NTWF Mafia II: The Idyllic Village of Wafflenet

[Jayeee]

PYTHON BALBOA had once again been smacked about in town, but what had affected him the most was being told about the death of his sister. He'd quickly made his way out of the pharmacy after being told, blinking his eyes blankly the whole way back to his car. He needed to get away from those heinous women and think about things. Of course, he didn't get much thinking done, because that was so feminine and he was all about action. So he fell asleep instead.

Having woken up the next morning, PYTHON BALBOA decided that while the death of his sister was probably beneficial to the world, it all depended on whether those mafiosos he'd kept hearing about were male or female. If they were female, then he could support it whole-heartedly. After all, watching women fight it out was like a cool version of The Hunger Games. PYTHON BALBOA had always been upset that the main character of that had actually beaten men in combat. He could suspend his belief for most of it, but that was just a step too far.

If they were men however, then PYTHON BALBOA was not amused. Why were they like, killing all of his women? He was clearly the alpha male in Wafflenet, if anyone was going to slap around some females, it was him. And besides, nobody touched his family, no matter how awful they were. The disciplining was up to him. PYTHON BALBOA had been looking so forward to giving Penny a nice kick in the shins too.

With this in mind, PYTHON BALBOA picked his new uniform. He had decided that maybe becoming PYTHON BALBOA was a little too much for Wafflenet. They were country folk after all, and on top of that mostly women, so their brains probably overheated when they saw him like that. A woman could do crazy things when she saw a good-looking guy – he wondered in maybe his presence was the reason for the Mafia. A group of crazy women hyped up with his entrance into town. They hadn't killed many women though, so he wasn't too flattered by the thought.

Gazing into the side-mirror of his car, ATTICUS PYTHON admired his new uniform in the rain. Under the circumstances, he was very impressed with himself (who wasn't?). To calm the ladies, instead of being bare-chested he wore a tie around his neck, along with a pair of cotton trousers. ATTICUS PYTHON thought at first that the uniform was a little boring, but with the rain he knew that this was perfect. The droplets running down his torso and the trousers sticking to his legs? The women would go wild. In his hand, he had a briefcase filled with bottles of beer. ATTICUS PYTHON always came prepared.

He'd drunk half of them by the time he reached the town square, and as usual he ignored the chattering crowd. He was used to big groups of people screaming over him where ever he went, and this was obviously no different.

He strolled into Waffles, No Net, once again standing the doorway, and pointed dramatically ahead of him at Blaze. “The real bad-guy is you!” he shouted as loud as he could. “TAKE THAT! ATTICUS PYTHON doesn't think that women should...” His voice trailed off as he spotted the wolf she had. “Dude, that is awesome,” he said, nodding his head in approval. “ATTICUS PYTHON definitely approves of the pet, little lady. Although it's probably more dominant than you, being a woman and all. Maybe the leash should be the other way around?” He shook his head like a dog, spraying droplets of water everywhere.

ATTICUS PYTHON spotted Mick out of the corner of his eye. Walking around Blaze, he reached the counter and slapped his hand onto it. “OBJECTION,” he called enthusiastically. “It's most unradical that ATTICUS PYTHON hasn't been able to teach you any more lately, dude. ATTICUS PYTHON just wanted to stop by today to see how his bro was doing. If you get murdered before ATTICUS PYTHON has the chance to teach you how to be a proper man, ATTICUS PYTHON will be totally angry.”

He leaned on the counter. “So what do you think of the uniform, bro? ATTICUS PYTHON had some woman read him a cool book called 'To Kill A Mocking Bird. It's about some chick who goes around mocking guys. Totally uncool. So this guy comes along and kills her. WITH THE LAW!” He paused for dramatic effect. “And a shotgun. But he's totally a lawyer. And ATTICUS PYTHON looks pretty hot today, huh?”

ATTICUS PYTHON reached over the counter and ruffled Mick's hair. “So how you been bro? Tell ATTICUS PYTHON about the totally manly activities you've been doing lately.”

[Alyssa]

Penny was having a hard time adjusting to being dead.

After her rude awakening the day before, she hadn't stopped freaking out.
It's not an easy thing to find your body lying on the ground in your own home.
Her murderer hadn't even the decency to turn off the coffee!
If there was one thing she hated, it was burnt coffee. Also being killed. That sucked too.

