A cat plush of a maine coon with a coat of deep midnight black fur lay in a cramped apartment that was meticulously cleaned in an attempt to make it feel more spacious than it actually was.

The apartment didn't have a lot in it, a hanging shelf, a table, a bed, a small kitchen built into the main living space, and a tiny bathroom with a shower that just barely fit the resident.

On the shelf was a championship trophy with a black cloth belt slung around it, and a pair of boxing gloves sat next to it a facedown portrait was at the end of the shelf always there but never seen to the resident.

The table in the center was the only thing still cluttered in the apartment with notes and sketches about atoms and molecules alongside chemistry and engineering textbooks stacked on top of each other.

The small and tidy bed held the large black furred maine coon plush, sat regaly on top of a pillow, it gave off the pompous but adorable feeling an actual cat had.

The sound of footsteps echoed through the apartment door and then rattled for a moment, swinging open a moment later to see a muscular woman sighing.

Sweat soaked her red t-shirt and blue jeans. Her brown hair also wasn't spared from it as it stuck to her back and face.

Her green eyes showed how exhausted she was from her day of work. She felt awful, and she looked just as bad as she felt.

Her usual soft but commanding voice came out in a whisper from how little she wanted to talk. "Finally... Now, just shower, then I can do what I want!"

Kella closed the door behind and slid her boots off in a practiced manner before she went to the kitchen and double-checked the chicken she bought yesterday to make sure she knew how to cook it. I hope he actually fixed it by now...

Confirming she was right, Kella emptied her pockets, putting her wallet and phone on the counter before she turned the oven on and went straight to the bathroom to clean herself, pealing her clothes off and throwing them in a half filled hamper.

Kella turned the shower on, and after giving it time, she stuck her hand in the shower and recoiled at how cold it was. "Are you kidding me?"

She took a deep breath before stepping in the icy water. Muffling her yelp as she grabbed her soap and got work cleaning herself.

The damn water heater is still broke, and I called the landlord 3 days ago... Kella mentally cursed the landlord for taking so long to fix the appliance as she scrubbed herself down through the cold water.

.

Kella walked out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel, trying to ignore how cold she was.

The oven was done warming up, and Kella wrapped the towel around her before getting the chicken out and putting it in the oven, letting the warmth of the cooking appliance warn her cold body for several moments.

Closing the oven door, Kella looked over to her phone as it chimed a familiar ring tone and picked it up to see what they wanted. Deep down, she knew what it probably was but hoped it wasn't.

"Hey, Mikoff." Kella said flatly as she waited from her boss with annoyance at how her day off was about to be thrown out the window.

"Hey Kella, I have bad news. We're all going to need to go into overtime." Mikoff's gruff voice came through her phone and confirmed her fear.

Kella dragged her hands down her face as she asked the question. "Is it about the termites we found on a beam?"

A long sigh came from Mikoff as Kella started to get dressed in a loose dark green hoodie and grey sweatpants. "It wasn't just a beam, Kella. It was all of them, and they had pretty bad damage to their structural integrity. I apparently got scammed, and I can't find the sellers anymore."

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Kella felt even more like shit than before her shower and started to clean the table to calm down. Cleaning was one of her habits, and it was nearly compulsive when she got stressed. "Don't tell me you're going to tear everything down. We just barely finished the second floor."

"Not everything, but we can't use those beams. The building would crumble after 6 months, and do you want to be responsible for the deaths that would cause?" Kella was sitting at her now cleaned table, head in her hands as she cursed.

"I know, I know... I'm just upset. We spent 12 fucking hours doing the second floor today and now we need to both destroy and rebuild it."

"Can you be in charge of the deconstruction while I search for a new batch of beams tomorrow? You're the best option with your memory. " Kella's frustration was at its peak at Mikoff's suggestion and considered refusing immediately, but that would ruin the good relationship she had built with the only person who would hire her in the state.

A ding resonated throughout the apartment, startling Kella to stand up and find the source. She quickly realized it was just her oven. Her head hurt, and she wanted to stop talking to Mikoff. "Fine, I'll be there on schedule. Good luck convincing the rest of the team. Alright, I'm going to hang up and eat now."

"Alright, thanks. I already have. You were the last." Kella hung up, not letting him finish and turned her oven off but didn't take the chicken instead going over to her bed and grabbing the plushie, pulling it close to her chest in a hug.

Kella started talking to the the maine coon plushie in her arms. "Miss night, will I ever get a break? I lost my appetite from that call as well. I know it will taste like shit if I eat it while I'm upset... Let's watch something to cool off."

She scrolled through the recommendations on her phone for something to watch. "Memes. Depressing documentary. Let's play... Museums losing everything?"

Kella clicked the video and let it play as she pet Miss Night as if it were a real cat, specifically rubbing the ears more than anything else. "I mean, this is crazy! Almost everything in the British museum is gone. Even the rosetta stone is gone!

Japanese museums lost several ancient katanas and other weapons, not to mention the items a shogun once owned! Apparently, the same thing happened to everything that disappeared. They started glowing so bright it was blinding and then vanished! People are calling it 'the vanishing'!"

Kella blinked, confused at the absurd claims, and stopped the video to check if they were telling the truth. To her surprise she found numerous articles about 'the vanishing' and how much more than stuff in museums were vanishing, guns, farming equipment, and even an entire 14,000 ton excavator were also victims of the phenomenon. "Holy shit it is real..."

Kella clicked on a video saying it was about the vanishing. It started with a view of the declaration of independence, then the piece of parchment started emitting a bright white light that got so bright it was blinding and then disappeared. "The declaration of independence, too?!"

"That's some fantasy shit... Whatever is going on isn't going to start taking people, is it?" Kella looked at a few more things on the vanishing before her stomach growled.

"Oh, right..." Kella put Miss Night down and got the chicken out of the oven and ate it off the pan, she wasn't feeling up to get a plate out for the food anymore.

"...It's still bland." The chicken was going to be a treat to herself and set the mood for the next day and a half she was going to do her hobby, but now it was just a slightly better meat to get her ready for the endurance match with the building their constructing.

The hobby in question was chemistry, and it was one of Kella's favorite things to look into alongside the occasional game or novel. Not like I can do any of those for at least a week with how busy I'll be.

She glanced over to a kitchen knife for a long moment...

Let's just sleep. I don't want to think about that. Kella turned away from the knife and cleaned up the small mess, making the chicken made.

Kella flipped the lights off and collapsed onto her bed, once again pulling Miss Night in for a hug. Sleep didn't come easy, but it never did for her in the past 5 years.

.

..

.

In Kella's apartment in the middle of the night, something entered through the wall.

It was a small ball of light, barely the size of a tennis ball, and it hovered around the room, gazing at the items in the room.

The ball of light paused in front of the shelf. It hummed and extended a strand of light towards it.

The strand touched the boxing gloves, black belt, and trophy. The souvenirs of Kella's fighting glowed before vanishing.

The ball of light floated over to the bed and stared at the plushie tightly held in Kella's arms with intense interest.

The ball of light reached out to take the prized possession from the sleeping woman.

The strand touched Miss Night, but Kella shifted, touching it as well, and in the same manner, both Miss Night and Kella started glowing.

Kella groaned in her sleep before the two vanished. The tendril of light retracted back into the ball of light, and it moved on to its next location, uncaring for the massive and bloody chain reaction this action would bring to the world.