Zayan was in his room lying in his bed and scrolling through his smartphone looking for a science fiction novel recommended by Rick. “Rick said this one was the best quick-progressing sci-fi novel he had ever read. I said I would try but its cover picture looks quite weird. It’s just our planet with a spaceship floating towards it. And this title ‘Dark Forest’. What does a forest have to do with Science that it is titled Dark Forest? Well, doesn’t hurt to try. It’s rated 8.9 out of 10, so it must be good.”
Zayan’s mother had called him to the roof of their house to see the beautiful sky. Zayan said that he didn’t want to and stayed in his room. His mother told him that the sky looked unnaturally beautiful and that there were blue spots in the clouds and no Sun but Zayan didn’t believe her and stayed in his room looking for that novel.
As Zayan clicked the novel to start reading it, time had just hit 5 PM. Zayan suddenly felt weird and saw a blue light engulfing him for a very small fraction of a second before falling unconscious.
A huge commotion was about to start in the streets as Zayan’s mother was watching the streets after the spots in the clouds vanished and the clouds themselves too vanished. She heard someone scream on the street, “MY SON VANISHED!!!! HE WAS JUST HERE!!” As the first scream sounded, Many others in the streets looked around for their own children but only a small number were present. Seeing that their children had too vanished, Multiple screams and cries sounded.
Zayan’s mother who was on the roof suddenly felt a chill. She became filled with fear similar to the others that were on the street. She ran downstairs and barged into Zayan’s room without a warning. As Zayan didn’t lock his door, she could easily go inside. She looked here and there inside the room. It is common sense that a person will not be in place of a mattress, but she still removed the bedsheet to see if Zayan was there. Her judgment and senses were clouded. Her cry could be heard up to the street but it was in such chaos that the cry itself became distorted.
As the disappearance happened, most people were placing their gazes at the eye-capturing sky from their homes or the streets. At the instant of disappearance, Rick, Ash, and Lee were standing on their roofs having their eyes captivated by the sky. They also briefly witnessed the blue light engulfing their whole body before losing consciousness. They felt nothing as the blue light engulfed them. All they could see was a blue light, and then their consciousness was gone.
At another place, Deon had just woken up. It was a time when the sky was starting to fill with those illogical yet beautiful blue-spotted clouds. Deon went outside and looked briefly at these clouds not caring about beauty. These clouds gave his dark side some comfort and his mind started to fill with dark thoughts again. As the streets began to crowd, all the attention was focused solely on the clouds. Deon’s dark thoughts began to battle with his normality.
It was much harder than usual for Deon to contain his darkness. Regardless of his best efforts to remain composed and thoughtful, his darkness continued to grow and break down his sense of reason. A wave of unsettling and terrifying thoughts filled him, raising his blood pressure, and making his eyes turn redder, his vision slightly blurred. He was losing control of his body as the darkness within him continued to attack his mind. There was nothing he could do. It felt like a weight was pressing down on his head.
He blocked his ears, closed his eyes, and sat down there on the street with his head down surrounded by people who looked like statues turning their heads upwards. He did this to retract his vision from the people surrounding him and not lose complete control. While his rational side was fearful of what might occur if he lost control, his darkness argued saying, “You feel it too. Your intuition is telling you that nothing will happen. You know that no one here will realize if a single person is gone. Don’t run from your darkness. Embrace it. This is a chance bestowed to you by the heavens. You and I are ONE.”
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Deon stood up as the time for the disappearance drew closer. A dark smile spread across his face. He observed his surroundings. He looked at everyone in his immediate vicinity, considering who would be the most suitable to take away. His darkness had already overcome him. He glanced around and noticed a boy who appeared weak, and small, perhaps eleven years old. He considered him the ideal victim. He moved through the motionless frozen crowd and reached just behind the boy whose body was just a little bit taller than his leg. Deon lowered his body slowly and used his right hand to shut the boy’s mouth and his left hand to grab both of the boy’s legs. The boy was unable to make any sound with his mouth or move his body as Deon had started to carry him to his home. As Deon was moving the boy, nobody noticed him. Everyone was just frozen in place.
Deon reached just in front of his home’s front door. The time hit 5 PM. The pillars of light dropped down and engulfed him. He lost his consciousness. The boy he was holding fell to the ground. Deon was nowhere to be seen. The boy got up and ran into the street where his father was.
The boy went and held the leg of his father and called him. He responded and said to the boy, “What happened?” The boy said, “ A man picked me up and ran towards there but vanished as he reached that door.” while pointing towards Deon’s front door. “Stop making up stories. If a person picks you up to kidnap you, will he let you go? No, never. And how can a person vanish into thin air? This real world doesn’t have magic like the ones you hear in stories.” The father replied. “But…. But that man did vanish. He picked me up by grabbing my legs and covered my mouth as well. I am not making stories. Believe me.”, the boy said. “He usually doesn’t make up random stories of what happened to him. Could it be the truth”, the father thought.
The father saw that his son was scared and got ready to check if what he said was indeed the truth. He asked his son, “What do you remember clearly about the person that grabbed you?” “He was a little taller but thinner than you. His clothes smelled like sweat. He also had black hair.” the boy said. “You showed me that door earlier. Correct!” the father inquired pointing towards Deon’s front door. “Yes”, the boy replied. “Hmm... That’s Deon’s home. He is a nice kid and has quite a hard life. He can’t be the one who grabbed my son. Has someone else come here.”, thinking this the father reached the front door of Deon with his son hiding behind him. He knocked on the door but it just opened from the slight tap. The father called for Deon but he wasn’t there and didn’t answer. The street they were on previously was slowly swirling into chaos and madness because of people vanishing.
The father noticed a lot of noise from the streets and turned back. Most of the people who were like statues before were sitting on the street below and crying or screaming that their children were gone. Seeing this scene, the father felt a sudden chill in his heart and he held his son up in his arms and started dashing towards his own house.
The whole planet was in chaos. A huge chunk of the total population was gone. An entire generation of people vanished, gone, nowhere to be found. What is the thinking of the world as a whole? Nothing, absolutely nothing except downright confusion. The people left filed missing complaints to the police one after the other but a huge percentage of the police department was also in chaos as their family members too were missing. Even the government that was trying to maintain order was filled with disorder. The entire planet was an opera of the sorrowful music of cries and shouts.
There was nothing the World Government could do. When the time in the singular time zone of that planet hit 5 PM, all those people vanished. The World Government didn’t even know the proper cause of vanishing, how can it be expected from them to stop such uproar of the people?