Description
Panel One: Narration: "A short while later..." Wide establishing panel. Outdoors, with some stone, Gothic-style buildings. There's random students milling about. Cal is walking along next to a building. There's a dark stone corridor through the building, and a figure is leaning in the shadows, mostly hidden by a stone column. We can see a hand holding a cigarette, and a plume of smoke.
Panel Two: "Hey, Cal," says Ian, who is the smoking figure lurking in the corridor. The wall Ian leans against has some graffiti on it. "Oh! Mr. Taylor," Cal has turned to answer the call as he passed by the corridor. "You do know there's no smoking on school grounds, right?" Ian has a snarky look in his face. "So? What's he gonna do? Expel me for it again? Anyway, can you tell me more about that guy you saw?" A thought in small text hovers near Cal's head. "Ugh, smoke."
Panel Three: Shot from inside the corridor, looking out. Cal crosses his arms and leans against the wall opposite Ian, the one that's lit up. "Maybe?" he says, looking sullen, "I'm not even sure he was real." Ian takes another drag from his cigarette and says, "Humor me."
Panel Four: Upper body shot of Cal. He's grabbing onto his left arm with his right and looks unsure as he says, "Well, he was wearing white. At least, his jacket was white."
Panel Five: Upper body shot of Ian as he exhales out of the corner of his mouth, towards the archway. The smoke breaks the edge of the panel a bit. "He was wearing a jacket? Not scrubs?"
Panel Six: Shot of Cal as he gasps, a shocked look on his face. SFX: >GASP!< The background of the frame is black, and behind Cal's head, to the left, is a blurry image of the Merchant, as though Cal's remembering. The man's face is blurred more the rest of the image, so that his identity is obscured, but he is clearly wearing a jacket.
Author Note
Ian, can you be any MORE suspicious?!
Clearly he doens't know about Cal's health problem, either.
Apologies for the late comic. There's been a whirlwind combination of celebrations (yay!), family health scares (things are okay, but were scary for a bit) and weather-related chronic migraines (boo) over here. It should be faster moving forward, so hopefully I'll get back to the Two Pages a Week level!
I hope 2024 has been treating you kindly so far.
Time to get the updated vaccine!
Bran