Carol McClain didn't know that it was her last day on earth.

Of course, people seldom do—with a few exceptions. An astronaut, for example, may catch this very thought crossing their mind as they board a shuttle bound for the empty vacuum of space. A criminal on Death Row may consider it in the singular long moment before the injection meets their vein. And a man receiving the birthday present of free skydiving lessons from his mother-in-law (and therefore unable to turn the gift down) would most definitely come to terms with the quite probable possibility as he is unceremoniously shoved out of the airplane.

But all of these people—excluding the astronaut—aren’t really leaving earth. Buried in it, scattered across it, landing with a splat upon its surface, perhaps—but not really leaving it entirely.

And it is this fact that made the fate of Carol McClain decidedly unique.

As I’ve stated, Carol didn’t know she was going to disappear when she woke up that morning. If she had, she probably would’ve taken an extra helping of waffles, or given her dog Rufus an extra pat. She didn’t see it coming, the events that took place later that day—and that was the scariest part. Because we never really expect these things, do we?‌ And those few that do are generally miserable and anxious all day, every day.

But her murderer, on the other hand, waking up that morning…he knew there was going to be a disappearance. He didn’t know the specifics, didn’t know that it would be a young woman named Carol McClain with a dog named Rufus (“planning ruins the thrill,” he often said), but he definitely knew there was going to be a disappearance.

And even he was unaccustomed to the mysterious circumstances surrounding her removal from the face of the planet.

It took two days for anyone besides her dog to realize that Carol was gone, and another week to track down her murderer. And he had killed her, he claimed. Killed her and buried the body under the bridge that was perpetually under construction—you know, the old crumbly yellow one that’s marked off with caution tape, even though there never seems to be any workers? Yes, that’s the one.

The police excavated the scene, and while they did find seven bodies—all young women that had gone missing in widely spaced intervals over the last five years—they didn’t find Carol McClain. This came as a shock to her murderer, who swore on his mother’s grave (which he’d also dug, coincidentally) that no, the girl had definitely been there. The traces of DNA‌ they’d found on his blood-soaked jeans and hands solidified his claim further.

While continuing the search, the authorities did find a small wooden box, buried in the riverside dirt where Carol had supposedly been hidden away. It was opened, then immediately burned to a single cinder, which an officer threw into the middle of the fog; they could tell from the small sploosh that it had successfully landed in the river. Any record of the box’s contents were shredded upon returning to the station.

The public only had knowledge of this event because an inside source (who has since been terminated) leaked the strange story, leaving some to wonder how such a tiny, unassuming box could possibly be involved in the crimes of a serial killer. The murderer, in turn, denies any correlation it may have had to his actions, though he seems certain that it’s connected to his prize’s disappearance somehow.

Carol McClain will never be found, and eventually she will fade from the minds of those investigating her case, or taking interest in it, or even hearing about it in passing. Her friends, her family, even her dog—they will all prove that nothing, not memories or legacies, or even mortality itself—will last forever. It will be as if the girl, undeserving as she is of such a fate, never existed to begin with.

In conclusion, the Disappearance of Carol McClain was an astounding success, and we are prepared to initiate Stage 2.