Following the stream Hannah was constantly surveying the area for edible vegetation. In her desolate world being able to find edible crops in the sparse vegetation was her gift. Most of the seeds in Hannah's garden at home had been foraged from the wilds. Crop seeds were regulated and only sold to industrial farmers, not villagers growing on the wasteland soil. Hannah didn't like it when people took her choices away. Mike had done enough of that, she scoffed in her head. She could have become an industrial farmer if she had taken the scholarship. After he proposed, he rushed her down the aisle and she wound up pregnant within the month. And with that it was bye bye college. It was her choice in the end though. She had such thick rose colored glasses on that she thought she had landed the perfect home life. The sad truth she found was the man only gave out his love if it was beneficial to him. Once her brilliance lost its luster, buried under housework and sleepless nights he became complacent. It all came down to the fact that their marriage was just a transaction for him. The emotions he spoon fed her were just a fun way for him to pass his time until these children were born. It was such a hard pill to swallow. She patted her belly sadly thinking at least she was fortunate enough to raise one of her own children.

While organizing her frantic emotions Hannah passed a partially picked over berry bush that resembled wild raspberries. Pausing for a moment, she took off her cardigan and turned it into a bag by tying the arms into a knot with the bottom of the shirt. These strange berries were a brilliant purple color, which seemed par for the course considering all the vibrant colors in her surroundings. It was almost like someone had changed a setting in her eyes like they do on the television, but this was the world she was living in. Sometimes the brilliance of the colors would give her a slight headache and she would look at the crystal clear water of the stream until it subsided a minute later. Her eyes eventually adjusted to the scenery but it had taken most of the day. It was at this time when she decided she needed to keep a few feet away from the stream unless she was attentive. There she saw a giant crab the size of her torso climbing out of the water on the other side accidentally chop down a tree it was hanging on. Hannah concluded that these creatures must have no intelligence because it had scurried away from the falling tree like it hadn't realized what it had done.

As the sun started to set Hannah was frustrated because there were zero signs of civilized life, just animal tracks and pink dragonfly looking bugs that mostly jumped through the grass. She caught a couple and stashed them in her bag, folded seperately. Although she would have to adapt to the food of this new world, she was pregnant and all foods here came with a certain level of risk. What if these berrries cause miscarriage? She just didn't know. But she didn't want to starve either because that also causes miscarriage. Hannah refused to lose this baby. She wanted someone, anyone to help her out of this situation. But she was alone. There was no trash, no chopped trees, and all the clearings she had found throughout her walk were empty. Her feet began to swell and blisters were forming.

With her ear toward the sound of the rushing water she ventured a little farther away from the possible giant crab attack and scaled a tree to find a new clearing for the night. Looking out around the swaying green leaves she located a spot a little ways from the stream with a weird looking black and teal tree in the middle of it. She had to go over there just to check that thing out. 'Maybe its a world tree or something', she fantasized as she climbed back down the tree, picked her makeshift bag up and headed in that direction. She was beat. Although she took periodic breaks during her trek to find people she was still getting over a personal and physical trauma. She never saw a doctor over the bleeding that happened that night. Fortunately when her mind was going there she felt a little flutter inside.

As the sun began to set Hannah approached the clearing while gathering branches long enough to hold the tarp above her. After creating a bed of brilliant red and green leaves she felt like she was about to sleep on a bed of Christmas cards. As the thought crossed her mind her womb began to cramp and she immediately laid down, not even attempting a fire. The nights weren't so cold as they were at home anyways. Just had to keep an ear out for giant crabs or whatever was eating those berries. The prints looked foxlike so she quickly hung the berry bag from the branch that was holding up the tarp as she wrapped herself in the blanket. Sitting on her leaf blanket bed she held one of the berries between her two fingers. She hadn't eaten in almost three days. She hadn't eaten dinner before her world collapsed. She held the brilliant purple berry in her hand as the juice slipped down her fingers. Her taste buds grazed over the purple liquid on her fingertip and it tasted like the best thing she had in her entire life. Not knowing the outcome of eating the berrry, she waited another hour before allowing herself to eat half of one. The juices exploded in her mouth and her anxieties began to fade a little. One hour later and the sun had fully set. She popped the last of the berry in her mouth and laid down listening to the sound of the insects and the water. The twin moons lit up the night making the everything in the clearing visable. The teal and black tree swayed in the wind in an odd fashion. It looked like it was dancing. Holding onto a sharp branch for fending off wildlife, Hannahs eyes finally slid shut.

