1:07 PM

01/08/2020

They were only a few minutes away from their destination now. Everette focused on the road. Thankfully, traffic was nonexistent during this time of day. They were going to the spot where Sarah's body was found: a junkyard in one of the neighborhoods. This junkyard also happened to be very close to where Sarah lived. That couldn't be a coincidence.

On the way, Duncan explained that someone was throwing away trash when they found her body. According to him, the body was mutilated and stuffed into trash bags. Everette had been involved in murder cases before, so he at least wasn't going to start throwing up at the thought of the girl's body, but he still felt a little nauseous thinking about a young and innocent girl being killed in such a brutal way. He couldn't imagine how the parents felt about all this. Duncan said they didn't have any information on the state the body's in, but the family was called to identify it. They were getting closer to the junkyard now.

Everette thought about the case. A few months back, Sarah went missing during a school day. There was never any sign of a kidnapping, a murder, or even a runaway. She was just... gone. Even talking to her mother didn't give them any clues to her whereabouts. When the police learned she left school during her lunch period, they checked the cameras to see for themselves what caused her to leave in hopes of tracking her down. That just led to another dead end. The camera footage during that day apparently had a glitch that made it unwatchable. The teachers told them that they didn't notice Sarah's behavior change at all up until her disappearance. They also claimed to have not seen what happened to Sarah. The students on the other hand reported a different story. The students who were in the cafeteria at the time of the incident reported that Sarah fell to the floor and began turning into garbage before running out of the cafeteria.

When he first heard the reports, Everette believed that the kids were playing a cruel prank and were making up some insane story. He wouldn't put it past teenagers to do something like that, but then the students who witnessed the event were taken to therapy. According to the therapist's notes, all of the students saw the exact same thing, every single one. Everyone who was in that cafeteria at the time of Sarah's disappearance claimed to have seen her turn into junk.

After further investigation, it turned out that there was a gas leak in the school that went unnoticed by school staff, and since the pipe was in one of the hallways near the cafeteria, it was believed that the story the students told was the result of hallucinations caused by the gas. In the following months, the students kept receiving therapy after the incident and everything slowly returned to normal.

Everette couldn't help but be skeptical about the situation. Did he believe that Sarah turned into a pile of trash? No, of course not. But, he didn't think that the students sharing the exact same hallucination was necessarily believable either. He was aware of shared hallucinations being a possibility, but that cafeteria had hundreds of kids in it. If all of them saw the same thing happen to the same person, then the chances of that being a mass hallucination were slim. It would be cynical of Everette to assume that the kids were just playing a cruel prank, but it was more believable than a gas leak.

Regardless of what he wanted to believe, Sarah was dead and that was a fact. He was sure the parents were devastated. Who wouldn't be? He was a father himself, and despite all the mistakes he made raising his son, he still loved him so very much, so losing him in such a way would be devastating to a degree not even he could comprehend. At least now, they can have some closure knowing the fate of their daughter. However, there will still be the question of who did this.

Everette parked the car outside of the junkyard and walked out, his partner following close behind. Outside the front gate, Everette could see a man talking to a few officers. The man was skinny with a long beard and was wearing a blue jacket.

"Is that him?" Everette asked, pointing at the man. "The guy who found Sarah?"

"Not sure. Could be, though. You wanna talk to him?" Duncan asked.

Everette gave a silent nod as he walked over to where the man stood.

One of the officers looked over at the two of them. "Hey, Larson. Roberts."

"This the guy who found the body?" Everette asked.

"Yeah."

Everette looked at the man and introduced himself. "Detective Everette Larson."

"Nice to meet you, Detective. I'm Leon." The man introduced himself as well.

"Leon, do you want to tell me what you were doing when you found the body?" Everette asked.

"I already told these officers here the details, but I came here to throw away a broken chair of mine. One of the legs finally gave, so I came here to throw it out. As I was going to leave, I smelled something coming from one of the piles, and I know the smell of death anywhere. I thought it was a dead animal at first, and I know Connor don't like dead things in the yard, so I thought I'd clean up whatever was dead. I dug through the trash and found her." Leon said.

