All over the world various social media influencers were hacked and similar videos were posted on their channels. The videos showed the missing people all being tortured by the masked man.
The videos gained popularity in an instant as people connected the disappearances to the videos. People's opinions of the videos varied; some considered the torture and killings as the masked man's revenge or fight for justice as the politicians, military men and even the average individuals in the videos always boasted of having done certain heinous things and some asserted that the masked man was doing it for revenge. Others considered the videos as the deranged acts of a mad serial killer who thinks he can't be caught.
Social media was completely taken over with new and theories about the masked man:
[What are the masked man’s motives? Find out in this article]
[Why has the UN not been able to catch this person? Are they letting him continue because they support him?]
[I doubt that they support him, they probably just can’t catch him. He’s like a modern Jack the ripper]
[I support him the bastards he kills are very bad people I have no qualms]
[How can you say that? Are you going to ignore the innocent people he also kills and tortures simply because he tortures bad people too? I hope he is caught there is an orderly way to seek for justice when you see injustice one should never take the law into one’s hands]
[Everyone is ignoring something very important. If he kidnapped the people shouldn’t they have known that they were kidnapped? Many of them only realize they have been kidnapped after they wake up]
[Yeah you’re right some of them even said they went to sleep before they found themselves in the white room]
[Yes, some even said that they were in their offices or watching TV before they found themselves in the room]
[True! In the video of the guy that had already traveled because of the disappearances he was wondering what his security were doing, he even asked the man how for how he kidnapped him. He didn’t know how he got kidnapped]
[How is it possible to kidnap someone without the person you kidnapped noticing how you did it?]
[This can’t be called kidnapping he is literally stealing their persons without them even know how he stole them!]
[I really want to know how he does it, is it sleeping gas? The people he steals are always sleeping at the start of his videos]
[I was a guard for one of the people he stole. I was in the room with the person, I looked away for one second and the person I was protecting was gone the moment I looked back again. The cameras were already hacked, the footage deleted, no trace or evidence of how he took them]
[Sick! Their literally disappearing, no one can catch this guy he is the stealer of men]
[I’ve not been able to sleep for the past nights because of The Stealer. I’m a Nigerian and I don’t know if I will be his next target]
[If you haven’t done anything bad you don’t have to worry dude]
[What if someone I know does something bad, won’t he also steal me]
[Oh sorry]
People started calling the masked man ‘The Stealer of Men’ as the people he captured never knew how they got to where they were even after waking up, it was like he stole people and even the people he stole didn’t know how he stole them.
Various governments condemned the killings as an unnecessary act of violence as The Stealer killed both the innocent and the guilty, they denoted him as a terrorist. No one could support the innocence of the politicians as their words in the videos betrayed that but their family and loved ones weren’t guilty.
The UN vowed to capture The Stealer of Men; they maintained their stance that his actions were acts of terrorism.
The world waited in anticipation for the next disappearance but nothing happened for months, until February 12, 2082. The president of Nigeria returned to Nigeria with his family, stating that he was not afraid of The Stealer and that his previous travel's purpose was to watch the foreign countries and learn from their security measures.
No one bought his bullshit, but no one knew why he still came back. At this point anyone who had the power to leave Nigeria had left already only those who couldn’t leave stayed.
His return was actually bait set by the UN to lure The Stealer out, they had checked the background of the people who were killed and found out that they had done things that could warrant some people to seek revenge so in order to narrow down the number of suspects they sent the president back as bait.
The UN and the countries that made it up were only protecting the politicians because of the stance they took before the public, the main reason for their involvement in the case was The Stealer of Men himself, they had no idea how he abducted the politicians even after extended investigations, it was like they just disappeared. They wanted to know how he did it.
Jade watched the news with a smile, the bait was very obvious, 'most people would be busy insulting the president's cowardice but those who look deeper can see that he wouldn't want to return for any reason unless he was forced or the UN had a sure plan' Jade thought as he looked in amusement at the excessive protection the president had even while proclaiming fearlessness.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
'I would have ignored this but sadly for Mr. President he is also on my list and he is the last one left, I wanted him to have a preview of what would happen before it happened to him, I wonder how he’ll react when I get him' Jade thought and began preparations to abduct the president.
At this point Jade wasn't acting for revenge anymore, he was doing it for fun; his rage had been appeased when he tortured the robbers. Jade was genuinely surprised that such cruel people had people that they loved and cherished genuinely, he even thought, at one point, that they were pretending.
The current president was just one of the people who supported the death of his family when the idea was brought up, he wasn't a main player. 'I can probably abduct the president successfully but that way my method would be exposed. I'll be caught eventually with all the investigations the UN is doing, I’m probably a suspect already. They’ll probably send the remaining politicians back if I don’t take him’ Jade thought.
He had killed some people who weren’t involved with the death of his parents, but were cut from the same cloth as those who were, to throw the investigation off but he knew his time was nearing.
