Lydia's Dead

.RESET

.3

.2

.1

I went to the beach at about 4 AM to beat the crowds that come in early every morning to watch the sun rise.  I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for, but I knew there had to be some sort of clue there.  I brought my flashlight, my raincoat, and, in case of danger, one of Trent's guns.  Since he's never home anymore, I doubted he'd miss it.

The beach was still when I arrived.  Even the gentle lapping of the waves seemed to have paused, a grim anticipation.  The breeze that was in town did not extend out here.  The picture felt frozen.  It felt as though someone had forgotten to switch the "on" button for nature.  And then I saw a figure at the edge of the water, wearing a ranger's vest.

I ran over to it and saw Lydia.

I called the police at once.  Some officer I've never seen before arrived.  I asked for Trent, but he told me Trent's too busy to come right now.  They couldn't find Lydia's wallet or ID, so they "Jane Doe"d her, despite my insistences that I knew who she was.  Apparently, she'd been stabbed in the throat and dropped into the water.

God, I feel sickened.  If the police weren't keeping this all hush-hush, maybe people would have known to keep their eyes peeled.  Maybe this could have been prevented.  The cops seem to be keeping this murder under wraps as well, so I'm going to have to double-down on my efforts in this blog to make people aware of what's happening.

I've got to go.  The forest service needs me.  Update later.

Dreams, and I Found Lydia

 I've been having a recurring dream lately.

It always starts the same way.  I'm running through the woods, being chased by... someone.  I don't know who but I know that if they catch me I'm going to die.  I see this hotel in the distance and I run to it.  It takes an absurdly long time; sometimes it feels like an hour, until my body feels like it'll burst apart.  But I make it, get in, and shut the door.

At the reception desk is the dead woman.  She turns to me and smiles.  "Welcome home", she says.

Then I wake up.

Last night, Lydia was the receptionist.

Today, she called me.  She seemed to be missing time; when I told her it was Wednesday she literally gasped.  She had quite the story.

She told me that she'd been in that hotel in the woods.  That she'd entered it in a dream and woke up in the forest, lost, when the dream ended.  She said her dream was identical to mine.  She saw herself as the receptionist.  She said it took her almost half a day to leave the forest, which is impossible.  It's not that big.

Something's going on here.  I don't like it.

I found Trent as well.  He's been pouring over his work and ignoring me entirely, it seems.  Another officer told me that he's been sleeping at the station.  He said he's concerned about him; that he doesn't seem to be taking care of himself.  I tried to see him but he refused to see me.

I'll be going to the beach this week.

Sorry Y'all

 Just another brief update.  I apologize for not going to the beach yet.  I've been very distracted by Trent and Lydia's lack of contact.  I can't shake the feeling that something bad is happening to one of them, maybe both.  I feel so alone right now.  I can't do this, I know I can't help.  My heart wants to rip itself from my chest in desperation and I realize that this is what all of this is about.  I want to rip myself out of a scenario that doesn't make sense, a nightmare that's haunting me.  I want to escape the fact that there is a killer in my community and that the victim was an awful lot like me and that I have no network, nobody to account for me and protect me, even my own cousin on the police force won't help.  I thought "Oh maybe if I solve this I won't be the perfect victim anymore" but that's no good because now Lydia's missing and Trent's gone and god knows who else might be killed because I was SELFISH.

KILL ME.  KILL ME.  KILL. ME.  KILLME KILL ME KILL. ME.

So Far

 Okay, so here's what we've got so far.

1.  A woman is murdered.  Her body is found on the beach by Lydia, who is experiencing some form of hallucination in the woods beforehand.  This woman is not identified and the police mostly seem to have forgotten about her entirely- in less than two days.

2.  Lydia and I have both seen the hallucination in the woods.

3. Trent, my cousin, is desperately trying to get me to stop investigating.  Unlike the other police, he doesn't seem to have forgotten anything.

The vision in the woods is a dead-end.  While there's still a lot to uncover there, I don't know how we're going to go about uncovering it.  I still need to go to the beach.  And I also intend to talk to Trent.

