A Headline reading “Breaking news!” flashes across Anthony's TV just before he gets ready to leave the house. “Another person has gone missing, leaving no trace or witnesses to track their whereabouts. Please if you have any information on any of these disappearances call now!” A lady in an obnoxious pink blouse and crooked gemed glasses states as she announces yet another missing person. Her eyes have bags below them and she looks like she hasn't slept in weeks, but of course that's how everyone looks now. At first news like this scared people. Breaking news of people vanishing and leaving nothing behind doesn't just happen. At least it didn’t, but that was 8 months ago. That was back when people vanishing never happened. Back when you didn't have to give 10 minute hugs because you never knew if it would be the last time you saw someone. Back when you didn't have to be afraid to leave your house at night or triple deadbolt your doors in broad daylight. That was before people jumped at shadows and cried when it rained. That seems like another lifetime, one completely different to the one we live in now. Two worlds, completely parallel to one another. Although you can hardly call what we do, living. Now, whole families will disappear, one day they’re waving to you as they drive by and the next they're gone. Leaving nothing behind. No one knows where they go or when they leave because they don't take anything with them. No packed bags or rummaged items, not even a note or a goodbye. Just simply there one minute and gone the next. Everything is left exactly as it was before they vanished, as if they were going to come back, or never planned on leaving. Friends, family, aunts, uncles, coworkers, sons, daughters, everyone, all gone without a trace.  

The town tried to protect us with more street lights, new and earlier curfews and buddy systems, more cameras and cops but nothing seemed to help. It seemed like the more people went looking for the problem, the more people went missing. As the days passed, people changed. People built walls and separated themselves from others. Isolating and hiding away in hopes to avoid this plague that poured over our small down like a heavy darkness. You don’t get attached and you never stay in one place for too long. People say it’s “adjusting to a new normal”, but we all know it's because we’re afraid to be next. We’re all afraid to not only be found, but to be the last ones standing. 

Jack gets a shiver as he reads the headline before bending over to grab the remote and turn in off. He pulls his phone out to read an unread message: “Are you coming or not? I'm gonna leave without you.” Jack rolls his eyes at the message and shoves his phone back into his pocket and grabbed his wallet off the counter. Things haven’t been easy since mom vanished but he makes due. Each morning Jake walks over to Anthonys house and they leave to get some breakfast before coming home for online school. The town decided in person school was too risky and made it too big of a target. Jack flips his hood over his head to hide his face from the biting wind as he leaves and locks his door behind him. The air freezes his breath and chills his skin as he leaves the safety of his home to risk the dangers of their once happy town. Anthony and Jake have been bestfriends since the 2nd grade and were closer to brothers than anything. Anthony's mother offered him a room at their house when his mother disappeared, but Jack refused to let his mothers home and memory fade. He refused to let the darkness win. He was going to find a way to bring her back, he would find a way to bring them all back.  

Anthony and Jack walk the gray and empty streets of their small town in late October, faintly seeing their breath escaping their lips in a light fog. The wind hisses in the trees as the cold air bites at their ears and noses. Gray clouds cover the sky and hide the sun. No one ever talks about it but since the people started going missing, a relentless fog rolled in and seemed to trap everyone inside it. Keeping us captive in a sick and twisted slowglobe. Like tempered glass, sheltering the outside world from our quiet chaos and horror. With their hands in their pockets, they duck into the closest store to avoid the cold, only to see it empty. All the lights were on as soft radio music played over the intercom, and yet the store was empty. There were no clerks at the counters, no shoppers in the aisles, not even a single item on a shelf. Anthony looked towards Jack with confusion written across his face, sure people go missing all the time, but not an entire store of people, clerks, and items. This didn’t fit the rules. It made no sense. Anthony's eyebrows furrowed, and under his breath, he whispered “What the hell?” Jack rolled his eyes and responded “Oh relax, they're probably just remodeling, let's go to the back and see if we can find someone and ask what's up.” Even with Jack brushing off concern, Anthony still couldn’t shake the shiver running up his spine or the pit growing in his stomach. Anthony and Jack head towards the back of the store and let the door slam behind them, not only locking the cold air outside but seemingly locking them in. As they walk down the empty aisles their footsteps echo and bounce off the walls. The only inconsistent sound was a crackling in the intercom every 30 seconds or so. When they reach the back, they can see a door to the freezer, wide open and there is a box lying unopened on the floor. “Still think its remodeling?” Anthony mockingly thought aloud. “Yeah, people drop things all the time. But if we are alone, then this is awesome! We have the whole store to ourselves.” Jack retorted. “This doesn't feel right…Something just isn't adding up right,” Anthony protested, now having an overwhelming sense of dread. “Stop being a sissy, I'm tired of you chickening out on opportunities like this. Ever since the disappearances started you’ve become so sheltered and won't try anything interesting. We could spray paint the walls and be the talk of the school! And better yet, there's no one here to catch us! It's perfect! C’mon, where's the Anthony I know who's always up for a challenge?” Jack hyped, having brushed off any of Anthony's concerns.

Anthony thought for a second and said, “Fine, but if we get caught and go to jail, I'm gonna kill you.” In return Jack rolled his eyes and plastered an obnoxious smile across his face. The boys continue walking down the aisles for a final check to make sure they are completely alone when they see something on of the shelves, something so out of place it feels wrong. An old notebook, the pages yellowed with time. The cover was jet black with the words “Soul Thief” etched on the cover in gold. Jack went to pick it up but Anthony slapped his hands away. “What are you doing?!” he yelped. Jack, completely shocked, looked at him and said, “What's wrong with you? I just wanna see what it is!” “It's not yours and besides, that thing is creepy as hell!”  Anthony hissed in return. Before Anthony could slap his hands away again, Jack swiped the notebook off the shelf and held it tauntingly.

 “See? It's fine.” Jack began to open the book but before he could read the first word he dropped it with a scream of pain and gripped his wrist. “What the hell!” Jack screamed, Anthony's eyes, wide with terror, screamed back, “What's wrong, what happened??” The music on the intercom began to screech a high pitch frequency so loud that Anthony's ears began to bleed. Jack fell to his knees and continued screaming in pain. His bones, now melting from the inside out, slowly turning to powder. He began to crumble like sand. His shrieks of pain, now accompanied by Anthony's screams of horror, filled the once peaceful and empty store. There was no one around to save him. Then, as if he was paper set on fire, his flesh turned to ash. Jack's body began to seep into the tiles and disappear as all at once the room went silent. Jack's screams were cut off as the rest of his vanished into dust as his horrendous and painful death came to end, his very soul being ripped from his body. Anthony stood in complete shock, screeching still blaring from the speakers and blood still dripping from his ears as the notebook on the floor began to flip its pages, page after page was filled with names of people he didn't know. Abby Jenson, Emma Styles, John Storm, Alex Hemmingway, Courtney Chester, Phillip Smith, Hailey Rodrigo, Tessa VanPelt, Tyler Briscoe, ect... Each name was scribbled in red ink on each page. The book kept flipping until it landed on an empty yellowed page. Then with an aerie scratching sound, like nails drug across a chalkboard, Jack's full name began to appear on the page in scribbled red ink…. 

Anthony could feel a strong surge of pain shoot through his chest. His body seemed to freeze up and he felt the floor become closer as he crashed, his knees buckling below him. Anthony comes crashing to the floor as the lights grow darker and his eyelids become heavier each time they close. Then everything goes silent as he loses consciousness, and the last thing he heard was everything go silent and then the soft music beginning to play once again over the intercom.