It wasn't until 7 am that Arnold was finally released from the police station; he'd caught a few fitful hours of sleep despite himself, but snoozing sitting up on a hard jail cell chair hadn't been particularly restful, so he was sore and tired as Officer Chopra, a tall Indian woman with her long dark hair held back in a long braid, discharged him. He was given another lecture about how he was lucky not to be facing charges and a few pamphlets on mental health and substance abuse before he was finally able to escape the station, blinking into the morning light. He ran a hand through his thinning hair, trying to figure out what he should do first; something was seriously wrong with the town, and he still seemed to be the only one who knew what was going on. As much as he wanted to yell and scream, he needed to be careful. They'd made it exceptionally clear that if he went back home, or really anywhere near Barbara or Kyla, he'd be back in jail and facing charges.
"Okay, first thing's first Arnie, you need to gather information," he told himself only to be answered by a gurgling grow from his belly. "Okay, first thing is getting food, then information." Searching through his pockets he fished out his wallet and keys, incredibly thankful that the cops had someone drive his car over to the adjoining lot. With all the changes to reality he was a bit worried about his cards working at a restaurant so he checked to see if he had cash, and was pleased to see he had a 20 until he realized that, instead of Andrew Jackson looking back at him, there was a portrait of someone called Sybil Ludington. "How in the fuck-" he muttered before heading for his car. Changing pictures on his money was the least of his problem.
He needn't have worried too much, since going through the drive thru at McDonalds was the first thing that seemed normal since he'd arrived home, and his credit card had worked after all. He finished off a big mac in the parking lot and was once again left with figuring out what to do. Hell, he didn't even know where to go since people didn't think he owned his own damn house. Actually...., thinking about the change to his money, he looked back into his wallet and found that, sure enough, the address on his license had changed too. He was leery of conforming to much to this bizarro world but he also would need some sort of base of operations, so he plugged it into his GPS and began heading for 'home'.
Driving through town by light, he noticed dozens of more little changes here and there. The old out of business muffler shop was replaced with a sleek modern looking gym, quite a few of the business with a family name in them, like Smythe's Deli and Flannigan's pub were still there, but inexplicably had their names changed, there seemed to be a lot more electric cars on the street and so on and so on. The fact that the changes were small, but there were so many of them made it feel all the more insidious. All in all it looked like Lakeview had become a little ritzier and upmarket, but not insanely so. He pulled down Matis Street, passing Theo Guest Park and noticed it had been cleaned up a bit and the old swing sets replaced and expanded into a larger nicer playground area. The park seemed to be popular today, with lots of people taking advantage of the good weather, and frankly, from the outside it seemed almost idyllic. The only person who seemed to not be having a pleasant morning, besides Arnold, was a dark haired woman in the distance, standing on a literal soapbox, holding a placard, and yelling something Arnold couldn't hear from the street.
Eventually Arnold pulled up to an apartment complex that matched the address on his card and slid into a parking spot. He checked his keys and at his point was unsurprised to find an apartment key dangling next to his car keys; at least it had the apartment number printed on it, so he'd know where to go. Leaving his luggage from the nearly forgotten trip in the trunk for now, he made his way inside. The weren't the nicest apartments, certainly not as nice as having his own house in a good neighborhood, but it wasn't a slum either; it was the sort of place he'd lived in right out of college.
The elevator took him to the fourth floor and he tried to act like he knew where he was going as he headed towards the apartment matching his key. Unfortunately as he rounded the corner, he collided with someone and both went tumbling onto the ground.
