I
Does anyone really know how to start a story?
I don’t.
But what I do know, is the tale of Joanna Baker, how she died, who killed her and why her last words were, “You? Of all the people, it was you?”. Sounds like a Caesar story but bear with me on this one, allow me to take you on a merry chase.
II
Mauville City is the setting, a petite little town far away from the urban life, filled with people who know exactly what goes on in each other’s lives and have developed a system that works like a well-oiled machine. Such a myriad of interwoven connections is unfathomable to a person in a big city but to the people here, they simply can’t think of any other life beyond the outskirts of Mauville. As such, when they get visitors from anywhere outside Mauville, they look at them as if they were beings from the future. As you can imagine, there aren’t many ‘tourists’ here but anyone and everyone is welcome, they treat you like one of their own as soon as you step foot in the city. Everyone has some job or the other to do in this city and there’s always some work to be done. But the people don’t care about that, they’ve been doing this for years on end now and for them there is no other life.
Now Joanna Baker has been living here for all of her 28 years, she is truly a Mauville citizen and has absolutely zero plans of going to a bigger city. The same can’t be said for her younger brother who decided he wanted to study in college elsewhere and when he took a liking to the outside world, he decided to stay there and not return. Joanna lives alone now, her parents died a few years ago in a tragic car accident which still haunts her to this day. She works as the assistant to the city’s mayor and has her own small farm where she grows some wheat for the people of the town.
III
“I’m sorry it had to end this way Joanna, you were far too close to revealing my secret and that was never going to bode well for me.”
“I’m sorry, did you say something?”, Joanna asks.
“No, nothing at all. Here have this, it’s from my oldest collection of wines. I know you love a good ol’ wine, don’t you now?”
“Now that I do. How old is it?”, she responds.
“I should imagine it just turned 30 just the last day.”
“Amazing. A toast then.” Joanna raises her glass, the other obliges as well.
She drinks it and to her surprise, the other doesn’t even put it to the mouth.
“Farewell, Joanna. You’ve made it thus far, but not a step more.”
“You? Of all the people, it was you?”, Joanna says and falls to the floor.
Joanna Baker knew she was going to die that night. Or rather, in her own words, “There is no other way.”