She'd spent the whole day hiding in her apartment.
She had attempted to go outside and find her sister, but she had been spooked by two fellow spooks, and had fled inside again, careful to avoid her body.

Once there, she had experimented with her new spectral form.
She had floating down to an art within a few hours.
Making the curtains flutter and the lights flash was relatively simple as well, though even as a ghost she STILL could not bring herself to disturb the large spider who had taken up residence in a high corner. 

Haunting things was a little more difficult. She took control of her typewriter and managed to type out "AGjpoi888888a;fe xx ww q" before she gave up and left it alone.
(She did not envy the poor soul who attempted to pick a hidden message out of that.)
After managing to set free all of Maurice's crickets so he could eat knocking several books off of her bookshelf, Penny decided that she had better go outside to see what was going on. 

She floated through her upstairs window and down into the street, shuddering again at the other ghosts loitering about. 
That would never stop being creepy. 
She headed towards the diner, figuring she could find someone she knew there. 

It was a little disappointing to find her brother there, out of everyone in town, she ran into the one person who didn't care one bit that she'd died. 
She thought seriously about haunting his briefcase and making all the beer fly out and crash to the ground, but she didn't want the surrounding people to have to witness one of his tantrums. 

Instead, she settled for trying to communicate with someone. 
Looking around the diner, she wondered how she could do that without appearing in the middle of the restaurant and freaking people out. 
She spied someone eating alphabet cereal and got an idea. 

Penny lifted the slightly soggy letters out of the bowl and began to arrange them in the air, trying to spell a message. 
She only hoped someone was paying attention.

[Lizica]

((Gahhh, rambling text wall, I'm sorry. ))

Tracy wasn't sure if she had fallen asleep last night. She had rested her eyes on several occasions, sure, but if she had fallen asleep, her dreams had all been plagued with exactly what she had been doing while awake: trying--and failing--to piece together snippets of coded radio signals, newspaper clippings, Polaroid photographs, and Audubon books of the night sky.

Last night, she had spent her time in the small stockroom in the back of the Shipshape Shop. After squashing her unsold stock into the corner and replacing the old lamp with a high-powered bare light bulb, the room was big enough and bright enough for Tracy to work. She had torn out pages from her notebook and spread them out all across the floor. She had rearranged the radio signals dozens and dozens of times. She had highlighted suspicious-sounding articles in the Wafflenet newspaper. She had circled letters in headlines that eventually spelled out subliminal messages. The walls (and the wall of cardboard boxes) were bedecked in newspapers, notes, blurry photographs of the sky, and maps of constellations.

"The most suspicious sign I could however spot on the last clear night was a slight shift in the angle of Eridanus."

But what did that MEAN?

And where on Earth (and its upper atmosphere) were the patterns?

First Stal, then Yoyti, Thundy, Mony, Penny, Alex... Their murders had clearly all been the work of extraterrestrials; it was therefore useless to separate those killed by the mafia from those killed by the serial killer and the townsfolk.

Tracy had always thought Eridanus looked like a question mark. And according to her oldest and most trusted guide to constellations, the constellation was said in Greek mythology to be the path burned in the sky as Phaeton wildly drove the sun across the sky.

And then he had been killed for his recklessness.

That was not at all comforting.

By the time a grey, unwelcoming light filtered through the stockroom's window, the only thing Tracy had been able to glean from her mess was that there were a lot of repeating sequences in the radio transmission. But that was obvious. The aliens were using a cycle of destruction to kill her fellow townspeople. The trick--the real trick--must be in figuring out a way to interrupt the cycle.

But how?

Tracy couldn't think any more. She needed to get something to eat, but if she had just one more meal of the Shipshape Shop's granola bars and cold cereal, she was going to be sick. They tasted like quarantine and murder and conspiracy now.

She went outside. Something was making somber tonk sounds on her tin foil ballcap.

Oh. It was raining.

She went back inside, grabbed her clear plastic umbrella, and went out again.

Oh. She should get what was left of her notebook, just in case.

In and back again.

Oh, wait. She should also get her bag in case she ran into one of the few people she hadn't given a hat to.

In and back again.