"And you said she was mutilated? How did you recognize her?" Everette asked.

"Oh, I live next door. Practically watched her grow up. I could tell it was her." Leon said, looking back at the junkyard with a sad look in his eyes. "Poor girl. Her family went in there to see her. They've been worried about her for months. All of us were."

"Thank you." Everette said simply before walking past him. As he walked into the junkyard, Duncan caught up to him.

"How come no one found the body sooner if all it took was for one person to dig through a trash pile because they could smell a corpse?" Everette asked.

"There's no way it was there the entire time without anyone noticing it. It must've been moved there recently." Duncan proposed. It was a reasonable conclusion. At least, it was the only one they could come up with at the moment. Unless, maybe it was buried deeper in the pile before. No, that wouldn't work either. The smell would still get through.

Duncan cursed as he tripped over a piece of metal while Everette responded to his theory. "If it was moved here, then where could it have been before? A body would be really hard to hide, especially for that amount of time. Whoever did this didn't think to bury it."

Everette then stopped his train of thought as a new idea came into being. "Buried..." He mumbled to himself while scratching his head. "What if it was buried before? But someone dug it up and brought it here?" Everette theorized.

"Well then, why didn't the killer leave the body where they buried it instead of brining it here?" Duncan pointed out while lighting a cigarette. Everette rolled his eyes. Smoking was something he was firmly against, at least for himself. He'd worked with Duncan for a few years now and became aware of his smoking habit very quickly, so he didn't have any other choice but to acclimate to it. The smoke was somewhat tolerable now. It would still be nice if he didn't smoke up his office so much.

"Maybe it was already buried here the whole time. Still, if that were true, why would they dig it back up to be found?" Everette asked.

"Probably some sick game they're trying to play." Duncan guessed. "To mess with the girl's family."

That seemed like the most likely guess to Everette. But, why wait? It's been three months since her disappearance. The killer could've let someone find her body at any time. Could someone else have found it and dug it up? Why did they not call the police? Were they afraid of being blamed for the murder?

It didn't take them long to find the crime scene. They stepped over the caution tape and approached the scene. Chief Monahan was talking to an officer about something neither of them could discern. To their right, they saw another police officer speaking with two people they didn't recognize. One looked like a woman who was around middle age with some small wrinkles on her face and a few gray strands in her otherwise brown hair. The other was a younger man who looked to be in his early twenties at least. The man looked to be doing his best to comfort the older woman who was on her knees crying into her hands while the man kneeled next to her and hugged her. The family, Everette guessed. He slightly frowned at the crying woman who was most likely Sarah's mother. She was so grief stricken, she couldn't even stand. All she could do was stay on her knees and cry her heart out. It didn't even sound like the crying he was used to. It looked like she had been crying for so long, she was now reduced to a hiccuping, sobbing mess who was unable to speak without breaking down again. It was like seeing a dam finally break after so much pressure as if so much built up stress came pouring out as one large wave of sorrow. The man was trying much harder than the mother to compose himself just to speak to the officer, but Everette noticed his red eyes as if he'd been crying also.

Everette wanted to say something, to comfort them, but what could he say to them that would possibly help? He knew it was better to just leave them be and focus on the crime scene, but still... he felt bad for them and hoped that this case can finally be resolved now that her body's been found.

"There you are." Everette heard the familiar sound of Monahan's coarse and rough voice speaking in his direction and tore his gaze away from the grieving family to look at Monahan who was now speaking to him and Duncan while scratching his bushy gray mustache.

"Chief." Everette said simply with a nod.

Monahan walked over to the two of them. "We gave the place a good look. Didn't find anything else besides her." Monahan said, looking back in the direction of the crime scene, towards Sarah.

Looking past the forensics team and sticking out of the garbage pile were several opened garbage bags. Inside of them was Sarah's body, just like Duncan had described. No, it was worse than what Duncan had described. Duncan simply said she was mutilated. Sarah's entire body was completely dismembered. In one bag, Everette spotted an arm. In another bag, a leg. In the third, he saw... well, he couldn't make out what he saw. The best description he could give the bag's contents was a thick soup. In another bag, he could see a human face. Several of its teeth had fallen out and the nose was gone, likely rotten away. The face had turned black and red with rot with chunks of flesh missing. Her hair had fallen out in patches.