***

The officers that had responded to the scene just wanted to find the missing woman. There had been a substantial amount of blood on the floor and it looked like someone had hit their head on a floor tile that was cracked and bled enough blood to die. There was some flesh in that as well. They had contacted the local hospital and her parents were contacting her old friends to see if she went to them for help. She wasn't recorded in the system and all of her personal items were still in the house along with her child. She was just gone. The grandparents had tipped the cops with some fresh vegetables from their daughters garden so they would have incentive to bring their daughter home. Bribes were always welcomed by the local police. Without them cases would never be solved. There's only so much a man is willing to do for a bag of rice.

"Caleb did something happen between Mommy and Daddy yesterday?" Beth began to inquire. They had sat him down at the breakfast table the following morning and tried to get some information out of him. Beth had been up most of the night crying while Roger was still out looking through hospitals and local veterinarians.

"Daddy don't give mommy food and took mommys. I dont like it when he do that stuff." Caleb grumped.

"Daddy sells your food?" Beth was surprised. Hannah wasn't the type to let her mother in on her problems unless she was buried in them.

"Yeah i eat rice and mom eats green stuff. She makes me eat green stuff too sometimes. Some of it is good but the color is still gross. I dont like green. I like yellow. Yellow is my favorite color." Caleb began to go off topic.

"Did Mommy go into the bathroom before Daddy left?" she asked the child directly.

"Yup." Caleb answered while kicking his feet under the table. He crunched down on his toast.

"Did Mommy leave the bathroom after Daddy left?" Beth asked seriously. She bit her lips praying the answer was yes. 'Dear God let my child be alive' she thought.

"Nope." he answered distractedly. "Is she STILL pooping? Her butt is gonna go numb."

Beth patted his head as she stumbled into her own bathroom. Turning on the sink she began to cry. Her chest was hollow. Her daughter, the shining jewel of her life was missing. The room she was last seen in was covered in blood. The last person who saw her was her cheating husband who didn't want to wait for the pregnancy to end. Beth regained her composure and washed her face. Opening the door she saw Caleb standing outside.

"What's wrong buddy?" she asked the little boy.

"I just wanted to make sure you came out." he said innocently as he walked back to the table. Beth's heart clenched. Picking up her cellphone she dialed her husband.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Anything?" was the first word out of her mouth the moment he picked up the phone.

"Ive checked all the hospitals and even stopped by the vet clinic. Nothing so far. The police have Mike in custody. He says he just knocked on the door and left. He refuses to say anything else. There's no sign of home invasion so it had to have been him. The cops have had him up all night trying to find out where he might have taken her but he won't say anything. His mother is in there with her lawyer dragging our daughter's name through the mud making up all sorts of nonsense about her character so her boy don't look so awful. Beth, I think our daughter isn't coming back." Roger said as his voice was cracking.

"You don't know that Roger" Beth snapped at her husband. "Don't you dare take away my hope."

"Did Caleb wake up yet?" he inquired hoping that the boy had some sort of explanation for his daughters disappearance and call for help.

Beth paused for a moment knowing what Caleb said made it even harder to hope. "Mikes been selling Hannah's crops, and he hasn't been giving her grain since who knows when." she started out with this piece of information.

"Goddamnit. That boy makes twice what I do just to watch a tv all day and he can't give his wife food? Where is all his food going? Why can't he trade it so daughter can eat grains like a normal person?" Roger yelled.

"Well... the girlfriends profile is basically dinners she's cooked with fruits and vegetables so there's that. Also, she's living a really plush life for being unemployed." she explained. Her daughter was really wronged in this marriage. If only we had moved to a different town or if there had been something we could have done. Maybe if they had forced her to go to college she wouldn't have been put through this trauma. But if they had forced her to do anything, she would have just rebelled and done what she wanted. She was like her mother Beth in that way.

"Well looks like when I grab Caleb's stuff in a moment, I'll go ahead and harvest the yard. They're all gonna die if she doesn't come back soon and he will just sell them to pay for his lawyer. If he did something to our girl, which he must have, he needs to figure out what's next himself."

"What if Hannah comes back and this is all a big misunderstanding?" Beth reasoned.

"Taking food from our pregnant daughters mouth is like giving her a slow death. Do you know anyone other than our daughters who can survive without a grain allotment? He can get these crops back when he finds my daughter!" he responded resolutely.

"Ok. And you're right about the crops. If you don't pick them they'll probably start dying off by tomorrow. Whatever that girl does to those plants stops after she's left it for a few days. Remember the lemon tree? What an expensive disaster." Beth smiled at the memory and then felt a pang in her chest at the loss of her daughter. She has been feeling frantic all night but she has to watch Caleb. Today she was gonna spend the day contacting all her daughters friends to see if she was in hiding somewhere. There's always hope if you look for it. Pulling up an old yearbook album online she began to search out the numbers of all of Hannah's friends through their linked profiles.

