Young Writers Society

They entered the record room.

The room, just like everywhere else in the town, was abandoned. It didn't feel as alive as the cafe had, but Edward guessed that was because town halls weren't lively places. He hadn't ever really been to any before he died, and did his best to avoid going to them afterwards, too. They seemed more than a little boring.

There were bookshelves and cabinets lining the walls, but Edward made a beeline for the nearest computer. He gave the mouse a little shake. It was still on, but had gone to the main login screen instead of staying on the account of whoever had used it last.

As Edward headed toward the nearest computer, Annabeth glanced at the bookshelf. Shiny books mixed with faded colors and cracked spines.

While she could stay up all night reading a high adventure novel, having to look through the records written in tiny cursive was not her cup of tea. Annabeth's eyes were already clouding over.

Edward turned on the computer, but he seemed stumped on what to do when the screen showed the main login page. She walked over and found the guest login, so she clicked on that. As the screen loaded, Annabeth cleared her throat.

"So, what do you do now? After we left the Hollow," she asked.

That was a loaded question.

Edward sat down in the chair in front of the computer and leaned back. Where was he supposed to begin? It hadn't been all that much time for Annabeth, but it had been decades for Edward.

He took a deep breath, thought another moment, and rested his arms on the chair's slightly uncomfortable metal arm rests.

"I was a normal teenager for awhile," he finally replied. "Then the war happened. I didn't want to go, but I was drafted. I..."

His voice caught in his throat. He knew he should just skip to the part where he died, but he kept thinking about the in-between these days. Ever since he had seen Reyes Eberhardt's ghost-hunting show, he kept thinking about him.

"...you know how that part went," he settled on. He straightened. "I found my way back to New York City and wandered there until a little more than a year ago. That was when I met Schadel—she's the one who runs the agency I work for."

He faltered.

"I...might have tried to shoot her," he awkwardly admitted. "It's complicated. But she's fine with it now—I think she understood then, too. Claire's the only one who brings it up these days, but she's Claire."

The screen stopped loading, and it showed the Home Screen.

Annabeth pulled a chair up next to Edward and sat down, quietly nodding along at his story. She remembered a story France's Monster Hunter had told her at the U.N. A vengeful WW2 soldier had risen from an unmarked grave and wreaked havoc at a nearby town. The sight of the spirit had made the Hunter sick to her stomach.

Edward's time in the military must have been so awful.

She opened the files and surfed around, trying to find the town records.

Schadel sounded familiar, and Annabeth realized that was the name Edward had called out when he was pulled into this town. So, she ran the agency he worked at. That was the second time he had mentioned the agency, but she didn't know what it was. If Greta had heard about it, she never spoke about it.

"What exactly do you do there?" she asked. Annabeth turned to fully look at him and gestured to his uniform. "You said it was a Necromancy Agency, right?"

He glanced at the home screen. Where would be the best place to look? They could keep checking the files, but this was the guest account. Something like that wouldn't have any important files.

He crossed his arms and rested his hand underneath his chin.

"The name is a little misleading," he said, staring at the screen. He wasn't even really sure what he was looking for right now. They were looking for town records, but what kind of records would explain why everyone had vanished into thin air? "We mostly help ghosts and the living. We help them move on and interact. Schadel's been able to talk to some people that have already passed on before, but she had to cash in some favors to."

Computer issues aside, Edward wasn't all that sure how much he could really say. Most of the time, the agency pretended that they were all normal, living people who could see ghosts. When they interacted with ghosts, Edward was allowed to be himself. But the only people who knew what Schadel really was were the members of the agency and her family.

He glanced over at her.

"What about you?" he asked. "You're a monster hunter, right? It sounds like we have similar jobs."

Annabeth had been nice the first time they met. She hadn't tried exorcising him or forcing him to move on yet, either. It made him hopeful.

But this was only their second meeting, and Edward wasn't going to risk sharing Schadel's secret if he wasn't sure Annabeth could be trusted.

"That name is a little misleading too," she said, chuckling lightly. She typed Records into the Search Bar and clicked on the first thing that popped up. It wasn't the best way, but there was little they could do without digging around. And Annabeth wasn't a hacker.

"Each country has a designated Monster Hunter, and their job is to mainly protect the country from supernatural creatures. Goblins, werewolves, you name it," she said, stretching her arms over her head. "There's a strong possibility of, well, killing the monsters. It's too risky leaving it alive, because they're more dangerous than regular animals. Monster Hunters have done it for centuries, and it's still done nowadays."

Annabeth leaned back and sighed. "Then, I became America's next Monster Hunter once I turned sixteen. And, I did things a little differently."

The file didn't hold anything important, just a yearly festival held in the town. She exited out of it and clicked on the next one.

"On my very first mission, a monster was roaming in the forest of my town. A group of hunters had been attacked by it, and I was expected to trap it and kill it."

This part, she was reminiscing. "What would happen if someone was killed by it? So, I went into the forest, and I trapped it, but I didn't kill it."

She shook her head. "I couldn't kill it."

Edward couldn't help but smile.

Annabeth's story sounded incredibly similar to the one he had only hinted at. He wasn't sure if she had realized he was testing how much he could actually trust her, but he knew that he could get away with telling her the truth.

"Killing isn't easy," he agreed. The latest file Annabeth had pulled up was on the town budget. He would have switched to the next tab, but he didn't want a repeat of when he brushed up against her fingers at the cafe.

He looked over at her again.

"I left some of my story out earlier," he admitted. "I haven't actually killed someone before. I froze up every time I was supposed to during the war. When I died, I thought my guilt over not doing what I was supposed to was what kept me here. I didn't know how to solve that, so I just wandered."

He unfolded his arms.

"Then I saw a tall, shadowy creature, and I just knew I had to do something. Ghosts have a lot of stories about shadowy figures like that. We know that we start disappearing when they show up. I decided that I was going to make things right by killing that monster. I found a gun and tracked her all the way to South Haven. I told myself I was ready to shoot her. But when I saw her—saw how human she looked when she wasn't in that form—I just couldn't pull the trigger."

He faltered.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "...Then I accidentally did and shot her. She was just as surprised as I was and revealed that she wasn't really human when she hadn't meant to, but the three of us—me, Claire and Liz—all accepted it after awhile. It turns out the reason ghosts kept disappearing around shadowy figures was because they were grim reapers. And, according to Schadel, I wasn't supposed to be a ghost—a grim reaper was too late getting my soul. It happens a lot in wars."

He gave Annabeth another smile.

"It sounds like we're very similar kinds of people," he concluded.

Annabeth smiled at him too.

"No wonder we get along so well," she said. She considered elbowing him in the ribs in a playful manner, but she would probably pass through him again. That would not be a good feeling.

Every other file was something miscellaneous and mundane events from recent years.

"The festivals don't seem to be in honor of something mythical or something else related," she said, "although probably European countries do those."

It would probably be a better idea to research the more historical records from past 2000, but when she returned to the Search bar, she paused, and a thought crossed her mind.

"I remember reading this article online about a man who dresses up as the Pied Piper of Hamelin and leads tours through Hamelin. You know the story of the Pied Piper, right? Anyway, I know it's a stretch, but what if something similar happened to this place?"

She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders.

"I know the Pied Piper," Edward said. He had read the comics that had him, and had seen some fanart of him online, too. Annabeth was probably talking about the one that had been the inspiration for the Flash character, but the two couldn't be that different.

He thought over the theory.

"That would make sense," he said. "It would explain why everyone left in the middle of what they were doing, and would also explain why we haven't found anyone yet."

He crossed his arms again.

"But it doesn't explain why we were brought here," he pointed out, "and we also don't know the motive for who or what lured everyone from this town."

Annabeth sighed and dragged her hands down her face.

"You're right," she said. She continued scrolling down the files, much less enthusiastically than before. "Should we keep looking here, or try our luck somewhere else?"

Wherever somewhere else is.

He eyed the files one more time.

“We should probably go somewhere else,” he decided. Edward got to his feet and stretched. He hadn't been sitting all that long, but he still hadn't entirely mastered having good posture while sitting in front of a computer screen. “Do you have anywhere in mind? The agency usually looks for ghosts when we're stumped, but I don't think we can find anyone like that here.”

The computer screen went black as its power shut off.

Annabeth put the mouse back in its original position and stood up too, rubbing the soreness out of her neck.

"We could try the library next," she said. "It might have more historical records dating back, maybe even to the town's founding."

She headed to the door and opened it.

"But...if we don't find anything there, we'll just have to look around town ourselves. Try to find anything out of the ordinary that you don't see in a normal town filled with people."

Edward nodded in agreement. That was a good plan.

"It's nice having a back up," Edward said, smiling as they slipped out of the records room and into the rest of the town hall. "Schadel comes up with them sometimes, but she always forgets to share them."

Timeskip

Annabeth didn't bother looking for someone, so she headed straight for the back of the library where the archives were usually held.

After a bit of searching, they found a door leading downstairs. At the bottom, they found a large room with lots of shelves going all over the place. And on those shelves, were stacks of records -some messily tied together- and boxes.

"Yup, these are definitely the archives," said Annabeth, and she put her hands on her hips. "So, where do we start?"

Edward mirrored Annabeth's pose, his own hands resting on his hips as he surveyed the room.

"Probably somewhere not recent," he guessed. He didn't have an exact estimate in his head, but he doubted that anything new would be helpful right now. "This town's people needed time to forget what happened before. If it was more recent, they would have likely prepared for something like this."

He glanced over at Annabeth.

"We could start with the town's founding," he suggested. "That might mention local legends."