A couple of days had passed, and Lucia was still ill at ease; her hallucinations had perturbed her and as a result had difficulties sleeping at night, without thinking of the mysterious sci-fi city, of course. She tried not to let it ruin her trip, but it seemed persistent in doing so. Her friends were unaware of these visions and dismissed them as a hoax of the mind, her priorities should have been set in London; where she was set to collect her second batch of gifts, but these secret pages had her backtracking, perplexing her with its ambiguity. She lay on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, she was so confined in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice someone walking into the room. Silently striding over to Lucia’s bedside and looming over her. Wearily, Lucia got up from her bed and turned to face the person. Jake. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone?
“I’m not going to sugar-coat this, I need your help,”
Lucia chuckled, “and why would I want to help YOU, of all people?” Jake simply shrugged, “you don’t necessarily have to help me, but there is someone who does need your help,” Lucia rolled her eyes, getting up from the bed and leisurely making it for the door, clearly fed up of his shenanigans, “I figured,” he sighed, “well for her sake, atleast, could you read these documents? I guess they’re as important to you as they are to her,” Lucia stopped momentarily, turning around to face Jake who was in earnest.
“Let me see them,”
“Not until you agree to come with me,” Lucia scoffed, perusing him, “I can live without your stupid documents,” Jake gave a nonchalant shrug again, he must have been tired too, he didn’t show the juvenile energy that Lucia was usually accustomed to, she turned around for the door again but was stopped in her tracks when Jake recited the document, “To a Mr. Phillip David Filmore... Does that name ring a bell?” He declaimed, waving the papers around, Lucia was completely thrown off completely by that, that was her father’s name, but... Why did he have it? “Do I have the wrong person? You do both have Filmore as a second name,”
“Give me the document,” she said sternly, reaching for the paper, Jake pulled it back before she could snatch them, “come with me,” he insisted, “then I’ll give you these,”
Lucia bit her lip in frustration, “Okay okay, I’ll come with you, just give me the damn papers,” she pleaded, Jake grinned, “on second thought, you need to bring the rest of the guys,” he said, striding out of the room, he stopped briefly, “and when you do, meet me on the upper deck,” and just like that, he left, leaving Lucia with many questions formulating, she looked at her phone with a sigh, and began messaging.
(...)
“Mkay, what’s all this about then?” Magnus asked, they were all sitting down on one of the rosewood bench tables on the upper deck, a golden silk parasol sat on their heads, gently flowing in the breeze, the snow gently glided across the sky, landing on Aiden’s nose, he wrinkled his nose, shaking his head. “Yeah, why are we here?” Aiden asked, agreeing with Magnus’s enquiry. Their attention was suddenly shifted to the bell of the elevator going off, the door opened with Jake and Madeleine walking towards their table, she was holding the certificates in her hand, she had her usual wide smile plastered on her face. “Bonjour mes amis!” She called for them, “I hope you’re all doing well on this lovely day!” Her curly hair was dotted with snowflakes, making her look like a strawberry, Cynthia inspected the cheery girl who was approaching them, “I recognise you... weren’t you at the restaurant that night? With Jake?” She asked, “Oui! That was me, yes! Allow me to formally introduce myself, my name is Madeleine Monet, the daughter of Urielle Monet, the captain of this fine vessel,” She started “your friend is good company!” There was silence on the table, then everyone dissolved into laughter, the sudden gaiety of the group made Madeleine’s smile wider, though she wasn’t expecting to make them laugh so much, Jake threw his hands up in exasperation, “That one was good,” Lucia chuckled, wiping a tear from her eyes, Jake had been such a pain in the neck for all of them that they’ve grown cynical of him. “Yeah, so what’s the issue? Why’d you call?” Cynthia asked, still chuckling at her statement. “Ah yes!” Madeleine was looking through her papers, she looked at Lucia, “Jake told me about your father, well atleast the fact that you’re related to him,” Lucia nodded, showing investment, “Well, I’m looking for a relative of his, his son, and well, given the information, I’d assume that to be your brother, no?”
