Vanished!

• Mattea Purvis, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2022

"Ahem...ATTENTION EVERYONE! Has anyone seen a teenage girl named Alyce Brooksenburg? She goes to our school and she is in year 10.” I screamed out. The whole school went as quiet as a ghost town. They had that look on their faces as if they had no clue what I was saying. Then I felt someone tapping my shoulder, I rapidly turned around and it was one of my closest friends whispering “Are you ok? Who is Alyce Brooksenburg?” I was shocked he didn’t even know who HIS YOUNGER SISTER WAS! “NO I am NOT ok, and neither should you be! YOUR SISTER has VANISHED!! My BEST FRIEND has VANISHED!” I declared in anger.
The next day, I woke up and went to school. Everyone acted like they had no clue who Alyce was. I searched the playground to find my friend group. When I finally found them, I realised someone else was missing. It was Katie. I found it really unusual that Katie was not at school. She is one of those people who LOVES school. Now all of a sudden the day after Alyce goes missing she doesn’t show up? I find that quite a coincidence. I asked some of my friends if they had seen her but everyone said, “Who is Katie…?” “...Who?” “...I have no clue who that is… Sorry.” Was I the only one that notices people who have vanished out of nowhere and everyone else completely forgets about them and acts like they never met these people before? All I knew was that I needed to get to the bottom of this! FAST!
I went home that night, thinking about what could have happened to Alyce and Katie. I could not find a reasonable explanation for why all of a sudden they just vanished. So I decided to get a notebook and write down their full names, what day the girls vanished and what they had in common. The only evidence I found was that they both were females. I wasn’t 100% sure if this was the actual thing that could have made them vanish but I figured that I would work on that theory. Now, I just had to think of a way to stop it.
The next day I was up all day and all night, keeping an eye on every girl in our year seeing if one of them would just vanish. Then all of a sudden there was a trace of movement. I court someone kidnapping another girl. I knew it was duty to follow this strange guy. I rapidly rang the police and told them what had happened. I followed this guy home, not knowing what I should do. 20 minutes later, the police showed up, they enter the house like there is no tomorrow. All three girls ran out of the house. Later we found out that, the kidnapper was our school principal. He had hypnotized everyone and their families into believing that these girls didn’t even exist.