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Descent to Nowhere. Issue #2 is the second issue released for the series. Like the previous one, it tells the story of Myra and Marion in the Counties and the story of Hush and Mono in the Nowhere.
Website Description[]
Against her better judgement, former detective Myra Wan begins to poke at the shadows which linger in every corner of the Counties, searching for the mysterious missing Hush. In the Counties Psychiatric Institute – the last place the little girl was ever seen – there are more questions than answers.
In the Nowhere, Hush falls deeper into the dungeon without Mono to guide her. But she must survive more than just the Jailer, as something itches just beneath her skin, pulling Hush into more and more danger….[2]
Plot[]
Myra monologues to herself, comparing a memory to a stain that sinks in and smudges overtime, leaving the original memory obscured. In the Copy, Myra and Marion are interrogating nurse Akedia, who reported about the little girl's disappearance. The nurse states she only knows what's on the patient record. One day, at the mother's estate, an accident occurred, the girl and her younger brother were trampled by horses. However, while the girl survived and retained serious injuries, her younger brother died. An old grounds keeper found the girl hours later and she was taken to the hospital to receive urgent medical attention. The girl had no one, not even a name and refused to or couldn't speak. She was however, literate, but only wrote to ask about where her puppet "Punchy" was. Left with nothing and no one to care for her, the girl was released to the Counties Psychiatric Institute to be left in the care of the staff. However, the girl only resided in the ward for two days before vanishing. Nurse Akedia insists she was busy tending to her duties and was hard at work during the night shifts. The night of the girl's disappearance, the nurse was conducting her rounds and heard the girl whimper from within her room.
Although questioned if she truly locked the door, Akedia states she broke her nail jamming the key into the door to unlock it, and with no spare key, she is certain no one went in or out of the girls room. Akedia does not personally care if the detectives believe her and is merely saying the truth of what she saw. In regards to the girl's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kay, both had contracted the water sickness and had fallen into a deep coma, called ''The Sleep'. While the father fell into a coma a month ago, the mother fell into her coma the day of the children's accident, leaving Akedia hoping the accident was only the result of the children being left unsupervised. Marion stops the interview for the day and gives Akedia his business card so she can contact him over anything big or small revolving around the case. With Akedia's permission, Myra and Marion split up to tour the ward, touching nothing and refraining from addressing the patients. With no first name for the girl, Myra contemplates how someone can find something if they know what to call it. Myra comes across one room and looks through the window to see a small child struggling in their sleep.
Marion informs Myra that a Counties Police Force car has arrived and they must leave the ward. Myra monologues and explains how sorting through memories comprise most of detective work. However, the difference between memories and stains is that stains are harder to get rid of. After learning what they can about the girl from Akedia, Myra decides she and Marion will head to the farmlands next to investigate the mother's estate. There, Myra thinks about how it's been years since she last went to the farmlands, she tries to sense the environment as the girl would have, while Marion sends the Movers away, telling them the estate is now an investigation site. Inside the estate, Marion explains Mrs. Kay was the daughter of Dayton Du Maurier, the estate being the place she grew up. Myra and Marion check the house room by room, noting one child's room is spacious, has a neatly kept bed and is filled with toys, while another child's room is smaller and windowless, containing a messy bed with little to nothing. The smaller room Myra picturing to have been the little girl's room.
Without finding anything useful, the two return to the city and move on to Mr. Kay's apartment, acquiring entrance through the Landlady, who gives them the the key to the apartment. Inside, they find out about all the properties the father sold and traded over the Counties, including the inheritance the mother received from her father, the estate in the farmlands. Upon inspecting the other rooms, they piece together the mistreatment the girl received compared to her brother upon noticing the difference in the children's rooms, the younger brother's room being bigger and full of toys, while the girls room was tiny and empty in comparison. As Myra takes pictures of the girl's room, Marion comments that the girl had quite the imagination. Done with their investigation, the two head over to shabby hotel. Upon Myra's request, Marion turns on the radio to drown the noise of the people in the next room. The radio plays a song, "We're stuck, stitched pictures in our heads. Unravel them, there's only threads". Myra looks over the missing child reports Marion stole, all of which Myra tells him are vague. While no officers were assigned to some of the cases, most remain open, including one case which Myra learns happened in her apartment complex. None the less, the girl they are investigating is connected to the other childrens cases.
Myra notices Marion has not looked up once, his attention fixated on something in the files he is looking over. Marion, having had protective services crosscheck the names of the vanished children from the milk carton cases, has been reviewing the information they gave him. While most of the information protective services provided is confidential, he discovers that half of the names come up in reports of parental abuse. Despite the information not giving them any leads to the girl they are investigation, after seeing the environment the girl was placed under in both of her parents homes, Marion reaches the conclusion that the girl and all of the vanished children are severely neglected. Marion comes up with the theory that the girl and all the other missing children are possible runaways and currently in hiding. As Marion talks, Myra lays down on the ground and finds a mask under the bed, looking at it she hears the radio song say "When escape is a bird already flown, The black below gives warmth alone" sparking an idea in her. Marion listens to the radio and tells Myra he sometimes likes to picture a little man in the radio singing all-, but stops mid sentence as he sees Myra grab her coat, alerting him to her leaving. Marion asks if he should go along with her but Myra declines, telling him to continue investigating the files instead. Myra decides to go back to Mr. Kay's apartment, hoping to find something, despite not knowing what that is, knowing that if she doesn't check, the thought will never leave her mind. Seeing a cop walking along the street, she hides behind a car, all the while think about how it is in a kids nature to hide and hide things.
