What Happened In Praia de Luz? // tom harlock ✅

Section One: Replication

Tom pulled his camera out of his backpack and shot some video of the view from the patio of him and Lilli's holiday apartment. The swirl of colors in the sunset made him feel like he himself was sitting there painting it. He felt like Bob Ross, to be specific. His niece was on her phone, hanging upside down while trying to find a good Instagram angle.

While Tom filmed, he felt a small inkling of a spiritual transcendence to just a little over eleven years ago - the night that three year old Madeleine McCann was kidnapped from the very hotel room they stayed in. He could almost hear the police wandering up the street, yelling her name, while dragging search and rescue dogs behind them. Being here completed the picture for him, but as for the answer to the title of his Youtube video, "What Happened To Madeleine McCann?", it was still a mystery. One that they were there to find out the answer to.

The uncle and niece were also there to attend a Harry Styles concert, but their primary focus was on the mysterious events surrounding Maddie's disappearance. (Lilli also wasn't that interested in the concert, as it was Tom who was dying to see the British singer live.)

"Your phone's goin' off." Lilli said, chucking the smartphone at him. Tom glanced at the clock, and the red numbers confirmed that it was 8:30.

"I'm going to the Tapas bar." Tom said, grabbing his jean jacket, despite the fact that it was June and Lilli tried to make him leave it back home. "I'll be back around 10."

"Okay. Thank god there's wifi." Lilli snuggled into the covers of the bed that once held the small three year old, and Tom left the apartment, wondering if it would be the last time he saw his niece. He certainly hoped so, because he watched a lot of hostage films in preparation for this trip, and he didn't want that to be all for naught.

He got a table, although it was not the same one that the Tapas 7 and the McCanns sat at, so that they could have an unobstructed view of their holiday apartment. That pissed him off, but he figured he'd deal with it. He ordered some light appetizers, and he ate super slowly to pass time quicker.

At 9:05, he went back to the apartment, and checked on Lilli. The sun had set now, but somehow it was hotter, and Tom left his jean jacket on the bed in his room. Lilli was alive, well, all that jazz, watching T.V. and playing on her phone. He went back to the Tapas bar after that, ate more food, had an extreme amount of lemonade so that he wouldn't drink alcohol. He was basically made of lemonade that night; it flowed through his veins.

At 9:30, he checked on Lilli again, and the conditions were the same. He found his hopes underestimated, and she began to get slightly concerned with the fact that he had to come physically check on her, when he could just text her from the Tapas bar, which was only 55 meters away, roughly.

He cut himself off from lemonade, deciding to let it all run through his system before heading to bed as soon as he got back. He got all sweaty, watching the clock tick closer to ten. He was extremely worried about Lilli, and he ran back to the apartment at 9:59. "Are you alright? Are you okay?"

"Tom? Is this some sort of weird Maddie McCann stuff? You said we'd start the investigation tomorrow."

"It's nothing." He started getting ready for bed as he went around the apartment, making sure all of the doors and windows were locked up tight. And as he lay there in bed, Lilli in the other room, still awake, he realized that he wanted another lemonade.

A/N: Thanks for reading, just wanted to say that while I was writing this, I found out that Tom's birthday is ten days after mine (not that we're anywhere close to the same age), and I think that that's cool. 

-Kate ^-^