You saw them all the time. Especially if you travelled a lot. Those strange little places that seemed to just exist on the side of the road, or just below the highways. As if the world had erected them as serve as part of the scenery.
These were small towns and neighborhoods that now stood empty and silent. Remaining like well-decorated bones on a corpse. Places that had been abandoned. Their inhabitants forced to leave because of a variety of reasons, be it some random calamity, or the disappearance of a linchpin for the local economy.
Andante, Pennsylvania was one such small town. Honestly, it was more a handful of tiny neighborhoods with big ambitions than an actual town. The town was once home to a famous music conservatory and a mine that held valuble minerals. At its peak, roughly thirty thousand souls called Andante their home.
No one knew exactly why, but at some point the town started dying. The mine dried up. All the young folks started moving away. The music conservatory was closed down after a huge scandal involving some very cult-like activities that were going on in the background. Eventually, almost no one lived there, then the last residents either died or moved away and as far as anyone knew, there was nobody still living in Andante.
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The town’s slow death is where the story should have ended. With the possible epilogue being the town’s many buildings being knocked down and replaced with the concrete and brick facilities of a certain corporation. Instead, the Valkyrie Tech Operations Manager and the real estate agent that was showing her the town were never seen again.
The expansion was put on hold. The police were sent to the operation manager’s last known location, which according to the car’s gps was in a city in the next state over. Lewis the assistant was eventually located within a state mental health facility in the Russian countryside. His mind broken.
The manager’s disappearance remained an unsolved mystery. The company eventually found another site, sensing that there was something amiss with the first area they’d chosen. No one really gave a thought to Andante till months later when an entire bus full of children disappeared and there was traffic camera footage of them passing through a road that lead up to the town.
The police were sent in and only a single officer was able to leave Andante with their life. His mind was broken just as young Lewis’ had been making it impossible to retrieve a coherent explanation of what happened to his co-workers.
Thoroughly spooked, the Pennsylvania law enforcement authorities and the state of Pennsylvania, turned to CS Corp and the Players League.
Which lead to Margot and I seeing the job on the app. We accepted the job, now here I am. Wrapped up snug and tight in a straitjacket. Lying in a bed in a nice padded cell. Staring up at a mirrored ceiling and the dark haired, dark skinned, green eyed little boy that was staring back down at me.