Duskwood: Love's Beginning

1 - Jayna

My name is Jayna Chacon. I have worked for about two years so far as a nurse at a community urgent care clinic in Portland, Oregon. The physician who ran the clinic, Dr. Lia Martinez, specialized in catering to immigrants, unhoused, and other underserved members of society.

Since they trusted her, Lia did extensive procedures in-house because she knew her patients would rather let their problems get worse than go to the hospital or another doctor to get help.

It was just the two of us, so I had seen a lot of life-or-death situations, and I knew how to do a few more procedures than I was probably allowed to. My job was challenging and fulfilling and I loved it. I even started taking classes at night and on weekends to further my career.

Then six months ago, my life imploded. I discovered my boyfriend was cheating on me. This was after he had alienated all my friends-except for my childhood classmate he was sleeping with, of course. I wasn't on good terms with my family so I was left with nobody in my life when I broke up with him.

But since we were no longer living together, I had to move into a smaller apartment with higher rent and I couldn't afford to go to school anymore. I still had a job that I loved, but it had started to feel like every day was the same. I had no motivation to try to make new friends, and certainly not to date.

Not that my ex would make it easy for me to date someone else anyway. He was stalking my social accounts until I blocked him, then he started calling and texting me incessantly, trying to get me back. Apparently, the fling with the liar that used to be my friend had ended, and he "realized his mistake." Yeah, right. So I kept ignoring his texts and calls, hoping he would give up.

I was just coming home from a run after work one night when my phone pinged. These days, I always flinched each time I got notifications. I picked up my phone, expecting it to be my ex again. To my surprise, it was nobody that I knew. What was this about?

Someone named Thomas was texting me, being really cryptic and begging me not to leave the chat. Then he added a bunch of other people: Cleo, Richy, Lilly, Dan, and Jessy. All were strangers to me, and it got awkward when Lilly accused me of doing something to her sister and they also started arguing among themselves. This had to be a scam. Or my ex put them up to it. Their friend was missing...were they trying to get money from me? I snorted. I had no money to give anyone.

I didn't even know what to say to this. I had no idea what to make of their assertion that Hannah had texted my number to them after she went missing. Surely there had to be some mistake!

Part of me cautioned that I should block all their numbers and go take a shower. But it was like a train wreck you couldn't look away from.

Time for a reality check. I opened my laptop quickly and did a search for "missing girl Hannah" as that's all the information I had so far. Amazingly, several stories popped up for someone named Hannah Donfort in Duskwood, Oregon. I checked for it on a map and it seemed like Duskwood was down by Bend. So what they were saying was true, after all.

I felt conflicted. One part of me wanted to keep myself safe, worrying that I would only be hurt by involving myself with these people. The other part-the one that loved being a nurse-wanted to help them any way I could.

When the one named Richy asked me to stay, something in his words pulled at me. I had spent the past six months in limbo, alone, hiding from the world and just living at the status quo. Now, I was being asked to be part of something. To potentially make a difference, outside of my job. I made a split-second decision and said yes, I would stay in the group and help find Hannah.

Little did I know what I was getting myself into.