Tracy had made it all the way to Coffbookees before her tired brain remembered about Penny. This made her steps through the mud to the Fluffy Bakery that much heavier. She would have loved to have gotten food that was a happy surprise while inquiring about Maurice's health.

The bakery was closed, too. That was too bad. She really could go for some sugar right now, and she could tell Fluffle about her craft plans for the fluff.

Trailing mud all the way, Tracy finally trudged her way to Waffles, No Nets, and she blearily passed Blaze and Primrose with a flimsy, unperturbed wave of hello before firmly collapsing onto a table.

Oh. Someone was already sitting in this booth--Julie, the musician.

Well, Tracy didn't have the energy to get up right now. Hopefully she'd understand. (Had she given a hat to those people yet? the hazy thought crossed her mind.)

"Hi radio hello 'morning how'you," she murmured to the girl, her face to the table.

[Robyn]

The rain was pouring by the time that Dove clicked off the light on her sewing machine, having spent the entire night awake, finishing the last piece of her latest magnum opus. Her room was still a wreck, and bags rested heavy under her eyes, but the fatigue and the promise of work to come all faded into the background as she held her treasure up into the air by its sleeves.

"It's done," she breathed, "I've done it."

Shakily, she stood. The fabric was delicate; the potential, great. She wondered-- did she have the inner strength to undertake the personal vow she had written in her heart? Could she really step up and be the hero that Wafflenet needed? It would be risky. She would have to travel at the break of day, using the first rays of the sun as a beacon to her cause and darting through the morning mist to remain hidden from leery eyes.

Dove donned her outfit piece by piece behind her bamboo divider. Bow...shirt...skirt...ribbons...shoes...wings...cat clips...Flight Scepter of the Ivory Cosmos... that was all she needed. She took a deep breath.

With a bounding leap, Dove fully took on her magical girl persona, transforming into the gracious, lovely, spectacular Puella Paloma Columbidae!

SPOILER: Click to show

"YATTA! IT IS I, PUELLA PALOMA COLUMBIDAE! In the name of the sunrise, on the wings of a dove, I will punish you!" she shouted to her mirror.

It looked totally amazing.

Dove jumped and squealed, thrilled to be both successfully cosplaying an OC (what were the odds anything like this would ever turn out this good, right??) and contributing to helping the horrible problem plaguing the town. With a fluff of her hair, she marched to the door.

"This will be perfect, desu! I'll go around town in my kawaii little outfit, dashing past raindrops, jumping from rooftop to rooftop-- (*yawn*)-- all in... time for... zzzzzzzzz"

Unfortunately, all that was going to have to wait. Dove slumped onto a luckily placed pile of fabric as sleep overtook her. She was waaaaaaaay overdue.

[icon]

It was raining. Anyone who wanted to claim otherwise would have a hard time finding counterevidence.

Osi was still on the roof of Waffles, no Nets. He'd stayed up all night; there were a few owls around town, and he would have loved to keep an eye out for them the past evening, but for all the rain he couldn't see anything. But he didn't mind; Osilon Crane never groused, except for when he was watching grouses.

And so he stayed up here, curled up on the leeside of the stairway access, trying to avoid becoming drenched. He'd brought an umbrella. It didn't really do much against this rain, but the thought was what mattered. All birdspotters should have an umbrella, he thought.

Mick had come up with the tea and waffle a few hours ago, but Osilon just tensed up and rocked back and forth for a few minutes in silence until Mick left. Osi made a mental note to pay him later. All this death must really have been weighing him down, he thought.

Osilon Craned his neck, looked through the mist. More and more people seemed to head indoors; a smart move. He had entertained the notion of heading back down himself, until the notion had gotten bored and moved on to more amusing sights than a birdwatcher crouched in the rain for several hours. People were heading into the diner for shelter now. Where there were people, there was chaos.

But where there was chaos, there was safety.

He sat still for a few more moments, then got up, closing the umbrella and reaching for the door. For once, he thought as he climbed down the cold stairway, fumbling with his turtleneck, it might be a smarter move to stick with the flock.

[Ginz ❤]

The night before

The mob seemed determined on killing Alex, so Ginz decided the best thing to get away from it would be to head home. She walked automatically, barely paying attention. Nothing felt real after Penny’s death.

