0.4 Hope
Finally, Steve had gotten a clue about his brother. How could he possibly have forgotten what happened at the festival? That strange man could have had something to do with Paul's disappearance! Due to the frantic search for his brother, he never even thought about searching for a recording of the man! He hadn't even given it a single thought in these 10 years.
Steve quickly went to an internet café to start searching information about the festival that happened a decade ago. "Thank God Google exists, I wouldn't be able to live without you," he said as he quickly entered his search prompt. Some articles and comments quickly popped up on his screen.
"Best festival ever, I r8 8/8."
"The best candy stalls of the 2018 Rockville Festival, brought to you by your favorite vlogger, Amelia!"
...
"All these articles are so boring..." he sighed.
It took Steve 20 minutes of scrolling through the endless results pages until he finally found something interesting. He found a forum post about a person having trouble remembering getting outside of the festival.
"Hey guys, this might sound weird, but... My friends and I were walking towards the exit of the festival, and none of us can recall what happened... All of the sudden we were at the exit, the four of us looked extremely confused. It seemed like people around us were confused as well... Anyone had a similar experience?" said the OP, Eye Brow Man.
IAmMasta and GrandpaTheOldGuy were the only ones that responded, but they reported similar experiences. All of them couldn't recall what happened around 4:15 p.m.
Steve recalled this must have been around the time they saw that strange man. Tons of questions popped into his mind...
Did nobody hear that man's weird screams? Did no-one record him? Would nobody remember that they ran towards him? ... Who is that guy?!
The biggest question he had, however, was why he and his brother weren't affected by the man's weird behavior. Why were they not affected by those shenanigans?
He figured he was on to something! He immediately started searching around for more results. To his surprise, he found similar events happening all over the world! People were reporting memory loss at big events, especially festivals. A casual reader stumbling upon these forum-posts might think they just got hungover and forgot whatever they were doing, but Steve knew better.
He noticed there were several cases where this happened in the last decade. Moreover, he observed that half of the time, some kids went missing the days it happened!
"Those motherf**kers!" he couldn't help but shout out loud, as he figured they were a bunch of kidnappers.
"Heh, did that guy lose his bronze promos or something... " said a neckbeard out loud. Quite a few of the other café's clients snickered at that comment. The neckbeard scratched his hairy butt after enjoying the attention his glorious joke got, then continued playing his game.
Steve wasn't paying attention to him though. At this point, his brain was working at full capacity. A thought suddenly popped up in Steve's mind.
According to Anna... They drive around in a carriage... They have strange faces, me and Paul saw that as well... They go to festivals... So in the end... Could I try and find them?! And their carriage just passed by! They must be going to some festival nearby!
"Hey boss, is there a festival coming up here soon?" Steve asked the café's boss.
"Can't you read kid? Town's full of those posters! The festival is going on already, you better hurry up if you don't want to miss it!" he said.
"Right now? S**t!! I hope I don't miss it!" he shouted while running out.
"Hey!! You still have to pay!! Get back here!!" the boss shouted, but that kid was already gone. He thought he recognized that kid though, but where from?
"He even left his luggage, what a weirdo," he mumbled.
"Heh, that guy must've ragequitted," the neckbeard said. Bronze is a hell on earth indeed!
---------------
Not even 20 minutes later, Steve arrived at the festival. He hoped he would still be on time. If he missed this opportunity, he would probably never see the carriage again! He was lucky enough to see Anna and the carriage today, he had to embrace this chance.
After entering the festival, he quickly ran around the place looking for the carriage and the man.
He ran around, frantically searching for any clue! After 2 hours, however, he still hadn't found a before he started thinking he was being delusional.
What am I even doing here? I got caught in this f**king trap again, worrying about Paul.. I should've just stayed at home... How could I have been so stupid? Of course coming here would make me feel like I actually have a chance of finding him again... Let's just get the hell out of this shithole!
That's when he heard it though. The same weird, loud noise he heard 10 years ago.
'That's it!', he thought as he ran towards the noise.
As he started approaching the source of the noise, he noticed how people were running towards the same direction. It once more gave him a feeling as if the people were possessed, trying to reach the man.
Weirdly enough, Steve noticed a kid running away though, seemingly not affected by the strange spell.
"Would that kid get abducted too, just like Paul was?" he thought. "Should I follow that kid, or go take a closer look at the man?"
"Thinking back to what happened to my bro, I should follow the kid. Besides, if that man saw me, he might get suspicious!"
He then decided to follow the little kid home, and wait and see if he would get abducted.
Luckily, following the kid home wasn't too hard. He only lived a 15 minute run away from the festival. Steve quickly thanked God for that, as he wasn't in the same shape he was 10 years ago. He quickly hid in a bush nearby the kid's house as he started looking out for a carriage. He swore to himself that he wouldn't let this kid get abducted!
Just when he started thinking he made the wrong choice of following the kid, a carriage finally arrived in the street. This wait in a bush cost him the three most boring hours of his life.
"I was right," he thought, "kids able to resist that weird noise, get a visit at night! Let's see what happens next..."
Steve was being careful not to get caught. If that man saw him, he had no idea what would happen. This could be the last chance he had to find his brother.
A man came out of the carriage. He was tall, but above all... he had a deformed face.
"It's him!" Steve muttered under his breath. he could tell this person was the same one that they had met at the festival a decade ago.
Just as the man got of the carriage, Steve saw the man turning into the little kid he saw earlier. His size, his face, his skin color... everything changed. The tall man he saw earlier was no more, he had morphed into the little kid! Steve even thought he had a cute face right now.
"Anna wasn't lying either when she said she saw is outside, it must've been two of these strange men! This is honestly so bizarre, it could be straight from a novel! Ahh, wouldn't it be amazing if I could become an MC with a grandpa like in those novels as well!" he started dreaming.
Steve quickly calmed down, as this wasn't the time to start dreaming. He saw the morph-kid going into the house.
Steve wanted to follow, but he was actually about to shit his pants. He didn't know what else that man was capable of. He was frozen with fear, so he decided he should just keep looking at what was happening. After waiting for 5 minutes, a kid came out of the house.
The question was, was this the morph-kid or the real kid? What happened with the other one?!
The answer became clear pretty quickly though. The kid snapped his fingers, and a huge purple vortex materialized out of thin air! The kid then went into the carriage and drove it into the vortex. The carriage disappeared from the street.
Steve was stupefied.
What is that purple thing? Is it a black hole? It just swallowed that huge carriage!
"Well, seems like I have two choices. Either I quickly go into that thing and follow it... Or I forget I've ever seen anything like this..." he pondered as he walked towards the purple vortex.
The vortex suddenly started shrinking quickly. "Well, it's now or never..." he thought, as it was also the last chance he'd ever get to find his brother.
When the vortex was about to close, he quickly poked a finger into the vortex and immediatly got sucked into it completely...
The street was dark and soundless, as if nothing had happened at all...
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone