Tulip Glasslip here.
I need to make this brief; I should've been gone from this hotel half an hour ago and I'm sure the cleaning lady will come check any minute now.
No one has followed me, as far as I know. Pruner hasn't made any other comments either, which I find strange considering their apparent obsession with my work. I've been trying to remember the missing ten days, but absolutely nothing comes to mind. I can only hope that it will not happen again.
I found a file inside my computer, one that wasn't there before and I failed to notice last time due to how well hidden it was. It appears to be some sort of audio file, though I believe it's corrupted and no software I have was able to play it. I have an… acquaintance that knows about this sort of stuff, I'll ask them for help with the matter as soon as I can.
Finally, I've been able to secure an interview with yet another Wysteria ex-citizen. The transcript is here below:
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[Maes is a big, burly man with short hair and a jaw like a shovel. I assume he's on his mid-thirties, though he doesn't look the part. Despite his intimidating appearance he has an easy smile and bright, honey eyes.
He agreed to meet for the interview, though his house is currently going through renovations. As such we're sharing a table in a nearby café, as far away from the rest of the customers as possible. I asked for a small frappuccino and a glass of water, while he got himself a big mug of black coffee with some brandy in it.
He empties half of it before we begin the interview:]
Back then we were just kids, even if by all legal means the world considered us adults.
Small town folk didn't care about that, y'see. You were called boy regardless of age, until you either got a job or managed to grow a respectable beard, and I've never been one for facial hair. I won't say I took the job to get respect or anything like that, but the idea was in the back of my mind.
Luckily at the docks people didn't care whether you were a minor or not. If you could lift up boxes and move them from boats to the hangars you'd get hired. I could do both things no problem since I grew up in my papa's farm and there was always something to do in there.
Problem is that lately I'd been staying with my mother, and she was starting to get sick. She didn't want me to, said she'd rather see me keep up with my studies, but someone had to bring money to the house. Pay wasn't the best, but we got plenty of rest in between shipment arrivals and they gave us lunch and dinner, latter of which I always brought home and shared with mom.
I was teased by my coworkers for being the oldest since I'd just turned eighteen, and then teased some more by the sailors who liked to pick at me 'cause of my awful little mustache. It was all in good fun though, and I can think of only one time the thing escalated to punches. It was a good job, overall, or as good as a kid like me could get.
"Did the Wysteria docks receive a lot of ships per day?"
Not as much as Vermillion, but a fair amount I'd say. Most were from Olivine over there in Johto. A few were cruise ships from places like Hoenn or Alola, and once or twice we got run down boats full of supplies from Unova. We all knew what they really were, but kept quiet. No one liked a snitch, and I wasn't gonna lose my job over something stupid like that.
"Earlier you said: We were just kids at the time. Who is we?"
Oh, just Marty and a couple other friends from school. Me and him, we practically grew up together over there in the hills. You would've never guessed that peeps like us could've been friends, judging by where we came from. His parents had lots of money; worked in some kind of company or government agency, I wasn't sure at the time. Quiet, reserved folk. He couldn't have been less like them.
Marty was the tall type, kinda skinny too. Messy hair and freckles, and eyes that spelled no end of trouble. Usually had a broken nose, 'cause he kept getting in fights with the bad kids when they picked up on the younger ones. I joined once or twice, though I wasn't quite as gun ho' as he was.
He and the others from our group of friends sometimes came to hang out with me at the docks after school, though it was usually just Marty. We'd chill out and eat sandwiches, watching the waves and talking about menial things, like what kind of boat would prop up next. We always hoped it'd be a pirate ship, or one where all the people on board had been mysteriously killed. We made up stories about the people we saw, wondering what drove them to go out there to sea. We were dumb kids, y'see, and we never even considered the idea of getting out of town for any reason. It was our home, what would we do without it?
Those were good times, they were. Sometimes I forget how simple things were back then. We had all the time in the world for ourselves, and we wasted the hell out of it like good kids are supposed to do.
"Did you ever see something strange while working at the docks? Any unusual ships?"
[He blinks a few times, his smile going cold in his lips. It's as if he's forgotten for a moment that I am here.]
Right, right. Sorry, kinda got caught up in reminiscing.
Yeah… the whole thing was like a slide, things went progressively south, too fast to really understand. Though I guess that's just me and Marty getting into trouble like usual.
