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Five Springs Church
The crunching of leaves beneath shoes would be a pretty common sound today, it seemed. As June stepped down sidewalk leading up to an old church looming in the distance, she pulled out her phone to read over the text she'd received earlier once again, as she'd already done multiple times that day. Both nameless and numberless, it was about as mysterious as all of the other strange things that had been going on in town recently. She didn't know what to make of it, but after everything that had happened she'd take any lead she could get to find the answers she was looking for. It was like her existence had become an unending sequence of one life-altering event after another, and it was all starting to become too much for her to try to pass off as not her problem as she somehow become more and more involved in harrowing events she'd never imagined she'd experience. She didn't know if gaining answers would make her feel any better or fix her problems, hell she didn't know if she'd gain any answers at all, but figured she had to at least try. Besides, she wasn't anyone important, so she doubted the text was a lure or trap. What could anyone ever gain from her anyway?
"Ghosts, huh..." She hummed, reading the last bit of the text out loud before turning her attention back to the abandoned church up ahead. She pocketed her phone once more and drew her jacket closer, shivering a bit as cold winds nipped at her face.
'Yeah...I guess I probably count as a ghost. Not that I'd ever say something that edgy out loud.'
Then again, she could probably be allowed it, considering the circumstances. She'd already nearly died just this week alone.
...
June hated having the closing shift, but the library paid well enough and she needed the money. It was just such a pain to have to deal with. It wasn't so bad when she had some help, but tonight she was unfortunately alone. She half-considered it a bad omen, as she expected something to go wrong just when she would have needed the help the most. And of course, something did go wrong, just not in the way she expected. Closing up the library had gone smoothly enough, it was when she stepped outside to head to her car that the problem arose. She was not alone in the parking lot that night.
She felt her breath catch in her throat. The hoodie, the mask, the hellish orange eyes...the figure standing before her was no doubt the infamous serial killer that everyone was talking about. For a moment, she saw herself freezing up in fear. She saw the blade in the figure's hand, and with a quick swipe she could see the weapon slice through the air to slash her throat. Surely, she should have died that night. But she didn't, in fact before she'd known it she'd already broke into a mad sprint to get as far away as she possibly could from her potential killer. She ran and she ran, she didn't know for how long. She never looked over her shoulder either. But eventually, she found herself running past people. She'd made it to a more public area, she was safe. But she kept running, leaving the people behind her in case she was still somehow being chased.
"Easier targets."
...
The church was closer now, causing June to shake her head as the memory drifted away. Had she really seen her own potential death? Or, more likely, had she just imagined what her old, pitiful, spineless self would have done? She also briefly wondered if any of those other people had attracted the masked killer's attention instead, but shoved the thought aside just as quick. It wasn't her problem.
"People...?" June muttered to herself as she went up the well worn path to the front entrance of the church. Ah, right, the text did mention something like that. It appeared that she was late then, though perhaps not the latest. She didn't know if she'd missed introductions already, as one person had taken it upon themselves to open the double doors leading into the decrepit building, with another deciding to take the lead and enter first. She took stock of who was there so far, though she didn't recognize most of them.
There was a cop, interesting. She didn't recognize the woman as anyone in particular, but seeing as there were few female officers in Araminta it wasn't a stretch to say she'd probably seen her before. Maybe they'd gone to high school together? Though they were most likely in different graduating years.
The man at the door was a mechanic, probably? June was pretty sure he'd done an oil change for her car once. There were vague memories of him being fairly straightforward but polite, and her car was doing fine so he must had done a good job. She didn't really know much else about him however; she hadn't been around when tragedy had struck him, and had only returned to Araminta afterwards.
Clara Kane...now that was a surprise. They didn't have a particularly close relationship but they saw each other enough to be on a first name basis. Clara knew her way around a library better than most people, and her consistent use of it meant June saw her often when taking on a shift. The woman was nice, though a bit weird with some odd interests. Not that she had much room to talk.
As for the others, she was just drawing blanks. It seemed like the group that had showed up so far was just a bunch of nobodies, herself included. A hell of a team to put together, she supposed. Well she could only assume they'd all received the same text as her, but honestly the chances of it being otherwise was slim to none.
"Ghosts, right?" June asked the others rhetorically as she not-so-subtly integrated herself into the small group of people that had shown up. Really, from an outside perspective it was probably just awkward to see her walk up to the group of strangers and say something that would come off as bizarre without any context. She glanced around at everyone, looking for signs of recognition of what she'd said, which didn't take long to see.
"Yeah...definitely Ghosts."
She didn't see much point in just standing around asking further questions to people who likely didn't have the answers, so she just briskly made her way up to the double doors that the mechanic was still graciously holding open for everyone. She nodded at him and flashed a thankful half-smile before stepping through and entering the building.
