Caleb Noor — Detroit, Michigan
Three Days Before the Vanishing
The morning was a flat, unforgiving gray — the kind that clings to everything and never lets go, even when the sun tries to break through. Caleb sat on the cracked concrete steps of his apartment building, hood pulled low over his eyes, earbuds drowning out the city's complaints in a low hum of music.
Sleep had eluded him again. Three hours, maybe four, and that was generous. His night shift at the warehouse blurred into a half-shift at the gas station, followed by the long, cold ride home through a Detroit that didn't love him but tolerated his silence.
His fingers curled tightly around a worn paper cup of coffee. Not from the cold, and not from exhaustion.
Something was wrong with the sky.
He'd first noticed it three nights ago. A faint shimmer clinging to the edges of the stars — like someone had dragged a finger through the ink-black fabric of the night. Then came the sounds, subtle at first. Not thunder. Not airplanes. More like a low hum — a deep, thrumming vibration that pressed behind his ears like a hidden engine idling somewhere overhead.
"Hey, Caleb," Mina's voice cut through his thoughts.
His little sister poked her head out of the building's front door, her coat zipped crookedly again, the cold nipping at her cheeks.
"School," he said, voice rough.
"Yeah, I know. You're not gonna walk me, right?"
He shook his head, a dry smile tugging at his lips. "You're sixteen. You'll live."
She grinned, flicked him off with a playful hand, and vanished down the street. Her shadow stretched longer than it should have, warped and too thin.
Caleb blinked, his gaze snapping back upward.
That low hum again. Closer. Sharper.
The city around him vibrated faintly, not with sound but with something deeper — like the whole world had swallowed a tuning fork and was holding the note.
He checked his phone. The screen lit up as normal — except the weather widget blinked an error:
⚠ ERROR: SKY STATUS UNKNOWN
His brow furrowed.
Then, without warning, the traffic lights across the street blinked all at once. Red. Green. Blue?
Birds erupted into chaotic flight — crows, sparrows, pigeons — swirling in frantic circles, crashing into windows, their cries slicing through the morning air.
Static crackled in the background, a rising buzz that prickled Caleb's skin.
A scream echoed from somewhere inside the building. Dogs began howling several blocks away. Sirens blared — but not from police cars. From the sky.
Then.
The coffee cup slipped from Caleb's fingers. Not because he let go — because it had… glitched. For a heartbeat, it simply wasn't there.
His hand reached out, grasping at empty air.
And then, light came.
Not bright. Dark.
Like a beam of anti-light stretching down through the cloud cover.
Caleb was no longer sitting on the steps.
He was falling.
No wind.
No body.
Just falling through static and silence and a scream that wasn't his own but filled every bone in his body.
He tried to shout Mina's name. No breath came.
A thousand lights opened in the sky.
And a thousand and one people were gone.