Arc 0: Chapter 1 - Welcome to Melanvale

paranormal /parəˈnɔːm(ə)l/

of or relating to the claimed occurrence of an event or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, or other purportedly supernatural phenomena.

It was on the morning of the twenty-fifth day of October that the rural town in Pausashire started to take shape in Flynn’s eyes. For almost an entire week, he had spent his time in the car on the road ahead to his destination, stopping occasionally at gas stops, rests, and motels where he could spend the night — he would be fine with a night in the car, but his back problems won’t. It wasn’t until the day before his arrival, that Flynn decided to skip a motel — he couldn’t find one anyway — leaving himself in a desperate desire for sleep.

Watching nothing but a constant scene of trees and only one road would doze one off. Flynn struggled to keep his eyes open, to keep himself from accidentally drifting off the road, even with the radio screaming out loud with the joyful tone of Katrina Leskanich singing her famous “Walking On Sunshine.” He would often think that night of the idea of parking somewhere and taking a quick nap, but it was too risky to stop in the middle of nowhere where God knows what could happen.

「Never thought I’d see the day I would get tired of you.」

The sun shone earlier than usual, permanently stopping Flynn from flaking out. The scene of trees played the same, but now Flynn’s eyes were wide awake, filled with excitement. He was starting to see the mountains and radio towers from afar, which were two specific landmarks that the town he was heading to was known for. Not another second, a sign, welcoming whoever passed it, perched beamingly, stating that the passer was only a mile away from 「MELANVALE」. Seeing that sign only splattered a hogshead of relief at Flynn, he wanted to squeal with joy but stopped himself in a split second when he remembered he was a thirty-seven year old man with dignity — he wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on the townsfolk.

A car emerged in the distance, and Flynn thought of seeking its help for gas, but his car was still working fine — two days have passed since he stopped by a gas station. Settling on the thought or not, seeking their help was just wishful thinking, as the car seemed to be in a hurry that it passed by him in a shot, followed by smoke.

He coughed and quickly rolled up the windows.

“Way to leave an impression, huh.”

Finally passing the mile stated in the sign earlier, Flynn was soon faced by the town proper. There were three lanes in front of him, one for the citizens, one for visitors, and one for workers, followed by a giant gate at the end for what would be presumed as the entrance to the town. However, that wasn’t the only thing of notice on the road ahead. A security booth lied by the gate, followed by what looked like soldiers, rather than average security, positioned at every point at every lane. It was as if he was driving into a military camp.

「Guess they never recovered, huh.」

Most of the soldiers donned similar uniforms to each other: the dirt green cotton jackets decorated with the dark yellow pads on their shoulders that showed their ranks, and the long pants of matching color with the ridiculous boots at their feet. Only difference from one soldier to another was the insignias a few had and a few didn’t — and the darker shade others would have on their coats from the rest.

He passed the soldiers while driving through one of the lanes, not batting them an eye, yet he could feel their cold stares following him. Reaching the front entrance near the booth, a soldier, who seemed to have been a higher rank than those around him due to how he dressed differently, knocked on the window. Flynn turned down the radio, before rolling down the windows and giving the officer a smile.

“License.” The officer demanded, stretching out his palm in front of the window. The peaked cap on his head, as opposed to the garrison cap all the other soldiers had, barely made his eyes visible, which equally fed into the menacing air surrounding him.

“Oh, I’m not here for a visit.” Flynn said, maintaining a casual tone in his voice.

“Then why’d you pass through the visitor’s lane?”

“Hey, cut a guy some slack,” He put his arm out the window and pointed at the lanes in the back. “I didn't know which lane to go through. Also, you guys don’t exactly have an option here for newcomers so…”

“Are you now?” The officer tilted his hat upwards and gave him a look of suspicion. They needed to be sure of who came and who went, and if they were friendly or not. All the process for military land, rather than a rural town.

