Escape from Starr Park

Chapter 15: Back to Square One

Team Recap! The group has been reduced to Colette, Edgar, Meg, The Wild West Trio and Arcade Trio. The rest have been staying at their station they chose so that more ground could be covered with this mystery.

"Colette!" Edgar yells out as he comes out of the staff only room with a box of VHS tapes used to play videos on the shop's Television. "We should inspect these tapes, that television is what got us to start this journey in the first place." Colette nods, as she walks over to Edgar, starting to help him with the tapes. "I don't think any of these made the television lag in the first place."

"I mean, they probably hacked into the network or something." Edgar starts hitting his head. "What was the TV showing back then again..?? I think I forgot." Colt approaches the two to see what they're up to. "Colt, do you remember what was on the television in the first place?" Edgar asks. Colt thinks for a second, trying to recall his memory. "I can't remember much myself.."

Colt tries his best to remember, "It was surely an unsettling video, it kept chanting 'This is normal', and it some how sparked something in me." Spike then comes in, unable to speak, but he still tries to communicate with the others with sign language and body signals. "I know you're trying to help, but it'd be hard if you can't speak." Edgar says, continuing to rummage all of the tapes.

"Can one of you check on the TV, I'm pretty sure there isn't a live mode on there." Colette asks one of the remaining brawlers that aren't doing anything. Meg waves her hand up, signaling Colette that she volunteers to check on it. Colette replies with a thumbs up, approving of her request. Meg walks over to said television to inspect it. "Sooo, what happened to it?"

Colt looks over to Meg, "Honestly, I don't know myself, even as a witness." Meg tries to see if it has a menu, she tries pressing the buttons, though the same screen saver would play no matter what. "Maybe the tape you played at the time was changed without you knowing?" Meg states her theory. "That can't be the case! It was playing just fine before that!" Edgar replies.

The group tries to make theories on what could've happened back then, throwing back to every major event prior to now as evidence. "You... You think they're still watching us?" Brock suddenly exclaims, you can hear the fear in his voice. "What do you mean?" Colt asks. "I remember back at the arcade. They said they were watching us." Brock replies.

"They did say that." Colette thinks about it for a second. "I don't know if they're specifically watching us, or any other group since we did split up." Meg tries to calm everyone down. "We don't know how much power they actually have... Right??" Everyone stays silent. Meg sighs "This is a real difficult mystery. No one I know has some detective powers or something..."

8-bit tries to plug in the wire from his back into the TV, thinking that he could copy its data. He pushes the buttons multiple times, trying to look through the files. "Is that an idea of yours?" Meg asks 8-bit. He doesn't respond, for he only speaks in game quotes. Everyone looks at his screen "It looks like all the data he got is just from the Shop's tapes..."Colette observes.

"You guys should really invest in Live TV for the shop. Haha!" Shelly laughs from the corner "I highly doubt Griff would allow us." Edgar responds. They continue looking through the files, after further investigation, there is one out of place file. "Oh, what a coincidence. Let me guess, it's the file with the video that first got us on this adventure." Edgar says sarcastically.

After a long session of static, which is part of the video, it plays. "I knew it!" Edgar exclaims. "Now that I think about it, we never watched the full thing." Colt says, observing the timeline bar in the bottom. "Oh yeah... That was a giant bit of evidence we ignored..." Colette looks at the timeline as well. They fast-forward past the part they've already seen, until something new comes up.

The video seems really old, like it was made a long time ago, though that doesn't change the fact that it's still potential evidence. "What is this magical place?" The video pans into the entrance labeled 'Starr Park'. Everyone there seems confused, they paused the video to think and theorize for a bit. "Isn't this place right now called 'Starr Park'?" Colette asks everyone else.

"I mean, this IS the STARR PARK Gift Shop." Colt answers. "Let's not get to conclusions yet." Meg exclaims. "There's still the entire video to watch. We should piece together all of it after." "I guess you're right." Edgar replies. As they continue playing the video, a feeling of Deja Vu appears. "Hold on..." Edgar gets his face closer to the screen. "Isn't this..."

"It's footage from the old tapes we used go collect!" Meg points out. "You're right!" Colt replies. "I think you guys said something about them back at the arcade." Brock says, not knowing much on what they're talking about. "Coincidentally, you were added once they stopped using tapes." Edgar responds to Brock. "Haha! Bad luck there!" Shelly laughs.

"Oi, you were there with me too! You hypocrite!" Brock yells at Shelly. "Calm down guys!" Colt tries to break a potential argument. "Just focus on 8-bit's screen." "Fine. I guess." Shelly says. As it continues, multiple pieces of evidence was found, from the potential origins of some brawlers previously met, to suspicious acts and moments in the video.

They use this to their advantage and develop theories. One scene catches everyone's attention in particular. "Look at this Happy Family enjoying one of our cutting-edge attractions." As the video plays, a quick story is played alongside it. "Is that Leon and Nita?" Colt exclaims. "We've seen other brawlers being depicted here, but..." Shelly adds. They watched as the 4 reduced to 2.

"I..." Brock stutters out. "Hold on guys, we have lots of important points in that video, let's analyze first." Meg exclaims, as she makes 8-bit pause the video. "We've seen people that look like us in the video, and it's safe to say that they are employees of Starr Park." Meg starts "And they potentially used employees and maybe even guests to put them into this world."

"Yeah, but how did they build this world in the first place? And how do we leave it?" Colt asks. "The leaving part is something I'm not sure about yet. Though, I believe that model building in the video is how this place is created." Meg continues piecing together the clues. "Wow! You're real smart!" Colette compliments Meg "I would've taken a day or two to figure that out!"

"Thanks. I guess?" Meg responds as she reviews the evidence, continuing to try and get a hypothesis. "We'll need to figure out how they get real-world people into this virtual world, from there, we can potentially learn how we can leave, and live our true lives." Meg exclaims. "Though I don't know what evidence there is to help us." Everyone thinks about the next step for a while.

After a good second, someone states their idea. "Why don't we find Nita and Leon, and see if they remember anything about that ride?" Shelly suggests "Eh, I doubt they'll know anything about it though." Brock says. "It wouldn't hurt to try?" Meg shrugs. After some consideration, Brock finally agrees. "Alright!" Colette cheers. "Let's get going!" She proceeds to leave the shop.

Meg, Spike, Rico and 8-bit decide to stay behind, while they still try to make up theories, they expect the other 5 to come back with new clues from the Shaman Trio.