My mother was not the first person in our neighborhood to disappear, far from it. In fact, she placed somewhere near the bottom of the list.

Apparently those first few students who had disappeared during the period of rage had not simply ‘moved away.’  Nobody, not friends, not teachers, not even the kids’ parents had seen neither hide nor hair of any of the kids, giving away what we now know: they are missing.

Except then it wasn’t just students. Some time after the initial bomb threat, more people started to disappear.

The volunteers at the local soup kitchen were the first to realize something was wrong.

There were reports of a woman with a dirty-blonde bob -a Ms. Sandler, I would come to learn- going around with posters with the face of one ‘Hotan Prinden.’ At first glance, a plain, middle-aged man with graying scruff lining his jaw, Hotan was nothing special. Homeless people went missing all the time, tired of living a stationary life, especially in a quiet town like ours. The disappearances of someone like Hotan were nothing at all.

I almost ignored his absence too, until a missing person’s flyer blew directly into my face.

Hotan was a frequent visitor of that particular soup kitchen, a friend of Ms. Sandler. She fiercely insisted to me that he would never have left.

My mother’s disappearance was the last straw. Whatever was  hurting our little town? Whatever it was, it wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t even give us a break. It would pick off civilians like cherries, one by one, until there was nobody left, not even me.