Quickly averting his eyes, Everette wanted to look at the horrid sight no more. This was wrong... sick. He looked over at Duncan, and while he looked less disturbed than Everette did, he was definitely disgusted.

Monahan himself looked at the corpse in a mixture of slight disgust and pity before letting out a sigh. "The mother was able to identify her. It's her, but we'll still need to make sure." He shook his head in disbelief. "I've been chief for a long time, and never did I come across anything like this." Clearly, he was as taken aback by all this as Everette was. He'd known Monahan for a long time. They'd gotten drinks together, went fishing more than once, so he knew when something disturbed him.

"Did you talk to Connor about looking through the camera footage?" Everette asked, putting Monahan's focus back onto him.

"We gave him a call earlier. He said he'd get the footage for us." Monahan answered.

"Any idea on who did... this?" Everette said, hesitantly gesturing towards the bags. He wanted to spare himself from looking at the horrid sight again.

"Weirdly enough, no. Forensics haven't found any sign of fingerprints yet. We'll have to get the body out of here and have Tabitha take a look at it." Monahan said.

That was it? They were already pretty much done? Then why did he call Everette and Duncan here? Surely, he didn't want them to come all the way over here just to look at the corpse and tell them there's not much here.

"Sir, um... why did you call us here? If you don't mind me asking." Everette asked.

"Well, after we wrap this up, I want you and Roberts to handle this case." Monahan said, pointing between the two of them.

"Us?" Everette asked. It's not that he didn't want to take on this case. Actually, no, he didn't want to. Of all the crime scenes he'd been a part of, this one was by far the worst. Sure, he'd do it without any complaints, but weren't there other detectives in the department who were more capable of solving a case like this?

"That's right. Normally, I'd ask Powell and Chancey to take on something like this, but they're busy with a different case. Unless you two have a problem with the case?" Monahan said, raising an eyebrow.

Yes, he very much did have a problem with taking on this case. It wasn't about the state of the body itself, but the victim. He didn't feel comfortable with handling a case involving the brutal murder of a teenager, a kid who hasn't even gotten a chance to grow up. Something like that hit too close to home for him, especially considering his recent divorce. His son, Ryan, was perfectly fine. But, what if one day, he wasn't? Would his son get ripped away believing that he was a terrible father? Everette would feel like a failure if that were to ever happen. But, it won't. He needed to remind himself that his son would never be in any danger as long as he was alive. Even though he wasn't allowed to see him much, Everette still cared about him and wanted to keep him safe above all else.

Everette snapped out of his spiraling thoughts. He needed to remember that Sarah wasn't his kid, so it shouldn't affect him so much. Still, she was someone's kid, and just thinking about the feelings of anguish the parents must've felt made his mind automatically try and put himself in their shoes and imagine scenarios where Ryan's body was disfigured like Sarah's. He had to remind himself that this was his job, a job that at one point, he deemed to be more important than his own family, so murder case or not, he needed to do his job. He couldn't let himself be disturbed. It was his job as a detective to find things other people couldn't and find reasonable answers to questions that needed them.

"Not at all, Chief." Everette said in resignation.

"Good. Later, I'll have Tabitha talk to you about any results she finds after examining the remains. Whoever did this is probably still out there somewhere. We don't know if they skipped town at this point, but I'm not taking any chances. If there's even a chance they're still here, and if you find anything, you let me know. I'm really counting on you two to figure this out."

"We'll find something, Chief. Don't worry." Duncan assured him. "If this guy's still here, we'll find the sick bastard. It's a small town, and there's only so many places to go before he decides to leave." He continued with contempt in his voice.

"Good." Monahan said with a nod before walking away to talk to the nearby officers he was speaking with earlier. Duncan looked back at Sarah's body in disgust. "Can't believe someone would do this to a kid."

"You and me both." Everette said.