“Kieran Filmore is a dead man, died 7 years ago, your documents are outdated,” Lucia interrupted, “Missing, actually, not dead,” Madeleine corrected,
“The only difference between a dead man and a man who is missing is closure, I’ve accepted that he passed on years ago,”
“So, why are you here then?” Madeleine couldn’t help but ask, “We’re here to collect a... Gift,” Aiden started, looking out into the blue,
“Do you know what the gift is?” Madeleine stroked her chin, deep in thought.
“Not necessarily, that remains a mystery,” he told her, “Well... Where’s the address of this collection point?” Lucia shuffled through her pockets and picked up a slip of paper with the address on it. “7231 Cedarwood St, Calneclare, London SDE75 9UN,” She recited, Madeleine’s face lit up as she said it, “Just as I suspected, there’s a link here!” She handed Lucia one of the documents, this one was an official police report of Kieran Filmore’s connections and interactions prior to his ‘disappearance’ she pointed to one of the addresses mentioned in the report, a mysterious shop to the south of the main plaza, which was temporally shut down under the suspicion regarding his disappearance, but due to insufficient evidence, the police had dropped the case and the shop was reinstated. Lucia read the address of the shop, “7231 Cedarwood St, Calneclare, London SDE75 9UN,” They were identical. “A few of Kieran’s possessions had been taken into custody for further investigation, though these items had disappeared, too, all evidence in regard to Kieran Filmore had evanesced, almost like he never existed...” Magnus leant in closer, “What exactly disappeared?” He asked, “Well, that’s the issue, that page had been ripped out completely, I found it to be rather... outré, almost as if someone didn’t want to this information out,” There was a wave of stunned silence around the table, Lucia was still looking at the report, still unsure of what she was seeing, “are you suggesting that he...?” Lucia looked up from the paper and directly at Madeleine, who gave a silent nod, she began to propound the idea that perhaps by some miracle, Kieran was still alive and well, well, atleast alive hopefully.
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“Sorry for asking but what exactly has this got to do with you?” Cynthia asked, musing. “Closure, there are some questions that I wanted to ask him, he is a very important person and he’s centred my life ever since I knew about the existence of these documents,” she started, “that’s why I wanted to ask you for help, considering that our goals are intertwined, I figured that we could potentially abet each other in this,”
The group exchanged glances, considering her words carefully. “It would mean so much if you could help me out here,” she pleaded. They all gave a brief nod of agreement, “alright, fine, you can tag along, if you manage to convince your parents to do so that is,” Aiden said, “Don’t worry about that, I can be very… convincing” she winked.
(...)
The 6 of them found themselves sat around the table in the lounge, all silent as they contemplated the situation at hand, Lucia was still unsure of what to think of the entire situation, part of her wanted her brother to still be alive, but the fact is that, that would be very unlikely. But she read the same document that everyone else had, and it wasn’t possible to be forged either, as Kieran’s disappearance was only known to a select few individuals. The silence was deafening, so much so that she could hear her own heart beating, knocking against her chest. “Let’s search up this address then, perhaps there’s things that we can pick out from the images alone?” Cynthia suggested, taking out her laptop from her bag, she was always prepared, Jake shrugged, rocking his chair with his heels on the table, “I doubt we’re going to find anything the police haven’t yet,” he said. “It's worth a try, seeing as the documents align up,” Lucia started, “Speaking of which? How did you get a hold of these papers?” She asked, “Oh, well, my ma and your pa are good acquaintances, it was only a matter of time before I began to overhear their conversations, to be honest, I wasn’t even expecting you to ever step foot on this ship,” Madeleine assured, Cynthia started tapping the address on her keyboard, and searching for potential locations until she came across one that caught her eye, “Guys, check this out!” She said, turning the laptop to face them, on the screen was the image of a small building in the middle of a lively plaza, it’s dark and mysterious nature made it feel off-putting and unorthodox, the bricks were all damaged and worn and the glass was hazy, the door was left open and beyond it was nothing but infinite darkness and gloom, Lucia squinted her eyes, trying to focus on the details of the image. There was a sign that glowed above the building in neon text, but she couldn’t make out the words. Behind the door, she could make out a vague silhouette, one that stood still, frozen in time, she could feel it’s presence, as if it were on the cruise right now, looking down on her and her friends. Instinctively she turned to face behind her, to find out –luckily- that there was nothing there. “You okay Luci?” Aiden asked, acknowledging her pale face, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost,”
“I'm fine,” she reassured, concentrating on the image once again, everything that surrounded the plaza looked alive and well, she could even see come children running around and playing sports under the snowy winter sun, yet the building felt so... dead, it was as if it was the home of death itself, waiting for its next victim to drop a visit. It felt like the missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle, a blank space surrounded by color.
