Chapter 10: The Way Home
1657 Words
A thin layer of morning fog drifted between the stone buildings of Necthera as the first rays of sunlight crept over the Silent Eyes headquarters. The city had awakened hours ago, but inside the Investigation Division, exhaustion lingered in every corner. Lamps still burned above cluttered desks, half-empty cups of coffee sat forgotten beside stacks of reports, and detectives moved through the corridors with the weary expressions of people who had slept far too little.
Halt stood in front of the investigation board inside the briefing room. The ten victim files remained pinned in a perfect row, but beside them now hung another collection of documents the missing-person reports Lucien had uncovered the previous evening.
Every one of them carried the same number.
Thirty days.
No one in the room spoke.
Kael leaned against the edge of the table, studying the reports with folded arms. Even after reading them several times, the pattern still felt impossible to accept.
Lucien finally broke the silence.
"I checked the dates again this morning."
Neither Halt nor Kael looked away from the board.
"There wasn't a mistake," Lucien continued. "Every report was filed correctly. Every victim disappeared for exactly thirty days."
Kael exhaled slowly.
"If someone planned this..."
He paused, searching for the right words.
"They planned it years in advance."
Halt remained quiet.
His attention rested on a different detail entirely.
Not the dates.
The families.
He reached for the first report and opened it once more.
"How many relatives have we interviewed?"
Lucien frowned.
"After the murders?"
"No."
Halt closed the file.
"After they returned."
The room fell silent.
Lucien looked down at the reports scattered across the table.
"...None."
They had questioned families after each murder.
Asked about enemies.
Habits.
Occupations.
Arguments.
But never...
What happened during the days after the victims came home.
Because until yesterday...
Those missing-person cases had meant nothing.
Now they meant everything.
Halt picked up his coat from the chair.
"We've been asking the wrong questions."
Kael straightened.
"So where do we start?"
Halt looked toward Lucien.
"With the people who welcomed them home."
By late morning, the three detectives stood outside a modest brick house in the western district.
The name engraved on the old mailbox matched the first victim's file.
Elias Rowan.
Lucien quietly glanced through his notes.
"Schoolteacher. Thirty-eight years old. Married. One daughter."
Kael knocked gently on the wooden door.
Several moments later, it opened.
A woman in her early thirties stood before them.
Dark circles rested beneath her eyes, and although months had passed since her husband's death, grief still lingered in every movement.
She immediately recognized the silver insignia on Halt's coat.
"...Detectives."
Halt gave a respectful nod.
"I'm sorry to disturb you again."
The woman forced a tired smile.
"I assumed someone would come eventually."
She stepped aside, allowing them inside.
The house was quiet.
Almost painfully so.
Children's drawings still hung on the walls.
A coat remained on the stand near the entrance.
Nothing had changed.
It was as though the family still expected Elias to walk through the door.
After everyone had taken their seats, Halt spoke gently.
"We aren't here to ask about your husband's death."
The woman looked surprised.
"No?"
"We're investigating the month before he died."
She frowned.
"The month... before?"
Lucien opened his notebook.
"We understand Mr. Rowan disappeared for thirty days."
The woman slowly nodded.
"Yes."
"We'd like you to tell us everything you remember about the day he came back."
For the first time since the conversation began...
She looked genuinely confused.
She stared into the distance, trying to remember.
Then...
A faint, bittersweet smile appeared across her face.
"It was raining."
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I remember standing by the kitchen window..."
She paused.
"...when I saw him."
Lucien leaned forward.
"Who was with him?"
The woman blinked.
"...No one."
Kael looked up.
"He came home alone?"
She nodded slowly.
"He was simply..."
Another pause.
"...walking toward the house."
Lucien exchanged a quick glance with Halt.
The answer wasn't what any of them had expected.
"He wasn't injured," the woman continued. "His clothes were clean... he looked healthy... almost as though he'd only been away for a day."
She looked down at her hands.
"I ran outside and hugged him."
A small tear escaped her eye.
"I thought I'd never see him again."
Silence settled over the room.
Then Halt asked that changed the atmosphere completely.
"... Did he tell you where he'd been?"
The woman's smile disappeared.
She slowly shook her head.
"No."
"He said..."
She hesitated.
"...he couldn't remember."
The detectives remained silent.
Then she added something none of them had expected.
"He looked at me..."
Her voice trembled.
"...and the very first thing he asked was..."
She swallowed hard.
'How long was I gone?'
The room fell completely still.
Lucien slowly lowered his pen.
Nobody spoke.
