Jack left Amelia Hart's apartment building slowly, his mind racing. He had taken photos, noted every detail, and documented what he had seen, but nothing made sense. The apartment had been destroyed, bloodied, and chained. Then it had returned to a pristine state as if nothing had ever happened.
He pressed his hand to the railing of the stairwell, staring at the city below. The streets were filled with the usual evening rush, the hum of engines and chatter of pedestrians. Everything appeared normal. Yet he could not shake the feeling that the city was somehow wrong. The air felt heavier, and the shadows seemed to linger a little longer than they should.
Jack pulled out his phone and dialed William Carter, his superior at the precinct.
William answered on the second ring, his voice sharp and impatient.
"Jack. Did you find anything in that apartment?"
Jack took a deep breath. "No. Nothing that makes sense. The place was destroyed. Blood on the floor, furniture overturned, chains on the radiator. But when I looked again, it was clean. Pristine. It is as if she never existed there."
There was a pause on the other end. William sighed heavily. "This is getting worse. You're saying the apartment itself changed? Jack, are you sure you are not exaggerating?"
Jack rubbed his temple. "I wish I was. You know I am methodical. I am telling you exactly what I saw. There is no way to explain it with normal means."
William was silent for a moment. "I will be there in the morning. Keep documenting everything. Do not touch anything else."
Jack ended the call and looked at his surroundings. The city seemed normal, yet he felt that familiar tightening in his chest. It was as if reality itself was being rewritten around him. He could not explain it, but he had the distinct sensation that he was watching the world in fast-forward and slow motion at the same time.
He returned to his apartment and spread the photos on his desk. He examined the images of Amelia's apartment carefully. The blood, the chains, the overturned furniture, the way the blood had stopped abruptly on the floor. All of it was there. He compared it to his memory of the apartment as it currently existed, perfectly clean, and could not reconcile the two.
Jack opened his notebook and began making a timeline of Amelia's disappearance, combining it with the other missing people he had been tracking over the past two weeks.
He scribbled their names in red ink, one by one. Men, women, and one child. One hundred and sixty people, gone without a trace. Each case was reported separately. There were no links, no patterns, no witnesses. And yet, Jack had the feeling that something connected them all, something hidden in plain sight.
Jack leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Sleep had been sparse for weeks. His insomnia had worsened since he began tracking these disappearances. The longer he worked on the case, the more he felt that time itself was beginning to fracture around him.
A sudden sound made him freeze. It was faint, almost imperceptible. The rustle of paper from the stack of missing persons files on his desk. Jack's blue eyes darted to the pile. One folder had shifted slightly, the papers inside rearranged.
He approached it cautiously, lifting the top sheet. A name he did not remember writing was there, someone who had not been on his list. The ink was the same red as his pen. He stared at it for several long moments. Then it vanished. The paper was blank.
Jack stepped back, his heart racing. Something was manipulating reality. He had no idea what, no idea how, and no idea if it would stop.
He forced himself to focus. He needed evidence, something concrete. He needed to find out what had happened to Amelia Hart. His first step was to visit her last known location outside of the apartment.
Jack retrieved Amelia's building key and a small notebook he had found among her belongings in the apartment. There was nothing of significance written in it, just sketches of city streets and buildings, but he noticed one particular page that stood out. A small drawing of a park, with a path winding through trees, and a tiny figure standing at the center. Jack's instincts told him this was important.
He grabbed his coat and left. The city had grown quieter as night fell. Streetlights flickered faintly, casting pools of orange light across the sidewalks. Jack moved quickly, his steps measured and quiet.
When he reached the park, he immediately noticed something unusual. The place was empty, unusually empty for this time of night. No joggers, no couples walking dogs, no stray cats scavenging. Just silence.
He followed the path in the sketch, scanning the surroundings carefully. The park was familiar to him, but it felt wrong. The air was heavier, and the faint hum from the city seemed absent. Jack felt as if he had stepped into a space slightly off from the real world.
