CHAPTER 6

He snapped out of his stupor and ran outside. He hurriedly went into the nearest pharmacy and checked with the attendant there.

The pharmacist looked at him, puzzled. The woman he described in great detail did not come in that day, nor did anyone match that description at the other four pharmacies within the ten-mile radius of her apartment.

He ran back into her apartment and started undoing all the drawers. Everything unimportant to Elaine had been left there, as if it was meticulously left behind as to not alert him that she had indeed gone.

There was an envelope on the nightstand. It was something he looked over initially as clutter, but as soon as we walked to the edge of the bed it stood out like a sore thumb.

He practically tore open the envelope, and about six hundred-dollar bills floated to the ground. The hastily drawn note was written as such:

Thanks for all the love. But I don’t think I need you anymore. I’ll keep the overseas apartment. Deal?

---Elaine

David was enraged. He stopped at nothing to try and cancel her flight out of the country, but he was much too late. The pills Elaine put into his breakfast that morning made him sleep for nearly ten hours.

He decided to hire investigators. From their reports they had dark news:

Even though Elaine was seen boarding her flight, hers was one of the many airplanes that never reached its destination.

All contact with the world outside the country’s borders was silent static just around that time.

The investigators surmised that based on ground control’s account of this specific flight that there was something ominous to report. The plane she boarded had, according to some rumors, experienced an navigation failure over the ocean and most likely plummeted to her death along with the other passengers.

The shame David had experienced was unlike he had ever known. He was fooled. Tricked into spilling his pockets for someone who drained his bank account and most likely had engaged in other fraudulent activity.

And the worst was that he wouldn’t have learned a thing if she kept this ruse going. He wondered how far he would’ve gone for her if she didn’t end up at the bottom of the ocean. Under the promise of more, he threw away his fiancée for a woman whose only connection to him was that she saved him from starvation as a child.

He was too ashamed to try and contact Fina for the first week. One night he got drunk, and in a fit of desperation called her. It went straight to voicemail.

“Fina,” David said. “Dear god, Fina. Please answer. Please. I made a mistake. Just call me back when you can.”

This went on for a few days. He would get drunk, call her, and leave her a message. She never answered him. Finally, he called her when he was sober. Only to find that her voice message box was full.

Fina never left her voice box full. She had limited storage and always checked her phone to make more room on it.

David became nervous, jittery. He did something he never usually did and called her work. The receptionist informed him that she hadn’t shown up to work in two weeks, so they assumed she quit and took her off the schedule.

He couldn’t take it anymore and filed a police report.

David sat down in his apartment that evening. He tried to think about all the logical reasons why Fina wasn’t there. He had come up with a few excuses before he went to sleep.

That night, he dreamed of something very strange.

David found himself in what he could only describe as a black void. He looked around and saw nothing. Suddenly, a spec of light revealed the world beneath him. It was like he could see every country, every person walking along living.

And in the middle of everything was his home city. It looked like a crystal in the center of a dark orb. Bright, and warm.

He drifted closer and could see a figure in the center. It was a girl, small running through a field of flowers. She looked identical to Fina, only with longer hair and rosier cheeks. She stared at him for a second before running to a boy passed out in the field. The boy was him.

“Fina…” He said, holding back tears. “It was you…”

Suddenly the little girl morphed into an adult woman. The brightness around her fades. And suddenly she vanishes.

David is taken higher into the sky until he can see every country on the planet. Then, like ink, darkness seeped into the cracks and corners of the world. It engulfed the world and grew ever closer to the city.

David heard a voice. It was ethereal, and condemning.

“I don’t like this story anymore.”

And like a wave, everything that once held life faded into nothingness.

David jumped awake to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He looked outside. The rain had turned to snow. The white flakes drifted slower and slower down. The sun that peeked out from black clouds was low in the horizon, even though it was already eleven in the morning.

He looked at his phone. It is the police station. He hesitated to answer. He doesn’t want to, but he pushed the answer button anyway.

“Mr. David?”

“Y-Yes?”

“Please come down to the station,” the officer said. “It’s urgent.”

David felt his stomach lurching. His throat was dry. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry,” he said in a grim tone. “I’m so sorry.” 

Ryan fired Dee and Mia immediately after watching the video. In the official report, he cited general incompetence and had Arnold frame them for a breach in security measures that resulted in the loss of several international clients.

Arnold tried to reason why his boss, a man who had told him to dispose of the woman just a few weeks ago was retaliating against those who had merely spoken ill of her. Why go so far for a dead woman?

It also had not escaped his notice that Ryan had arranged several trysts with women who bore a resemblance to her as well. He had been so preoccupied with this that he didn’t seem to notice that the profits from the company were down, due to the international silence that was slowly seeping into the country day by day.

It was three in the afternoon and the sun had only peaked out from the horizon before it began to set. The snowfall had slowed to a complete and total stop. While that normally would mean that snow had ceased to fall, what happened seem to defy the natural order.

The snow had simply stopped moving in midair. Thousands upon millions of tiny crystals sat completely still in the world that was winding down to twilight far too soon. 

“Get her,” Ryan said.

Arnold didn’t know what he meant at first.  

“I want to see her again,” he said, looking out the window. “Fina.”

Arnold couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But he knew it was all too soon before the young master would suggest something this vile.

Ryan HeelRiven wanted him to dig her up from the grave they had put her in. He wanted Arnold to discreetly bring her corpse back.

Arnold felt a deep sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. And yet, he still obeyed.

Arnold was close to the site, which was very close to the forbidden area that the silent haze was said to be making its way towards. Civilians were asked not to go past these limits within three miles under the punishment of a fine.

Arnold, knowing Mr. HeelRiven, knew he could swallow whatever fine would be imposed on them. So Arnold hired several discreetly crew members to help him unearth Fina’s body.

The roads were empty, and as he drove the snowflakes that had been so still smashed against his car like little shards of glass.

They found the site and got out of the car. Several crew members had gotten out with tools to dig the area Arnold instructed them to. As they began to work the hard, frozen dirt, Arnold saw a police car move up to the area. Then another.

As the officer got out of the car, Arnold sent a text message to Ryan, informing him that the site had been compromised.

Arnold and his crew members were immediately arrested. And that was how they found Fina’s body.