So for this chapter and onward, because there are two Matts here, to make it easier I will refer to the game theorist mat as simply Matpat and Matthais will just be Matt.
Mark stumbled out of bed, someone was knocking at the front door. Still in a sleepy daze, Mark struggled to get the lock to turn right before he eventually got control of his motor skills. Opening the door, the first thing he noticed was not the plethora of people currently standing in his doorway, but the fact that it was now night time as the sun was just starting to set.
Rubbing his eyes, he finally focused on all the people. First there was Matpat with his wife Stephanie, the two waved joyfully at Mark, Mark shifted his gaze to beside the duo, Matt and Amanda stood there, their newborn Luna in Amanda's arms, Ryan right behind them. Mark rubbed his eyes then put a hand on his hip and pointed at Matpat.
"Ok, I invited you, I know that."
"Please, let us in," Matt asked kindly and Mark sighed.
"Yeah, c'mon in." Moving aside, Mark watched as everyone piled into his small home. Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair, the moment the door shut, Matt turned to him instantly.
"I'll start...Are you out of your mind!?" Matt yelled at Mark causing the man to put his hands up in defense.
"I'm assuming this about Jack-"
"Of course it's about Jack!" Matpat cut in, "I mean literally dropping everything to find him? I understand he can be in danger, but, the cops are already looking for him."
"Exactly! Mark, you've done all that you can. You posted Jack's last seen picture, put Attinoon on full blast on all social media...Plus don't you think going to Ireland with little to no leads is a little dumb?" Stephanie brought up.
Everyone else nodded in agreement and Mark went to argue back but the sound of someone skype calling him cut through his home and Mark sighed, and went to the next room, his eyes widened at who was calling him.
"IT'S JACK!" He screamed next thing he knew he was in his already crowded room with four people and a baby, surrounding him around his computer as he hit the answer button.
Jack showed up on the screen, instantly Mark felt his heart skip a beat as the first thing he noticed was the black eye his friend was sporting.
"Jack...Your eye..." Mark breathed out. Jack let out a very fake breathy laugh and spoke, his voice definitely sounding scared.
"Mark...I told you it was all a joke." Jack responded, not looking Mark or any of the others in the eyes as he looked off to the left.
"But it's not. Is it?" Mark countered, Jack's chest trembled as it was clear he was trying so hard not to cry.
"Just don't come, don't...don't.." Jack whimpered and looked like he was going to bring his hands up, but all his arms did was jerk up a bit.
"Jack, just tell us where you are! We want to help." Mark yelled, feeling like he was going to cry as well, a lump formed in his throat as he breathed out.
Jack shook his head and licked his lips.
"I can't...I'm sorry."
With that, the call ended, clearly not by Jack's own doing.
"...Do you believe me now?" Mark asked finally, he felt anger consume him and shook his head. Jack then went offline meaning calling him back wasn't an option. Mark angrily pursed his lips,
"...Mark?" Amanda asked concerned for him, he shook his head and quickly did a group call with Bob, Wade, Felix, Cry, and Ken. It took a minute for everyone to come on, but when they did Mark was beyond quick to tell them of what just happened.
"I'm done with waiting! Jack really needs help!" Mark yelled slamming his hands down on his desk in anger.
Felix puffed out some air and ran his fingers through his hair.
"But what can you guys even do?! We don't know where he is?" Cry sighed in response.
"That's what I've been trying to tell Mark." Matt brought up.
"Mark, please listen to us-" Matpat started by placing a hand on Mark's shoulder, but was stopped by Mark getting another incoming skype call by Scare Theater. Everyone went quiet as Mark slowly hit the answer button and Scare theater joined in with everyone.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" Scare asked.
"Yes," Mark answered and Scare shifted in his seat.
"Sorry for calling you...and all of your friends, hi, big fan here. Uh...Anyway, I saw you were online and I knew I needed to call you." Scare responded as he shifted in his seat.
"That's fine. So did you look at Attinoon's vids?" Mark started right away only for Bob to speak up.
"Wait, who is he?"
"Oh, I'm Scare Theater, I review creepy stuff all the time, and yes Mark, I did- Oh?"
Mark and the others jumped as Keemstar suddenly called him up on skype, with a heavy sigh, Mark accepted the call.
"Ooooh, All the people are here! Mark, his royal highness, faceless-"
"Keem is there a reason why you called?" Mark asked Felix spoke up before Keemstar could.
"You mean besides being a pain?"
"Oh, a pain? That's a lot coming from someone who needs my help." Keem fought back.
"Guys..." Ken spoke clearly not wanting a fight.
"I'm not the one to ask you for help," Felix yelled.
"HEY!" Mark screamed slamming his hands down once again, this caused Luna to stir and cry a bit, Mark turned and gave a quick apology to Amanda before continuing. "You didn't call him, Felix, but I did. Do you want to find Jack alive? or hear about his body after it's been mutilated and torn to shreds?" Mark questioned bitterly, everyone went silent.
"Ok...Anyway, I did review those video's of Attinoon you sent me. I've noticed a few things. Mind if I screen share?" Scare asked and Mark shook his head,
"Not at all, go for it."
A few seconds passed and soon everyone was looking at Scare's own screen which was a video player.
"I should point out that Attinoon did delete his channel, if you haven't guessed by the fact I'm in media player. I downloaded all the imported videos. The first one I want to show you all is from about a year back." Scare told them all as he played the short video. I became clear that it was just a channel trailer, a black and white video of male ballet dancers slowly dancing to 'dance of the sugar plum fairy'. The video ended by just showing his user name.
