It's been so long (Garten of BanBan)

chapter one

The police officers told me to just stay at home, to just let them do the work and you would be reunited with your son in no time. What a load of bullshit. One week later and you were still without your son and had heard nothing from the police, even making an effort to go into the daycare and search for evidence. They daycare couldn't have possibly been that big, it shouldn't have taken more than a day to investigate it. Now here you were, entering the doors of the kindergarten you hadn't entered since you went to drop your son off the last time you saw him. You held back your tears as you were flushed with the last memories of your precious baby boy. He was only ten, how could I have let this happen. I must be the worst mother there is.

The walls were covered with decorations of the mascot characters. You felt that there were way too many of them. Two or three would have done fine. How is a child supposed to remember all six of them? Looking around for any evidence of what may have happened to your child you spotted a key blue card on the front desk. You would need to be able to open all the doors if you were going to investigate properly so you snatched it. It immediately came in handy as across the room was a closet door that needed a key-card to be opened, a blue key-card.

In the closet was a drone, and its remote, on a pile of stacked boxes. You inspected the remote; it was relatively simple as it only had one button. It needed two batteries to use. Under different circumstances, you would have just left the drone alone and went back to your search, but you remembered that in this daycare the employees used these drones to assist with tasks. You remembered watching one of the teachers using the drone to press an out of reach button so they could open a door during the open house. The daycare had prided itself on being more advanced than other daycare centers.

There had to be a couple of batteries somewhere. Batteries were just one of those items that were so commonly used that they were put all over the place so one could find them quickly when they were needed, and you were correct to think that. On one of the tables in the cafeteria, you found two batteries. Exactly the amount you needed. On the way out of the cafeteria, you analyzed the mural of one of the mascots. This one was titled Jumbo Josh. Jumbo Josh was a large, green, somewhat humanoid, creature. He had a speech bubble that said “Eat vegetables and fruits to become strong, LIKE ME!” The mascot didn’t look as strong as it did brutish. You would hate to have an encounter with him.

You put the two batteries you found inside the remote and clicked the button, pointing at a random space. The drone flew out of the closet to the area that you pointed at. It seemed that to control where the drone went you had to point to the area you wanted to go to and click the button on the remote. That seemed fairly easy. As fun as this new little toyish-tool was, you had to continue your search. You would never end your search for a moment of fun. To keep going, you pointed at the high up button that would open the door and pressed the button on your remote to send the drone to press it for you.

When the door open you nearly jumped out of your skin. You swore you could see a bird like figure peering out at you from one of the rooms, but you couldn’t get a good look at it. As quickly as it appeared, it popped it’s head back in. Still shaky from the scare, you slowly crept up to the room and looked in to get a better look, but all you could see was darkness. You wouldn’t dare walk into there with whatever that creature was, so you opted to look into the well lit class room instead. It was bright and colorful, as one would expect a classroom in a daycare center would be.

On the whiteboard was written “The End Is Here!”, underlined twice. The handwriting was neat and legible, as if the teacher had enough time to explain what was happening to the children before they went missing. What scared you the most was how clean and organized the classroom was. All of the chairs pushed in under the table, as they should be, no papers strewn about, absolutely no sign that something bad could have possibly happened here. It sent a shiver down your spine.