Dr. Everlyn Kessler had spent her career untangling the mysteries of civilizations that had seemingly vanished overnight. Not in the dramatic, fantastical sense that conspiracy theorists loved to latch onto, but in the quiet, unrelenting way that history often buried its failures. Climate shifts, war, disease—entire populations could disappear, leaving behind only scattered remnants of their existence. That was history. That was reality.

  And yet, people always wanted something more. They wanted the Mayan civilization to have vanished overnight in some great cataclysm, not to have gradually declined due to drought, warfare, and political instability. They wanted Roanoke to be abducted by something inhuman, not integrated into nearby tribes out of desperation.

  Lately, Everlyn had begun to feel like she was fighting a losing battle.

  The university had been quietly cutting funding for her department. Fewer students enrolled in her courses each year, drawn instead to more lucrative fields. The administration saw her work as a dead end—an academic curiosity with no practical application. Just last week, her department head had pulled her aside, subtly hinting that if she couldn’t justify her research in a more tangible way, her position might not exist much longer.

  She needed something—a breakthrough, a discovery, anything that could prove her work still mattered.

  That was the real reason for tonight’s lecture. Not just another academic discussion, but an attempt to remind the university—remind herself—that there was still something worth finding.

  She stood before a dwindling audience, the rows of empty seats serving as a quiet reminder of how little interest remained in her work. Her slideshow shifted between satellite imagery, excavation sites, and ancient ruins. The audience was engaged, some taking notes, others waiting for her to get to the “good part”—the moment when she might admit that maybe, just maybe, something truly unexplainable had happened in the past.

  She wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.

  “These disappearances weren’t sudden,” she explained. “They were gradual. A slow breakdown of societies due to environmental collapse, resource depletion, or conflict. It’s easy to look back and say, ‘This whole civilization was wiped out overnight,’ but history doesn’t work like that. People don’t just vanish.”

  She clicked to the next slide—a weathered cave painting from South America, depicting what looked like a deserted village. Abandoned homes, discarded tools, and crimson-streaked walls. The painting told a story, but it didn’t tell them why. It was a message left behind, a warning—but a warning of what?

  “What you’re seeing here is a depiction of a town after a great disaster,” Everlyn continued. “Notice how there are no figures. The people aren’t shown running, hiding, or fighting. They’re just… absent. The ones who remained—if there were any—left behind this record, but without context, we can only speculate. It could have been disease, famine, or something as simple as migration. The lesson here is that we must be careful about making assumptions.”

  She glanced at the crowd, scanning for reactions. Some students looked disappointed—no aliens today. Others took notes out of obligation, their expressions blank, offering no sign of belief or interest.

  Then, movement in the back of the room caught her eye.

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  Dr. Alan Whitmore, the university president, had entered quietly, his presence unnoticed at first. His expression was unreadable, but Everlyn knew what it meant.

  A knot tightened in her stomach. She had seen that look before—detached, unreadable, the kind that came before bad news.

  Now, he watched in silence, his expression unreadable as he weighed her words. A final evaluation, no doubt, before he delivered the news she had been dreading.

  She swallowed and took a deep breath, forcing herself to focus. This lecture needed to be perfect.

  +++

  Everlyn slammed the office door behind her, the sharp echo of wood against metal making her flinch. Across the desk, Dr. Alan Whitmore adjusted his glasses, his expression a mix of discomfort and finality.

  “Everlyn, this isn’t personal,” he said, his voice even. “The university has to allocate its funds where they will have the most impact. We need to invest in departments that bring in grants, students, and tangible results. Your research—”

  “My research matters!” she interrupted, her voice cracking. “You can’t just erase history because it doesn’t fit into a profit margin! There are still so many unanswered questions.”

  Whitmore sighed, rubbing his temple. “It’s not about erasing history. It’s about sustainability. This field isn’t drawing in students. The administration has to make tough choices.”

  Everlyn clenched her jaw, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “So that’s it? Just like that? Years of work, gone? Do you even understand what you’re throwing away?”

  Whitmore hesitated, then met her gaze. “I know this is hard, but it’s final. I’m sorry.”

  Tears burned behind her eyes as she shook her head, unable to say anything more. She turned sharply and stormed out, ignoring his voice calling after her.

  Stepping outside, she gulped in the crisp evening air, blinking rapidly to clear her vision. She barely heard him behind her.

  “Everlyn, wait!” Whitmore called.

  Then the air changed.

  A coldness swept down, sharp and unnatural, as though something had dragged the upper atmosphere down with it. The usual hum of campus life—the distant conversations, rustling leaves, the hum of traffic—was gone. Absolute silence.

  She looked around and noticed she wasn’t alone in this realization. Other university staff and students were experiencing the same thing. A sudden wave of lightheadedness and pressure gripped her, and then—

  One by one, students were yanked into the air with terrifying force, their feet leaving the ground as if an unseen hand had seized them. Some barely had time to react before they were simply gone—erased from existence in a blink. Others struggled, their arms flailing wildly, their fingers clawing at nothing as they twisted in impossible angles.

  A boy mid-scream was hoisted so fast his body snapped backward, his head jerking unnaturally as if his spine had been torn apart. A girl beside him tried to grab his arm, her mouth forming his name in silent desperation, only for her own legs to lift from the ground. Her body bent grotesquely, her ribs caving in with a sickening crunch before she, too, vanished—replaced with an explosion of crimson liquid.

  Another student, frozen in shock, was lifted only halfway before something unseen crushed him midair. Blood erupted in a violent burst, painting the brick walls in long, wet streaks as the remnants of his form collapsed onto the pavement.

  Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the silence shattered all at once. A deafening wave of reality crashed back into existence—the panicked screams of survivors erupted, the ragged sobs of those drenched in the blood of their friends, the pounding of frantic footsteps against the pavement. Some students collapsed in shock, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Others scrambled through the gore-streaked courtyard, desperate to escape, though there was nowhere left to run.

  +++

  Everlyn locked herself inside her office, hands shaking as she scrolled through the news. Social media was already exploding with footage from other places—New York, Paris, Tokyo.

  People were vanishing everywhere.

  The authorities had no answers. The headlines used words like “environmental anomaly,” “biological event,” and “unprecedented disaster.”

  But no one knew what it was.

  She reached for her phone. She wasn’t sure who she needed to call yet, but one thing was certain:

  She wasn’t the only one who had seen this.