Reaction video

Mildred switched on one of her computers, the offline one. where she kept her personal vlog and other unshareable things like poems and private pics.
She checked the camera and the microphone, and chose her otaku sad songs playlist as background music.

“Ok… this is November 1st, it's nearly midnight, and I'm going to read Alison's diary. The last notebook.
So this is a reaction video. Right.”

She took the diary in her hands, showed it to the camera.

“Maybe it's not quite visible, but the cover is made of some black, slightly shimmery material? And there is a dragon on the cover.
“Alison has been buying the same notebooks since she was twelve. If the company that makes them goes out of business, she's going to have a nervous breakdown.”

She giggled, stopped.
The dragon, on the cover, was staring at her.

“This needs some protection” she muttered.

She lit up eleven candles, all around her room, and put eleven black peppercorns in the herb burner.

“That's better.”

She sat down again, took a deep breath, and opened the notebook.

The Dark Princess' Diary

She giggled.

“Always so dramatic.
“Let's put this in context, first.
“That new guy at the office, Finley, has found Alison's diary in Paul's desk. Strange, right? Why and when and how and who... and all the rest. That's what I want to figure out.

“The diary was in the upper right-side drawer, the one always closed with a key.
“I don't want to know how Finley trashbaby opened it. Well, I suppose Patrick and Otto gave him permission to do it. I'll ask them.

“Ok, so… Alison was one of my best friends in Junior School. I've already talked about her. Maybe not in the vlog, only in the blog… I have to check. But let's repeat things, for clarity.

“Her family moved to Sun City, when NewBryn Metropolitan Governorate decided to sanitize the docklands.
“Sanitize, what a nice word.
“That is, their plan was to vacuum the docklands from most of the remaining inhabitants. My family stayed, Alison's family moved to Sun City.
“What a stupid name, Sun City. No wonder Alison became a doomer!”

Mildred guffawed.

“I mean, when everything you see is painted in horrifying colors like bright orange and bright pink, and there is community crap everywhere…
“…babying up people is not right, I'm sorry.
“Right. To make a long story short, she met the wrong people, and… well… we didn't keep in touch.

“But, when she turned eighteen, she moved up to the docklands again. By then, the borough had become quite different. Only the old nucleus around the abandoned Pier 52 is still decent: we do our best to keep it that way. The rest is quite empty. Old warehouses and workhouses, that sort of stuff.
“Quite beautiful, actually, for those who like urban decay.
“Many urban legends. Some of them idiotic, other almost true.
“Of course, Alison went to live in the derelict part of the borough.

“We met only twice since she came back. First time, we had dinner here, at my place.
“It was awful, because at that time I was with Jim and Jim was nasty to her. He doesn't like goths, doesn't like fat girls, and made fun of Alison. He left early, thank goodness, because he was doing the night shift.
“What a jerk. At that time we couldn't stand each other anymore, or any of our friends, so it was a very bad idea to invite poor Alison to watch our delightful little wars.

“Ok. Second meeting, Alison invited me to a concert, deep in the derelict area.
“I can't even begin to describe the crowd she mingles with, it was, like, scary as hell.
“After twenty minutes, I couldn't stand it, I said I felt very uncomfortable and I left. Since then, we've talked only online, not that often, and that's all.

“Last time we talked, it was about three weeks before she went missing. She looked as usual…
“Well, maybe I didn't know her enough anymore to see any subtle changes… I don't know.
“And… there's a lot to be said… but I've talked a lot about Paul already… let's move on.

“Alright. Problem is, dear Alison had already some bad vibes with the police. Drugs, minor shoplifting, and I hope nothing worse.
“I'm not telling things the right way… I'll edit later.

“I've already talked about Pearl Island, called Brocken Island before it was bought by Kamen Leino, the quadzillionaire who tells people how to live and think and breathe and all the rest.“

“Right… Alison disappeared in June.
“Her group went to Pearl Island for a hike. They wanted to go to the northen part of the island. It's quite wild there, still covered with ancient woods, and the shoreline is cliffy. And there are caves in the cliffs. I'll upload a photo later.
“Actually, last time Alison and I talked, she told me that her friends planned to go hiking.
“I was quite surprised as they are not the type you'd associate with anything healthy like hiking and shirin-yoku, not even breathing fresh air, y'know what I mean?

“I immediately sensed they wanted to perform some stupid rituals.
“Pearl Island is packed with urban legends, it has been abandoned for decades and those kids wanted to be there for the summer solstice.
“Yeah?
“Not to watch sunsets, if you ask me.

“I tried to talk her out of it, because, the island being a private property, going there is trespassing.
“She sneered: it was forbidden, therefore it was fun. Hahaha.
“Whatever.”

Mildred sighed. The candles' flames flickered.
All at once, the eleven of them.

“My goodness.
“Must be a draft. I have to ask the janitor to fix that window.

“Ok. What was I saying? Yes.
“Now, the big question: how did Alison's diary end up in Paul's drawer?
“I know Paul is involved in unsavoury things… But it's all for research, he's not…”

She tucked her hair back behind her ears.

“He's not that sort of guy.”

She went to the bathroom, rinsed her face with cold water.
Looked at herself in the mirror while she dried her skin.
If only she didn't have to wear glasses. But even without them, her face didn't look good.
It was all edges, her lips, way too thin, like a line, her eyes, dull, her hair, even duller, smooth, dangling brownish hair that never looked healthy.

“If I make money, the first thing I'll do is a little job on the lips” she muttered.
“Ok, stop whining.“

She went back to the computer.

“Ok, what was I saying…“

She listened to the last 10 seconds.

“Right. Paul may have known Alison even before… Of course, it's not impossible.
“But Paul is at the high end of those things, while poor Alison was at the lower end. Much, much lower. High end being the layer of the powerful and educated, the lower end that of the uneducated and marginalized.

“Those things…
“I don't want to talk about them. It makes me uncomfortable. It's, like, summoning, you know? That sort of thing…”

She giggled.

“I've seen too many horror movies.
“Anyway.
“Alison went with her group to Pearl Island the 20th of June, to spend the 21th, midnight to midnight, on the island. They were supposed to come back the 22th.

“Nobody saw them again, nobody heard from them again. Phone numbers disconnected, phones untraceable, no signs of life on the internet or anywhere else since the 21th. The police brought a few dogs there to look for them: they found their camp, with the remnants of a fire and a few items. But there was no trace of violence or that anything had gone wrong.

“And, their boat was never found, therefore the police concluded the group had decided to vanish, maybe to go abroad. All of them were troubled people, to put it mildly, all of them had been arrested at least once… so, it makes sense, right?

“Right. The police asked me a few questions about Alison. Apparently, I was the only friend her parents could name. And I live right here in the docklands. That's why.
“Even Paul asked me a lot of questions. He was fascinated by the incident, said he wanted to write a series about urban subcultures in the docklands.”

She sighed.

“Right.
“I need a beer.”