When she got to her house she headed straight to bed. She curled up under the covers looking for a safe place and tried to sleep, but couldn’t. Soon enough she gave up trying and just stayed very still, staring straight ahead, still attempting to assimilate what had happened.

After a bit she heard the familiar sounds of Dan getting home. She heard his footsteps getting nearer and nearer until she felt his presence in the room.

“Ginz? Are you asleep?” He asked softly.

Ginz didn’t move at first. She didn’t have the energy to. She took her time to reply, and then just as softly, she said, “I’m awake.”

She slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. Dan sat next to her on the bed, and without needing to exchange words, he put his arms around her. She buried her head into his chest. She still couldn’t believe the way things had turned out, but somehow everything seemed better in Dan’s arms. She didn’t know what she’d do without him.

After that, she was able to get some sleep. Hearing Dan’s breathing next to her was very comforting. She didn’t even have nightmares that night.


*

Today

That morning, Ginz woke up in slightly higher spirits. She went into the kitchen, ready for breakfast, and found a batch of cupcakes on the counter. She recognized them as made by Fluffle, but she wondered how they got there.

She was almost certain her husband hadn’t bought those cupcakes, so they must have been a present from Fluffle. Ever since the deaths had started in Wafflenet, Ginz hadn’t step foot in The Fluffy Bakery. She felt she needed to fix that immediately. The pink pony had always been very kind to her. Ginz decided she’d pay her a visit today, to thank her, and buy some muffins and flatbread like she used to.

This time she didn’t forget to leave a note for Dan.

Gone to the bakery. Be back soon. Love you! <3

She did, however, forget her umbrella. The bakery was closed when Ginz got there, soaking wet. She checked her clock, but it was well past opening time. Ginz got a very unpleasant feeling in her stomach. It was like the previous day was replaying in front of her eyes.

Fluffle had to be okay. She had to. Ginz decided to rush to Waffles, No Nets, hoping to find the pony there, or at least someone who knew where she was. She needed some shelter from the rain anyway, and that was the only place she could think of going. She walked inside, and she was still deciding who was the best person to approach, when the door opened again, and Sparky let himself in after her.

"You won't believe it, friends! I've just found another murdered body in my pasture! The baker, Fluffle, is dead!"

Oh, no! Ginz gasped and brought her hands to her mouth. Not her friend too!

[Terra]

Yeah, that glare didn’t do much to stop people from objecting to the wolf.

"Umm, excuse me!" Britknee nearly shrieked as Blaze looked around for a table. "Like, what the heck are you doing with that MONSTER in here? WHAT IF IT EATS ONE OF US!?"

“A MONSTER?” Blaze screeched indignantly. “She’s LESS OF A MONSTER THAN WHOEVER’S BEEN GOING AROUND KILLING PEOPLE, I’D SAY -”

She was cut off by Mick’s shout of, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

Blaze was slightly stunned. Had she ever seen Mick act this way before...? He was waving the spatula around like a madman...how unreasonable.

After a moment, however, Mick seemed to calm down. "Blaze...you can't have a wolf in here. I'll...I'll set up the awning over the patio, okay? Can you just wait out there? For a minute?"

Blaze suddenly became aware that Primrose was growling softly at Mick.

“Primrose, shh,” she hissed.

Then a shout came from behind her.

“The real bad-guy is you!” THE PYTHON shouted as loud as he could. “TAKE THAT! ATTICUS PYTHON doesn't think that women should...”

Oh. It was this guy again. Blaze rolled her eyes, but then he started speaking in a more...complimentary tone...?

“Dude, that is awesome,” he said, nodding his head in approval. “ATTICUS PYTHON definitely approves of the pet, little lady. Although it's probably more dominant than you, being a woman and all. Maybe the leash should be the other way around?”

“SHUT UUUUUUUP,” Blaze hollered at him. “WHILE I AGREE THAT PRIMROSE IS FAIRLY AWESOME, YOU ARE AN IDIOT, SO IF YOU CAN PLEASE GO SOMEWHERE ELSE AND BE QUIET, I THINK WE’D ALL APPRECIATE IT.”

She was about to go off on a rant about how she RESENTS THE FACT THAT SHE IS SOCIETALLY OBLIGATED TO USE A LEASH ON PRIMROSE AT ALL, and that WOLVES SHOULD NOT BE TREATED IN THIS MANNER, but she realized that this shouting was probably not helping her case much.