"Woh Hey Mrs. B! Long time no see!" said a smiling face from the other line.

"Hey Chris, It's Hannah's mom. Have you seen her anywhere?" She asked the first friend she recognized from the yearbook.

The smile turned into a frown as he was taken aback by the seriousness of how and what was just said. "I haven't seen her since she married Mike, except for the reunion a few months ago. She said her husband didn't like her to have men as friends. Is she okay?"

"I hope so. If you see her anywhere call me right away."

"Of course Mrs. B." Chris responded resolutely. His heart was jumping out of his chest. Hannah was in trouble. After 8 years of friendship you would think that ditching a friend would be difficult but that's what she had done. Admittedly he did have a one sided crush on her for 2 of those 8 years but he never acted on those feelings back then, and since she had met Mike it seemed pointless to voice them. When she told him men and women couldn't be friends his world had shattered but he picked up his feet and moved on. He was about to graduate college and had a line to a nice industrial job. If she wouldn't get her dream job, he would. The whole thing seemed tasteless now that she was missing. Chris leaned back and lit a joint as he pulled out his phone and scanned the news. There wasn't any information about her listed yet but he was feeling restless. He began calling the rest of his friends.

Beth got the same kind of response from the rest of her daughter's friends. She hadn't seen them since the wedding, and they were all given an excuse that stemmed from her husband. Her daughter was totally alienated. After making the last call, she dialed the agent in charge of the investigation and explained what she had learned.

"Look Maam, there's no easy way to say this but we need to be prepared to look at this as a homicide. The husband isn't giving us any information either and although he's the main suspect he wont be detained until we have enough to charge him absolutely.." the police officer told her bluntly.

"We still need to find her!" she yelled, her voice shaking. Hannah's whole life flashed before her eyes. The diaper changes, the jumper she never wanted to get out of, her giggle, their inside jokes, and family songs, all of it was supposed to be gone now. She was just supposed to accept it like that. She stared blankly at her grandson, watching cartoons innocently on the couch. No way. She wouldn't accept it until she saw her daughter with her own eyes.

"Yes maam I understand that, and we are doing our best to locate your daughter." the officer placated her.

"Please. Please do better. And how am I supposed to hand off my grandson to a man who's suspected of hurting my daughter?!"

"Legally he's the father and until he's proven guilty it will be hard to remove custody from the parent. I'd suggest hiring a lawyer."

"I can't believe this is happening."

"I'm so sorry ma'am"

"Okay I guess I'm calling a lawyer now. Thank you for your suggestion."

"Talk to you soon ma'am." he concluded as he hung up the call. This case was messy. He ran his fingers through his greying hair and went back into the interrogation room.

"So what! I cheated. And I planned on leaving. But I wouldn't murder someone! This is insane. When can I see my son? I want to go home and get some rest. And I haven't eaten all day today. Can I go home now?" Mike complained. He didn't actually care about seeing his son, but his girlfriend was packing up her apartment and getting ready to move into his house. His wife going missing sucked, but he didn't do anything and he didn't want her around anymore anyway. His girlfriend couldn't have children so she was super excited to take care of the kid. He wasn't a fan of kids. They were too much work and always needed something when you were busy. He was finally done having children and now he didn't even have to keep the second one! Now they just had to find her and whoever did this to her and life would be good.

"We have you for another 5 hours. Now tell us what you did with the body." Officer Carter continued.

"I told you....." Mike trailed on giving his explanation again. The officer was getting agitated. If his boss wasn't pressing him to find more evidence he would be done. They continued like this for the following 6 hours until night fell and they had to release him.

Mike had to rip down the Caution tape to get into his house. He was happy until he saw the bathroom floor. He got the mop bucket out and began to clean up before his girlfriend saw this. 'Hannah was always making huge messes' he thought as he mopped up the blood with bleach. After he cleaned up he took a shower and started stashing all Hannah's things before Jennifer came over. After four years of waiting, he was finally gonna have her in his own bed. The circumstances were a bit off, but the outcome was what he wanted. God must have listened to him!

Knocking on the front door, Jennifer pushed in yelling, "Babe?" as she looked around the cluttered house.

"Hey!" he said smiling as he embraced her.

"Where's our son?" She asked, looking at him with puppy dog eyes.

"Shhhh." he said as he kissed her and carried her to the bedroom. She giggled in delight. The pair spent the rest of the night in the bedroom happy that their problem had solved itself, ignoring the issue of the missing pregnant wife. For all they cared she could just stay missing. One child was enough. They were done waiting. And they showed each other how much that night.