Greg's Shithole

Chapter One

Greg Heffley didn't really know where this day would take him. It was almost midday and he still hadn't decided to do anything more than sit in his room and stare at his aquarium. He watched Rodrick's fish swim back and forth, back and forth. He had put his desk lamp up to it to see if it would bother the fish. It didn't. Although he had had it for a couple of years, Greg had yet to find out what species Rodrick's fish was, it's sickly green scales shone from his desk lamp. It's long, razor-sharp teeth poked menacingly out from its mouth. It slowed it's pace, soon stopping adjacent to Greg, turning its head towards his face and stared at him. Its soulless dark eyes bore into him. Greg shivered.

Creepy. He looked away from the aquarium.

He considered calling up Rowley Jefferson to hang out, who was probably wondering why Greg had cut communication him but recently he had been too nervous to face his best friend. He didn't really know why, but he didn't want to dwell on it at the moment. His next option would be to hang out with Rodrick. Their relationship over the years had become less strained as they grew older, the boys slowly becoming closer and comfortable with each other. But recently, Rodrick had changed, becoming bitchier and secluded, so Greg passed on the idea. He sighed. Maybe he would walk around, explore the unexplored parts of this side of town.

He looked around his room, trying to spot anything he'd need to bring with him. After a couple seconds of looking around, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Something was sticking out of a pile of clothes.

Greg got up from his chair, grabbing a pencil and began to slowly move towards it. After all, Manny or Rodrick had been known to put weird things in the hidden parts of his room. Manny would usually throw sloppy food somewhere, but Rodrick would do pranks. Because of this fact, Greg always knew to approach these certain objects slowly. Once he had reached the pile, he quickly pulled back the sweater covering the object with a pencil, revealing a broken drumstick. He sighed in relief, bending down to pick it up but he stopped.

Upon closer inspection, he had come to find a metal rod sticking out of the snapped part of the drumstick. The end of it was sharpened and definitely would do some harm. The drumstick was also dirty to the point where Greg didn't want to pick it up. So, he grabbed a dirty shirt and went to throw out the stick in the garbage, not in the mood to think about what he had just seen.

On the way to the washroom, Greg slammed into a tall figure. Rodrick. He looks down at the drumstick and growled, "Where did you get that?"

"I found it in a pile of clothes in my room. Did you put it there? I really don't think Manny would do this type of crap." Rodrick huffed in reply, not saying anything else. Instead, he swiftly moved towards Greg, snatching the drumstick out of his hand and pushing him to the side to head down the stairs. Greg, although growing suspicious, just sighed to himself, not motivated enough to pry on the situation and followed Rodrick downstairs.

Rodrick had walked out the backdoor, his mom attempting to ask where he was going but huffed and went back to what she was doing when she got no reply. Deciding against following in Rodrick's footsteps, Greg yelled that he was going for a walk to his mom. His mother walked towards him and frowned, "you be safe alright?" Greg's face twisted into one of confusion, his mom noticed and continued with, "kids like you have been ending up missing these past few weeks. I wouldn't want you to end up as one of them."

Greg frowned, he had forgotten about that. His childhood bully, Patty Farrel had recently gone missing. Kids in his town had started to go missing more frequently, and every time a kid had gone missing, everyone in his town was made aware. Noticing his mom's look of concern, he smiled and reassuring his mom he would be okay. After receiving a hesitant okay in reply, he walked out the front door. As he walked down his front steps, the Loded Diper van revved out of the driveway and sped down the street. I wonder what he's up to, Greg thought to himself.