The next thirty minutes were uneventful, though they were spent rowing with twice as much effort. The sound of the bottom of the hull scraping against the shore made of sand and gravel brought no small relief. Isaac immediately jumped off the boat cheerily. Noah took a moment to breathe, his arms feeling heavier than anchors. He couldn’t help but be both troubled and amazed at Isaac’s lack of concern. Surely, he was happy to be alive, but it begged the question: was it mere joy mixed in with resilience, or was he not smart enough to care about their situation?

“Let’s go! I’m starving!”

Once again, Isaac was being a pain in the neck again, but Noah shared the sentiment. Considering he had thrown up a few hours ago, and the accumulated fatigue from the continuous physical effort, he could most definitely stand to replenish his energy. He got off the boat, helping Jacob do so as well.

It had been probably close to twelve hours since they had first awoke in the murderous clown’s mansion. Their short trip to the kitchen had been mostly unfruitful: they had found canned food, which he always believed was key in a survival situation but, without a can opener or a cutting tool, they were little more than dead weight. He smirked.

His grin didn’t last. His mind wandered while walking back to civilization. The remorse he had felt for the past hours was replaced with a wave of anxiety. Would he be in trouble with the law for killing that little girl? He glanced back at Isaac who brought the metal bat along. While it was a weapon they could use to protect themselves, It was also the tool he had used to do his dark deed. He would have to get rid of it, sooner or later; if not to hide the evidence, at the very least to keep it out of sight, so it wouldn’t constantly remind him of the brutality he had, up to this point, thought himself incapable of.

They walked up the beach until they reached the single road of the village. Noah briefly thought about his dream, having a flashback of the screams of the burning man. This time, however, the place known as La Grave was quiet. Not that he expected it to find it bustling with life, since the festive season had been over for weeks.

Every summer, there would be fairs and festivals at every moment of the day; people enjoying life, chanting together, side-by-side with an arm around a friend’s neck while the other hand held a beer; competitions of miniaturized boat construction, where the goal was to have fun while wearing silly costumes, rather than making the vessels float. The road was locked to vehicle circulation, so people could walk freely as they flooded the stalls to buy different sea-themed jewelry, clothing or food.

However, it only went on from late in May to mid-September. By October, most of the businesses closed. Only one of the cafés would remain open until later into the fall to allow the occasional local resident to get a hot drink. Never this early in the morning, though. That was the reasoning he would go with, no reason to believe anything terrible had happened here. No need to panic yet.

“Matt moved here earlier this summer, let’s see if he’s home. He’ll let us make a phone call… maybe give us a snack, too,” said Isaac.

“Matt? Awake, at this hour? No way. He’s even more of a night bird than you or me,” replied Noah.

“Uh, yeah. It’s like, what? Five, six o’clock, maybe? I’m thinking maybe he hasn't gone to bed yet," he said before bursting into a loud, exaggerated laughter.

“Maybe we shouldn’t make so much noise…” theorized Jacob.

“Matt! It’s Isaac, open up!” the young man yelled as he knocked three times on the door. “Come on, man! We need your help!” he added when nobody answered.

Jacob moved to one of the windows. “The lights are off," he said. “Looks like he hasn’t cleaned up in a while.” He chuckled softly.

His curiosity having been piqued, Noah moved next to him and peeked inside. It was a mess. Pieces of furniture had been moved about and overturned. Perhaps there had been a fight, he thought.

He got off the balcony, then went back closer to the road. “There’s definitely something off," he said as he scanned the horizon. He noticed some obvious details indicating something had transpired here recently: a busted door on the convenience store; a broken window on a car; heaps of junk just lying about… There should have been at least a few people on the streets, too. Sailors, which this town had no lack of, were known to start their day at ungodly hours, even when they weren’t fishing. And then, there was this terrible feeling within him, like a rumbling darkness thrashing about.

The creaking of the door made him turn on his heels to face his friend’s house once more. Jacob questioned Isaac, asking if it was alright to just get in like this, uninvited. Isaac replied it was Matt’s own fault as he was the one who left his door unlocked in the first place. Jacob then turned towards Noah, seeking his approval.

“I think it’s fine," he said. “It’s an emergency. He’ll understand.” He took a pause, looked back at the streets, then came back to his companions. “I doubt he’s there, though," he finished before he got behind Isaac and nudged him to encourage him to go in.

It was true that Matthew was not known for being particularly clean, but he wasn’t normally worse than any other young adult that had left the family house before learning how to properly function domestically. Still, the sheer amount of dust, mud and sand in his apartment was unnatural, even for him. It covered the floors, the walls, the computer, and the fake decorative katanas. Even the ceiling was filthy. They opted to leave the door open to aerate, then opened the two windows that looked on the street.

“Matt, what the hell?” asked Isaac out loud. “Are you even here?”

“Doesn’t look like it. His computer is turned off.”

Jacob gasped.

“You’re right! He never turns his computer off!”

The apartment was small, the kitchen and the living room sharing the same space. Merely stepping inside the house meant they had seen it all, save for the bedroom and the bathroom since the doors were closed. Isaac looked at Jacob, then pointed at the bedroom’s door with his chin, instructing to go take a look.

“I don’t think he’d appreciate seeing mine or Noah’s ugly mug first thing in the morning," he half-jokingly reasoned.

Noah prevented Jacob from moving by holding up his arm in front of Jacob’s chest. “Wait. Look over there, behind the counter," he commanded. There was a pool of black ooze that was all too familiar to them. Jacob’s face flared up in a shocked expression, his eyes widely opened.

“It’s the same stuff that was inside of…” he didn’t finish his sentence but stared at Noah.

“Shit, it’s here, too…” Isaac added.

There wasn’t a lot of it, but it was enough to make them flinch and hesitate to go into the bedroom. Noah grabbed one of the Japanese blade replicas and handed it over to Jacob. “Push the door with it," he told him.

Jacob obeyed. “It’s empty”, he said after a few seconds. But Noah’s attention was already elsewhere – in the jar where the blades were stored, there was a small tape-recorder with a piece of paper attached with transparent adhesive tape to it. He reached inside to grab it.

“What are you doing?” Isaac asked.

Noah didn’t answer. After he picked it up, he moved closer to the window to get some light. On it was written Noah - Play me. He was confused. Why would Matt leave something for him there? They were friends, sure, but nowhere close enough to warrant a private message like this. Unless… he was expecting him?

He hit the Play button. Immediately, he found himself elsewhere, or rather, in the same place at a different time. His vision blurred and shifted, becoming worryingly close to what it was in his dream earlier. The scene was slightly different. There was no broken furniture and the colors were off again. Everything was slowly spiraling before moving back to its original position at the same pace. Matt was there, soaked wet, a knife in his left hand, the recorder in his right. “Matthew!” Noah tried to call out to him without receiving an answer. The image of his friend hit the Record button.