"I don't think there's much point in us staying here. Not that I really wanted to anyway." Duncan said, making another point that Everette could agree with.

"Yeah..." Everette said in response. Taking another moment to look back at the chief to make sure he had nothing else to say to them, Everette began walking back to their car, Duncan following suit. Everette's eyes wandered back towards the grieving family. He knew they still wanted answers to who did this, so he was going to do everything in his power to get them those answers. If he wanted to help them, this was the best way he could do it, by finding, in Duncan's words: "The bastard who did this."

***

2:22 PM

01/08/2020

Oscar watched as the clock ticked again. Another minute closer to getting out of school and riding home with his friends. His mom was working late at the nursing home and she said she didn't need his help tonight, so he was happy he could take the long way home with his friends. It was only his second day back in school, but he already felt miserable. That was likely because instead of getting together with his friends or playing his new video games, he had to help his mom at the nursing home. It was a busy break because the seniors needed more attention during the break, especially Mr. Devereaux. The only two good things about school at the moment were that his friends were there and it gave him a good reason to not be helping his mom at a nursing home all day.

It's not that he didn't like it, it's just that he could use some time to himself. He was tired of not being able to do the things he liked a lot of the time. Not that he never had any time at all, it just felt like it with how busy he always was.

Oscar sighed as Mr. little kept rambling on about cell division. The short, bald, and grumpy looking teacher didn't exactly make the subject fun to learn for Oscar. It was like the guy wasn't even trying to be entertaining and half the time, Oscar was convinced that he genuinely hated his students. He wondered why some people even bothered being teachers in the first place if it wasn't going to be fun for either of them. Maybe it was for some kind of twisted pleasure. Whatever the case, it made the minutes tick by a whole lot slower.

Finally, after an agonizing eight minutes, class was over. Oscar wasted no time leaving. He needed to find his friends so that they could remedy his excruciating boredom. He squeezed past the people in the halls and apologized when he accidentally bumped into someone twice his size. Near the main entrance, he could finally see his friend, Raj, waiting by the front doors. On the way over to him though, another student bumped into him. He turned around and saw them turn around to apologize. She was a girl with long brown hair tied into a ponytail. She was wearing large headphones. Now that he thought about it, she probably bumped into him because she wasn't paying attention. The most glaring detail, or at least the one thing that caught Oscar's eye, was that she was wearing a T-shirt with Freddy and Chica on it, two characters from the Freddy Fazbear franchise, a franchise that Oscar was very fond of. They weren't his personal favorite characters, but Oscar always appreciated a fellow Faz-Fan. He waved goodbye with a smile on his face before turning away to meet with Raj.

When he reached him at last, Raj greeted him with a smile and a fist bump.

"Hey. Was Little's class that bad already? It's only the first week back to school!" Raj said in surprise.

"Did I really give it away that easily?" Oscar asked with a bit of sarcasm.

"You look like you're about to fall apart." Raj said.

Oscar sighed. "It just pisses me off. I don't know how a class can get any more terrible than that."

"Bummer." Raj patted him on the shoulder. "You have my sympathies. But, on the plus side, you get no homework."

"What good does that do me in a class like that?" Oscar asked.

"Fair point. Okay, I take back what I said. There is no plus side." Raj said.

Oscar groaned and put his hand on his forehead. He wanted to get going already, but Isaac was taking longer than usual. "When's Issac getting here?"

"Not sure. His class is on the other side of the school, remember?" Raj said.

"Yeah... right." Oscar responded.

"Wow, you are really out of it today, dude." Raj said with a bit of concern.

"Yeah. I just want to get out of here already. Mom doesn't need my help tonight, so we can take the long way home if you want." Oscar said, trying to put some optimism into his tone, but instead, he sounded more exasperated than optimistic.

Raj definitely perked up at that, ignoring his tone. "Awesome! I found a long route that I think will take a long time for us to reach the end of."