The first time was a winter night. I remember it perfectly because we were freezing our asses off and I couldn't wait to get back home and bury myself in blankets. We were usually laid off before the sun went down, but that day a cargo ship accidentally bumped the edge of the docks and let one of the boxes fall to the floor. A box full of beer bottles, might I add. That day it was only me, Marty and some other younger kid, so we were the ones who had to clean the damn thing.
We got finished with that when it started to get dark. The other boy went back to his house, but me and Marty stayed behind for half an hour more to close up the docks and make sure everything was in order before we left. By the time we were ready to leave, the lighthouse in the distance had already been turned on, and was pointing at some place east in the middle of the sea. Hard to say where, with all the mist.
Had we left a couple minutes sooner we wouldn't have seen it, but we were known to have awful luck. Just as I finished checking out everything Marty called me from the other side of the dock by whistling. He pointed at a spot in the sea where the lighthouse was illuminating, and after forcing my sight I noticed there was another ship coming.
I'll never forget the look we gave each other when we saw it, nor the sparkle in Marty's eye. I'd seen it a million times before, it was the one he got just before coming up with stupid ideas.
We didn't even need to talk it over; Marty crouched behind one of the metal cargo boxes and I followed. We sneaked in closer to the north side of the dock while trying to stay silent, and I daresay we did a pretty darn good job of it. The ship didn't look so big from up close; it reminded me of those cruise jets rich people threw parties in, though this one clearly wasn't built for that. It was painted all black and if I hadn't seen it approach I wouldn't have noticed it at a first glance.
"Was anyone waiting for it on shore?"
Not that we could see; it was starting to get real dark and all the lights had been turned off. We were one of the few towns that didn't have to worry about security on our docks. It would've been more common to meet one of the legendary birds than to see someone try to steal stuff.
"Were they thieves?"
No, as I said those were really rare. The first thought that came to our minds was that it had to be some sort of illegal shipment, and I mean more illegal than those who dropped in the middle of the day, which was saying something. We'd all been warned not to stick our noses in those kinda businesses; I remember one of the kids that worked with us accepted some extra payment to help unload the boxes of a certain drug shipment and keep it secret… let's just say it didn't end well.
So yeah, I figured it had to be something a bit more illegal than drugs. Maybe weapons or some sort of human trafficking, though the last one would've been more fit for a city like Vermillion. We didn't do that sorta thing in Wysteria, as far as I know.
The port was divided into several categories where ships could arrive; the spots closer to the city were reserved for emergency shipments and tourist boats, while the ones farther away were for drops of lesser importance. This one was in the furthermost spot, in between two stacks of metal boxes that made it impossible to see it from almost every angle.
Four people disembarked, all wearing the same dark suits that made them just as hard to see as the boat. They stood around for a while, talking amongst themselves and fiddling with their cell phones. I could make out a couple of words but nothing substantial. Package, schedule, petal, lighthouse and something that sounded like a Pokemon's name. Never been a trainer myself and neither was anyone I knew, so no wonder I had no idea what species they'd just mentioned. If I had then things might've worked out a bit differently.
"What happened after? Did you two get involved?"
We might've been stupid and reckless, but not that much. We spied them from behind the metal box for a while. I was starting to get worried, though not enough to turn back, and Marty had plenty of excitement in him for the both of us. There was something special about sneaking up on things that are supposed to be secret… can't blame kids like us for wanting to know the truth.
[I try my best to suppress the sad smile that forms on my lips.]
In the end they did take something off the boat, though at first we didn't realize what they were. To us they just looked like barrels, the kind you put alcohol into, though they didn't make that typical sloush sound as if they were full of liquid. And whatever was inside must've been in one piece because the only thing we heard as those people moved the barrels were occasional thumps of something hitting against the wood. Judging by the way they were carrying them and the look of those strangers I guessed that what was inside the barrels couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds each.
"How many where there?"
Three; one for each person and the fourth guy told them where to go. At first I thought they were looking for one of the hangars; that's where all the fragile and important shipments were taken. But instead they took a sharp left and left the docks, walking uphill through the path that took you to the lighthouse.
I saw the glint in Marty's eye, but I had to stop him before he took another step. We couldn't keep going, I told him, because in the path there wasn't anything for us to hide behind if they happened to hear us. Besides, I was getting a really bad vibe from those suited guys and it was getting pretty late. You haven't known fear if you haven't come home in the middle of the night and your mom was there, waiting for an explanation.