He didn’t want the UN to discover the new technology he had created in his lab, space manipulation technology, as he would not benefit from them finding out since they weren’t saints either.
He had used a space folding device to teleport his targets into a white room filled with sleeping gas. He never hacked any cameras as there were people with way higher computer knowledge than him that would be able to trace it.
The investigators could only assume he was hacking the cameras without leaving traces because they couldn’t say the people in the security footages they saw actually disappeared. It would be equivalent to them saying it was impossible for them to catch The Stealer.
But now with the level of awareness the world had of The Stealer the UN would spare no effort to catch him so he was quite sure that he was being watched. Jade decided to take a different route with the president.
12:03am, February 14 2082, valentine’s day, a fire started in the buildings around the president’s lounge. The fire department was called but no one responded. The fire completely covered the perimeter of the president’s lounge; it was planned.
The security detail hired by the UN didn’t escort the president to the helicopter that was on the roof, they waited, hoping for The Stealer of Men to show himself, as they watched the president and his family.
The fire approached the president’s lounge and began to burn it. They then yielded and proceeded to take the president and his family toward the roof as they kept watch of everything and everyone. They successfully entered the helicopter with no incident and flew into the sky.
Then the helicopters the president and his family were on (They took separate helicopters to make the abduction harder) and the other helicopters began to crash. The pilots in the helicopters suddenly lost control of their helicopters. Jade had teleported the engines of the helicopters away.
The security detail gave the president and his family parachutes and had them jump off the helicopter after which they also jumped. Sadly the helicopters had broken down when they were still above the burning buildings. The security detail maneuvered their parachutes to go away from the burning zone but the burning zone was too wide and they all plunged into the fires.
The police and army personnel around the burning area began their search at the fire department building; all the people in the building were asleep. They checked the building and its surroundings for traces of The Stealer of Men… and they found them.
12:37am, A social influencer who was live streaming was hacked, the video of his live stream changed from showing his face and the background of his room to the white room of The Stealer.
The curtains had already been raised and the Nigerian president and his family were strapped to the chairs. The viewers were shocked; they began to alert their contacts that The Stealer of Men was at it again.
After about 8 minutes the views of the stream had sky rocketed and the president and his family woke up. It took some seconds for the president to realize that he was in the room that he always dreaded and had nightmares about along with his family; he had been stolen.
The president screamed and started crying when the realization sunk in; he had hoped the terrorist wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for such obvious bait.The Stealer just stood at the center of the room like he always did in his videos, like a statue in front of the statement on the wall that his victims never heeded.
Unlike the previous videos, instead of going to the table he reached for his mask and held it. This action made the tension of those watching the video rise to an unprecedented level as they anticipated a face reveal… which didn’t happen as he put his hand down and proceeded to the table and did as usual.
After the torture and killing session the video didn’t end, he stood in the center of the room as before and held his mask. The tension rose again as the curiosity of viewers out matched their pessimism. To their surprise he clicked the sides of his mask and the mask came loose.
As he slowly pulled the mask off his face the viewers imaginations went wild as they imagined what he looked like, a rough man with an evil smile, a handsome man with a cold expression,… , an alien, Light, Lelouch. He removed his mask and it revealed what could only be described as, an average face, sporting a gentle smile.
The viewers were silent, a moment later goggle was flooded with image searches. While this happened, Jade spoke “Hi everyone” while maintaining a happy and playful countenance “I’m sure you all didn’t expect this, the UN certainly didn’t they probably thought it would take them a while to find me but tada! I’m here.
I know they were baiting me with the president and his family but damn! This was such good bait! Did they expect me to just pass up such an opportunity?! And do what?! Wait for a more appropriate time to steal him? I’m not that rational, I mean I torture and kill people and post the videos on the internet, I’m certainly not trying to be prudent.
Many of you must be wondering what my reason was; my personal motivation. The answer to that question is…” he paused for some seconds “It’s none of your business” he said and then laughed “Media companies will certainly give their take on why I did this. But as I said it’s none of your business. Then why did I post the videos on the internet? Some might ask.
Some of you might have had nightmares of being in this room; sleeping in the night and waking up here” he laughed “you must have wondered why I decided to bring my deeds before the world, well the answer is simple.
All the videos I posted are therapy, for me and for some of you who watch them, I felt it was selfish to keep this experience to myself you know, some people need this kind of stuff… well those who understand, understand.
The army is probably coming here right now… Oh! I can hear their helicopters outside, it’s time to say goodbye everyone, I hope that one day we will be able to meet again and probably do some stuff like this or I don’t know play Among Us? Or something. Peace!” and the video ended.
Jade was caught by the Nigerian military and taken to a military prison. He was found filming in a boat, that was where some his videos had been filmed. Articles about him went viral, the headlines of many news pages always had ‘Jade the stealer of men’, in it.
It was on the day, a few hours after Jade was captured, that the apocalypse began.