Oscar smiled a little bit. He always liked it when they took different routes home. Riding bikes with them made everything easier to deal with. From having hardly any freedom because of having to help his mom a lot of the time to everything that happened with Plushtrap... bike riding was always great therapy for him. It muted the world and gave him a sense of freedom. Just him and his two best friends riding around the whole afternoon. It helped clear his head, so despite his mom's worries, he would always want to ride home on his bike.

Oscar looked over and saw a familiar head of red hair walk over to them. Isaac greeted them with high fives. "Hey, guys. Sorry about that. Jillian decided to be a huge bitch as per usual and get us all in trouble, so we had to wait an extra six minutes listening to Ms. Barley give us another lecture on our behavior." Isaac said in annoyance.

"Jillian again? Is she always going to make a scene in class?" Raj asked exasperated. Oscar never had the displeasure of sharing a class with her, but he recognized the name. Jillian Engel. A really popular girl who was notorious for making Isaac's day worse just by talking. Oscar and Raj were lucky enough to not have any classes with her, but Isaac wasn't as lucky. She was in his last class for the day, and that put him on the same boat as Oscar in a way in terms of having terrible last classes.

Isaac shrugged and rolled his eyes. "I dunno. I guess she just gets off on making everyone else's day worse."

"Hey, I told Oscar about the trail I found." Raj said, clearly trying to lighten up the mood.

"Oh yeah? Oscar, you're gonna like this one. Raj showed it to me during the weekend and I thought it was cool. It's certainly long enough to take us until later in the day to complete." Isaac said confidently.

Until later in the day, huh? Oscar smiled at that. That was more than enough time for him to catch up with his friends after break. He hoped there wouldn't be a change of plans and his mom would end up needing him. He probably shouldn't jinx it.

"Well, I can't wait to see it. What trail is it?" Oscar asked.

"Etenia Trail. It's near that summer camp out of town." Isaac said. "Luckily, I get to go with both of you. Jordan's sick, so he stayed home, meaning I don't have to worry about walking him home."

Oscar had heard of Camp Etenia before, but he'd never been there. He did know that the trail was for public use and he heard it was as long as his friends were claiming. Four miles of nothing but the three of them and the woods. It was even better that Isaac could come with them.

"Well, what are we waiting for? We're burning daylight just standing around! Let's get riding!" Oscar cheered, followed by Isaac and Raj's own cheering, which earned them some looks from a few confused students, but not that they cared. The whole world meant nothing when they were with each other. And so with haste, they left the school and got to their bikes.

***

2:56 PM

01/08/2020

Oswald held Gabrielle in a tight embrace and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. After a really long Christmas break of not being able to see her, Oswald made sure to spend as much time as he could with her today. He would've liked to take her out somewhere, but their parents would find out. Both of them were only freshmen and they both knew their parents wouldn't like them dating when they were still pretty young, not that it mattered to them how young they were. They started dating in the eighth grade, after all. For now, though, the best they could do was meet each other between classes and after school. They could still call each other, but because Gabrielle's mom is always home, they didn't want to take any chances.

Gabrielle broke the kiss and stepped away a few inches to put space between them. "Ozzie... Mr. Thatcher's making you do that presentation in your class too, right?" She asked.

"Uhh, yeah. Not that excited about it, though, but it's just gonna be me talking about a book we read last semester, so it'll be easy. At least he gave us a whole month to do it, so I have time to procrastinate." Oswald said. Gabrielle narrowed her eyes at him before shaking her head and smiling a bit to herself.

"Well, I was thinking we could meet each other at the library this weekend and help each other with our presentations." Gabrielle.

Oswald widened his eyes a little bit. Gabrielle never offered Oswald to meet with her anywhere for obvious reasons, especially the library, the place he often frequented. So, it was a bit surprising to him for her to recommend that. "What brought this up? I thought the library wasn't your thing." Oswald said perplexed.

"Well, I've just been thinking about it. We don't do anything outside of school because of our parents, and we can at least have some time to ourselves. Your parents know you frequent the library anyway, so it's not like you're going anywhere they wouldn't want you going." Gabrielle said.