[He begins to laugh, which then morphs into a fit of coughing. He takes another chug of the cup, clearing his throat.]
Marty didn't move for a few seconds. At first I thought he was thinking of a way we could make it work, and if anyone could then that was surely him. But then I noticed that he… well, his expression was kinda scrunched up. He was staring at those people weird, and his smile wasn't there anymore. I asked what was wrong, but he told me not to worry about it.
We agreed to go back for now, but it was already too late for two idiots like us. We were way too curious, and on the walk back home we couldn't stop talking about what we'd seen and wondering who those people could've been. Marty seemed strangely… obsessed with it, I'd never seen him frown so much. At one point he began mentioning how those suits looked familiar but… no, it was probably nothing, he said. A lot of people wore suits, after all. Even if they were weird and kinda purple and had some weird white insignia on them.
Any smart kid would've left the matter alone, mind their own business and go do other kinds of stupid shit. Even smarter kids would've told the authorities what they'd seen or their parents or any other adult. Too bad we were… well, us.
The next day we talked about what we'd seen with our friends at school, though we made sure no one outside our little circle could listen. We took pride in having found something akin to a big secret like that, and wanted to keep it to ourselves. Besides, we discussed the possibility of going to the lighthouse to see if we could find anything interesting, and didn't want any other kids from going there before we could. It was like a treasure hunt, albeit an odd and dangerous one.
"Did all of you go together, the next night?"
Are you insane? We weren't that thoughtless; if we were to do anything then it'd be at the crack of dawn, when there was no chance of people spotting us.
We ran into a few scheduling problems; Carlos couldn't go the next day because his brother would take him fishing in the morning, and Marty had gotten into trouble with his parents over something he didn't want to share with us. I raised an eyebrow at that, since we'd never been ones to keep secrets from each other, but I let it pass.
We decided to go not the next dawn, but the one after that. We discussed the exact place to meet, on the west-wing outside the docks which was hidden by a bunch of trees, and made plans on how to proceed from there and who should bring what. We agreed that Marty and I would stay a bit later that day to see if those people came back, and to make sure it really was the lighthouse they were headed to.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
"I'm guessing things didn't go according to plan, if the summary you gave me of the story is any indication of it."
Heh, ya' think?
The first sign of danger came that afternoon. I went to work like usual and had a pretty normal day, even if it was Saturday and we were getting more shipments than usual because it was the end of the week. I was pretty tired by the end of my shift but I was determined to say a couple hours more and check if they came back.
I asked the boss to let me be the one to close up the docks since I had free time anyway. After I was finished with that I headed back behind the same metal box we hid in last night and waited for Marty to arrive. The sun was beginning to go down.
He didn't come. I waited for a whole hour, getting progressively more worried as time went on. Maybe his parents had grounded him, or something had happened while he was on the way here. Still, I didn't have much choice but to stay and wait, even if doing it alone wasn't what I would've called a good time.
I saw the black boat in the distance, about twenty minutes later. Last night I hadn't paid much attention, but now that I was alone I noticed that its engine didn't make any sound, which was a strange thing to invest on in a ship.
It stopped on the same spot as last night, but this time only two people came out of it and began to unload the barrels. The ones missing were a man and a woman, the two that I remember were arguing with each other. This time they didn't waste any time, they only exchanged a few words and picked up the barrels afterwards. Since there were only two of them they had to go slower, which gave me a chance to try and listen in on their conversation.
I couldn't hear much, only that they were complaining about having to transport everything themselves. I could've sworn I heard one of them mention the name Miller, which was Marty's last name but… no, it couldn't be. They were too far away and I had misunderstood.
I didn't follow them, since without Marty I was even less enthusiastic about risking my life. However I'd brought my dad's binoculars with me and I followed them with my sight all the way until they went into the lighthouse. That confirmed it; that really was the place where they stored those barrels. With that out of the way I jumped the fence of the docks and ran back to my house.
The next day Marty didn't come to school. I asked the teacher and she told me that Marty's parents had called ahead of time; they told her he'd caught a cold and was resting in bed. Still, it seemed strange that he wouldn't at least call to my house and let me know; we were best pals after all.
