'll no longer need!"

I nodded, then spotted something on the bench in the back. It was a book. I couldn't really explain what drew me to it, but it caught my eye nonetheless. It was purple, and had the word "journal" on the front. I wondered why anyone would even sell a used journal, since they'd probably already written in it. However, when he opened it up, it seemed to be pretty much completely blank. He flipped through the rest of the pages, finding the same thing on the rest of them. A blank journal in a recycle shop? That made no sense. I finally made it to the last page, finding a drawing and some gibberish written there. For some reason, it struck me as important. I turned to Reese.

"How much is this journal?" I asked.

"Oh, that? I believe the seller put it up for 250 bells," she answered.

I reached into my pocket for the bells and handed them to her. I couldn't shake the feeling that the journal was important somehow.

"Thank you very much!" Reese said as I exited the shop.

Outside, I ran into Crimson, Sharon, and Ellie, who seemed to be making their way to the shop with arms full of fish and bugs to sell.

"You guys might want to donate some of that stuff to the museum," I said. "It's incredibly empty."

"Oh, we can do that after we save up 10,000 bells!" Ellie cried. "I wanna get Nook off my back as soon as possible!"

"Same here," Crimson said. "I mean, who needs museums when you have houses?"

I shrugged in response.

"Oh hey, did you buy something from there?" Ellie inquired, noticing the journal in my hand.

"Yeah, I guess it's an journal or something. I thought it was cool,' I said. "Can't really explain why." I decided not to tell them about what I found in the back.

"...Who would sell an journal at a recycle shop?" Crimson laughed.

"I'm pretty sure the whole point of a journal is to, you know, right in it," Sharon commented. "You'd think the fact that it's being sold at a recycle shop means it's been used; wouldn't someone want to keep their writing?"

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," I said, "but it's completely empty. It's mysterious, right? That's why I thought it was cool."

"Oh, that's super mysterious!" Ellie replied. "You'll have to tell me if you find out it's, like, cursed or something, or if there's some crazy secrets in there."

"I'll be sure to do that," I lied. With that, they entered the shop, leaving me alone with the setting sun.

A/N: Hmmmmmmmm….. Mysterious happenings.