She shook her head, shot a withering glare at THE PYTHON that she hoped conveyed a “you’re-not-worth-my-time” sentiment, and walked over to Mick.

“Sorry about that,” she muttered. “It’s just - I have a bit of a family situation outside, so I’d really appreciate it if Primrose and I could stay in here a bit longer. We can just dry off and leave, if you want - I just need to wait for someone to go away, okay? And besides, Primrose is perfectly -”

She looked down and realized that Primrose was still growling at Mick.

“Primrose, shut up,” she whispered through gritted teeth, nudging the wolf slightly with her leg.

She looked back up at Mick and tried to muster a smile. “Well, she’s clearly not going anywhere, anyway. Certainly not gonna eat anyone. As if she’d do something like that!”

She continued to attempt to smile in a friendly way. Maybe her sister was gone now, anyway -

“CLARIBELLLLLL!” someone hollered from outside the door.

Blaze swore.

[Tiger]

How strange. Mick could feel every noise and irritation in this restaurant, every shout and wolf snarl and click of forks and the blather of THE PYTHON and the humming of the morbid freezer where his friends and townspeople were stuffed like so many quirky steaks, throb against his ears in slow-motion, like drops of rain striking leaves and sending them into chaotic twists and turns. He could smell the burnt eggs he'd served before the other chefs arrived; the stench mixed horribly with the smells of wet wolf, bad coffee, and worms from the constantly-opening door.

Mick tried to take a calming breath and ignore the ringing in his ears as Blaze explained why she and the wolf - Primrose, which was probably the last name Mick would've picked for a wolf - needed to stay in the dinner. This was the first Mick had heard of Blaze having family outside her wolf pack...farm...whichever. Mick wasn't entirely reassured by the growling that the wolf wasn't dangerous.

Just as someone shouted "CLARIBELLLLL!", THE PYTHON pushed his way forward. "Oh come on..."

“OBJECTION. It's most unradical that ATTICUS PYTHON hasn't been able to teach you any more lately, dude. ATTICUS PYTHON just wanted to stop by today to see how his bro was doing. If you get murdered before ATTICUS PYTHON has the chance to teach you how to be a proper man, ATTICUS PYTHON will be totally angry.”

"Yeah? How do you think I'd feel? PYTHON, I'm not - "

“So what do you think of the uniform, bro? ATTICUS PYTHON had some woman read him a cool book called 'To Kill A Mocking Bird. It's about some chick who goes around mocking guys. Totally uncool. So this guy comes along and kills her. WITH THE LAW! And a shotgun."

"Ah. Yes. The director's cut version." Mick pitied whoever had been forced to read the book to THE PYTHON, and then modify its ending. Or PYTHON was just an idiot and didn't understand what had happened, or fell asleep before the end, or got drunk...actually, he smelled of alcohol right now, how early did the man start drinking?

"But he's totally a lawyer. And ATTICUS PYTHON looks pretty hot today, huh? So how you been bro? Tell ATTICUS PYTHON about the totally manly activities you've been doing lately.” And he ruffled Mick's hair.

Mick was usually pretty calm about phsyical contact. Heck, Fluffle had tried to hug him last night and he'd been okay with it. But Fluffle was all-too-recently dead, and of all the people to try and get friendly? PYTHON? The ringing in Mick's ears picked back up to full volume.

He shoved PYTHON'S hand away and pointed the spatula as menacingly as one could point a spatula...when they imagined it could shoot a grid of laserbeams. "Don't. Touch. Me. And I'm not your bro, I'm not your...your student-in-manliness or whatever - I don't want to be anything like you, and if you don't get out of this restaurant in five seconds, I'm going to ask Blaze to let Prim...her wolf get you out of here in pieces!"

Any dramatic silence that might have followed Mick's' outburst was completely destroyed when someone from the kitchen shouted, "Dude!! These eggs are haunted, man!"

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

Uh-oh. She'd surely be caught now. Fluffle wasn't supposed to cook here! Her place was in the bakery! Hm...she couldn't pound the dough with one hoof. She needed some living help...but she could deal with that later.

