Striation City's Killer

Chapter 1

I wake up to the repetitive blare of my alarm, chirping, or maybe bleating out the sound designed to wake me up. And it does that effectively.

I can already hear Chili's voice downstairs, presumably yelling at Cress to wake me up or something. I should probably get up quickly, Chili can be absolutely ruthless sometimes. It's part of his nature.

I quickly slide out of bed and hastily make it, before grabbing the waiter uniform that Cress ever so kindly washed for me last night, and changing into it. I get through my routine of getting changed and swiftly tidying up with almost record time. I grab a comb from the dresser and run it through my hair to make it seem more presentable. My life runs on routines, you see.

Since I'm ready, I throw open the door with an exceeding amount of drama just to make everything a lot more lively. I bolt down the stairs quickly, narrowly missing tripping.

Chili is already in the kitchen, slaving away over the stove tirelessly and Cress is setting the tables. The clock reads 7:30 on the dot. AM, of course. It's still dark outside...

"Cilan!"

Chili's voice.

"Can you help Cress set the tables?"

"On it!"

My routine is going just fine. I'll go out to the market once I'm finished with this.

It only takes a few minutes, thankfully, so I grab a basket from the counter which Chili must have left out for me to use when I go out. I stroll out the door and reflect on the town.

Striation City. Pretty much nothing special about it, except for the remains of a giant disastrous experiment and a gym that also has pretty good food. The trainer's school only gives info that your parents could tell you in 10 minutes over dinner. The only thing that really brings people here is the gym.

The market is already open somehow. It's winter and the coldest one in a while, yet people all show up when the sky is only just beginning to glow brighter to herald the day's beginning. It's currently a gradually brightening shade of indigo, but towards the east, the horizon appears to be turning yellow.

Exhaling reveals that I can see my own breath it's so cold. The market is already open, not exactly bustling but one or two people are wandering throughout the stalls, wrapped up in their puffer jackets and the like shivering. I'm mostly fine.

Routine 2 starts around now.

I wander around the stalls, which are selling everything from organic soap with Nanab extract to designer jewellery to – what I came for, fresh produce. Today they're selling purple carrots for some reason. I think I may have come a bit early for my routine.

Ah well. I buy some lettuce, cabbage and a bag of Cheri berries. It's cold but for my routine to work, I need to hang around for a bit longer. While I do, I should probably explain something.

Pokemon trainers go missing.

A lot.

You don't hear about it, of course. Trainers going off on their own and not contacting anyone for months on end usually means if they were to disappear, no one would notice or even suspect anything. Someone could die and no one would notice. I guarantee, if the champion himself was to disappear and die in a forest or drown somewhere, no one would even notice, they'd shrug and assume they went on a journey of self-discovery unless they actually saw the body – which is usually devoured by packs of wild starved Pokemon at an alarming rate.

Striation City just so happens to be a place where trainers go missing a lot, on a daily basis even. And no one notices. My whole point is that it's easy to kill someone.