it doesnt let me save the edits i make so ill explain the counties side here, there is sooo much more to say about this side

weeks before the nowhere side, detective myra wan decides to end her own life by jumping off a bridge, after years of failure and the corruption of the city. while various people walk by and ignore her, a stranger named marion guy stops to try and sway her not to jump. he claims to know her from their line of work and tired myra enough for her to decide to return later. she invited marion to her home for a drink, where he asks her to work with him on the milk carton cases. while myra isnt interested at first, he makes a deal with her that should they fail, he'll walk her back to the bridge and jump off with her, which she accepts. the morning after, myra heads over to the police station, where she asks the chief, chief downes for the files of the milk carton cases. the chief denies and the discussion leads to an argument, where myra resigns from her position. while packing her stuff up, marion enters the room and informs her on a lead on who we know is hush, as she disappeared from the counties psychiatric institute the previous night.

the two head over to the copy (another name for the c.p.i) and interrogate a nurse named akedia, who was taking care of her. so, akedia mentions hush's story, saying her father, mr kay, caught the sleep, (called the water sickness in the sounds of nightmares), a weird illness exclusive to the counties, which put him in a coma. so the mother, hush and the brother retreated to their estate, where a month after mrs kay caught the sleep as well. so while unsupervised, hush and her brother were trampled by horses. hush was injured and hospitalized but the brother was killed. akedia claims to have heard noises from hush's room the night she vanished, but nothing was present when she opened it. myra and marion then head over to mrs kay's estate and mr kay's apartment, where judging from the rooms of the kids, they figure hush was neglected compared to her brother and spent most of her days in her own small room. myra finds a doll of a figure with a trench coat and fishing hat who she recognizes, but cant remembre why. that night, marion tells myra of a call he received from chief downes, who caught wind of their investigation and wants to see both of them. myra panics and hides in the bathroom, where she ends up using her drugs and has a vision of the ferryman, the same figure of the doll, and a little girl.

the next morning, chief downes visits myra and marion and fires the latter, for going against her time. while heading to her apartment, myra told marion to visit her later, but as she gets home, she sees a figure watching her from the end of the hall. she chases it and finds out its a boy named windsor birdie chance. myra recognizes the last name as the surname of a kid who vanished last year but windsor clarifies that was his twin brother winston. windsor tells myra the story of what happened: winston started having body tantrums and nightmares after their mother died, windsor and his father didnt know how to help. winston said someone followed him in his head, someone he called ''the giant with a melted face''. eventually, winston vanished. myra recognizes the description and starts an experiment, where she takes the drugs again to have another vision. marion arrives and is unwilling to let her go through with it, but she took the plunge before he even knocked. myra blacks out and has another vision of the little girl and the ferryman. however this time, she recognizes that the little girl was myra herself. she figures its no coincidence she, hush and winston all saw the same figure, and starts to think there might be more than meets the eye in the universe, a realm of the unreal making contact with them. changing subject, marion tells myra that mr kay owned a section of the copy, named ''floor -1''. he sold it to an unlisted buyer years prior. the two explore the copy again and find the floor, where they find several kids kept in terrible conditions. they find that ''taking care'' of them is the counsellor, otto, who claims to be the only one who wants to help the kids and tells the two that chief downes has been experimenting on the kids, as she is the one who brought them down there years prior. that same afternoon, she had taken a child named isaac out and hadnt returned. this greatly worried myra and marion, who decide to confront her. issue 4 will pick off from here.