Fluffle headed over to the stairwell, where she locked eyes with Osi. Now, Fluffle was more than a little nervous, so she did what she normally did under dire circumstances. She waved. Right next to Osi, though, was...Penny! Penny, who was trying to create a message with someone's alphabet cereal! That Penny and her love for words. What was Fluffle going to do with her?

Fluffle snuggled Penny, knowing no one was watching. Everyone was paying attention to Primrose. Penny appeared startled at first, but she began to appear very interested in what Fluffle whispered into her ear.

Yes, she knew Fluffle had missed her, and yes, she knew books had souls. But could they really be eaten? That was an odd thought, but not as odd as what ELSE Fluffle whispered to her.

Fluffle jumped with all her ghostly weight, sinking into the ground, then quietly traveled to the center booth, with only a few inches of her fluff showing.

She popped out of the floor right in the middle of the restaurant and whinnied, pleased to see that nearly everyone had gathered...

[Celestial]

Diana had not slept all night. Normally when she had a sleepless night it was because she was working on something but this time she genuinely could not fall asleep. All this murder, all this killing had gotten to her in ways she could not even describe, tearing her up emotionally in a way that no detailed examination on the cause of a war or a massacre or anything like that could ever induce in her. They were always separated by the years, by her own background and by the fact that those events had always happened to somebody else. But now, her cold professionalism was breaking down. And now, if ghosts were returning, she might not even have a profession to speak of.

Now there had been another murder but Diana really did not feel like even finding out who the victim was or going to see anything or going to investigate the causes behind the reasons why Wafflenet had suddenly turned into a bloodbath for the howling mobs. No, she wanted to hide inside a comfortable archive surrounded by old documents that you sometimes had to handle with gloves in case they fell apart, peering at near-illegible handwriting of the ancients and trying to piece together everyday life. She was a microhistorian, she was not prepared to deal with anything like this. Diana specialised in what happened to ordinary people in their ordinary lives, not when there were murders going on. Yes, working on her book and thinking of all the praise from the academy, as well as the inevitable deconstruction and criticism that comes from writing an influential monograph, would calm her down.

Diana grabbed her coat and headed outside, running in the rain towards the town hall where the archives were kept. She arrived, soaking wet and with her glasses completely misted over, hanging her coat up onto a hook and walking up to the front desk to fill out the pass to the archives, a usual procedure. The old receptionist, Mr. Gunn, smiled at her warmly, as though completely unaware of all the things that had happened in the big outside world. How Diana wished she still retained that ability.

"Ah, Ms-"

"Doctor. I have a PhD," she said in a neutral tone, picking up the form and filling it in.

"Of course, I just don't call anybody who isn't a medical doctor a doctor," Mr. Gunn laughed. There was an awkward silence as Diana scribbled away. "So, did you hear about the murders? Awful business, just awful."

"I know, I've seen most of them," she silently begged him to shut up but Mr. Gunn was known for talking a lot.

"Ah, yes, you were going to contribute to our lovely archive. It would be an honour to have somebody like you write something for us, especially since you are a reputable historian, Ms- Dr. Pallada," the old man took a breath. "But all this murder, it makes me think back to my younger days, knocking about heads. I was quite a thug you know. Never killed anybody but you know, it was so fun to beat guys up-"

Diana slammed her fist against the desk.

"Look, Mr. Gunn, right now, I don't want to talk about the murders. I hoped to find a nice, ordinary town that I could write my monograph about and Wafflenet seemed to fit the bill, despite all the eccetrics who lived here. Now I'm not sure. Now all this is happening and while it was fascinating at first, it's all too real for me. I'm jumping at shadows already and now I find out that even the nice old man in the archives knows several ways to beat a man up, I just don't feel safe," she blurted out. Suddenly it dawned on her why she was feeling so unnerved. Diana had never been a strong woman. She was always very academic, which did not leave a lot of time for going outside and excercising. If her diet was not exclusively awful coffee and cigarettes, she figured she would be quite fat by now. So against the mafia or a serial killer or even an angry mob, for all her reasoning and explaining and working out why the working class revolution had not happened yet due to the lack of class solidarity and loss of community within the smaller towns of the NTWF, she was helpless. She could easily die here.

