The building was dilapidated and broken. A modern mansion, white concrete and glass making up most walls. It truly was the beautiful and ugly side of the early 21st century minimalist architecture. It stayed there undisturbed by looters, scavengers, industrialists, and curious kids.

The cloaked figure had not known how long this information had been stored nor how long the building had been broken. It was a twenty minute walk back to the town they’d come from. The trial was not treacherous nor had it been found via an unusual path; mother nature had begun to reclaim what was originally her’s but there was clear indication that there was a path that lead here once. Not to mention the broken buildings that lead up to it, whatever this place was it was the centre of a town.

The buildings that surrounded it were vastly different in sizes and designs. Truly a hodgepodge of different cultures and ideas that melded into something that was probably once a bustling place were all now reduced scars in a forest clearing overlooking a lake.

The figure made it’s way back through the forested path, down the side of the motorway and into the town below. They walked through the streets as the sun began to set and the people leaving work mingled with those coming out for nightly meals, drinks, and their own shifts. They weaved through these crowds trying to get off of the high streets. Down the cobbled streets descending the slight hill the place was built upon to about halfway down the cliff face. Heading into the residential district to a detached house at the end of a road. It was a big house by standard metrics but it was not expensive or flashy. They took out a key and entered through the door.

“Welcome back Jack!” came a low but happy voice from the next room over. The door lead to a corridor, to the left a living room, to the right were a bathroom and a kitchen, and ahead were a set of stairs.

“Hey Dad!” came the voice of a young man. He took of his hood to reveal his tanned skin, dark blue eyes, and auburn hair. Upon his left shoulder was a ball of water that looked closer to melting wax. Upon his right was a small flame. Each one had a small set of arms and legs, as well as facial features.

“What have you been up to today?” Came the dad’s voice.

“We went exploring!” A tiny voice cried out, it was raspy but cute. The flame spoke.

“Yeah... in the forest.” Another small voice, this one slower and sounding like the mouth slapped with saliva. With that the three entered the room to see the dad.

Dad looked at them. He had a wide build, muscular but not very toned, almost like a labourer than a body builder. His hair was short in a crew cut and tapered into a small beard that appeared accidental rather than a choice as it was uneven. He wore a loose black band t-shirt and cargo shorts. His face had a couple scars on it, one diagonally on the left-hand side of his lip and the other cutting into his left eyebrow. “As long as Wick doesn’t get too close to the trees, I don’t want to have to put out a forest fire my sons started.”

“Don’t worry Dad, Wick and Drop stayed in my hood the entire day. Oh by the way how was Mum’s therapy today?” Jack asked, taking his bag off and putting it down on their black sofa tucked against a wall.

“She’s making progress, she spoke to her therapist today. He said she’s making breakthroughs and has suggested that in a couple weeks I could even be there with her. Speaking of, are you okay to look after her tonight? I’ve made tea you just have to serve it up and give it to her.” Dad was sullen, his voice for serious quite quickly when speaking about his wife even though he had been so cheery just moments earlier.

“Yeah that’s fine, what are you doing tonight?”

“Oh, Harry asked me to come help him on something at the police station and I owe him one for fixing our barbeque last month.” Sounding at once like this was a common occurrence that he was tired of but also something he had to do.

“Ah. That’s fair. He still got you solving cases?”

“Yeah, you think a detective would be able to do his own job.”

“Why don’t you take him up on his offer and become his partner and train him to actually do his job then?”

“That’s not a bad idea. But only when your mother gets better.”

“Dad, don’t waste your life waiting for Mum. Plus you’ve always got us around so if you need someone to help out we’re always here.” This caused his dad to tear up.

“When did you grow into such a mature young man? It was only a few years ago you were crying at the slightest thing going wrong.” He said through a resolute smile. With that he stood up, threw on a plain looking zip up and headed out into the evening sunset.

Jack spent his night looking at his phone, feeding his mother, and looking into what he had found that day. Jude Zairos’ log, it was unknown when he had left it. From the age he looked when he was recording it Jack assumed it was about twenty years ago. So he looked him up; news articles, videos, biographies all on this one guy and his guild. But they all stopped twenty two years ago. There appeared to be a big war between his guild and someone else and that had brought everything to a complete stop. Everyone disappeared. The information on the event was sparse. But this flared Jack up even more, maybe the diaries held more information, clearly that first one was recorded before everything went down but maybe there were some after. He knew he had to go back there.

And so he did, the next day of course. He found his dad asleep on the sofa, coat over himself as his only warmth. He wasn’t sure when but it seemed his sister had arrived during the night as her door was closed when he went to leave and her keys were on their key holder.

It was still early in the morning and on a weekend so he knew he had all day to watch the next one and possibly find the next few.

The sun was rising as Jack crept back through the ruins. It was eerie in this light, the sunbeams found every nook and cranny in each of the cracked buildings. Wood splintered and stone crumbled, all seen by the harsh orange light.

Then back to the guild. He used the previous cube as a map. Whereas this one was under a floorboard it seemed the best one was embedded into a bookcase. It was broken and on the ground, but one of the legs screwed off and gave way to a compartment that made the bottom shelf twice the size of the others, where another cube hid itself.

“Oh hi. This is entry two in my diary series. Please use the map function to find the first.” There he was again, it was Jude. He didn’t look any different than before. In fact it was likely the same day.