“Am I what?” Flynn was confused. “You think I’m—”

“No, I know you are not,” the officer tried to straighten his point, “You certainly don’t speak like one. But…” He leaned down to inch his face closer to the window, “And I’m speaking on behalf of my fellow comrades— we don’t exactly take kindly to strangers, especially the foreign kind. I may let you go, but they, in there, will spot you from a mile away. And unless they got orders to halt their actions… they will not stop.” His words had turned from a warning to that of a threat, “If you’re not a foreigner, then you’re certainly not a farmer.”

“(A couple o’ years out in the world and they start calling you a foreigner.) Damn, these people.” He mumbled under his breath.

Flynn knew very well these were just normal procedures for something like this — he had been once in their place — but he couldn’t recollect ever being so stiff in thinking as them. It was as if they all followed orders without question. Yes, following orders was doing things right, but it wasn’t always the right thing. Perhaps that was why Flynn hadn’t lasted long in the military.

“Show me your documents and identification card, please.” The officer said.

“Thought these kinda things would usually happen after I’m in.” Despite being clearly irritated by the officer before him at this point, Flynn tried to keep his frustration to a minimum and to insert a bit of life into this dull conversation. “Going through these procedures in the car is not so fun, ya’know.”

“Well, we can’t be too hasty with everything going now, can we?”

The officer had a point. It hasn’t been that long since the war ended, but that only left the world back in the era of espionage and traitors. Every country, every town, tried to preserve what it had left and shunned out what it deemed wrong. Trust was something hard to come by, especially in this country’s military. A friend of Flynn’s would often tell him that it all reminded him of the awful times of distrust in the cold war, despite not directly experiencing it. But he didn’t want to bother himself with such matters anymore. It was particularly for that reason that he decided to seclude himself to this town.

Keeping his mouth shut, he reached for the carbon box in the passenger seat and handed the officer the documents that were inside, alongside his card from his wallet.

The officer took them in silence and proceeded to read what was inside. “Inspector Flynn Locke…” The documents weren’t just the lease for his place of living in that town, but it also included his career history. “Your reputation precedes you. Joined the 107th brigade at the age of twenty-three. Left at the age of twenty-five. Opened up a paranormal investigation firm at the age of twenty-six?”

That last comment raised a few eyebrows around the soldiers, and the officer himself as well.

Flynn was not so surprised by it, but he decided to laugh it off. “Just a private investigation firm. Nothing more, nothing less. Besides, I have to put food on the table somehow, correct?”

“Right… Another lunatic. Just what we need.”

The officer backed away a bit from the car, eying the other soldiers around before looking down again on the papers he held. There was a certain tension in the air that could not leave Flynn’s presence. This was supposed to be just a normal pass through a town. It was a time of war, yes, but all these procedures should have been held later nonetheless — it wasn’t like security loosened up on the inside — yet it all took place right then and there — as if his paranoia was telling him he wouldn’t last long in there that he couldn’t even enter the town. He felt the need to grip onto his steering wheel to be ready to pull back at full throttle, even though these were nothing but delusional thoughts.

He took a good look at the officer before him. The attire was certainly different from those around him, and yet, he seemed younger than anyone else there. The difference wasn’t huge but he seemed to emanate an aura of innocence and naivete despite his hardened expression.

This only brought about the question about how desperate this country was for soldiers. Flynn thought it was way past the times of war, but here they were, once again at a time no different than that of the first great war.

“What regiment were you from?” Being a former soldier himself, he asked the officer with a smile.

But the officer wouldn’t tear down the wall he built. He handed Flynn a piece of paper that looked pretty much like a contract. “Please sign here.”

“You really intend to keep it all at the door, huh.” Flynn followed their instructions with ease before he realized that the pen he held in his hand was no good for this normal situation. “Ah, wrong pen. You know, I keep a pen for this, a pen for that.” He put back the pen in his bag and brought out another that looked significantly different and less elegant, “Gotta maintain that professionalism, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled.

But the officer still had a stone cold expression.

When Flynn brought out his bag to look for a pen, it came to the officer’s attention that he had a box of books beside him on the passenger’s seat, most likely ones that surrounded his field of work. But even then—

“Got any books with you?” The officer said.