I haven't heard from Lydia or Trent in over a day.  I guess I just have to wait until they get back to me.  I have no idea where Trent is at all.

And Another Thing

Does anyone know what to make of this website?  I found it today and it just gives me a, frankly, bizarre feeling.  Don't know why, though.

saintsimonfl.org

This Neck of the Woods

Lydia and I left for the woods at about 11 AM yesterday.  Our goal was simple.  We intended to find that building that Lydia thought she had seen on the night of the murder.

As soon as we got into the park we quickly walked as deep down the trail as possible (her leading the way) and then left the trail for the thick forest.  We had walked in silent most of the way, but once we left the trail Lydia spoke.

"Watch out.  If you see any black spots on the foliage or any animals acting weird, try to move away from them."

"Why?"

"There's a type of fungus that lives out in these woods.  Only place in the world it's known to grow.  The park service is able to keep it away from the trail, but past that, it grows wildly."

"Okay... but fungus is like mushrooms, right? So it's harmless."

She scoffed.

"Let me tell you this much.  Whenever an animal dies in this forest, if you dissect it and look at its brain, there's strange... growths all over essential parts.  Those that control perception, for one thing."

"I wonder if our murder victim had those growths."

"Don't know.  Let's walk."

I shut up after that.  The rest of the walk was quiet.  There were far less strange spots in the woods than I had expected to see, but there were still enough that I wanted to stay cautious.  Once the time reached about 1PM, Lydia spoke again.

"Oh my god.  It's still here."

I looked up and it felt like the air had been punched out of my lungs.  Before me stood a grand building.  It looked like a hotel, in a "U" shape with a courtyard in front of us and the entrance on the other side.  A fence surrounded it, and a carpark, with cars(!), sat on the right side.  The ground it covered was all paved.

The lights were on, but nobody seemed to be home.

"Is this the same...?"

"Yeah."

We walked slowly towards it.

As we approached the fence, the hotel's image flickered, like a mirage, and then it was gone.  There was only forest.

"What the fuck!" Lydia yelled.  "You saw it too, right?"

"I did, are you okay?"

"Fuck, I thought we had proof!  What the hell just happened?"

I was thinking.  There were two possibilities.  One, that the hotel somehow disappeared, or two, that something caused both of us to think that we had seen the hotel.  Privately, I preferred the second option, even as I reassured Lydia.

Once she calmed down, we turned around and left.  It took another two hours to get out.  We got in our separate cars and went our separate ways.  I'm waiting to hear from her about what our future plans might be.

There's one thing that bothers me, though.  Even if the hotel is a mirage of some sorts, how did we walk straight into the woods for two hours?  The park isn't very big and we should have hit water after thirty minutes.

-Callie

Trent, and Decisions

 Trent's been on my ass about this blog lately.  He seems really, really angry that I'm talking about this stuff at all.  Not the "I don't know what any of this is" that Lydia described the cops showing her.  I mean real, palpable anger.  He hasn't spoken to me in two days, after telling me to delete it and "keep my nose where it belongs".  I will not delete it.  This is where I belong.  I am a resident of this town, same as him, and we all deserve the truth about any danger in our community.

To that end, I will be going to Dexter's Park tomorrow.  Lydia is coming with me.  We had to wait for a time she was off-work, so she doesn't have to follow her standard route.  We're going to do a deep search, looking for that hotel-type-building she described.  We'll prove she's not making it up or crazy.  We'll prove there's something going on here.

I'm not sure what else I should do in the meantime.  There seems to be a lot of angles to this investigation, and I think they might all lead to the truth at the center.  They just follow different paths.

I could talk to Trent, try to figure out what's eating him up so much.  Of course, that might just lead to more anger and distrust.  I could check the beach as well as the forest (or even rent a boat and go out a ways, to see if I can find anything out there- I doubt it, though).  That will take a lot of time and might be a big nothing, but if it's not, who knows.  Or I could search the internet to see if anyone else has any information about this town.  I didn't find anything the first time, but you never know.

If I have any followers and this isn't just a vanity project, please give me a suggestion.  There's too many options and I don't know what the best use of my time is here.  It's essential that I don't waste it.  There's a killer to find.