A Vanishing Stranger

1.5

Outside

Everything is moving so fast. In a haze. She doesn’t know what to think. She doesn’t even understand.

She shivers and draws her knees up to her chest, huddling. She knows the boy next to her is cold as well. She can hear his teeth clatter.

It’s October.

“Get up off the ground, girl,” a gruff voice orders her and strong hands roughly pull her up off the dead leaves and dirt. “Now get a move on!”

The man pokes the children ahead in the woods. They obey.

The children don’t know where they are. They don’t know where they’re going. They don’t know who the man is. Even though they fear him, they have to trust him, right?

But that’s broken when the girl stands at the river, staring out at its waters. She watches. What she sees leaves her numb, horrified and in a phobia.

The boy went into the river, but he never completely made it back up.