The horror of the Gravitus case was still fresh when a new report shattered the brief silence of the afternoon. Two more children had vanished, this time while returning home from school on a familiar suburban route. These children belonged to a man named Martin, a retired schoolteacher who was well-respected throughout the community for his wisdom. Martin lived a quiet life with his daughter and his two beloved grandchildren, a man who had traded the classroom for the peace of his home.
Martin's daughter arrived at the precinct in a state of total collapse, begging Sam and Patel to find her children. She explained that they had never made it home from their afternoon walk, a journey of only four blocks from the school gates. The pattern was becoming terrifyingly familiar to Sam—a sudden disappearance in broad daylight without a single witness. The teacher's family was now trapped in the same nightmare that had already claimed the bloodline of George Gravitus.
Sam Nicholas was totally confused and overwhelmed by the back-to-back nature of these horrific missing persons cases. He had never seen such a high-frequency targeting of specific families in all his years as a police officer. Every time he felt he was gaining a lead on the first case, a second tragedy would strike, pulling his resources in a new direction. The pressure from the city was becoming unbearable as the news of the "Schoolhouse Vanishings" began to spread.
The investigation into Martin's family revealed that he, too, was a man of quiet habits and no known enemies in the year 2070. Like George, he had lived a life of total normalcy for decades, dedicating himself to his students and his family. There were no debts, no scandals, and no reason for any criminal organization to target his grandchildren. Yet, the precision of the kidnapping suggested that whoever took them had been watching the family for a very long time.
Patel walked the route from the school to Martin's house, looking for any sign of a struggle or a technological disturbance. He noted that the street was equipped with the latest surveillance drones, yet none of them had captured the moment the children disappeared. It was as if the perpetrator knew the exact blind spots of the city's security net, or had the power to bypass them entirely. Patel's spiritual intuition told him that they were not dealing with a human criminal, but something far more ancient.Sam and Patel met back at the station, the weight of the five missing children pressing down on them like a physical force. They were chasing a predator that seemed to be everywhere at once, striking at the heart of the community with impunity. Sam sat at his desk, staring at the photos of George and Martin, trying to find the common thread that linked a retiree and a teacher. He didn't know that the third strike was already happening across the city at the edge of the industrial district.