The sun rose timidly that morning, but the city didn't awaken with the same hope. The streets were emptier than usual, and an air of unease hung over every closed door, every half-open window. The silence seemed heavier, as if it had gained density after the previous night.
Miguel, still tired from barely sleeping, walked through the central square. The medallion on his chest pulsed irregularly, as if trying to warn him of something. He couldn't explain why, but the night seemed to have left invisible marks that were now spreading throughout the city.
That's when Dona Carmem, the oldest grocer in the area, came running—or at least trying to run, with hurried, clumsy steps. She held a piece of paper with shaky handwriting. She handed it to Miguel with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
"Mr. Álvaro has disappeared."
Miguel felt his heart race. Mr. Álvaro was one of the elderly men who had suffered from dreams the night before. A man with a sharp memory, always proud of remembering details of the town's history, now he was simply no longer at home.
"What do you mean, disappeared?" Miguel murmured, even though he knew Carmem wouldn't hear him.
She pulled out another piece of paper and wrote forcefully, almost tearing the page:
"The bed was intact. The door was locked from the inside. It just... wasn't there anymore."
Miguel frowned. The medallion pulsed harder, burning against his chest. There was more to it than just a disappearance.
Elisa arrived shortly after, alerted by one of the boys helping out in the library. Her eyes showed the same concern. Miguel quickly explained the situation, and together they went to Mr. Álvaro's house, accompanied by some neighbors.
The place was incredibly quiet. The curtains were closed, the table set as if he were about to have coffee at any moment, the cup still clean beside the stove. There was no indication of struggle or flight.
But on the bedroom walls, there was something new. Elisa was the first to notice: strange scratches, as if someone had pressed their nails against the plaster, forming irregular symbols that seemed to be trying to compose words or perhaps imitating the runes seen in the fountain.
Miguel ran his fingers over the marks. They weren't simple scratches; there was an energy to them, a slight tremor that the medallion immediately recognized. The heat increased, responding to the symbols.
Elisa wrote on a piece of paper:
"Did he try to leave a message? Or was he taken and the symbols remained as traces?"
Miguel didn't answer immediately. He examined the lines more closely and realized that some resembled letters, but incomplete, as if they had been ripped from the mind of the writer. Others were pure symbols, similar to the runes that glowed in the square.
News of the disappearance spread quickly, even without voices. People ran from house to house with short notes, and soon a small, silent crowd gathered in front of Álvaro's house. The fear was palpable: if an elderly person could simply disappear from their own home, no one else was safe.
Some children clung to their mothers' skirts, others hid behind their grandparents. Many elderly people stared at the symbols on the walls and shivered, as if something from last night's dreams had materialized there.
A neighbor, Clara, brought a notebook with hurried notes. She showed it to Miguel and Elisa:
"Álvaro said yesterday that he dreamed of dark corridors and closed doors. He said someone was calling him, but he couldn't write the name. I thought it was just fear. Now I think... it was a warning."
Miguel felt a shiver run down his spine. The disappearance wasn't just physical. It was as if the previous night's dreams had opened a passage.
Determined to investigate, Miguel asked everyone to step aside and entered the room alone. The medallion glowed softly, illuminating the markings on the wall. For a moment, he thought he heard something—not a sound, but a voice echoing inside his mind. Disjointed, almost muffled words:
"I forgot… I'm… empty…"
The detective closed his eyes and concentrated. The presence was there, faint, as if Mr. Álvaro himself had left a part of himself trapped in the space between dream and reality.
Suddenly, one of the children screamed or would have screamed, if he'd had a voice. What came out was only a desperate gesture, pointing toward the end of the hallway. Miguel ran toward it and found new, even clearer markings. Circular symbols that seemed to pulse like fresh scars on the wall.
He touched one of them. The medallion vibrated so strongly it nearly knocked him to the ground. Immediately, confusing images invaded his mind: flashes of Mr. Álvaro walking down streets that didn't exist, doors closing behind him, and a dim shadow watching from afar.
Miguel backed away, panting. Elisa ran to him and wrote quickly:
"Did you see something?"
He hesitated before answering. He wrote:
"Álvaro is trapped... somewhere between dreams and reality. I don't know how, but these marks are proof."
The residents began to stir, writing notes to each other. Some wanted to organize immediate searches throughout the town. Others, more superstitious, believed that searching would only attract the curse's attention.
Dona Helena, the elderly woman trying to teach stories, held up a notebook with firm writing despite her trembling hands:
"If we start disappearing, it will be the end. These aren't just words. Now they're stealing from us too."
The children, barely able to grasp the gravity of it, wept silently. Some drew on the floor, trying to represent the previous night's dreams. Strangely, the drawings resembled the marks found on Álvaro's bedroom wall.
Miguel watched everything and felt the weight of responsibility grow. If he didn't find answers soon, more people would be taken. And, worse, perhaps forgotten altogether.
Late in the afternoon, after the crowd had dispersed, Miguel and Elisa were alone in the room. The medallion still glowed faintly. Elisa leafed through an old book brought from the library, looking for similar symbols. After a few pages, she found a passage with nearly identical designs.
She showed them to Miguel:
"They're called Seals of Silence. They're used to imprison words, but they can also imprison people… or memories."
Miguel closed his eyes, trying to organize his feelings. The curse wasn't just silencing voices or erasing words it was creating invisible prisons for those most vulnerable, dragging them into dreams.
And now, with Álvaro's disappearance, there was no denying it: the Guardian of Silence, or whatever that presence was, had taken the next step.
The detective clutched the medallion to his chest. If he didn't quickly figure out how to break the symbols, more residents would disappear. And each omission would be an irreversible loss.
That night, Miguel wrote in his investigation notebook:
"First came the voices. Now comes memory. Next... will be existence itself."
And as he closed the notebook, the marks on the wall flickered faintly, as if an invisible shadow had whispered back.