Whisper

Prologue

It's September 2nd, which is also known as the first day of the long school year ahead of me. I look to the sky and see nothing but the blue abyss staring back at me, almost as if it wanted to tell me the untold secrets of the universe. I used to be ecstatic about school, to meet my new teachers for the first time, to walk the halls yet again, so familiar. Now, it seems like the beginning of endless torture. To complete a single day in this wasteland of a school seems to be an unfathomable task.
Ever since the disappearances started it's been getting harder and harder to turn a blind eye. The first one was almost a month ago, there have been five since. No one has a clue to who is behind these attacks, there hasn't been a single common factor between them, except for the lack of evidence that is, it's almost as if they all upped and vanished. Gone, without a trace.
The first disappearance was a mile east of town, a thirty seven year-old repair man, who'd been working on the McKey farm, fixing up their generator that had burst into flames a few days earlier. A little more than a week later there was another, half a mile north of Pines, this time it was an eleven year-old girl who had been out for a walk with her family. Records show that she was reported missing after playing a game of tag with her brothers in the community park. By the time of this attack everyone in Pines had heard about it, and all were looking to blame an animal. The third disappearance was a little less than a week later, on the south side of town. A seven year-old boy, who had apparently vanished while playing at Richmond Park with his mother. Now everyone in town was spooked, this isn't animal behavior any longer this is that of a savage monster that grips its prey in a small moment, then vanishes, and pulls them into the darkness with it. Four days later, a priest was found to be yet another victim of these mysterious occurrences, after his wife reported that he had never made it back home from the Pleasant View Cathedral, he was sixty seven and about to retire his career as a preacher. The most recent disappearance was five blocks from my house, Maggie had turned sixteen two days earlier. We were celebrating the fact that she passed the final exam and finally got her licence. I had been with her for the entire evening, up until she went to get marshmallows so that we could make s'mores, but she never came back. Maggie is my best friend, or at least she used to be.