"Ok...Why was that important?" Keem boredly asked as he sipped on a drink.
"Because of this." Scare slowly went frame by frame backward through the whole video, It just showed all of the dancers in reverse now. Mark and the others around him all moved in closer, once he finished Scare looked at them expecting them to get what he was getting at, when it was clear nobody was, Scare sighed, "Attinoon isn't dancing, that's something I noticed in all of his videos, he never dances, it all the boys."
"Hm." Cry hummed out. "So...He's a teacher then?"
"Perhaps." Scare answered. "Then there's this next video, it's not really as important as the others, but, it does have a bit of a clue." Bring up the second video Scare didn't even press play, he just fast-forward towards around the middle of the video where it just showed Attinoon sitting down a stub of a cigarette in his hand.
"Ok, he smokes? I mean It's not really an uncommon thing." Matpat spoke up and Scare shook his head and responded with a simple,
"Watch." He pressed play and the video started in the middle of Attinoon's sentence.
"-eels like half the time I'm being ignored by me students." Attinoon pauses snubs out his smoke and pulls out a new cigarette from off screen, "They're a pain." Attinoon mumbles as he puts the cigarette in his mouth and lights it.
"He's a chain smoker?" Stephanie hummed out softly.
"From what I gathered, he's not just a chain smoker, he's a god damn chimney. I mean in almost every one of his video's as soon as he puts one out he grabs another." Scare explained.
"Ok, but that doesn't really mean much, though." Matt scoffed softly.
"It does if you're a dancer, much like singers dancers need to have the lung power to be able to do all those movements, I mean could you take a dancer seriously as they're in the middle of doing a move and have to stop to hack up a lung? Much less a person who's going to teach you're children as he smokes around them?" Scare brought up and everyone nodded in agreement.
"...So he's posing a teacher? Maybe?...Co...Could he be a trafficker?" Bob asked everyone went deathly silent. Scare nodded and responded with,
"...I think he could be, mainly because of this last video, the last one he uploaded."
"That was just an update video. I mean It had Jack in it. But..." Wade mumbled.
"Did any of you watch it till the end?"
Everyone shook their heads and Scare fast-forwards the final video to the part where Jack shows up.
"Watch Jack a bit more closely." Scare told them, everyone leaned in as they paid attention to Jack that was when Mark saw it, right before Attinoon noticed him, Jack's mouth moved as he silently mouthed something, it seem to most likely that he was mouthing the words 'help me'. Like before, Attinoon turns, smiles and signals Jack to move, which he does, then Attinoon went back to talking to the camera.
"I mean it's just hard for me right now. Everything is just happening all at once. Plus with a new shipment of boys coming in..." Attinoon chuckles to himself, his smile now just unsettling. "Gotta train 'em. Don't worry...I'll have them ready before long."
Scare pauses the video again and everyone slowly breathed out.
"...Greeeat." Mark sarcastically growled as he ran his fingers through his hair.
"That's all I got-" Scare started,
"You really don't see the big clue right in front of you?" Keem spoke up cutting him off, everyone focused on him, Keem raised an eyebrow. "Really?...His cigarette carton is right in the shot."
Everyone turned back to the video, sure enough, right in the mirror they could see a long carton of red cigarettes that red llaM llaP in the mirror.
"...Pall Mall? That doesn't help us. Those are a popular brand!" Mattpat waved Keem off.
"In America. Those are American brand after all. I bet you ten to one they don't sell those in Ireland."
Scare was quick to exit out of the video player and brought up chrome as he typed in 'cigarettes brands in Ireland' into the browser. He went to the first website and raised an eyebrow as everyone read through the list. Keem was right, Pall Mall wasn't in there.
"Also, if I'm not mistaken, that look likes it's saying 100's so this guys is smoking Pall Malls full flavored longs. He probably has them shipped to him overseas, I bet that cost a rather pretty penny to get a hold of, and going with how much he does smoke...I say he probably spends almost a thousand dollars a month on those. In short, this fucker ain't no dance teacher." Keem shook his head as he leaned back into his chair.
"Holy shit, I can't believe I missed that..." Scare put his hand to his mouth as he thought.
"So...Who'll ship American brand cigarettes to Ireland for just one guy?" Amanda questioned and Keem shrugged along with Scare theater,
"I don't know...I really don't, either he's going to a store to pick them up, or he's getting them illegally shipped to his home...But there is one more thing. The floor."
"The floor? What about it?" Mark asked.
"It's concrete. Pure concrete. Now I'm no dancer, but I'm pretty sure that would probably hurt your toes to dance on concrete like that, no rug, nothing."
"It's not a dance studio," Matpat mumbled as he pointed a little off to the side. "That mirror...It's a store bought one, see the framing?...It's his house."
"...So...Then we can conclude. He's not a legit teacher, he's posing as one to get kids...I wonder." Mark mumbled, putting skype down he brought up his own browser and started to type.
"Scare take down your screen share!" Matt yelled the man did as he was told as Mark quickly screen shared what he was searching.
"These are all the kids that's been missing. See these five right here?" Mark asked as he scrolled through the post.
"Recent?" Wade questioned.
"...Not just that...Kilkenny! Every single one of them went missing in Kilkenny! Kilk...That's where Jack is! He's in Kilkenny!"
"Then...We have our lead." Felix growled and Mark nodded.
"Yes..." Mark then narrowed his eyes,
"I guess I know where I'm going now."
