[img]https://i.imgur.com/aHWHQEs.png[/img]

[code]The Webb Family Coffee House [/code]

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[quote=Jen]“It’s death.”[/quote]

That made sense. Really, Charlie should’ve expected that answer. It was just a bit morbid to explicitly mark on your map. 

[color=MediumSlateBlue]“Fine by me,”[/color] Charlie held up her hands. [color=MediumSlateBlue]“I ain’t looking to go for a scenic swamp you anytime soon.” [/color]

Honestly Charlie’d never been near or in a real swamp before, she’d only ever seen them in the awful movies her dad liked to put on after a long day at work. There probably wasn’t any human sized piranhas in there, but alligators didn’t seem far fetched… Also just straight up getting lost seemed like a high risk. And getting trapped in a bog, which was a risk in some of the more marshy areas of northern Britain. 

She didn’t really need a sign meaning death or superstitions to want to stay away. 

Everyone was talking about splitting up and leads. Splitting up made sense to her, at least into smaller groups. A large group of outsiders going around asking questions would turn heads… whereas smaller groups would still turn heads, but at least they could get away easier? 

She was still considering this when Jennifer dropped a whole bunch of leads on them, one after another. It was a lot of information to take in all at once… Especially with the talk of five other girls going missing. Charlie listened to this information calmly, lips turning down into a slight frown. Five girls going missing was a lot. Wasn’t necessarily to do with them asking questions but best to remember, and be careful. 

Against whatever it was, that is. It made Charlie a bit unsettled - she dealt with a lot at work, wasn’t a stranger to injuries, aggressive people and even death but… A town where the last people had gone missing was something entirely different.

[color=MediumSlateBlue]”I’ll go to the Doctor’s office,”[/color] Charlie said, after thinking about it for a while. She wasn’t really set on going one way or another, outside of [i]not[/i] setting up the meeting with Mary-Jane, but she’d be well suited for talking to a doctor. Probably. [color=MediumSlateBlue]“I’m a nursing associate back home- uh, not quite a nurse but training to be one eventually… Well, that doesn’t really matter. It gives me something to fall back on. Maybe pretend I’m looking for a job over here or something, say mu- Eleanor recommended me.”[/color]

It wasn’t great. Charlie had never been an ideas person. Hard working, yes, but smart ideas? Not so much. 

[color=MediumSlateBlue]”If anyone wants to come with me?”[/color] She glanced around the group.

She definitely wasn’t going alone. If no one else wanted to go see the Doctor that was fine, she’d tag along to one of the other leads. She was flexible like that… outside of not being alone. With all these dangers Jennifer kept going on about that just really didn’t seem smart. 

[quote=Jen]"... Stay safe."[/quote]

[color=MediumSlateBlue]”Uh, yeah, you too.”[/color]

Was that a normal thing to say to people before going different ways? Really didn’t help with the unnerving feeling hovering at the back of Charlie’s mind, a constant sense that nothing felt quite right. It was probably just the jetlag, or the fact her mum had essentially gone missing.

Yeah, that was probably it.