RESEARCH ( barry berkman.. ) ✔

o39. cleveland prodigy..

Cleveland. When you have seen enough in life, you'll realize all cities are generally the same. They all have streets, they all have people commuting between odd and bored buildings, following dreams and hopes conditioned by the societal rhythm which dictates the course of life through the specs of expected behavior and standards. If you're really a travel fanatic though, then perhaps you'd already know Cleveland has been in top twenty least safe cities in America for a while now. A man shot on the street while walking, gunshots near gas stations and unusual crimes are becoming quiet static noise to the major city of Ohio.

Adelaide Grayson landed in this mess of a banal city, furthest north she's ever been, immediately being let in with the single conclusion to learn from: if you have enemies to overpower, send them on a four hours flight in economic. Her head was holding a pulse of its own, a scream for help of her brain to rather stop for a coffee, not follow the directions Monroe Fuches had given her already.

Her single gram of ration was playing on repeat the record of the trust shared between her and Barry when this plan made the cut. Their lives depended on her not caving in to these manipulation techniques and instead, act as strong as ever. It was just like swimming a couple of laps: she had to swim through this momentary discomfort, holding her breath, deliberately suffocating until the time was dynamically right to allow a resurface.

The only nervous tick she could not pause until arriving at the destination, carrying her single small hardly travel-sized bag, was checking the time on her phone. It took her twenty minutes to get to Fuches' location and close the door on a beautiful sunset over a city stirred alive. Their meeting point was an empty office, with entry on a side alley, open for renting now that the marketing company which invested in it before had given up the God forsaken business.

What they left behind was the mess in which Adelaide walked into. It looked like an empty hall, all its windows covered with yellow paper, diminishing any sort of light which would make the sight less desolate. The office had a small kitchen with no running water and a hotel fridge which ran on electricity which it could not gain from the painted over socket behind it. It smelled of rats and piss, vaguely due to the open bathroom door.

To Adelaide's shock, stepping closer, she realized it was not the bathroom's fault, because save for cobwebs, it was as new as you could get in such a low construction. Disgusted, she realized she should probably watch her step over the half printed documents scattered as a blanket on the floor.

"Alright, Fuches, I am here," she called. Her hands hid away in the large black coat and Adelaide's chin raised up to see one working camera. A blinking red light was registering all which happened in this particular room, around the entrance. "Considering this is your hometown or whatever, I expected a better welcome than whatever this is. Should I open up that fridge already or wait for a jump scare around the corner?"

"Damn," the old man's head poked out around that corner, making Adelaide flinch. Behind the clean bathroom and through the office kitchen, to the left was another door, leading to another room, from which, Fuches has only half way stepped out. "You talk a lot," he noted, measuring her from head to toe, then entering that secondary room again.

It was the only que Adelaide could hope to receive in following him. Finally, she has stepped in a cleaner side of this filthy place. There was a metal framed bed in front of the doorway covered with not a proper door, but a hanging cloth, washed out red. Fuches was the type of short man whose hunched back has taken from his height with the advancing through the years and standing beside a multifunctional cupboard made him look particularly small.

Facing the villain in your life outside of fiction was underwhelming. There was no epic music, just tension making your knees quiver in the silence filled for Grayson and Fuches by only the boiled water. The steam was clouding over his scarred cheek while the hot addition turned instant coffee from two cups into a nice scent to fill the room with.