Because every one of them realized the same terrifying possibility.
Elias Rowan hadn't come home pretending to forget.
He had truly...
Never known thirty days had vanished from his life.
The silence inside the Rowan residence lingered long after the conversation had ended.
Lucien carefully closed his notebook, though he hadn't written nearly as much as he expected. Most of the answers had been painfully simple. Elias had returned home alone. He had no visible injuries. He remembered nothing about the thirty days he had disappeared, and the first words he had spoken were not about where he had been... but how much time had passed.
As the three detectives stepped back onto the quiet street, Kael remained unusually thoughtful.
"Maybe it's just him," he finally said. "Trauma affects people differently."
Lucien wanted to believe that.
"So do I."
Halt said nothing.
Instead, he unfolded the remaining family addresses from the missing-person reports.
"We're not finished."
By the end of the afternoon, they had visited four more families.
Each interview began differently.
Each ended exactly the same.
A merchant's wife remembered finding her husband standing silently outside their shop.
A university student's father recalled opening the front door to discover his son waiting on the steps, confused but unharmed.
An elderly tailor had been seen walking calmly through the marketplace before entering his own home as though nothing unusual had happened.
Different people.
Different districts.
Different lives.
Yet every account carried the same unsettling details.
No one had accompanied them home.
None of them were injured.
None remembered the missing month.
And every single one had asked the same question.
"How long was I gone?"
The fifth interview ended just before sunset.
Rain clouds had finally cleared, leaving the streets washed clean beneath a fading orange sky.
The detectives walked in silence until they reached a quiet bridge overlooking the river.
Lucien stopped.
"I don't understand."
Kael looked toward him.
"What?"
Lucien tightened his grip around his notebook.
"If they don't remember those thirty days..."
He looked toward Halt.
"...how did they know where to go?"
Neither detective answered immediately.
Lucien continued.
"They remembered their homes."
"Their families."
"The streets."
"They knew who they were."
"So why can't they remember where they spent an entire month?"
The questions echoed in the evening air.
For several long moments...
Only the sound of flowing water answered him.
Then Halt quietly spoke.
"Because someone wanted them to remember."
Lucien frowned.
"...What?"
Halt rested both hands on the stone railing.
"Memory isn't disappearing at random."
His voice remained calm.
"It's being separated."
Kael looked at him.
"You mean..."
"They remember their lives."
"They remember who they are."
"They remember everyone they love."
A pause.
"But someone..."
Halt's eyes drifted toward the river below.
"...removed one piece."
Lucien felt a chill run through his body.
One piece.
Exactly thirty days.
Nothing before.
Nothing after.
Only those missing days.
Almost...
As if someone had reached into their minds...
And carefully cut away a single chapter.
The realization left all three detectives standing in silence.
Night had already settled over the headquarters by the time they returned.
Lucien headed straight for the archive room without saying a word.
He pulled every interview transcript onto the table and began comparing them line by line.
Hours passed.
The building gradually emptied as detectives finished their shifts.
Only the quiet scratching of Lucien's pen disturbed the silence.
Then...
His hand stopped.
His eyes widened.
"No..."
He quickly reached for another transcript.
Then another.
Again.
Again.
His breathing became uneven.
Every family had described the victims differently.
But every statement contained one identical sentence.
Not similar.
Not close.
Identical.
Lucien immediately gathered the reports and hurried through the empty corridors.
He found Halt exactly where he expected.
Standing alone inside the investigation room.
Without saying a word, Lucien placed every interview transcript across the table.
Halt looked down.
"What is it?"
Lucien pointed toward the highlighted lines.
"I thought it was a coincidence."
His voice was almost a whisper.
"But read them."
Halt picked up the first statement.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Each witness had used different words throughout the interview.
Until the final question.
What was the first thing they said after returning?
Every answer...
Every single one...
Read exactly the same.
"How long was I gone?"
Not...
"Where am I?"
Not...
"What happened?"
Not...
"Help me."
Always...
"How long was I gone?"
Halt slowly lowered the final report.
For the first time in the investigation...
He looked genuinely unsettled.
"They all knew..."
Lucien nodded slowly.
"They knew they had lost time."
The room fell silent.
Kael stared at the reports spread across the table before quietly asking the question neither of them could answer.
"...If they knew time was missing..."
He looked toward Halt.
"...who told them?"
No one spoke.
Because for the first time...
The investigation had uncovered something more frightening than the murders themselves.
Someone...
Had returned every victim to their lives.
And before letting them go...
Had made sure they knew...
That thirty days had been stolen from them.
- Writer