The rest of the group was anxious to go to the lighthouse and it wouldn't have been cool of me to rely on Marty too much. I told them what I'd seen and reiterated what we'd agreed on the day before. What to bring, where to meet, etc. I told them I'd swing by Marty's house later and let him know, before I went to work.
"Did you manage to contact him?"
No. I knocked as hard as I could on his door but no one answered. I walked back to their garage and I noticed that his mom's car wasn't in there; maybe they'd taken him to the hospital? I began to worry, but not as much as I should have. I knew Marty was a tough nut, there was no way something like a cold would do him in.
Still, this meant he probably wouldn't come with us to the lighthouse, which left me as the group leader. I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about that, what with my anxiety, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. What was the worst that could happen?
Right… yeah. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and slap myself in the face.
[I try to hide my sudden smile.]
"I know the feeling. Did your trip turn unfruitful as quickly as I'm imagining?"
That's putting it lightly.
It was Sunday in the afternoon. It had been a slow day, which gave me enough time to sneak in my backpack from the workers lounge to inside one of the metal boxes on the far east end of the docks. This time I would go back home early, since my mother had been pretty angry that I'd been coming home so late the past two nights. She kept asking me if I had a girlfriend or something like that… god bless her, that oblivious, wonderful woman. Wrong problem and wrong gender, for one thing, but she tried.
That night I went to bed early. I put on the alarm for four in the morning, not too loud so that only I would hear it. I'd gone to sleep with my clothes on, so I was ready to hop off the window the moment I woke up.
Coraline was there before me, and Carlos arrived a few minutes later. No sign whatsoever of Marty, though. I knew there wasn't much chance he'd come by with a cold.
We retrieved the backpack from the container and I made sure the black boat wasn't there anymore; we'd agreed that if it was we would go back and try another day. Luckily that particular spot was empty. We began walking uphill towards the lighthouse; I was the only one carrying a flashlight. It was my dad's; military made and pretty powerful. I kept it off for now, it was only there for emergencies.
We had about an hour or so before the sun came up and people started waking up, so we hurried along. The lighthouse had been built on a steep hill next to the shore, on the other side of the road and far away enough that it wasn't technically part of the city, even if people associated Wysteria with it.
"Was anyone inside of it at the time?"
Well… that's the thing, ain't it? In all our worry to see if those suited guys had their boat parked in the docks we never considered the fact that someone else might've been living inside. We hadn't exactly thought things through; after all, someone had to be up there to turn on and off the lights every day, right?
I'd hesitate to call it lucky, but that wasn't the case, and that's where things started to not make sense. The door was unlocked for one thing, and it didn't seem like it'd been locked recently at all. I noticed the footsteps in the dirt leading in and out, though I couldn't tell which ones were more recent.
Our original plan had Carlos staying outside to see if anyone came back, while the rest of us studied the inside. However without Marty we decided to scratch that and all three of us entered the lighthouse.
I don't know what I expected. Maybe I'd read too many story books but I thought the main room would be some sort of house or quarters to live in; maybe with a table and some chairs. I couldn't have been more wrong; the only thing in sight were six of those barrels and the stone staircase leading up to the light room. It was painted white; not that you could tell with all the filth and humidity it had in it. The walls weren't even that; just a bunch of bricks stuck together and covered in cobwebs. The most bizarre thing however was a small, square indenture in the walls where it looked like a chimney would've been built. It even had a bunch of ash inside. If any of us had been smart we would've found it weird, considering there were no windows and there was no way to use it without suffocating due to the smoke, but we were too anxious and distracted for that.
"Checking out the barrels, I presume?"
There wasn't much to check out; they were empty.
Well, mostly. The lids had been taken off, and the dust smears in the ground made it look like it had happened recently. The insides were surprisingly clean, so it probably wasn't alcohol or drugs what they were carrying. The floor of one of them was slightly wet and it smelled funny. Another one had what looked like scratch marks on the inside. Probably some sort of animal then, I thought.
At the bottom of one of them there was a loose piece of green fabric that looked like a handkerchief, but bigger. It reminded me terribly of that awful bandana Marty liked to wear around his neck, but this one was too dirty and torn up, it couldn't possibly be it.
I figured they had probably taken whatever was inside to the room at the top, so I told Carlos to wait down while Coraline and I went to check that out. We had to go slow and watch our step, since I still didn't want to use the flashlight just in case someone happened to be there. Had I been smart I would've turned the fucker on and then switch it to the highest setting, but I guess hindsight is 20/20.