“Books? Uh…” Flynn looked at the box before looking back at the officer and handing him the contract he signed off. “Yeah? They’re mostly for work but—”

“Pass them to the inspection office to the left after you go through — it’s a red building, you can’t miss it. We don’t want to keep a man of your prestige held back any longer around here.”

It was a bizarre request but he passed it off as nothing but just another procedure of theirs. Like the officer said, he didn’t want to be kept around here any longer than he should.

“Hey, lighten up, will ya?” He smiled at the officer. A veteran trying to give a novice a word of advice. “You’ve only got one life, and you’re gonna waste it if you spend it carelessly following orders like that.”

The officer did not flinch.

Having gotten used to that, Flynn chuckled before turning on his car key and finally set off to the gates of the town.

It was just when the gate opened that he remembered. “Oh yeah, before I forget,” He looked out the window and back at the officer from afar. “There a uh… Eveline High School around here?”

“Everille, yes.” He responded, surprising as it might be. “Just follow the tram lines on the main street and you’ll find it near the end.”

「Gosh, I gotta remember that name.」

“That far, eh? Well, thanks for the info.”

Past the hard part and with the information he wanted, Flynn Locke finally entered the infamous town of Melanvale, preparing himself for the next step he should take on this day that was most likely going to be his longest yet.

△▼△▼△▼△▼△

Everille High School was nothing much on the outside. It certainly was archaic in its type of structure and resembled a mansion of old rather than a modern-day high school, but that didn’t stop it from using that exact thing as a selling point — a private school had to earn its living no matter what after all. Thankfully it was a competent enough school to earn the trust of many without needing to rely too much on appearances.

With all of this information; Flynn was able to deduce in the few minutes he stood outside the school. The parking lot on the side was swarming with school buses despite the size of the town. And the sidewalk he parked beside was filled with several other cars. It was likely parents waiting for their children to come outside, perfectly-timed for Flynn to blend in as a ‘parent’ as well without being questioned much. From the look of the security outside, they didn’t seem to know much about their surroundings or who was who. They were doing their job down to the minimum, not because they were incompetent. They were simply new to the job; so new to the job that this was their first day.

Of course, this wasn’t something that Flynn was able to come up with out of nowhere. After all, he was able to gather around a bunch of information as he was driving there that answered most of his questions now. Why was the school day ending around noon? Why were there so many parents waiting to pick up their kids when they could walk back home in such a small town. Why did the security change conveniently on the day of his arrival.

A girl had passed away on school grounds just the past week, and the school quickly took procedures to secure its reputation. There were so many rumors surrounding it after the incident. Some were saying the girl was killed by school staff. Others were confirming the school’s hauntings through the girl’s death.

It was all useless chatter that only tainted the girl’s memory.

But this was the norm, it could not be changed. This town was infamous for exactly that: rumors and fairy tales circling around each citizen’s mouth that it would only take a bit to come true. A perfect host for fabled anomalies. It would have been disappointing to Flynn if that wasn’t the case, it was the whole reason for why he was there. Yes, he was going to establish his own office, but only for a short while before vanishing from everyone’s memory after solving their problems. That was a skill only an author could achieve.

Flynn looked at his watch one last time. A few seconds and those gates would burst open with teenagers walking out in silence.

Following the incident, the town itself decided to establish a curfew, especially for the youth, and forced every school there to follow its example as means to protect the children. That was why school ended so early.

It was an odd decision to still keep the school around considering the students would pretty much take a class or two before time was up. If anything, it would have been better to take an indefinite vacation until this matter was resolved. Shortening their time in a day wasn’t going to remove the risks. Flynn thought it was ridiculous.

「And here we go…」

The bell rang, louder than that of one heard at church (showing just how quiet the town was), and the gates opened. Instead of children running out and screaming in joy, Flynn was met with teenagers walking out with barely an ounce of energy left in them. He knew his fantasies of seeing joy on a kid’s face was long gone in this era. Even if they were teenagers, there would have been at least a breath of life within them, especially when they barely had school to begin with.

But how could they? Their top student and friend was gone. It was too soon to return back to normal, and even then, there was a guarantee they were ever going to recover.

