Kara, the waitress.

Kara is a 22 year old waitress down at the town’s Ma and Pa diner. Back when the factory was active, many truck drivers would stop at this diner for a hearty meal before hitting the road again. That was when Kara was hired to be a waitress. She would overhear some of the truck drivers talk about the rumors from the factory.

“Do you see anyone loading up your truck?”

“No, no one. It's just an autonomous pallet jack that loads up my truck.”

“Same here. That’s so strange don’t you think? Not seeing another person, A HUMAN, that works at that factory.”

“I try not to think about that man. I just got this job and it pays well. I don’t want to start peeving into stuff that’ll get me fired.”

“Well, I heard that a driver tried to get through one of the doors that the pallet jacks come through. He was able to get through, but he never came back out. Poof! Vanished without a trace. His truck was stuck there for a while and it had to be towed out of town.”

“That’s not true! I bet you tell this story to all the new truck drivers to scare them?”

“Hahaha, nah man. I’m serious!”

“Yeah ok buddy.”

This was just one of a few conversations that Kara would hear when she worked at the diner. But she doesn’t hear those stories anymore. Ever since the factory stopped producing and exporting products, the trucks stopped showing up, so the business at the diner also disappeared.

“Hey Kara.”

Kara is surprised by being called out to. She looks up from wiping down one of the booths, takes off her headphones and sees that one of the owners is there.

“It’s slow today, you can go home early.”

“Really? You sure?”

They both look around the diner and see zero customers. Kara takes a peek outside and sees that dark clouds cause an overcast. The parking lot looks just as empty as the diner itself.

“Yeah, it's okay, we can handle it here.”

“Okay, if you say so!”

Kara quickly hangs up her apron and grabs her tote bag before heading out to one of her favorite spots. Near the diner is a park that she likes to relax at, but more importantly, there is a stray cat that Kara tends to there. She sits down at a bench and sees the stray cat emerge right on que. From her bag, she pulls out some table scraps that she got from the diner and feeds it to the cat. Kara also plays with the cat for a little bit. Her favorite thing to do is jingling her keys to the cat as it swipes at it. This time however, the cat was more spry and quicker than she expected. The keys fell out of her hand to the ground where the cat started to play with them. Kara was pulling out her phone when she heard a noise that brought dread to her, a dog bark.

She looked up to see a dog in a full sprint, with its owner running after it, heading straight towards the cat. The frightened and scared cat started to flee the park, unfortunately for Kara, with her keys still in the cat’s mouth.

“NO! WAIT!” she screamed out.

Quickly she stuffed everything in her bag and followed in chase after the dog and cat. She started to run after the two animals, but after a few minutes of chase, was starting to grow fatigued. Running almost to the edge of town, she sees the cat and dog chase head directly towards the factory. They get closer and closer to the fence before the cat dives through a small hole in the fence. The dog is halted by the factory’s fence, barking at the cat that has snuck through the defenses. Kara, out of breath, stops at the fence as the dog owner also shows up to recover their dog.

Kara watches as the cat walks towards the backside of the factory and passes a corner to leave her sight. Determined to get her keys back, Kara looks at the hole that cat snuck through.

Way too small for a person, but it's a simple fence, maybe if I…

Kara thinks for a bit before wondering if some of the bars can be knocked loose to make the hole big enough for her to crawl through. She finds a brick that seems to have been left behind by the construction all those years ago. She looks at the bars and wonders if the bottom portion has rusted enough to be whacked loose. Brick in hand, she swings at the bar and with a large metal ping, she recoils back. She loads up again, swings, and another loud ping rings out. With a bit of the brick breaking apart, she arms up, and swings again. The bar finally gives in and the hole opens up further.

“YES!” She cheers.

Tossing the brick to the side, Kara is able to crawl and squeeze through the fence to arrive in a large courtyard. Standing in the middle of the courtyard, Kara feels a drop of water hit her, then another. Looking up, she sees that clouds have formed and it has begun to rain. Holding her bag above her head, Kara breaks into a run again to follow the path the cat took. She heads to behind the factory and turns the corner to see that cat hiding underneath an abandoned pallet.

“Here kitty kitty.”

She approaches the cat cautiously, seeing her keys still in its mouth. Shaken and recovering from the chase, the cat notices that it has started to rain. It runs out from underneath the pallet and heads towards a broken window situated right above ground level at the factory.

“No no no no! Not again!”

Kara is now the new chaser of this cat, but it is too quick and jumps through the window down into an unknown factory room.

“Damn it!”

She looks down at the broken window, unhappy by these strange circumstances she finds herself in. She kicks in the few remaining panes of glass before getting down and sliding through the opening into the factory.