Kat yawned as she stood at the end of her driveway, waiting for the morning bus to school. She jumped, however, when a newspaper came flying at her, hitting her square in the chest. “Hey, watch it!” she yelled at the careless paperboy, who was already speeding away on his bike.

Irritated, she picked up the paper and glanced it over. It was a copy of the Aries Valley Chronicle, a local paper that covered the goings-on in her town and the surrounding area. It wasn’t that Aries Valley was too big of a place to keep track of without a newspaper, but it was divided into four quadrants that didn’t always see or hear much of each other. North Ariesville was the main city, and a relatively busy, crowded place, and was the home of Raresyde High School. Its neighbor, West Ariesville, was essentially considered the slums—it was a cramped, run-down area riddled with vandalism and drug addicts. South Ariesville was the polar opposite, being a quiet rural area full of farms and large pieces of land on which the wealthier citizens liked to build obnoxiously large homes. East Ariesville, where Kat lived, was a small town standing slightly separated from the rest of the Aries Valley. It wasn’t perfect, but it was generally quiet, and she liked that about it. Ariesville as a whole had a reputation for being a hotspot for every kind of unusual or paranormal occurrence you could think of—allegedly haunted houses, sightings of mythical creatures, and other such stories abound. Kat chalked it up to locals with too much time on their hands spreading stories to other locals with too much time on their hands, creating a web of tall tales and misinformation.

She browsed the headlines of the paper, most of which weren’t very exciting. However, one did catch her eye, and she paused to glance the article over:

Valley Disappearances Continue

Recently, it seems that the Aries Valley--which has long been known as the home of the weird-has begun to develop a more serious affliction than the usual ghost stories. This past Wednesday, local authorities declared 44-year-old Bill Warner a missing person. According to his wife, Sarah Warner, he left for his job in North Ariesville as usual in the morning, and allegedly stayed late for a meeting. However, he never returned home that night. Investigators are searching high and low, but have no leads other than a small amount of blood found in the parking lot of his office building. It has yet to be determined if the blood belongs to Warner or not.

This is not the first vanishing act as of late, however. Approximately two weeks ago, local police also declared 20-year-old Marissa Spindle, an East Ariesville resident, a missing person. Her mother, Maria Spindle, claims that Marissa went for a walk in the woods near their home and simply never returned. She claims that this is not unusual for her daughter, stating, "Marissa has always been the outdoorsy type. She's been walking in those woods since she was little. She can't have gotten lost; she knows that forest as well as she knows the inside of our house." Upon investigation of the woods, police did find evidence of a small struggle, but no indications of Marissa being involved.

Authorities ask that local residents please report any and all information they may have about Warner or Spindle, or their disappearances, to the Ariesville Police Department (Sept. 27, 2011).

Katarina frowned upon finishing the article. She was surprised this wasn’t being covered more. She boarded the bus as it pulled up, and threw the newspaper at the half-asleep Kody. “Have you heard anything about this?” she inquired, indicating the article.

He stared at her, processing, before picking up the paper and reading over the article. Kat thought she saw his eyes widen for a split second, but they quickly returned to normal. “Nope, it’s news to me,” he said, handing the paper back to her.

“I can’t believe people aren’t talking about it more,” Kat said. “It’s not like we get a lot of disappearances around here.”

Kody shrugged. “I thought this place was supposed to just be weird.”

“Yeah, but...” Kat trailed off. “It’s just...extra weird, is all.”

“If you say so,” Kody said through a yawn. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going back to sleep. Wake me up when we get to school.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough.”