Welcome to Britain, Circa 1984

 Sarah Tisdale is being charged under the official Secrets act, miners are mobilising and The Troubles are in full force in Ireland; Welcome to the glorious land of 1980’s Britain! Our story takes place in Yaughton, a small charming village in Shropshire. Nestled amongst gorgeous rolling green fields, Yaughton is the very definition of a picture perfect. That is, apart from the giant Observatory and satellite array that dominates one of the main roads. Yaughton seemingly has it all, except for one key thing; there isn’t a single living soul anywhere nearby. Our mission is to investigate what’s happened. Investigative journalism, you say? Well…sort of.

Honestly, I’d happily live in the village of Yaughton, with or without the inhabitants mysteriously all vanishing. Alas, our purpose here is not the abundance of free real estate. We’re here to find out what happened, to find out the Story of Yaughton. We do so in the way the way all great investigators do; we listen in on other people phone calls, we read all the private documents we can find, and we follow sentient glowing apparitions that show us snapshots of the past through the village. Yeah, that’s how this will play out.

We start our investigation at the Observatory, as that appears to be where the story started. The first voice we hear is of Dr Kate Collins, the American. I’m not assigning boring monikers to people, that is literally what she is referred to at times. She’s left a recorded message, starting with “I don’t know if anyone will ever receive this” and ending with “I’m all that’s left.” Completely understandable message for when you’re in space, unsure if the transmission will reach Earth, but terrifyingly dark when you’re just in a small village outside of Wales. It doesn’t help that we find an abandoned phone beeping out an alarm and emergency message on repeat telling everyone to stay inside, avoid all human contact and to keep the radio and TV on to await further instructions. Just a second, I’m apparently grabbing a full body Hazmat suit from the car because nothing about this says I should just be wandering around willy-nilly.

Next, we get our first introduction to The Light.

Through glowing golden outlines of people, we learn that Dr Kate is seemingly okay, if a little spacey. Her husband Stephen, however, is a dick. Stephen Appleton appears to be a Yaughton boy, just without the accent everyone else in town managed to get. Our first interaction with the light sees Stephen and Kate staying late at the observatory, and a friendly groundskeeper Graeme just warning them of a few things. Stephen then proceeds to rub his degree in his face, as if he’s better than him. Like I said, he’s a dick. Oh and I think Kate thinks he is having an affair with an old flame but she isn’t too bothered? Can’t tell if Kate is just unapologetically herself and thinks Stephen ain’t shit, or if she rolls over. Watch this space.

Once we spend a good portion of time wondering if it’s possible to deck one of these glowing light figures – Yes, you Stephen! – we journey down from the observatory to the village proper, and it is here that, honestly, I fell in love again. I’d joked about moving here because of how cheap/free a house would be but now I want to move here because I have seen the face of Heaven, and it’s Yaughton. I honestly took a moment to think when they said Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, they must have meant they came here because surely this is a paradise, and a reward for living an honest, good life. Oh and then there’s Stephen. He somehow got in.

For real, if you picture a postcard, and then make it 100x better, you get Yaughton. They have a little creek through the middle of town, a children’s play area, a pub and a little local shop / post office. There’s a church on a hill overlooking it all, complete with tiny Yaughton graveyard. I’m not even religious but I cannot imagine a better life than being the parish priest for Yaughton and just getting old here. Since I feel like there is going to be a lot of walking, I seek out a map; what do I find? That is sort or rhetorical, this is Britain in the 1980’s so don’t expect anything too special, I found a map. The map shows that the area we will be investigating is split into 5 main sections, and so I think we should present our findings of whatever the hell has happened in separate parts.

The first signs that maybe free real estate and trading my suit for a dog collar isn’t all it’s cooked up to be, and that maybe this won’t be a straightforward story (Hell, the opening is glowing light figures arguing and I was hoping for straightforward?!) is the incessant beeping and sirens from the emergency broadcasts. The scattering of nerve gas missiles scream welcome in the same way that a prostate exam from Captain Hook screams relaxing. There’s also a weird symbol painted randomly throughout the village that looks like Charles Manson’s’ Family might have been responsible for this Rapture. Still…it’s not a hard no. Honestly, the fact that this place is potentially hotspot for either government extermination or artful serial killer isn’t a deal breaker should show you just how gorgeous it is, and doesn’t deter me in the slightest from our investigation.

In true investigative journalist fashion, we are going to first find out the story behind the local priest; a pillar of good standing in Yaughton, we’re going to go through his glowing story with a fine tooth comb, so let’s get ready for The Story of Jeremy.

-BrightStarFOX