The only thing we found on the top room was the machine that gave off light. It looked like a glass disc divided into a bunch of sections, sitting on top of a machine that could rotate. A bunch of cables ran from the floor towards it, which I remember I found rather reckless. My mom had worked on a place full of dangerous machines and she constantly told me she never wanted to see a wire on the floor; those were dangerous.
I stood there without moving while Coraline explored. There was something strange, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I'd seen those cables run down the walls of the staircase to the main room, but where did they go from there? I didn't remember there being any kind of generator. Maybe it went underground? But from where? There wasn't any…
That's when it hit me; that chimney looking thing in the wall. It was wide enough that a trap door could be hidden under the ash.
"And that would be where those suited men took the contents of the barrel to."
My train of thought exactly. Too bad I didn't get much time to test that theory.
We heard steps coming from the base floor, really hurried, pretty much stomping. Carlos appeared at the landing of the stairs, looking like he'd seen a ghost. His hair was all ruffled and his cheeks were red. He blurted out before we could ask him what was wrong:
«I heard people talking under the floor! I think they're coming here!»
I don't think Coraline understood why I freaked out so much at the sound of that. I immediately told them we needed to go and started walking, well, pretty much running down the stairs. I heard their steps behind me but I was too anxious to look back. If what Carlos had said was true then those guys could climb the trapdoor any minute and find us there.
[He noticeably fidgets as he takes a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. I don't interrupt while he struggles to light it up with his slightly shaking fingers, nor do I point out that this is a no-smoke zone. I figure the man has earned this.]
That's where it should've ended. We should've reached the base floor and escaped before anything could happen. It was the fair thing. We were just kids, dammit.
It took me longer to notice than it should have, and when I did the panic started to bubble pretty badly. The fear snuck up on me. Didn't it take us less time to walk upstairs? Why were there so many steps? Was it just me or were the walls getting darker as we went down?
The worst part wasn't realizing it, but hearing someone else say it out loud. Up to that point I could've pinned it all on my own imagination and the fear I was feeling, but the moment Coraline pointed out that we should've reached the bottom already… I really don't know how to explain it. Never in my life have I felt so much panic, and I doubt I ever will.
I told her we were almost there and kept going down, pretty must jumping the steps as fast as I could. Still, there was no end to the spiral staircase, nor windows to look out from. It slowly began to dawn on me that we were trapped, and I did not take that well. I heard Carlos' sobbing behind me and tried to ignore it as hard as I could.
That's when I heard that laugh, and I froze. My friends crashed into my back and almost sent us downstairs rolling, but I managed to stay up. For a few seconds we heard nothing, and then it happened again. The only reason I say it was a laugh is because it's the only thing I can think of. It didn't sound like one much, and just hearing it made my blood run cold.
Since we were in a spiral staircase we couldn't see much further from where we were. Still, we noticed that the walls were getting unnaturally darker as we went down, and then… all black, completely. I could feel it, it was almost solid.
"Was it a Pokemon?"
Y-yeah… we saw its face then. It appeared in the shadows as if it were its body. The eyes were big and red, and it had a really wide grin of white teeth. Wide enough to fit a kid like me inside, was the first thing I thought.
What happened after is kind of a blur. I remember lots of screaming and crying. We started running upstairs, hoping that we could at least get to the top floor and have a better chance at escaping whatever the hell that thing was. Hell, at that point I was willing to throw myself out of the damn window if that's what it took.
But it was the same the other way around. We ran up for far longer than it should've taken for us to get there, and still there were only more stairs. My legs hurt so badly and I could feel my lungs burn, but I absolutely refused to stop. As we went we heard that… thing's laugh behind us, and the walls began to darken as if it were chasing us.
"Did it ever attack you?"
No, it didn't. I don't know why; maybe it'd been ordered to keep us there until one of them appeared, or maybe it liked toying with us. I almost prefer the first option, though I s'ppose it doesn't matter much anymore.
I was the one in the back, since I'd been leading them when we were trying to go downstairs. I felt something… cold, and soft curl around my leg, and the next thing I know I'm tripping into of my friends and we all fall into the steps. I remember hitting my arm badly against the edge, and for a moment everything went black. I heard them grumble in front of me, and that's when I turned around.
