Tuesday August 1st, 2056

Melissa is having breakfast. It's half past seven in the morning, and Andrew enters the room, with his own breakfast. Melissa gives him a quick glance as he sits down in front of her.

"I couldn't sleep." Andrew starts. "So I thought I'd get out of bed early and go for a walk."

"Don't even think about it." Melissa replies. "I know you're incredibly good at it, but don't look into it any further."

[Okay, that's a radical response, if that's even a term.]

"What do you mean?"

"The graveyard." Melissa replies. "You were always good at figuring stuff out, with little to no information."

"But why?" Andrew exclaims.

"Because I promised myself, not to talk about it except on August Sixth." Melissa cries out. "I've already broken that promise way too many times, just because of you. Everything went well before you…" She gets quieter with every word, and sighs after a short pause.

"Before me…?" Andrew asks.

"Nothing. Really. Just don't go there, go for a walk or something, but not in that area."

Melissa picks up her empty plate, and only a few minutes afterwards she leaves the house.

[She really does seem stressed out, maybe I should stop, for real. Just don't think about it, and wait for five more nights. Maybe I'll search for some more geodes today instead. It was more fun than I expected, to crack them open. Yeah, let's do that.]

He finishes up and turns on the dishwasher. After putting on his shoes, jacket and backpack, he heads outside, towards the left side of the beach this time.

Andrew arrives at the beach, where the sand sparkles in the light of the rising sun. He takes a turn right while scanning the ground for geodes.

[What am I doing?]

He comes to a stand still, and looks across the entire beach.

[I don't even see any. There aren't any stones in sight, just sand and water.]

Andrew turns around and walks past the docks to the other side of the beach. He places his hand over his face while walking.

[Everything adds up to death. Their age too, they would've been around ninety years old.]

He starts running.

[Mom, dad. Don't tell me you're both gone. I need you. You are the ones that should know where May is right now.]

He takes a turn left and runs up the hill, the same path he crossed a few days ago.

[The graveyard entrance should be around those bushes.]

He passes the bushes and takes a turn right. There, in front of the entrance, Melissa stands. With her bag in her hand, looking ready to go to work.

"Sorry." She says. Andrew looks at her in shock, breathing heavily from running.

[No… why won't she let me… I want to figure it out myself.]

"Did you find any geodes?" Melissa asks.

[The fuck does that matter, Melissa? Rajib, you're wrong. I'm not the apathetic one here.]

"Guess that's a no." Melissa says. She closes the gate of the graveyard and locks it. "I purposely opened it, on the day you passed here." She says, after turning around again.

[Why would you have access to it? Is there some other secret I don't know about you? I'm so fucking done with playing detective… I don't want to do this. Please.]

Melissa holds the key up.

"I'm actually the…"

"Does it look like I care?!" Andrew exclaims. Tears well up in his eyes and he clenches his teeth. Though he wants to say something, nothing comes to mind, and he makes a run for it.

[Melissa puts the key back into her pocket and heads towards the station.]

"Looks like he doesn't want to know. He's still as imprudent as he always was." She says to herself, as she watches Andrew run across the town. He enters the house, and Melissa turns her head to the station.

[Fuck. I needed to listen.]

"Goddamnit!" Andrew yells, as he slams his shoe to the ground.

[Why didn't I let her finish, it might have been important. I'm so fucking stupid. Christ I'm dumb. I thought I was a good decision maker, but looks like I was wrong. Very wrong.]

He places his jacket on the hook as calmly as possible, and walks up the stairs, to his room.

[I need to calm down. Calm down, Andrew, just wait… a whole fucking week.]

He falls onto his bed.

[It feels like this happens every single day. Being tired of all this crap and then falling onto my bed. I don't want this to be a treasure hunt, I never wanted to be a pirate or a detective. Imagine going through this… every day.]

[There are people that do just that, actually. They have it way worse than me, I shouldn't be complaining. Those people need the help way more than I do. Yes, keep that thought in mind.]

Andrew pushes himself up right and looks out the small, round window.

[Some aren't even able to go outside for themselves, either because of physical disabilities or mental ones. That must suck, being mentally unstable.]

[Wow, that was a bit rude of me, though, I have no idea how to say it otherwise. It just sucks. I'm lucky to have Helen, who helped me… well… get out of there peacefully. I wonder if I'm ever able to see her again. Maybe I'll give her a call if the oncoming week gets tedious to get through. I hope she's doing okay with her new patient.]

Andrew stands up and sits down behind his desk. He opens his notebook and writes down the events of today. He is already ten pages in, even though everything is in bullet points.

After about two hours of writing, reading and browsing the news on his phone, Andrew gets up and heads downstairs for lunch. He stares at his plate while eating the sandwich he made.

[Helen. You never wanted me to go, did you? If you met Melissa before, I can understand. But that look on your face right before I left the Garden, it was saying more than that. You wanted me to stay for personal reasons too, right? I noticed it in the others too. They were happy to talk to me, didn't mind filling me in on personal details, and always invited me to play games with them. You even joined us a few times, maybe once or twice actually. And now I wonder, did I want to leave? Or was I forced to?]

Andrew lets out a sigh. "That's not right."

[Telling her that would make her think I'm being abused or something. I'd think it was a cryptic letter with a secret message if I read it, even without being a detective. I shouldn't think about this too much.]

He finishes up his lunch and heads back to his room.

After aimlessly sitting in his room, for almost the entire day, Melissa calls him for dinner.

[I have to endure this, for another week. I don't know if I can, but I'm gonna try. Hopefully Melissa will be in the mood to tell me, it must suck to constantly fend me off. It must suck having me here in general.]

He heads downstairs and joins Melissa at the dinner table.

[So repetitive, doing this everyday.]

"The food's good." Andrew says .Melissa looks at him, bewildered. She nods at him as a response.

[Not even taking a compliment. Normally, you would've been ecstatic about compliments, but I guess that was taken away too. I don't get how you've changed so much, Melissa. Major personality changes aren't supposed to happen after puberty, I thought. Well, I might get an explanation for that too in a week.]

Melissa leaves the table and puts her plate, glass and cutlery in the dishwasher.

"Don't forget to turn it on, and good night." She says, as she walks past the living room.

"Good night." Andrew responds.

[That's the first time she said 'good night'. Maybe the compliment did hit her after all.]

Andrew finishes up dinner and turns on the dishwasher. He heads up the stairs and to his room, for the third time today. After quickly washing his face and putting on clean underwear, he slowly crawls under the blanket. The moon's light is shining brightly in the room, coming from the small, round window. Andrew turns his head to the wall, to not get blinded by the white light.