There is a town shoved between the cracks of the Appalachian mountains.​

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There are hundreds just like it, sure.

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And just like any other, a thousand, dangerous secrets lay in the shadows, bubbling up slowly, until finally the waters are boiling. 

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This website serves as an archive of its people; a microcosm of a poor, mountain town just like any other. Explore their lives. Discover their secrets.

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When I first discovered this place, I was just starting out as a journalist. The dot com boom and internet news were taking over and everyone was scared of losing their jobs. My editor told me I had to deliver a great story in a week or I was going to get the boot--someone was going to, and it just as well could've been me. 

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I got in my car and drove for three hours, wracking my brain for anything that could be worthy enough of saving me. I slithered down and around mountain roads, well off the beaten four-lane highways. It was rainy. My headlights only illuminated the twenty feet of asphalt in front of me.

 

Finally, as I finally engaged my consciousness again and looked up and paid attention to the road I found myself passing a sign:

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THORNEBROOK HIGH SCHOOL

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I'd never heard of Thornebrook before. But it intrigued me. I don't know why.

 

I decided to take a look around, and to my surprise there was a night janitor there at nine in the evening. I knocked on the door for them to let me in. I asked her about the school and she let me look around for a while. It was strange that she trusted me so eagerly, especially after everything tis place endured. It looked relatively new. "Newest thing there is around here," she said. 

 

She wasn't wrong. Everything around felt so dead. There were people, probably more people than you might expect. But the houses felt sad and frail, just like everything else. The churches, the gas stations, the porches.

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The trees.

 

I asked her where I could stay for the night and she laughed. I ended up at a motel about fifteen minutes from the school near the inlet of a bypass road that led to a highway. The only other guests seemed to be a few blue-collar men who commute here for intermittent contracts. I settled in, and setup my work station at the dusty, panel-covered desk. Old laptop, five notebooks, tape recorder, digital camera.

 

I was determined that this wouldn't be a short stay.

 

The next day, I actually went back to the school the proper way, despite there being hundreds of children attending to their school day. I asked to speak to the principal, a middle-aged man who looked nervous--at that time I wasn't sure why​.

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After a moment of discussion, I could tell that something was just beneath the surface of his gentle, well-mannered facade. The moment I began to pierce it, however, I was no longer welcome.

 

"Have there been any major developments in the community recently? Anything that you feel is significant?"

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He looked at me like I had insulted him, but also like I was clueless. I promptly left after he told me he had something to attend to. I knew this was a lie. So, down the road I went. Quickly, just by talking to a gas station clerk and a post office attendant I found out that far more had jus transpired in this place than the principal was comfortable mentioning. I set up a temporary address and three interviews all before I even called my boss.

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He was intrigued by my findings, but only wanted me down there sporadically. It was a three hour commute one-way, but I had a standing appointment at the motel and the local breakfast joint. After two weeks of getting the full picture of what had recently taken place I found a name that continued to pop up, sometimes with pride, sometimes with fear...

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EMBER

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And then more names, connections, family, friends, enemies...

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And as the picture came into focus I realized I was the first person to actually to put all of the pieces together. Sure, lots of other journalists had explored the aftermath of everything in various degrees of depth and accuracy, but I was far more interested in the catalyst for all of this. I figured that if I was to untangle the web of corruption and fear, violence and betrayal, I had to trace each thread back to its beginning.​

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A time before the storm. A moment where the pin of the grenade had yet to be pulled. 

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That is where this archive finds you: a time before the pot was boiling over.

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Follow the clues. Untangle the threads...