Diana dropped the form and grabbed her coat, running out of the town hall archives and into the street. Paradoxically, she felt safest alone. As much as she craved coffee, Waffles, No Nets, was not safe. Anybody there could kill her and she did not even know who. It bothered her that she did not know. She liked knowing things or at least being able to make educated guesses about things.

So Dr. Diana Pallada, Phd, wandered the streets of Wafflenet, alone, until she came to the square (it wasn't much of a wander, really, but Diana was not athletic, as she had mentioned previously). There, making sure nobody was around, she sat down and struggled to light a cigarette. Failing at her task, she sat on the bench, her mind completely blank and silent for the first time in a while.

[Avery]

Even after Brit and Mick yelled at Yelly (lol, yelled at Yelly, hah!), Yelly still wouldn't take that beast-wolf out of the diner. Um, what! Was this woman seriously crazy or something!?

“Well, she’s clearly not going anywhere, anyway. Certainly not gonna eat anyone. As if she’d do something like that!”

And then of course Mick got into a yelling match with that weird PYTHON guy and things in the diner got like, super heated. Ah, that was so scary! Britknee's stomach twisted and she stared dolefully down at her plate of diet waffles. She was like, totes uncomfortable in here. She had a feeling things might get bad, and quickly. Suddenly feeling claustrophobic, Brit glanced out the window and sighed because it was still raining, which like, meant she couldn't comfortably escape out into the town centre without getting totes doused. And more rain would make her already damp hair like, frizzy as frizzles!

Then she noticed the historian woman, Diana, smoking a cigarette out there. Britknee was still sort of kind of mortified at having puked on Diana's shoes during that interview, but like. A cigarette might be nice. She hadn't smoked in years because like, tobacco made her teeth yellow (EW!) but a craving suddenly washed over her. She supposed a little more rain wouldn't kill her (... hopefully. Unless like, the weather was the mafia! Omygawd-- wait that didn't like, make sense).

Forking one last bite of diet waffle into her mouth, Brit then scooped up the bag with Snuggles in it and slipped outside. She strode over to Diana and sat beside her.

"Um, like, got a smoke?' she asked.

[Gelquie]

While Julie was mostly trying to focus on her breakfast, it was rather difficult to ignore what was going on between Blaze and Mick in the restaurant, particularly with all the shouting. With the whole town being tense as it is, this situation felt like it was only making things worse. It certainly didn't help when THE PYTHON came in again, doing his routine as usual while being probably intoxicated. She began humming louder, trying in vain to drown out the sounds and put her feelings of discomfort out of her mind.

It was then that Tracy slid into her stall, sitting in the seat opposite to her, looking wet and out of it. She shrugged; She could probably use the company and some sort of distraction from the goings-on of the restaurant, even if the said distraction involved all matter of talk of aliens and conspiracy theories.

"Hello Tracy," she said, trying to peer in the direction of where her face would be if it wasn't facing the table. "You look tired. And I guess the weather's not helping with that... I know it's been a while since it's rained, but it's... It's such horrible timing.

She then paused as she heard a whinny from the center of the restaurant, and she turned her head to see the ghost of Fluffle. So she had come back too. What a relief...

Julie bit her lip. Throughout the night, Julie couldn't help but wonder in the back of her mind if she imagined the whole thing. As certain as she was, it didn't take much doubt about the matter for her to start questioning her sanity. Still, she knew Tracy saw her last night, and perhaps she also saw Alex. And now there was a chance to see if she really did see him. If she could confirm that one other person had seen a ghost, maybe she could stop worrying. And Tracy was probably the best person to ask.

Julie leaned in towards Tracy and whispered. _{"Psst... Do you see that? In the middle of the restaurant?"}

She nodded her head in the direction of Fluffle's ghost, not wanting to point directly at her.

[♥ Azzie]

Nora let out a yelp.

Oh, certainly she'd heard there were ghosts in town. She'd heard all sorts of strange rumors- ghosts, zombies, even a town to the east that was full of magic. But it was all hearsay. Nora didn't hold with such nonsense. The ghosts were certainly a rumor cooked up to frighten people- or perhaps even a hallucination. This town was so full of terrible happenings these days. Hadn't there been another murder just this morning? She was surprised that her own mind hadn't started going.

Well, until now, that is.

Quickly she composed herself, hoping that the people sitting around her hadn't heard the yelp, then slowly turned her head back around to see if it was still there.
It was. It was definitely the town baker, but there was an oddly transparent quality about her. Was it possible?

