When Hope Dies

Nothing But Rumors

A/N: as I begin writing this, the Coronavirus has cancelled school. Now I'll really have time to update whenever I want. Also, <~ ~> indicates a skip in time.

Your P.O.V.

I smiled to myself as I scrolled through the scenic pictures I could choose for my new laptop background. Such gorgeous places. How was I ever going to pick one? There was a beautiful glacier mountain from a national park. Oh! And this one of the Amazon rain forest! What about this one? It had a very pretty river.

       "Aren't you supposed to be working, (L/n)?" My boss' voice cut through my thoughts, making me nearly fly out of my seat. Mister Robert Carlen. My boss. I had a simple office job, seeing as my vlogging and internet reporting was not taking off. I didn't expect it to, but I'd be happy if it did.

       "Sorry, sir... I just thought I'd find a new wallpaper in the last minute of my break." I said, straightening my shirt. He let out an unconvinced 'hmph' and walked away. Letting out a sigh, I decided I'd find a wallpaper later. I could use this time to check Twitter.

       My name's (Y/n) (L/n). I'm 26 years old and I'm attempting to go back to college. I live in Boise, Idaho with my best friend, Annita. But she hates that name and prefers to be called Ann. We have an apartment together, sharing rent and utilities. It makes life easier. My main joys in life are working on my vlog channel and writing articles and reports online. After telling my mom, she made me promise not to quit my day job. She didn't have faith in this taking off or even working out for me. But I couldn't give up on what I wanted to do. So I didn't. I did keep my day job though. Just in case.

       After checking Twitter and putting some videos in my Watch Later playlist on YouTube, I went back to work. Stupid boring desk job. Filing reports, calling clients, filing clients reports. Rinse and repeat, wait until 5 P.M. for my shift to end. I always leave as soon as the clock hits 5. If I get home before 5:30, I have time to shower before dinner. Luckily, today was a good traffic today.

Parking my car in the apartment parking garage, I climbed the stairs to my shared apartment and found the door locked. Ann wasn't home yet. I unlocked the door and went in, walking straight to my room. I set my things on my bed and went to the bathroom to shower. I quickly showered and dressed in pajamas, ready to hop into bed even though it was barely 5:40. Grabbing my laptop from my room and a bag of chips from the kitchen, I took myself into the small living room and plopped down onto the couch.

I opened up my laptop and was able to watch a few of the videos I had put into my Watch Later before my phone buzzed. It was Ann. Rubbing the crumbs off of my hands, I picked up my phone and checked the texts.

Ann: you'll be eating dinner alone tonight, I work late. But you have got to check this out. It's totally something you could drive to to check out

The next text was a link to an article about Hope County, Montana. Huh. Never heard of it. Mapping out the route I'd need to take, my eyes widened. Something I could drive down to? It was a more than 10 hour drive! I didn't have money to do that. Or time.

Me: no thanks, Ann. I don't have gas money for that. And I still have work you know

Ann: I know, I know. But still! Some freak cult kidnapping people? This is totally within your area of reporting on!