Oswald thought it over for a moment. He didn't see anything wrong with the idea. The only thing that could go wrong was his dad walking in to pick him up, but even then, all Oswald would have to worry about was worry about the time he'd show up. Even if he saw Gabrielle with him, Oswald could easily come up with an excuse like them being partners for an assignment or something of that nature. Besides, Gabrielle did have a point about them needing to hang out in other places besides behind the school. And maybe while they were at it, they could read some books just to pass the time. After certain... events that transpired in Oswald's life, he became somewhat of a Greek mythology nerd thanks to Gabrielle. After she told him about certain stories, he did some reading on his own and found it all very interesting. He was more attracted to the ones about brave men fighting horrible monsters or facing impossible odds. Some of his favorites were the ones about Heracles and the monsters he bravely fought. Yes, Gabrielle had to correct him many times about the difference between Hercules and Heracles. Oswald liked to imagine himself being as strong and brave as Heracles. Though, how much braver can one be after fighting a giant rabbit demon?

He wasn't able to do that on his own though. Just as Heracles had help in fighting the Hydra, Oswald had Gabrielle to thank for unintentionally giving him the courage he needed to fight the rabbit and save his dad. He never told her about that. Hell, he never told anyone for that matter. What was the point of telling anyone in the first place if no one was going to believe you, right? What would he even say? "Hey, Gabby. Thought you should know that before you met me, I found this ball pit that took me back in time to the year 1985 and there was this rabbit creature that killed kids in the past and disguised itself as my dad for a while until I saved him and killed the creature." Yeah... nice job on making that sound believable, Oswald.

"You know what? Yeah. I think we can do that." Oswald decided.

Gabrielle smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah. You have a point. We don't really do much together. Who knows? Maybe being private tutors to each other can help us both." Oswald said.

"Because let's be honest: you would never get that presentation done in time." Gabrielle said.

"Okay, now you're just being cruel." Oswald said sarcastically.

Gabrielle crossed her arms and raised in an eyebrow in an over exaggerated way. "Really? Really? Do I need to bring up Mr. Stone's essay about Lord of the Flies from seventh grade again?"

"Hey, I've grown since then!" Oswald tried to defend his pride, but Gabrielle wouldn't have it.

"You still look the same height to me, if not a couple inches taller."

Oswald mockingly stumbled back and grabbed at his heart. "Ow! Gabby! Please... stop cutting me so deep! Jeez, do you want me to change my mind?"

Gabrielle laughed. "I'm just reminding you that this is just to study. This is not a date."

"Hold on, you said we needed a place to hang out." Oswald said in confusion.

"I did. But I saw your grades last semester and now, I feel obligated to help you." Gabrielle pointed out.

Oswald sputtered in disbelief. "My lowest grade was a C!"

"Do you really want Cs on your report card?" She asked.

Oswald lowered its head and quietly mumbled to himself. "I'm fine with it."

Gabrielle laughed and brought him in for a hug. "We can make room for bonding time in between working on our presentations and other assignments. That's only if you try harder with your assignments. I don't want to date a loser who can't keep his grades up."

"Oh, so that's my new nickname, huh? Surprised it took you this long to find out I was a loser." Oswald said smugly. He knew she wasn't entirely serious about the loser comment, but after dating each other for so long, Gabrielle had gotten annoyed with the lack of effort Oswald would put into his class work. He was more laid back with his work while she was much more motivated than he was. Every day, he questioned how they pulled off being in a relationship for this long with hardly any problems. She was more driven than he was. He admired that about her, though. She was always confident and from the start of their relationship, she knew what she wanted from herself. She probably seemed bossy to other people, especially to him, but it did succeed in making him more motivated for her. It always added an extra challenge that gave his life more excitement. It was also good to be around her. He started being more confident the more they hung out, so he also had that going for him.

Gabrielle crossed her arms. "I'm serious. You need to stop being so carefree with your assignments. One of these days, that's going to come back to haunt you."

"Okay, okay. You're right. I concede. Starting... Saturday, I'll try harder on my assignments. Does that work for you? Or did you have another day in mind?"

Gabrielle shrugged. "Saturday works for me. Mom and Carmen will be shopping on Saturday and dad's got his job most of the day, so I can meet you there."

