Lockdown: The Arcadia Diaries

Gratitude and grief

Present day...

Rome, Italy

June 3, 2020

Valeriana Moglia

"So after the police took us off the boat, we were taken to the police station, where we gave our statements," Isabella says to Carla and Annibale. "I think our tale gave the police officers quite a night. I mean, corroborated with the footage that we shot, I think we had some of those policemen quaking in their boots."

"I can imagine," Carla replies. "So where is the footage now? Do you know what happened to anyone who survived in that town?"

At this point, Anna Seals joins the chat. "I think I have the answer to that. Hi, sorry I'm late."

"Ah, you are just fine," I reply, before introducing Anna to Carla and Annibale.

"Hi," Anna says awkwardly to Carla and Annibale, who just wave. "So, you wanna know what happened with Arcadia after we got out of there? Well, the details are a bit hazy. We heard on the news that the US government sent in dudes with hazmat suits to quarantine the town. The rest is unclear, but judging by the fact that they cut the town off from the outside world, the US government apparently tried to bury the incident entirely. I think our footage-Isabella's, Terra's, Kyle's, Faith's and mine-we're the only people with actual footage of the incident. Supposedly the government confiscated the cameras of everybody else that remained in that town, and then made everyone sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement."

"But you escaped the town by that point already," Carla notes. "So you did not have to deal with your own government making you sign a nondisclosure agreement."

"Thankfully, no," Anna says. "But with the help of Kyle Bates and that website called DECLASSIFIED.ORG, all of our footage from that night was eventually posted online. I think Kyle was thinking of assembling a team of hackers to investigate what happened to everybody else's cameras..."

Gemma Sayers is the next person to join the chat. "Hi, guys! Gemma here. If you're wondering what happened to everyone else in the town, yes, they confiscated all the cameras from people who survived, yet for some reason chose to stay in the town."

"Where did you hear this from?" I ask Gemma.

Gemma takes a deep breath before replying. "My dad. I told him what happened after we got out of Arcadia; he started wondering where we'd absconded off to. I had to tell him about how Mitchell, myself, Theresa, and Shannon-how we went out on the pier. He was pissed about me hanging out with Mitchell again, but after he saw the footage of what went down at the pier, he had a lot of questions."

"I bet," Anna says softly.

"But looking back, I wish I hadn't shown him the footage," Gemma continues. "Because, I heard that three days after I showed him the footage, he got a knock on the door and next thing you know, he was talking with a dude in a black suit who basically tried to blackmail him into staying silent about the contents of the footage before confiscating it. He then comes back at me, asking me a load of questions about what happened on July 4th, because he's hearing from the neighbors that the government is going around taking away everyone's cameras, making everybody sign nondisclosure agreements or blackmailing people into staying silent about the events that transpired in that town-very suspicious stuff. I even heard they tried to bribe people into staying silent. I told Dad everything that happened in the town-literally everything that transpired after Mitchell's death, and after I met you guys at the hospital, the whole story. Next thing you know, three days I get a call from my mom saying my dad was found dead in his office and that the police are saying he offed himself. The first thing I did was to tell Kyle, and he immediately suspected something fishy was going on. He then told Charles, which led to him thinking the government was hiding something."