Chapter 1 – The Disappearance

The rain hit the city in relentless sheets, drumming on rooftops and carving silver rivers down the glass towers. The sidewalks had turned into mirrors, fractured with ripples where hurried footsteps disturbed the surface. Car headlights bled into pools of neon, red and blue and green smearing like paint across the wet asphalt.

From her office window on the twelfth floor, Maya Trent stared out at the storm, her reflection wavering between the glass and the darkness beyond. The storm made her face look ghostly pale, as though she were half-there, half-somewhere else. Neon signs flickered against the rain, advertising clubs and diners that still thrived in weather like this bright promises in a city that swallowed promises whole.

She should have been home hours ago. Her body knew it her shoulders stiff, her eyes dry from staring at the same screen too long. Yet her inbox refused to let her go. Each email was another hook dragging her deeper into the night. The storm outside felt like an echo of the one in her mind: chaotic, unending, a pressure she couldn’t shut out.

For a moment she pressed her palm against the cold glass, tracing the distorted glow of a sign below. She wondered if anyone out there in the rain had looked up and noticed her silhouette against the light. More likely not. In a city like this, no one noticed until it was already too late.

Then she saw it.

An email. No subject line. No sender’s name just a jumble of numbers for an address.

She hesitated, fingers hovering over the mouse. Anonymous tips weren’t unusual in her line of work, but something about the timestamp 03:17 a.m. made her skin prickle.

She clicked.

The message contained only two sentences:

“Dr. Elias Varga has vanished. If you want the truth, follow the trail before they erase him.”

Below it, an attachment. A photograph. Grainy, black and white. A man in his fifties, sharp-eyed, wearing a wrinkled suit, glancing over his shoulder like he knew the camera was there.

Maya whispered the name under her breath. “Varga…”

She remembered the stories. The Hungarian cryptographer who’d walked away from government contracts after claiming he’d “built something dangerous.” No one had seen him in six months.

She zoomed in on the photo. Behind Varga was a clock tower one she recognized instantly. The old rail station in Prague.

Her pulse quickened.

Just as she started typing a reply, the lights in her office flickered. Once. Twice. Then went out completely.

The storm hadn’t killed the power. She knew that because her phone screen was still glowing.

Her heart hammered. Someone had cut the electricity just here.

She grabbed her bag and bolted for the door.

By the time she reached her apartment an hour later, soaked and exhausted, she told herself it was paranoia. Just nerves. She locked the door, dropped her bag, and flipped on the light.

That’s when she saw it.

Her desk where her laptop should have been was empty.

And taped to the wall above it, in dripping red ink, was a single note:

“Stop digging or you’ll vanish too.”

Maya froze, breath shallow. This wasn’t just a lead.

It was a warning.

And warnings, she knew, always meant she was close to something someone didn’t want her to find.

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