He stopped at the center of the path. It was exactly as drawn in Amelia's notebook. A small fountain sat in the middle, dry, cracked, and abandoned. He noticed faint red stains on the cracked stone, almost imperceptible. He knelt and touched them. Cold. Not wet, not fresh. The stains did not match any natural pattern of decay. They were deliberate, precise, almost like remnants of something erased.
Jack's mind raced. He pulled out his phone to take pictures, but the camera showed nothing. The stains were invisible on the screen. He frowned. The evidence existed, yet it could not be captured. This was beyond anything he had ever encountered.
Then he heard a faint sound behind him. Footsteps.
He spun around, pistol raised. Nothing. The park was still, silent. He lowered his weapon slightly.
"Hello?" he called, his voice steady but low.
No answer.
Jack's gaze drifted back to the fountain. For a moment, he thought he saw a shadow move across the stone. He blinked, and it was gone.
He felt a cold shiver travel down his spine. Something about this park was not real, not fully. Time felt different here, stretched and compressed at the same time. He could feel it in his chest, in his head, in his hands. The hairs on his arms stood on end.
Jack closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. He needed to think clearly. He had always been calm, analytical, unemotional in the face of danger. But this was different. This was not a criminal he could confront, not a scene he could analyze, not a witness he could interview. This was something else entirely.
When he opened his eyes, a small figure stood at the edge of the fountain. A child. Ten years old, maybe younger. Jack's pulse quickened.
The child looked directly at him, unafraid. His eyes were dark, yet there was a depth there that made Jack uneasy.
"You remember," the child said.
Jack froze. The voice was calm, soft, and impossible for the child's age.
"I… what do you mean?" Jack asked cautiously.
"You were never supposed to be here," the child replied. "You saved them. You saved too many. You cannot stay."
Jack took a step forward. "Who are you? What are you talking about?"
The child tilted his head slightly. "The number must remain. If you stay, everything else disappears."
Jack's mind struggled to process the words. He had been investigating missing persons, unexplained disappearances, and now a child in the middle of an empty park was telling him that reality itself depended on a number. One hundred sixty.
Jack's blue eyes narrowed. "You are telling me that I… I caused this?"
The child nodded. "You are the first error. You saved them when you were never meant to. Now the timeline is trying to correct itself."
Jack felt his chest tighten. This was impossible. He had been alive for twenty-five years, working cases, chasing criminals, living a life that was entirely real. Yet here, in this park, in this empty space, he was confronted with a truth he could not ignore.
He took a deep breath. "And Amelia? She… what about her?"
The child's eyes softened for a moment. "She is safe for now. But she cannot remain. You must decide."
Jack's mind raced. He felt the weight of every missing person he had tracked, every life erased, every number on his red-inked list. He thought of Amelia, of the apartment that had existed and then vanished, of the metallic flecks, of the blood that stopped abruptly.
He realized then that nothing was as it seemed. He was chasing shadows, tracking disappearances that defied reason, investigating a reality that was collapsing.
And he could feel it beginning. The first tremors of the world trying to correct itself.
Jack stared at the child, feeling a mixture of fear, determination, and exhaustion. He had always solved impossible cases, but this was unlike any other. This was not a matter of crime or justice. This was a matter of existence itself.
He looked down at his notebook. One hundred sixty people, all vanished, all erased, all connected. And one name he could not forget: Amelia Hart.
Jack's hand tightened on the notebook. He would not let her disappear. Not yet.
Not while he still remembered her.
The child stepped back, fading slightly. "Decide soon. Time does not wait."
Jack's pulse quickened. He felt the air thicken, the shadows stretch. The park seemed to ripple around him, the boundaries of reality bending, quivering. He knew then that he was on the edge of something far beyond comprehension, far beyond investigation.
And he understood the truth. This was only the beginning.
Jack Alistair Miller had entered a world where missing people, vanished apartments, and the fabric of reality itself were connected. And if he failed to uncover the rules, if he failed to understand the number, he would not just lose Amelia. He would lose everything, including himself.
He took a slow, deliberate breath and stepped forward into the unknown.