In Search of the Unknown Chaptered Version

Part 4

It was quiet today. Both Trevor and David were smoking outside. Dalen was eating food in the break room.

David became Trevor's smoking buddy about a few weeks ago. David didn't say much, so to Trevor, nothing much changed. Trevor was reclined on his lawn chair, while David sat on the ledge that led to the clearing.

"What's Dalen doing, working again?" David pondered.

"I don't know, I don't think he needs to be watched over that much, besides he would prefer to talk to us when we're not smoking" Trevor answered.

David then asked as to why Dalen would not want to be around them.

Trevor shrugged "I think it was something about reminding him of his father, but it could be he's not a fan of secondhand smoke, Asthma probably".

Trevor had known Dalen for longer and had a better understanding of how Dalen acts and why. David was friends with Dalen, it was just it had been for two years, while Trevor had 4 or even 5 from what he told. Trevor did feel like Dalen's idealism could sometimes spill into prevention, but he did not he never saw Dalen yell about things like smoking. It just made him feel uncomfortable in such a way that it would spread to you, so you would avoid putting him in situations like that.

David had his eye set on the pole in the clearing, while Trevor being accustomed to its weird effects paid no mind. David was mesmerized by the bizarre illusion.

David asked about the weird site, but Trevor had no explanation.

"Did you ever try to get closer?".

Trevor said he had no reason to.

Dalen had been thinking of hiring someone new to lighten the workload. Trevor and David were interested but felt it was Dalen's choice in the issue.

Once they came in, Dalen had a new one he was ready to research into. This one was a less well-known occurrence, but the less fantastical moments were found to be true.

Statement by Galina Turgenev

Taken from multiple Russian police files on the Cave Charlatan case.

Translated later for international study.

What occurred in that cave was quite grotesque. The life I had lived with others down in those thin corridors was of fear and a constant dread, but I survived unlike a few. I turned it into something sustainable with the people I lived with.

Here is some context for what had happened.

The family and everyone else had resided inside a little town named Ustalyy Gorod. It was an old town constructed during the Soviet era as a mining town. From what my grandmother told me; the town was doing very well for itself. We earned much from the work in the mines and were provided modern

commodities like electricity, good clothes, running water, and a sewage system. Yet once the mine ran out, a lot of people left to other places for work, and the town lost its luster. The problems we had were further exasperated by the Soviet Union's fall. Our town became overrun with crime and corruption. Soon even the systems before began to erode, electric lines were left unrepaired, and pipes rust and contaminated our water. We simply couldn't pay for all of it.

Those were the conditions I grew up in. I always had to be careful with thugs walking the streets. The mentally ill are left on the streets from the lack of government help. Their frost-bitten hands holding out to ask for things I didn't much have either.

We felt abandoned, alone in a world that no longer had a use for us. I guess that's why we were ripe to be manipulated by such a charismatic man as Michail Fil'yery.