CHAPTER 3 — “THE MAN WHO WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO COME BACK”
The next morning, the veteran was gone.
No note.
No sound.
Just empty footprints in the frost.
Nora tried not to feel it.
She told herself it was predictable.
People always leave.
That was the rule of Millhaven.
But Liam noticed something first.
The broken lock on the apartment door had been replaced.
Fresh food—small, basic supplies—left in a bag outside.
Jonah held a piece of paper.
A military ID copy.
No name written.
Just a number.
Liam read it once.
Then twice.
“This isn’t normal,” he said.
That afternoon, Nora went to the only place she trusted—an old supply clerk from the town center.
When she showed him the ID copy, his face changed immediately.
“That number doesn’t exist anymore,” he said quietly.
Nora frowned.
“What does that mean?”
The man hesitated.
“…It means he was erased.”
Back at the apartment, Liam was already waiting.
“He didn’t leave,” Liam said. “He was taken.”
That night, the twins started crying without explanation.
Jonah kept asking the same question:
“Did we do something wrong?”
And Nora finally broke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just a slow collapse into silence.
Because she realized something terrifying:
The man they found wasn’t returning home.
He was running from something that had just found him again.
Outside…
a single engine sound returned.
May you like
Closer this time.
And stopped right in front of the building.