Oswald looked at her in confusion. "Are you gonna walk there?"

"Yeah. The library's not too far from where I live." Gabrielle said.

"Oh. Cool." Oswald said with a nod.

"Yeah. You should get going before your dad starts honking for you." Gabrielle said.

Oswald's eyes widened in horror. He'd completely forgotten about his dad! Curse love for making him have a short memory! He ran back towards the school, but then stopped, turned around, ran back towards Gabrielle, gave her a peck on the cheek, and ran back towards the school again. "Love you!"

Gabrielle giggled. "Love you too!"

Oswald raced through the halls, navigating his way through the crowd of eager students trying to get to their buses. After a minute of squeezing past the horde as he liked to call them, he finally made it outside where he could see his dad's pickup truck waiting for him. He ran up to the passenger side door, opened it, and practically jumped inside.

"Where've you been?" His dad chuckled. "I was about to embarrass you and start honking for ya."

"Sorry. Got held back by my teacher for a minute." Oswald said.

His dad raised an eyebrow in concern. "For what? You getting in trouble?"

Oswald gulped. Crap. Wrong lie. He cleared his throat. "N-no! It was for everyone. She wasn't finished with the lesson yet."

His dad looked at him for a second and hummed to himself. "Well, alright. Just remember-"

"Stay out of trouble. Yep. Think I got that a while ago." Oswald said. So far, that was the only true thing he said. He'd been good about staying out of trouble in school. Well, as often as he can anyway.

"Good." His dad said. "Glad we're on the same page for that."

A car honking its horn behind them made him start driving.

"Alright, alright, I'm going." His dad muttered to himself.

For the next few minutes, the drive was quiet. Oswald looked out the window, seeing all the buildings they passed by. Boring, he thought. Everything here was boring. Well, almost everything. He learned that lesson after the ball pit incident. Though, he could guess that not everything in this town could make him time travel and summon a horrifying monster. He didn't exactly like it in Hurricane all that much. He missed his old life. He missed hanging out with Ben. The only thing he did like here was Gabrielle, but what else did he have besides that? His parents? He hadn't made any friends since he moved here. Well, at least not lasting ones. He may have slayed a beast, but that didn't change anything about his school life. He could barely go anywhere fun unless his parents were with him. He didn't know how boring he'd have to be to consider a library to be his favorite place to be, but he imagined it placed pretty high on the boring scale, not to mention his dad still drops him off at Jeff's Pizza. Oswald was nervous considering the ball pit was still there, but after a while, he figured the rabbit truly was gone, so his boring life slowly began to go back to normal. He knew better than to wish his life wasn't so boring, but dammit, he wanted at least something interesting to happen in his life! He wanted to like it here in this crappy old town, he really did, but it was really hard when your only friend lives miles away and you can barely see your girlfriend. He wanted friends, more things to do. Oh, how he wished the day he got his drivers license would come sooner.

His dad cleared his throat a bit, breaking the silence, before speaking up. "Hey, Oz. Listen, um, I'm going to start working double shifts on Saturdays for a little while because Doris got fired, so I'll have to drop you off at the library earlier, and you'll have to stay there until I pick you up at seven. That sound good?"

Oswald's eyes lit up. He would be there all day? That meant he could spend more time with Gabrielle there than he'd hoped! "That sounds fine, dad." He tried not to grin from ear to ear, but it was too hard to hide his excitement.

"Really? You're fine staying there all day? Man, you sure know how to enjoy a good book." He said in amazement.

"Well, you get used to it after three years of going there anyway." Oswald responded.

"True. But, you're sure you're fine?" He double checked.

"It's okay, dad. I'll entertain myself." Oswald said dismissively. He looked out the window with a smile on his face. It seemed the universe was finally starting to smile on him after all. He agreed to study with Gabrielle, and just his luck! His dad now has to work late! It couldn't have worked out any better than that.

Of course, it depends on what time Gabrielle's available to meet him, but that's something he can figure out tomorrow. For now, he can just celebrate his good fortune.

TO BE CONTINUED...