No. Nora shook her head. This was simply a hallucination. The slip of her mind was alarming, but she would deal with it calmly. Above all she refused to descend further, into real madness. If she did that, her darlings would go hungry, and she would not let that happen.

Resolutely, she turned back to her waffle and made up her mind to ignore the vision in the middle of the room.

[Lizica]

"Psst... Do you see that? In the middle of the restaurant?"

With a Herculean effort, Tracy heaved herself up onto her elbows and blinked in the direction Julie was indicating.

"Mmyeah, that's Fluffle," she said in a tired monotone, and bent her head back to the table.

A pause. She heaved herself back up again and rubbed her eyes.

"Why's she sky?--I mean, blue? Why is she blue?" She squinted again. "And transmissions?"

Maybe that wasn't the word she was looking for. But transparency was never a good sign. Tracy blearily turned back to Julie.

"Did they kill Fluffle, too? Why? What does that mean?"

Tracy had extricated her soaked notebook from her pocket and peeled back the pages to get a look at her list of the aliens' victims.

"Gruakjnkasdlfj," she mumbled incoherently as her heavy head smacked back into the table. This collision bent her ballcap's bill backwards, exposing her messy hair, but it luckily also had the effect of slightly (but only slightly) waking her up.

"Did I give you a hat, Julie?" she asked while fixing her own. She leaned over and pulled a hat from her bag--no, that was the nekomimi, that was the wrong one, no, not the head bandage either--and pulled out the silver beret.

"Sorry 's not very rainproof," Tracy murmured. "But you know, aliens 'n all that. Might help. Hope it helps." She left the hat on the table and glanced around for the diner's waiters, rubbing her eyes. When had it gotten so crowded and chaotic in here? Tracy opted for the next best thing.

"Are you going to finish that?" she asked, stifling a yawn and pointing to the syrup left on Julie's plate.

[Avery]

After being the bearer of bad news about Fluffle's death, Sparky Drama O'Llama was feeling pretty down.

Tanya, the server at Waffles, No Nets, offered Sparky a free cup of coffee to soothe his nerves and heavy heart, which Sparky downed quickly, but the caffeine only served to further his jitters. His temple pounded; his stomach flopped; he felt nauseous, depressed, and woozy all at once. So, as the rest of the town chattered darkly about the latest death, Sparky stood and ambled back out into the rain, then down the road to the pharmacy. Of course no pills nor tonics could wholly help his miserable state-- but Kay was generally pretty good at suggesting medicines, and Sparky hoped she might be able to give him something to take the edge off.

But when Sparky arrived to the pharmacy, he found the 'CLOSED' sign hung on the door, and all the curtains drawn. He frowned and glanced at his watch. It was still early, but Kay was normally open at this time.

"Hullo?" he called, rapping on the door. When she didn't reply, he hesitated and knocked again: still no answer. "Kay?" he said, and when still he received no answer, Sparky swallowed down the lump in his throat and wrapped his hand around the door-knob. He turned it, and was quite relieved to find it unlocked. I'm sure she just forgot to flip the sign, he said to himself as he stepped inside.

The pharmacy was dark, almost pitch black. Another wave of nausea overtook Sparky, and it took all of his constitution to keep down the black, bitter coffee he'd just drunk. With a shaking hand, he reached over and flipped on the light switch, then blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sudden influx of light.

At first glance, everything in the pharmacy looked okay, not a single item out of place; but then Sparky started towards the counter, and glanced over it. And screamed the loudest scream of his life when he saw what was on the other side.

Kay. Slack, dead, bloated. Her skin pale, and her neck flayed open like the belly of a caught fish. And there, on the gleaming white tile floor beside her, was written in blood:

It is I, the Wafflenet Slicer! She is the second, but perhaps not the last.

Still screaming, Sparky backed away from the counter and tore back out the front door, into the rainy, soggy morning. Nearly slipping on the slick cobblestone, he sprinted back over to the Waffles, No Nets and barreled inside.

"The Wafflenet Slicer has struck again!" he shrieked. "Kay O'Hara is dead in her pharmacy! We are not safe, any of us!"

Kay O'Hara was an innocent townsperson.