It was on top of us. Literally, hanging from the ceiling or… floating or some shit. Its body was round and spiky, and it had short legs and arms. If you were to see a drawing of it it wouldn't look so scary, almost goofy really, but at that moment it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. It cackled again, and the dark in the walls began to spread like tentacles. One of them grabbed my arm, the other one curled around Coraline's torso…
It was the strangest feeling, I couldn't really describe it. It felt like those tendrils were made of ice; I began to panic as my muscles went cold. I heard my friends cry and yell in terror behind me. Somehow I knew I was gonna die.
I can't honestly say I did what I did consciously. Dunno if it was a reflex or if Arceus saved me, but I grabbed the flashlight from my pocket and I pointed it at that Pokemon. Then I turned it on.
The light hit it straight in the face, and it began to scream. High pitched, like the sound a knife would make against concrete but many times worse. Still, the flashlight seemed strong enough and it drove it back as it escaped into the walls once more. The darkness around us disappeared, and the staircase went back to normal.
Well, almost. I could see the end of it a few steps down, but I could also hear voices. Muffled, screaming, angry. I tried to get up but my left arm started hurting badly; it'd probably been broken when I fell down. Besides, Carlos and Coraline were terrified out of their minds, they were still staring at the walls as if expecting that thing to come back.
I yelled at them to move, and after a few seconds they listened, though by then it was too late. We ran down the staircase as fast as we could, but by the time we made it to the base floor we saw that the trap door had already been opened. One of the suited men had just climbed out of it, while the other one was in the process of doing the same.
I remember them perfectly, as if it had happened yesterday. I hadn't noticed before but they wore masks up to their noses, latex gloves and thick, black glasses. The most distinct part of their outfit however was that insignia; the two leafy vines spinning into a circle and… uh…
Tulip? You okay?
[The sudden shift back to reality startles me. I realize I've been breathing too heavily for a while now. I try my best to compose myself, though it's unclear whether I manage it.]
"Yes, I'm fine. Please, continue."
Well… not much more to say. The moment one of them saw us he started running to us, and we did the same in the opposite direction. I didn't look back, I know that I should've but I didn't. I felt one hand on my shoulder but I shook it off by some miracle, and next thing I knew I was outside and the wind roared in my ears as I ran.
I would've kept going, probably until I collapsed from exhaustion or lack of air, if it weren't for Coraline yelling. We'd made it to the first streets of Wysteria, next to the road leading to the shore, when I finally stopped. I turned around, struggling to breathe, and saw that there were tears in her eyes. I also saw that Carlos wasn't there behind us.
[He shakes his head unconsciously, fingers gripping the cigarette so tightly it's a miracle he doesn't break it.]
I'm sure you heard what happened after. A few hours later, when it was already morning, the police went to investigate the lighthouse and found that it'd been demolished. Boom, gone, all the bricks and stairs and everything fell down as if it were made of fucking paper. They tried digging out the rubbish but it was too much, and they never found the secret trapdoor Caroline and I swore was there.
They didn't find Carlos, nor Marty nor his parents. All of them gone, like they'd vanished into air. Or underground, I should say.
I honestly don't know what to think. I'm sure it was our fault; if we'd realized that Carlos had been grabbed we would've turned around and helped him, maybe fight that suited bastard and give him what was coming to him. Or maybe he would've killed us and we would've ended up just like Carlos. Hard to say, which is a shame because it's something I think about pretty regularly.
[He finishes his cigarette and slams it on the table, since there isn't any ashtray around. He sighs and leans back into his chair, eyes lost in the distance.]
We were just kids, dammit. One would think that'd count for something, but it never does.
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Tulip Glasslip here.
It's a few hours later, in my new hotel room. Definitely not as fancy, nor does it have a private bathroom, since money has been hard to come by recently.
In any case, I've been investigating the lighthouse incident, along with Marty Miller's family and their disappearance. It appears his parents' car was found submerged at the bottom of the sea near the Wysteria shore, with no one inside. There seems to be no information online on who they were or what their line of work was, though after Maes' story I believe I'm starting to connect the dots.
Their sudden disappearance, Marty's clear change in personality and his bandana found at the bottom of a barrel… it can't be a coincidence. I need to dig deeper into this family, see what I can find. They're one of the only leads I have left.
In other news, I've sent the file to my friend, and they've assured me that they'll do everything they can to fix it. I can only hope, and wait.
Unfortunately, so must you.
Tulip Glasslip.