"I knew (F/N) too." The male looked stressed and avoided eye contact as he was speaking. "We were close actually. I doubt she mentioned me. Our friendship wasn't of the normal variety." He gave a small smile and took a weak sip of water. "We had worked together on some personal projects; we made a great team. We both knew we could rely on each other when the goings get tough. That kind of reliability is hard to find in my work. (F/N) was one of the good ones."

     (Y/N) and the man were sitting on the edge of the park's fountain. He looked shaken up: dark bags under the eyes, disheveled clothing, and he kept making small twitchy movements. Last time she had seen him he looked normal. A small part of her was concerned it was her fault he looked like this, it wouldn't really be her fault of course, but she worried that bringing up these old memories were damaging him.

     "We played detectives just like you are now. We told ourselves that we knew what we were doing, we insisted we'd find the truth. So many others had said the same thing and failed, but we were sure we'd be different and actually succeed. We weren't afraid, we were overtaken by curiosity. There was so much to learn. The world is different than how people imagine it. So many secrets to find. So many dangers. " The man's eyes darted around the park as he took another sip. His hand, the one not holding the water bottle, was in his pants pocket. It looked like he was holding something vaguely weapon-like. " We wanted all the answers. The group wanted all the answers. All over the world, people working together trying to find the truth. All over the world, people marching to their death." The man stood up and threw his water bottle down. He jerked his body sideways and glared daggers at (Y/N). "It's almost like a disease, this curiosity. One of us gets it and it spreads to those around us. Sometimes I wonder if the world would be better off without us."

     "That's dark. I have to find out what happened to her. If you won't tell me I'll find out myself." (Y/N) crossed her arms over her chest and stood up to leave.

     "Wait, I told you I'd give you some information. It's a bad idea for you to pursue this, but I know you will anyway. It's the disease, makes it near impossible to not seek out the truth. There's a website, it's where us infected meet. We talk of discoveries and secrets. It's where (F/N) and I first started talking." He smiles as his posture relaxes. "FrogOnALog, that was what she went by. We all go by code names on there, it's safer that way. I'll give you the web address. What you do with it is up to you. Just know, once you go down this road there's no going back." He handed (Y/N) a slip of paper, gave a quick pat on the shoulder and said one last thing before walking away. "If anybody on the site asks, say you got the address from a JokingTurtle."

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     (Y/N) typed in the address and leaned back as the site began to load. A prompt popped up asking for a name. After some thought, (Y/N) typed in FrogFriend. A simple name, a dumb name. If the screen names the odd man had given her earlier were true, then this name would blend right in. Another prompt appeared on screen.' Access requested. Please list the recommender' She typed in JokingTurtle and yet another prompt appears. ' Identity must be cleared before access, please enter email address and we will get back to you when ready.' She switched from her computer to her phone and made a new email account. Her other email account had her real name on it and she couldn't help but feel like using it here would be a bad idea. She turned back to the computer and entered the new email address.'Thank you. This may take several days to process.' She closed the laptop and sat on her bed.

     Now, it was just a waiting game. There wasn't much she could do without the site. Bored and curious, she used her phone's search engine to try and find any information related to the site or either of the given screen names. No information on the site appeared and the screen names were too common to be of any use. She visibly cringed as she thought of the name she had chosen. Just how useful could the site be if the members used juvenile names like that. Could she really rely on some dumb site she anaged to stumble upon.

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     It was three days later, Tuesday, that the email came. 'Welcome FrogFriend. Here is your temporary password. Prepare to be quizzed upon first login. Attached are documents meant to help new users get accustomed to the forum. Looking forward to seeing you. -MuddyMud.'

    The first document talked about the forum in general. From the looks of it, the website was a group of separate chat rooms that users could move to and from freely. The document stated that there was well into a thousand of these rooms, though most of them going unused, and more were created everyday. The way it was worded made it sound pretty cool.

     The next document was the rules. They were upsetting. (Y/N) saw, after reading the rules, that the site would likely be of little help. The document said:

'Site Rules are subject to change. Many rules are left unspoken, use your common sense.

     1.Be smart

          A paragraph followed this further describing it.

     2. Be kind

          This one had a shorter paragraph, all common sense stuff.

     3.Beware imposters

          There was no more information given, no description, no paragraph.

     4. Stay in character

          7 paragraphs. There were 7 long paragraphs expanding on this.

     5.Keep personal information private

          Two short paragraphs mostly about safety.

     6. Yes, And

          This one was quite interesting, and seemed to be a continuation of rule four. It consisted of five medium length paragraphs that talked about expanding on other's role playing and not rejecting it.

     If you have any questions feel free to ask the more experienced members. We want this to be a good experience for everyone.'

     (Y/N) rested her head on her arms. RolePlay. It was just a roleplaying site, not anything that would actually help her find the truth. She debated ignoring the site and moving on to something else, but a gut feeling told her to try the site anyway. It wasn't like she had any other plans.