“So, this is where we’d be going?” Magnus asked, pointing at the image on the laptop, “that is by FAR the sketchiest thing I have ever laid eyes on,” he laughed, shaking his head in disbelief, “no wonder the thing was on the police report,”
“It does look really strange, Oui, are you sure this is where you’re going to collect your ‘gift’?” Madeleine wondered, “I guess if it has something to do with my brother, I kind of have an obligation to see this through now,” Lucia replied, “I wouldn’t get my hopes up, I doubt Kieran would just suddenly show up because a bunch of teenagers felt like playing detective,” Jake said, Cynthia nodded, “7 years is a lot of time, too long to just show up again like nothing happened, right?” She added.
“Well, look, we’ve got evidence that the police don’t have, which links to the case, and I'm certain that the second gift will further prove that,” Aiden chimed in, “Kieran dies when he dies,”
Madeleine and Jake inclined their heads in agreement. Cynthia began typing further enquiries about the whereabouts of the building and any history of it, however, it all had appeared to have been wiped, the only evidence that it had any association with Kieran was the fact that he had been in the shop the week of his disappearance, “Hey Cece, type up the name of the owner of the building, perhaps that would help a bit?” Magnus suggested. “Good idea,” she pointed out, however as she pressed enter on the search bar, something uncanny had happened to her computer, it turned off completely, letting off a low pitched eldritch hum, that echoed through the room, the sinister sound dwelling in every corner of the room. After a couple of minutes of the incessant sound that emanating from the computer, a few chilling words appeared on the centre of her screen:
N0 PEAK1NG... WH3RE’S THE FUN 1N THAT?
They all stared at the message as it flickered on the screen, taunting them, Lucia’s head span as she tried to make sense of the message, No peaking? What would she have been peaking at. And why? After a further few minutes of the message’s exposure, the laptop automatically reset and was back to normal, yet the group were still perplexed by the creepy message that showed up, and how it managed to corrupt the computer.
“Kieran was definitely dealing with some messed up people, because I know for a fact that laptops don’t work that way,” Jake uttered, still taken aback by everything, Lucia still thought of the shadow behind the door, in the image of the creepy building. Could it have been the same man who gave her the first gift to begin with? He was no less mysterious than the man in the image, and their body structures looked vaguely similar, going off the fact that Lucia had a hard time identifying either of them as they both hid in the shadows, “I’m not too sure about this one, you couldn’t pay me to go anywhere near that... thing,” Magnus told, nobody could blame him either, they were getting caught up in the same business that Lucia’s brother hand gotten into, and it seemed like they were falling down the same rabbit hole. And the same demise. Cynthia slammed her laptop down and stuffed it back in her bag, “we need to take our mind off that... stuff,” she started, “Let’s watch some TV and call it a day, this whole mystery is giving me a migraine,”
“I could watch some TV right now actually,” Madeleine said, looking at Jake who nodded, everyone seemed to want to shift their direction towards more light-hearted things, they were there for leisure, after all. But as they watched, they could all feel an underlying sense of danger, wating for them as they travelled the seas.