I don’t think Marty’s coming back. He’s been missing for over a month now. None of the contest winners have been found either. Ten people just vanished into thin air. I really hate this. How am I supposed to keep going when everyone around me drops like flies? Is the Gazette cursed or something? It didn’t seem that way when I was hired, but it didn’t take long for things to go south.

Sarah was killed in April last year. Ash supposedly killed himself this past May, and Libby ODed on sleeping pills in August. Chuck took off at the start of July, while Coop hasn’t been seen since he attacked Marty at a restaurant later in the month. Now that Marty’s gone, it’s just me left. Part of me wants to move away and abandon the Gazette, but I have an inability to leave a mystery unsolved.

I’ve started looking into the Gazette’s archives, trying to get a better sense of who everyone was and what happened that led to the current situation. The paper was always a small town outfit, and it shows in the way it operated. I’m beginning to see the method in the madness though. It was utter chaos, but somehow, it worked.

The more I read from my late and missing coworkers, the more I wish I could’ve gotten to know them under better circumstances. They all had their foibles (some more than others), but none of them deserved their fates. I can’t help but wonder what people would think if they saw behind the curtain of my own life. Fortunately for me, I’m in charge of what they see when it comes to myself. Well…for now at least.

Would anyone care if I died or disappeared? Would someone look into what happened and try to piece together the puzzle of the Gazette’s bizarre recent history? Probably not. Why do I keep digging? It has to be more than mere curiosity. I can’t explain it. I just feel compelled to keep going. So that’s what I’ll do. And in the end, I’ll either figure it out or end up a forgotten footnote in the tragedy of the Emerson Valley Gazette.

-Quinn Paxton, Acting Editor-in-Chief, Emerson Valley Gazette