She climbs the fire escape up to Mr. Kay's apartment, thinking about how tight spaces with no exits are claustrophobic, but ones with easy escape can provide comfort, acting as a provisional womb. She opens a window from the outside and enter Mr. Kay's apartment. Myra feels old reminiscing about her own childhood, how she had a toy submarine the color of moonlight and would hide it in her closet so no one else could find it. Her personal experience an example of how all kids have secret spots, places to hide the things they love most and places to cast aside the things they never want to see again. Myra checks under the girl's bed and finds a small box containing a puppet of a man with a trench coat and a fishing hat. A figure Myra recognizes, but can't remember why or where she first saw it. On the puppet, she finds a tag with the word ''Hush'' written on it, deducing that is what Mr. and Mrs. Kay called their daughter. Myra takes the puppet with her and leaves the apartment. Myra stands outside the Sunrise inn for a while, staring at the puppet, until Marion notices her and tells her to come back into the room to get out of the cold. Inside, he informs her that Chief Downes had caught wind of their investigation and called him right after she left earlier, a surprise for him as the chief even knew where they were staying. He says the Chief was angry and wanted to see both of them in her office at first light.
Marion notices Myra's poor condition. Myra heads for the bathroom, feeling like she's suffocating, as if the Counties has hands and they are on her throat no matter where she goes or what she does. She thinks back about Marion's promise that this time things would be different, but still feels like she has no control. Myra pulls out a bag of drugs from her pocket to take. Suddenly, Myra sees a memory or dream that she doesn't recognize as hers, but is now becoming clearer, describing it as the hole she fell in too deep. Myra sees the face of the man resembling Hush's puppet, realizing he was in the hole all along. She sees the man in the distance, appearing behind a tree with a pinwheel in hand. She can also see a little girl whose face is smudged, comparing her to a stain and also without a name. The girl is reaching out towards the man. Myra can feel both the girl and the man fading. As they fade, Myra can almost hear the girl, but hears her name instead. Meanwhile, Marion is trying to call out to Myra in the bathroom, but she remains unresponsive. Myra thinks about the girl and the man she saw, wondering how she can stop them from smudging, believing they are tied to the strange vanishings of the children and have to be real. Myra wants to see it take shape. The girl's voice rises from the bottom of her skull, telling her to keep falling deeper, into the black below she remembers the song on the radio once said. Where there are hidden things.
In the Stone Giant, Hush finds herself in the Stone Giant's Hospital Ward where several of the Prisoners are chained to their beds, receiving treatment from the Prison Nurses. Hush tries to sneak under the hospital beds. Hush notices a door creaking, and looking at its way, she sees Mono. Mono is quick to move through the room, not being seen by a single Prison Nurse. Hush follows him and the two walk out of the room.
Hush however, finds herself alone in the next room, a Laundry Room full of Residents cleaning and washing as they all sing the same unrecognizable tune. She tries to sneak past them but is quickly noticed by one of them. The Cleaner grabs Hush, but just as they are about to put her in boiling water, Mono drops a clothes wringer on the Cleaner's head from the top of a shelf, saving Hush. Hush sees Mono standing on top of a high shelf, pointing to another Cleaner quickly approaching her from behind. A chase ensues, but as Hush keeps running, she unwarily runs in front of an ambushing Cleaner. Just as she's about to get caught, she heads for an open door leading into an empty room, where Mono also resides. Mono interferes once again and saves Hush by shutting the door on the Resident the moment she jumps into the room.
Grateful, Hush hugs Mono. Mono points to a boarded up door with a single plank of wood tilted, providing an opening for them to pass through. Hush crawls through and finds herself in a small room with one wall torn through, revealing the snow falling on the other side. The room additionally has a desk, a utility cart, a clock with no numbers or hands and an unresponsive Resident sitting at the desk with various chains wrapped around their body, their eyes being the only part of their body visible through the chains. Hush climbs up to the desk and jumps on the utility cart with enough momentum to wheel it across the room towards a broken window nearby. Hush can hear the sound of something sleeping on the other side of the broken window.
Moving on with their journey, Hush and Mono encounter a sleeping chained Guard, laying in front of a torn vent in the wall. Hush, curious of the sleeping Resident, attempts to touch it, but Mono stops her, warning the girl to not make any noise. The two investigate the corners of the rooms. While Mono climbs up to higher ground, Hush finds a television at the end of a hall, covered by a cloth. After she removes the cloth, her casted arm starts moving on its own, and turns the television on. The television shows a broadcast of a Resident speaking backwards, tending to a clock. Mono hears the television and quickly goes to check, becoming fixated on the broadcast. However, the Chained Resident is now awake, and is lurking behind Mono, who remains unaware of its presence as he moves himself closer to the television to touch the screen. Hush however, hides under a nearby table and decides to leave Mono behind, exiting the room through the torn vent the Chained Resident was previously sleeping in front, before she can see what becomes of Mono. Hush later walks along a plank high above the hundreds of cells of the Stone Giant, all visible below her as the snow falls down all around. The Prisoners extending their hands out through the bars of their cells.
Characters[]
- Hush
- Myra Wan
- Marion Guy
- Mono
- Akedia
- The Prison Nurses
- The Prisoners
- The Cleaners
- The Movers
- The Landlady
- The Resident in the Chains
- The Chained Guard
- The Ferryman
- Chief Downes (mentioned)
- The Baker (covers)
Trivia[]
- Throughout the Issue, during the Counties side of the story, Hush can be seen drawn as a ghost in various panels.
Gallery[]
Comic-Book Panels[]
Comic-Book Covers[]
