COLLEGE PARK — On October 22nd, “The Board and Brew,” a popular local restaurant, temporarily closed “to protect public health and safety,” according to the notice posted on what remained of the doors. Curious passersby who peered through the broken windows were met with a shocking sight. The shelves and tables were knocked over, and the establishment’s vast collection of board games were scattered haphazardly throughout the dining area. Many College Park residents initially assumed that a robbery had occurred after the health inspection. However, The Hare has obtained exclusive security camera footage from the night of the 21st which reveals a more fantastical series of events. The full contents of the videos may be disturbing to some readers. Our intrepid editors have bravely combed through the footage and compiled a timeline of significant events.

At 10:30PM, restaurant staff began their closing process. One of the patrons stood up from their table and slowly walked towards the shelves of board games. As of the time of writing this article, the person remains unidentified, but they were wearing a long black robe and a crooked wizard hat. The audio quality of the recording is poor, but we were able to parse a few phrases. Notably, they muttered various incantations while waving their hand over a gleaming blue orb. Finally, they hid a golden tablet between two of the board game boxes before exiting the restaurant.

By 11:30PM, the closing staff had left the building and turned off the lights. Not a creature was stirring, not even the mouse which would later be found by health inspectors.

Suddenly, at midnight, the restaurant was filled with a blinding golden light. One by one, the boxes flew off the shelves. A hand burst through the box of “Monopoly” holding a cane. An old bald man with a white mustache and a tuxedo clawed his way out, yelling something about a boardwalk. A flock of birds burst out of another box, spanning the dining area with a cacophony of chirps and temporarily obscuring the view of the security camera. By the time the view had cleared, the scene had already descended into chaos. Creatures from every board game were running around the restaurant, upturning chairs and raiding the pantry.

By 12:30AM, the situation had somewhat calmed down. The majority of characters lay incapacitated on the floor after a “Catomic Bomb” had been triggered in the dining area. The remaining groups sat down at the unbroken tables to discuss their next steps. At one table, a man confidently stated that he had an assassin ready to dispose of anyone who opposed him. Someone at the table called his bluff, causing him to immediately disintegrate. At another table, the knights of Avalon argued about who among them swore loyalty to King Arthur and who were minions of Mordred. Meanwhile, colorfully dressed detectives moved between the rooms of the restaurant at an excruciatingly slow pace, trying to figure out why the board games had animated.

At 1:05AM, settlers emerged from the “Catan” box. Every other character in the restaurant immediately stopped what they were doing. At 1:06AM, the settlers were no more. Audio snippets from the incident were mostly of the same phrase: “<expletive> Catan.”

By 5:00AM, the restaurant had nearly returned to normal. The surviving characters had repaired the damages and planned to re-enter their board games before the staff returned. However, a clumsy rook from a chess set knocked over a box which had been carefully avoided the entire night. A loud air whistle reverberated through the establishment. Before the characters could react, a large steam locomotive barrelled through the restaurant, ramming the shelves and crashing through the windows. The cloud of debris and dust broke the security camera, so the events which occurred afterwards are unclear. However, when the opening staff arrived at the restaurant at 7:00AM, not a single character remained.

The health inspectors were met with an unbelievable sight at 9:00AM. They stepped over the piles of broken furniture and ignored the destroyed displays. However, when the aforementioned mouse scurried past a pile of board game boxes, the inspectors immediately shut the restaurant down for food safety concerns.

As of the time of writing this article, police have been unable to locate the golden tablet seen in the footage, nor have they identified the mysterious individual who placed it in the restaurant. Readers who have information regarding this event are encouraged to post about it in any conspiracy theory forum of their choice.

Image Credits: Gale de Silva