So I’ll get this out of the way immediately: the good news is that Sloan and I reached the entrance of town approximately four days ago. It does indeed exist, and Sloan took many pictures and videos when we got here.
I was thrilled. I was going to make a large post with a gallery of photos, and I would have done my best to edit his videos together.
But therein lies the bad news: approximately two nights ago, someone robbed our Mystery Mobile for select equipment. How they took our belongings without damaging my locked van, and when my keys had never left my dress pockets at the time, is well beyond me. And as the cherry on top, I have to add that my dear Rorfu is nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps I should be frightened. However, after kicking some rubble, confirming Sloan wasn’t at fault, and having a minor crashout that simmered down into a dissociative, multi-day lull, I am once again ever the optimist.
When life barrages you with losses, you must double-down. After all, Sloan, Fettuccine, and I have not been harmed during our stay here so far. I can still post to this blog well enough. My beloved Mystery Mobile has stayed fully intact as well, and the motel in this town is incredibly accommodating. What’s more, I’m conducting a rather informal investigation into the robbery; there aren’t many people in this town, so I’m confident I can figure out who took our things.
Shortly after we lost all that equipment, I bought a thick notebook from the town’s grocery store—"Gallagher’s"—to diligently take notes on the town and write down everything that’s occurred thus far.
For now, I’ll type what I can and start with our arrival at the town.
THE BLACK AND BLUE GAS STATION
While there were no welcome signs into the town, a gas station with a black and blue exterior marked its start. The station revealed itself shortly after the treelines on either side of the road faded into the surrounding fog of an early morning. This was lucky considering how the van was almost entirely out of gas. Sloan “joked” about us hitting empty during that drive on the road of chasms, and about us having to walk the rest of our way to the town as the ground kept experiencing tremors.
I did not laugh.
The old gas pumps didn’t accept credit, and were so faded that I couldn’t make out the name of the station. There was a hole just like the ones that were on the road right beside one of the gas pumps. I asked Sloan to take a video of approaching it so we could see if it shrank like the ones on the road (it was quite large), but its size never changed.
(And here is where I would have shown the video. I debated at least drawing the scene in the midst of grieving Sloan’s footage, but realized how sad it’d be to post a scribble of a hole like you’ve already seen. Sloan called my best attempt at a gas pump “a lollipop with a stem thick enough to stash a body” just as well, so no scribble will be had after all.)
We then went inside the gas station to find nobody at first.
However, I searched the aisles and eventually made my way to the back where a gas station attendant was placing an “OUT OF ORDER” sign on the restroom door.
I saw an inky black liquid seeping out from beneath that door.
Upon being questioned, the attendant gave us some information. The attendant was a blond man who introduced himself as Flint. He wore a brown cap that said “I Fear Me Too” in white letters, and a poncho of muted earth colors.
The gas station didn’t seem to have uniforms.
Flint’s eyes were a deep pink. His cheeks had peculiar freckles(?) that caught the light like metal studs would in a lip or a nose. I call them “freckles”, but it was much like… a layer of jagged iron shards beneath his skin poked out at different places on the bridge of his nose. This did not irritate the surrounding, more natural skin; perhaps they’re body modifications? His skin looked a tad jaunedice under the old LEDs in the ceiling.
Sloan told me that Flint’s skin condition must be similar to his own, but I’m not sure what to believe.
I first asked Flint about the black substance seeping out of the bathroom. He essentially said it was something like gasoline or oil, so he’d clean it up after helping Sloan and me with whatever we needed. He grinned wide after he said this and adjusted the bill of his cap.
I saw all his teeth were filed to razor sharp points, and… when he moved his cap, I could have sworn that there was a dark dip in his head beneath it. It was like I was glimpsing at one of the holes we passed on our way to town.
However, looking back… it may have just been my imagination. It was a tiring trip over here.
Flint seemed to recognize Sloan from somewhere, and perhaps that’s why he spoke so familiarly with him when I grew quiet. He asked how we met, and how much I knew about the town. Sloan told him I was just looking for Rorfu, and if not for her then I would have never known about this place. Flint laughed.
So Rorfu allegedly left with the town’s sheriff to try and find me because Sloan and I were taking too long, but the town has two main ways to enter it. One “entrance” is over on the side with the gas station, and the other is on the side of the “community center”, which I was told the town made out of some old warehouse building. I’ve yet to visit.
Regardless, Rorfu and the sheriff drove off in the wrong direction.
Flint seemed bubbly about everything; I bet he’d confess to running over a cat with the same mirth as anything else. To see a gas station worker with this demeanor was highly suspicious to me. Questioning him further was baffling. He said Sloan and I are the “right” people to come to town. The holes surrounding the town were one of the many ways the “wrong” people are kept out.
Just as well, he said the regular woman who runs the gas station is named Tomi (Tomie?), and she went on a trip with her boyfriend Sios (Seeos? It’s pronounced “See-ohs”) for the holiday. Flint seems to be running the gas station simply because nobody else will.
Flint was very talkative and peculiar. I had no idea what to do with his friendliness when I felt like I was being deceived in some fashion during our whole conversation. Then when I tried to buy gas from him, he said he accepted payment in rocks–regular rubble–as well as cash.
This wasn’t a joke.
Eventually, Flint told Sloan and me that there was a motel just a little further up the road that we could stay in for free. This, too, seemed highly suspicious.
THE ROSEGOLD MOTEL
We did indeed learn we could stay at the motel for free. The motel owner Djin (I asked for the spelling of the name this time after asking who owned the place with such a poor business model) is incredibly evasive, as I’ve yet to see any sign of him. At front desk was a blond boy who looked to be about 12 years old. He was cheerful in a way that I found far more endearing than Flint, and his smile was warm. The boy checked us in and told us, too, that he was helping watch the place alongside “many cats” (I’ve yet to see any). Sloan kept Fettuccine hidden the whole time. Honestly, however, I got the impression that the boy wouldn’t have cared either way about the snake. The boy said his first name was something very… unique, so for the sake of keeping his privacy as a minor I’ll refer to him by his far more common last name appropriate to the season: Valentine.
The motel owner has a family who tends to help out as well, the boy mentioned. I haven’t seen anybody else in the motel’s halls besides one man with moss-colored hair who I learned was named Jeremiah. We stumbled upon him in one of the motel’s kitchens several times; I think this place is too big and well-kept to be a motel. I wonder how it stays in business given its location in such an obscure town.
Nonetheless, it’s clear that I’ll merely have to play it old school and jot down more notes about the town, at-length, as I wait for Rorfu to return. Getting to know the locals seems like a good use of time, too. Why, just yesterday I was told not to go out at night by Jeremiah. He seemed on-edge.
Something clearly isn’t right here. At some point, I aim to get Sloan’s equipment back so we can document it well.
Edit: The boy in the motel–Valentine–gave us an ad for a “love agency” and told me to “tell everyone about it” given the day, and given that he saw me typing up the blog post earlier. I suppose I’ll post his paper here.
Picture courtesy of Valentine.
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