---
Chapter Two: After the Disappearance
The sky returned to normal.
That was the official statement.
Satellite images showed nothing unusual. Weather reports confirmed clear conditions. Governments reassured the public that the event had ended, labeling it a "temporary atmospheric anomaly."
Life resumed.
Or at least, it tried to.
In the hours following the disappearance, something subtle began to spread—not panic, not chaos—but unease.
People who had seen the sky that morning reported the same feeling.
A pressure behind the eyes.
A lingering sense of being watched.
Dreams that felt too vivid to forget.
Hospitals received an unusual number of patients complaining of headaches and disorientation. Doctors found nothing physically wrong. Brain scans were normal. Blood tests clean.
Yet the symptoms persisted.
At a research facility buried deep beneath Nevada's desert, Dr. Evelyn Carter hadn't slept.
She replayed the footage again and again. Frame by frame. Millisecond by millisecond.
The moment the object vanished was wrong.
Energy readings didn't fade—they cut.
As if something had been pulled back forcefully… or finished its task.
She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples.
"Short-term doesn't mean harmless," she muttered.
A knock echoed through the lab.
Colonel Marcus Hale entered, his expression rigid as ever.
"You were right," he said without greeting.
Dr. Carter looked up. "About what?"
Hale placed a tablet on the desk.
"Global anomalies. Minor ones. Power fluctuations. Communication delays. Civilian reports we can't explain."
She scrolled through the data.
Japan. Brazil. Norway. Egypt.
Different locations. Same timestamp.
Exactly thirty minutes after the sky closed.
Her breath slowed.
"It's synchronized," she said.
Hale nodded. "Whatever it was, it didn't leave empty-handed."
---
Across the ocean, in a small coastal town, twelve-year-old Noah Reed woke up screaming.
His parents rushed into the room.
"It was the sky," he cried. "It was looking at me."
They calmed him down, told him it was just a nightmare.
But Noah wasn't asleep when it happened.
He remembered standing by the window. Remembered the clouds twisting. Remembered the moment the void appeared.
And for a fraction of a second—
Something looked back.
At school later that day, Noah noticed things he never had before.
He could hear whispers across the classroom. Not voices—patterns. Intentions. When his teacher turned before calling his name, he already knew.
When a glass slipped from a classmate's hand, he caught it without thinking.
Everyone stared.
Noah stared back at his own hands.
---
Dr. Carter stood before the committee that night.
"This event wasn't global by accident," she said. "It targeted us."
A senator scoffed. "Targeted how? No invasion. No casualties."
"Not bodies," she replied. "Minds."
Silence followed.
She continued.
"We assume intelligence always announces itself with force. But what if the purpose was selection?"
"Selection for what?" someone asked.
Dr. Carter hesitated.
"Witnesses," she said.
"Or assets."
The room grew colder.
On a secure monitor behind her, new data appeared.
A spike.
Small—but identical to the first event.
Different location.
Different sky.
Same signature.
Dr. Carter closed her eyes.
"They're not coming back," she said quietly.
"They never left."