The vanished

Divinidad had seen its fair share of strange coincidences or events, more so than the legend riddled Churchwood, yet none like this.

Robert had seen weird things while serving as a police officer responding on calls, some too grotesque and morbid to even think about without severe repercussions on his psyche again, and while no one at the station wanted to admit it, many of the cases were locked away for good because there was no explanation for them. That was a lie of course, there was an explanation but it wasn’t reasonable, more so grounded in superstition.

Many would say that he was being childish about still believing in tall tales, not to mention fearing them and taking them as the absolute truth, but he always believed that it there had something to be afraid of, logical or not, that even seeing the world as a myth was just as acceptable as any facts. Right now he stood by that principle more than ever after witnessing how reason and logic had failed his comrades when trying to explain how it was that four children all disappeared from inside their own homes at the same time, no trace of them and no sign of a break-in, just gone, almost as if they never even existed in the first place.

Dispatched to one of the missing kids’ house he was received by a weeping mother and a father on the edge of breaking down out of frustration and helplessness. With so many years in the force he had seen so many broken families, had to lie to them or make hollow promises that they would do everything in their power to help, knowing full well that even then nothing could be done. So limiting himself to be cordial and following standard procedure, they slowly began moving forward with the main basis of the new case. That’s when Robert started to feel suddenly apprehensive of the invisible shadow cast around the house.

Just as he entered the room of one of the boys who had just vanished from the face of the world, something in his very being seemed to despise even setting foot past that bedroom’s door, feared allowing himself be exposed to whatever malevolent presence hiding inside. No one else seemed to suffer from this however, only Robert seemed aware of this darkness carrying something ancient, something evil.

Perhaps his superstitions were getting the better of him, but he’d yet to have them fail on him, and he really doubted that they would start now, especially with the sudden apprehension he held to the shadows around each corner. So steeling his nerves, hand reaching for the amulet around his neck for comfort as that sense of dread crushed him. There was something was entirely wrong in that place, and whatever it was, it most certainly had a play on the disappearance of the kids. Question was; what sort of darkness did they dabbled in for this to happen?

Looking for signs of anything that could help him get an idea of what happened, his heart began racing when he noticed a notebook peaking from under the bed. Kneeling to pick it up, his hand almost reeled at the touch, as if he was touching burning steel barehanded. Robert knew then and there that this was his one push to the right direction of confirming his suspicions, but if a lingering idea of whatever it was the missing kids had brought or had been hunted by was enough to react out of instinctive fear and apprehension, he dared not to think what standing right before something of such wicked nature would be like.

Yet as he opened it, that ancient fear of something far beyond his comprehension only grew. Every page was a mess of words or drawings, each trace and line seemingly made with despair and great amount of anxiety at the time, but he could still make out some things out of it. Amongst the most prominent figures drawn was a pale monster with no face from which several horns sprouted from the sides of head, forming a crown above it. Just watching that thing was terrible enough, but the presence it held even in drawings commanded nothing more than fear, the fear of death and nothingness.

‘Ruin...’ Was all his mind could think of when laying eyes on the terrible beast.

Before he knew, the notebook was taken from his hand, seized as evidence in an already puzzling disappearance case. In his daze he could still hear some of his fellow police officers whisper among themselves after getting out of earshot from the boy’s parents that maybe the four of them had run away, and while that wasn’t really unbelievable, it was too simple for what he was feeling.

There something dark at play here, there was a bigger picture to this than what everyone else was thinking. What that may be he didn’t really know, but maybe that was for the best. Still, it was his duty to at least give these grieving parents a sense of closure, so he made the call.

Last he had heard about his friend, Coleman was starting up his own private investigator office, although much like at the station, the work flow was excruciatingly slow or nonexistent. Despite Robert priding himself in being more open minded about certain things and beliefs, perceptive even on picking up emotions or signals, but he had to admit that he paled in comparison to his old friend in the force.

Many cut ties with the man after being discharged from the force, but he was still as sharp as they came, if it weren’t for him many cases would still be left unsolved, yet many seem to focus more on the negatives of his career than all the good he did. If there was anyone who could actually see what Robert saw, that could at least face coming storm, then that’d be the ever so obstinate private investigator Coleman. He may be the mirror opposite of him, but that’s why he was calling him now, why more than ever he needed the ever so grounded yet understanding veteran. He hoped it would serve to appease the growing pit in his stomach after seeing the horrible drawing of the horned king of ruin than to actually solve the case. Yet he knew, deep in his heart he already understood it was lurking in the shadows, that such a nightmare was already lurking amongst them.

And as he stared at a tree, so still and unaffected by even the strong gusts of wind blowing in the late afternoon, his eyes saw something thin and sickly standing behind it, it’s boney hands mocking the branches as it simply stood there like a puppet hanging by its strings. His breath hitched when the still creature peaked from between the leaves and the trunk, staring back at the officer despite it having no face, only cuts and scars marring its pale skin.

As he laid eyes on the lesser horror that crawled out of the abyss, only one thing crossed his mind as his sanity slowly started to falter.

‘God help us all…’