“You can turn yourself into a bear?” Michael asked, laying his head down in the backseat of Eru’s small economy car.

     Sat in the shotgun seat, Arnold looked back at Michael, “Yup. Got a minor in druidic studies back in college. What about you Michael? Did you study any magic?”

     “No,” said Micheal with a stern expression. “I stick with simpler ways of self-defense.”

     “As in?”

     Michael sat up, grabbing something from his back pocket. It’s a taser. He clicked it twice, surprising Arnold and Eru. The car swayed left and right before settling back onto the road as Eru tried to keep the wheel steady.

     “Jesus, Mike! Did you seriously bring a taser to an investigation?” Eru yelled back at Michael.

     “What? You two work for the government, you two don’t have guns?” Michael retorted.

     Eru rolled her eyes, “God no.”

     “What about you Arnold? Big shot like you has to be packing.”

     Arnold looked back at Michael and gave the world’s smallest smile, “I can turn into a bear. You think I need a gun?”

     Michael crossed his arms before peering out the car window, watching the town pass by. They were driving through Saleal, a simple place. Any personality, business, or ideal would die within its first year if it weren’t one of three things. A church, a bar, or Keller’s; a multinational food manufacturing company. The streets were empty, not a single soul was walking about or entering stores. If you didn’t know how Saleal was, you’d think it was a ghost town.

     Keller’s was the main employer in the town, if you grew up in Saleal, you probably worked at Keller’s. The residents ate Keller’s cereal, wore the merchandise, got paid by Keller’s paychecks, and slept after turning off their Keller’s branded bedside lamp. Keller’s was a piece of history in this town.

     Eru took a deep breath, inhaling the nice fruity smells from The Factory. It was well known that in the town of Saleal, the morning smelled of sweet cereal; by night, it smelled of rotten eggs. Most residents closed their windows by then.

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     The three wordlessly drove over the bridge, leading to The Factory. It was a monolith, stretching into the sky as it casted a shadow over the nearby town. The road turned to gravel as they approached The Factory entrance. The unpaved parking lot was paraded by a mob of people, impassionedly protesting. They swarmed in a circle as an Orc dressed in orange stood in the middle with a megaphone, yelling “We’re NOT going to die for them ANYMORE!!” The crowd cheered her on.

     The car halted in its place, at the very end of the gravel parking lot. The first to leave the car was Michael.

     Michael S. Frankford was a simple, goblin of a man. He woke up every morning, trimmed his mustache, rubbed aftershave on his rugged, green face, ate breakfast at a diner, and worked at his town’s Health & Safety department. After spending a whole day feeling microaggressions from his higher-ups, he would drive home, watch poorly-dubbed kung fu movies, and then sleep. If there was one thing Michael hated, it was disorder. He kept his shirt ironed, his tie tied tight, his suspenders pulling his pants up, and made sure to dispose of the fat in his cast iron pans before it solidified.

     Michael looked out at The Factory with a clipboard in hand and wrote down what he saw. “No fire escape.” He mumbled under his breath. 

     The next to leave the car was Eru Coalson. She was a stout, orange Kobold who wore black sunglasses and a black coat over her black suit. She was a professional investigator, hired as a freelancer by Arnold’s division. She liked her coffee black, her toast lightly buttered, and was a fan of Keller's brand of fruity cereals. Her favorite was Treet’s. They had these fruity shapes and tasted like no fruit that had ever existed but instead tasted like the word “fruit”. When she’d finish work, she’d watch an old vintage show about some war-time doctors flirting with each other before falling asleep, face-first onto her microwave dinner. She usually worked alone, but a high-paying government paycheck is a high-paying government paycheck.

     She looked at the crowd outside The Factory and grimaced, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one up. The smoke polluted her lungs, pushing out any of the fruity scents that lingered.

     The last to leave the car was Arnold G. Emsworth. He was a tall, lanky piece of white bread. His hair was dainty, slightly browned, and laid on his head like a napkin. He wore a blue coat over his white, frilly shirt. He was from the Bureau of Investigation, the type of man who usually sat behind a desk; the type to bring out the corkboard, piecing a mystery together with red string. He knew four languages, double majored & triple minored in college, jogged a 5k every week, and listened to freeform jazz but only on the weekends. His coworkers called him Gumshoe for a week and he, to this day, still refers to himself as it. 

     He stood there, on the gravel, looking up at The Factory, up at The Grain Silo. The Grain Silo stared back. Arnold blinked twice, before settling his eyes onto the crowd.

     “So… How many deaths?” Eru asked.

     “Twelve.” Arnold and Michael said in unison.

     Eru’s eyebrows lowered, “In one year?”

     A quietness between the three of them. Yes. In one year. Eru nodded, the silence was deafening.

     “Goddamn,” Eru whispered to herself. “Alright. Let’s get this over with.”