Harsh as it may be, this was perfect for Flynn. With everyone locked in their own world and grief, he could easily single out the odd ones in the crowd and get to the person he wanted. No matter how hard grief could hit someone, it could never change the air surrounding them if they were odd— or in this case, gifted. He had an idea of what they looked like, but even for an observant man like him, something like this could accidentally be swept right under him.

Just as he started looking, the target came right in the center of his line of sight. It was a young girl with short blonde hair. Her hostile expression could not help either. She very well looked like someone who was ready to “square up” with anyone who dared simply to look at her. Her height was above average for a girl her age, but short enough for Flynn to call her a kid with ease — although he could already tell she wasn’t going to make that easy.

With everything about her appearance, she looked normal when compared to the teenagers around here. But Flynn was able to tell her apart from everyone else. It was her eyes; her violet eyes that stood out with beauty among the rest, the eyes only found in the Nightingale bloodline.

The weather wasn’t chilly, yet that didn’t stop her from wearing the thickest jacket she could find underneath her school shirt, coupled with a typical skirt and shoes. Other than the jacket, there was one thing that stood out in her appearance, and in a not-so-good manner. Both her hands (up to her fingers) and legs were covered in bandages. If her hostile expression said anything, it was that she was likely to do the beating.

Not one for sitting around once he had found his target, Flynn decided to approach the young girl. She wasn’t going to approach him of her own accord as she wouldn’t recognize him after all — besides the headphones blasting music she had on her ears.

Flynn brought the girl to a halt while the rest of the crowd flowed like a stream. She was aware of her surroundings enough to not bump into him.

For a man about to hit his middle-aged phase, he barely had any experience with children — just about enough for one child he took care of almost his entire life.

“Erina Nightingale?” He cleared his throat.

One glance from her deadly gaze was enough to make him flinch back, and yet the girl seemed to lack directy hostility, rather she was puzzled. She quickly took off her headphones, “And who the hell are you?”

“Flynn Locke,” he said, clearing his throat once again. He couldn’t believe a mere girl like her had him intimidated despite barely doing anything of her own, “I knew your parents back in the day.”

Still, the girl was as puzzled as ever, responding only with a tilt from her head.

He sighed, “You’ll be working for me till the Selection Trial?”

Upon hearing his last words, the girl’s ears flinched and her eyes immediately lit up with surprise, “Oh,” she said. “Ohhhhhhhhh,” she realized. “Wait,” she backed away, her face coated with both astonishment and amazement. The thoughts spiraling in her mind couldn’t help her from containing her excitement, “YOU’RE THE GUY FROM NEVERLAND?!!”

Alarmed by her loud reaction, Flynn rushed to shut her up, “Shhh shhh shhh, keep it down!” He whispered. He did not come all the way to this town only for a girl like her to put his hard work for naught by the slip of a tongue.

“What?” The girl gave him a baffled look as she backed away from his grasp, “No one knows what that is in this dead town. It’s not like I went up to them and was like: Hey, I can write magical words with this magica—”

“Okay okay, point taken. I get it.” He deeply exhaled, “Now, shut it!”

“Eh, fine,” she scoffed.

「And here I thought everything would go smoothly.」

If there was one thing evident about this girl, she was going to be quite the problem to deal with, and even more troublesome whenever she opened up her mouth. Flynn had taken a look at her file before arriving here, it spoke of her aggressive behavior and tendency to spout insults or “trash talk” whenever she got angry, which seemed to occur a lot. She might not look like it at first glance but it was clear she had quite the temper.

“So where are we going?” She called out to him.

However, she was nowhere near his sight. Before he had realized it, she was already standing near the car, leaning on the door as she awaited for him to join her. She was quick in understanding — and for all the wrong reasons.

“Hey gramps, are we gonna get some food or not?” She shouted and waved around her hand erratically, “You must be hungry, coming from a trip like that. I know some great spots, ya know!”

It did not occur to Flynn that the girl had been thrown into his care without notice. He had found himself already assuming the role of a babysitter caring for a child rather than an inspector looking for a partner or an assistant.

「What did I get myself into?」