hotline anonymous

chapter 4 : of answers

She stared down at the note, her eyes seeing the typed words, but not registering them.

The daylight filtered in through her window, and the sound of chirping birds floated to her ears. Everything around her seemed to be deceptively calm and non-threatening, seeming to lull her into a false sense of security.

She knew better than to buy into it.

With a frustrated groan, she threw the note down on the bed and stormed to her window. She shut it, yanking the curtains closed, and stood there for a beat, the cloth of the curtains gripped tightly in her fists.

She released them with a dejected sigh. Looking down at her clothes, it occurred to her that she should change out of her funeral dress from the previous day. Nodding to herself, affirming her decision to do exactly that, she turned back intending to go towards her closet.

But the cursed note caught her eye again. Her feet moved, of their own accord, towards it.

Picking it up, her eyes skimmed over the words that were already painfully imprinted in her brain since she first laid her eyes on them.

Remy,

Congratulations on figuring it out. I didn't think you would get the whole 'buy the only money bank from Tim(with an e)'s store' from my vague clues, let alone know there would be a message inside the bank, but I am glad you figured it out.

I had to be vague. To protect you and myself.

But here's the fruit of your labours: Call Hotline Anonymous and ask for Blake Renedard.

He is the only one who can give you the answers that you want.

Stay safe, stay smart.

Stay you.

She rubbed her eyes tiredly, placing the note back down on her bed. When she heard the rustling noise from inside the money bank, she had had the epiphany that the note perhaps didn't mean to say time is money but rather Time's money. Like Tim(with an e)'s money. She would have thought it meant to rob Tim or give him money to tell her something, except, she had a hunch that the noise of paper moving inside the piggy bank wasn't just a mere coincidence. That the paper inside the bank was what the note wanted her to look for and find.

She had been rather pleased with herself when her hunch turned out to be correct.

But all she felt now was exhausted.

One thing after another, and now she had to call a random hotline and ask to talk to someone she hadn't even heard of before?

And say what?

"Hey. You don't know me, but I believe my boyfriend was murdered and a note from some unknown person told me that you would know why.

So ... what's up? How's life?"

Dropping her head into her palms, she sighed dejectedly. At this rate, her sanity and her interaction skills with humans seemed to be dropping speedily to a zero.

But, she reasoned despite herself, she didn't really have anything to lose.

From what she had heard, the person you wanted to talk to, via the Hotline, would never know who you are, unless you told them. If things went sideways, she could always get herself out of the situation, scot-free.

Her sanity must have hit zero if she was seriously considering doing this.

Picking her head up, she tied her hair into a bun and grabbed the note from beside her.

Walking up to her desk, she looked down at one of her many new notepads, open to the page she had glued the first note to and left to dry. Using a paperclip, she attached the note in her hand on the space below the first note, deciding to glue it later.

She squinted at the page, contemplating if she could even trust the sender.

Why would anyone want to help? More importantly, who?

She shook her head, walking away from her desk and the notepad to her armoire, deciding that some questions were better left unanswered outside her mind rather than turned into full-blown worries inside it.

Answers to all her questions were beyond overdue, but so was a shower.

Shower first, answers after, she chanted in her mind, finally grabbing a change of clothes and a towel from her closet and stepping into her bathroom.

The quietness of her bedroom, then, seemed all too much like the calmness of the sea before a storm.

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A/N: AND OFF TO PART 2 WE GOOOOOO