With the early morning shot that nearly took the life of Fred Andrews, Brooke Holliday knew that true evil was beginning to seep into the once safe town that she'd always known. And with the surface of the mysterious and vengeful Black Hood came the...
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One The Shot Heard 'Round the Town
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Mornings were supposed to bring about change. With the end of one day and the beginning of another, the fall of the moon and the rise of the sun, each and every day was supposed to offer change. They were supposed to offer new experiences, offer opportunities to shift the world and make up for the misgivings of the past.
But not all were so lucky.
In the town of Riverdale, the arrival of new mornings did little to change the ways of the town which was, at its heart, a most terrible place. Its residents could plaster on brilliant smiles and live in their storybook houses with freshly manicured lawns and white picket fences all they wanted. But in the end, it would only ever be a facade. It would only ever be a mask that did very little to hide the skeletons buried deep in the closets or the web of lies that entangled each and every citizen of the town.
Things hadn't always been so grim in the town of pep, but the past few months — past few days even — had seen more darkness swarming its way through the town than ever before. It came quickly and quietly, the way a predator hunted its prey in the dead of night. It seemed as if the light in the town had been snuffed out, with the final nail in the coffin coming with the reveal that Jason Blossom had seen his own father on the other end of the gun that had ended his life.
There was no question now that, in a town where a father could so easily take the life of his son, Riverdale had lost all hope for salvation. An eerie danger blanketed itself over the town with reckless abandon and there was no longer a question of when they would recover. Instead, the only question was when that danger would suffocate them.
That was the idea that Betty Cooper had posed only the night before, at the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Jubilee. Betty was one of the few in the town who was beginning to see Riverdale for what it really was — an evolving nightmare that was threatening to combust the town at its seams. Her words, although ones that no one wanted to hear, seemed to resonate with everyone present at Town Hall.
Because the truth was that Betty was right. If they didn't begin to face the reality of who they were and what this town was, darkness would swallow them whole. If they didn't stop the lies that seemed to embed themselves into the walls of the houses they lived in and into the grounds that they walked upon, something terrible would happen again. Another Jason, another headstone, another memorial. Another tragedy.
Riverdale needed to do better.
And many had thought that with the hope that Betty seemed to instill within the people at the Jubilee, that Riverdale would do better.
