Fanatic ⇒ Only Murders In The Building

08 → Hello Darkness

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'Hello Darkness'
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Sirens whirled outside while the four podcasters panicked in the booth cloaked in darkness.

"We need to get to Lucy. She's at my place all alone. If the killer is after her..." Charles told the group. The older man was exerting a lot of nervous energy. Understandably so, but Callum could feel the panic rise between the group.

"Wait. Lucy? Your semi-stepdaughter?" Marv interjected. The Brit almost jumped in his seat at his sudden appearance.

"Not now, Marv. We're in crisis mode," Oliver scolded.

"Is the whole city blacked out?" Mabel asked the group.

"The eastern grid probably went down," Marv guessed and weirdly Callum seemed to believe him.

"Maybe they just blew a fuse in the kitchen," Oliver suggested otherwise. "I had a complicated order."

"Then why is it f*cking dark outside?" Callum argued, gesturing to the thick darkness outside the diner.

"Message from ConEd. Whole tristate area is out!" An announcement came from one of the staff, candles already in hand.

"See? I do know what I'm talking about sometimes," Marv said, directing his conformation towards Oliver.

"I don't have service. Does anyone have service?" Charles yelled out to the whole of the diner in his panicked tone, waving around his phone as though it would help him.

"Somehow I do. You can—" A scowl grew on Callum's face as he saw the first notification on his phone.

C.Davies

Blackouts crazy
Hope youre safe x

Callum groaned in annoyance and swiped left on the notifications to deal with them later. "You can try calling Lucy but I don't know if it will work," the Brit warned Charles as he heard other customers in the diner try and fail to contact loved ones. Charles grabbed the phone anyway.

"I have service. I just got an email," Oliver announced before his eyes widened. "Oh my god. It's my DNA results. Click here to get the answer you've
been waiting for all your life. I'm clicking. I'm clicking It won't load. F*cking hell!" he yelled in frustration as Mabel and Callum glanced at each other, probably thinking that Lucy's safety trumps Oliver's DNA results.

"Cell towers will be jammed. Everyone trying to connect with everyone else all at once," Marv informed the podcasters, despite Charles still dialling Lucy's number.

"I hate blackouts," Charles said, bringing the phone away from his ear and leaning closer to Callum and Mabel. "There's a thin line between civilisation and chaos, and that line is electricity."

"We have to get to the Arconia to find Lucy before anyone else does," Mabel interrupted Charles' rant with reason.

"Can I...walk you guys through my Sixth Avenue Slasher theory? I know you're stuck right now and..." Marv began but the four podcasters already began to move out of the booth.

"No time, Marv."

"Mav, you're a sweetheart but we need to find Lucy." Callum reworded Charles' words to sound less blunt.

"Yeah, and we're not stuck, okay?" Oliver argued when he passed the man. "As you can see, we're on fire."

"Mr. Putnam, wait!" Ivan called out from the counter. When the group turned around, they saw he was carrying a try of dips. "The fridge is out. These dips,
they're just going to go bad. No charge, please. You'd
be doing us a favor."