<div class="floatright">(http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&amp;size=l&amp;tid=47652381)</div>Marielle Valli wasn't having the best of days today. As a newcomer to Night Vale, she'd been driven a little crazy over the last few days by her aunt's continued insistence that the events clearly happening all over town were not, in fact, happening. Well this was it! Just this morning, she'd walked in on her uncle reading the paper. Well, that's what he'd said anyhow. WHAT PAPER??!? He'd been grasping at empty air and flipping imaginary pages. And don't even get her started on the shifty-looking lot that had come shuffling along the sidewalk to pick up the trash. Pick up the trash?? Well that was one way of putting it. Another, rather more obvious description (in her opinion), was eating it straight from the bin whilst glowing with a strange orange light. Jesus. What was in the water here? No...don't answer that. It was better that she not know. Well after the incident with the tomatoes this morning, Mari had packed up her things into the little suitcase she'd arrived with, hopped in her car, and taken off. Out of sight, out of mind. It was the attitude she ought to have adopted in regards to her aunt and uncle in the first place.<br/><br/>Two blocks down the road and she'd nearly been t-boned by some jack-off who blew through the stop sign as though it hadn't existed. And then, barely had she gotten her heart rate back under control and managed to creep her way through the rest of the intersection and the next one, than a veritable flood of people were clogging up both driving lanes, streaming over to the other side of the road in the efforts to escape a pulsing, purple, glowing vortex. She'd slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting a kid with two heads and been promptly rear-ended by a cop car. Great. Beautiful. The crunch of metal and the sharp pain in her neck were the perfect ending to her stay here in Night Vale. Provided whoever had rammed her hadn't damaged anything essential. Belatedly, and with a blast of noise, her air bag deployed.<br/><br/>Grumbling, Mar opened her door, snagging her purse because...well, you know...strange town and all that, and stepped out to inspect the damage. Not the purple vortex. Definitely not that. That thing gave her the heebie jeebies. She was not going anywhere nearer that thing than she needed. As she purposefully looked anywhere but at that glowing mess, she spotted an old woman accompanied by......angels? She was no expert, but that woman didn't really look super holy. Weren't the ones who attracted angels supposed to be nuns or something? She gawked openly at the sight for far longer than she should.<br/><br/><em><strong>"Attention Night Vale citizens! The Moonlight Diner is now under strict quarantine. Vacate the premises immediately. I repeat vacate the diner and surrounding area immediately! Further bulletins will inform you if and when the diner still exists and it is safe to eat there. Thank you and remember to vote correctly."</strong></em><br/><br/>Mari turned to stare at the nearest speaker, clapping her hands to her ears when that last final squeal of feed-back nearly deafened her. Vacate the premises? How exactly was she supposed to do that when her car was all dinged up. And by those cops to boot. Vote correctly her ass... She would have no need of voting just as soon as she left Night Vale and all of it's disturbing activities far FAR behind her. Muscling open her car door again with far more force than was strictly needed, the college student fished around inside for her cell. She'd just have to call her aunt and uncle and figure out how to get her baby to the nearest mechanic and then...THEN...she could get the hell out of Dodge....er...Night Vale.