The Spaces Between
After his sister vanishes without a trace, a hospital worker begins noticing others disappearing—without records, without memory. As he uncovers a terrifying pattern of silence and systematic erasure, he realizes reality itself is being edited to make space for something else… something not human.
The first time Liam noticed the silence, it wasn’t the kind you hear—it was the kind you feel.
Entire city blocks were quiet. Not peaceful. Just... absent.
It began after the tenth disappearance in his apartment building. No police tape. No reports. Just locked doors, empty mail slots, and neighbors who suddenly didn’t remember who lived next door.
His sister Ava vanished first. She left a voicemail the night before: “Liam, I think I’m being watched. If I’m gone tomorrow, it’s not an accident.”
She had always been paranoid. But never wrong.
Liam worked night shifts as a hospital tech, so he wasn’t home much. But lately, even at work, patients were disappearing from their beds. Charts erased. Their names deleted from the system.
When he asked the nurse manager about Mr. Kessler—the old man with the burn scars—she blinked slowly and said, “There’s no one by that name on our floor.”
But Liam remembered his laugh. The way he’d tell the same story twice in one night.
It wasn’t memory loss. It was removal.
At home, Liam found Ava’s necklace tucked beneath his rug—an old pendant she never took off. He held it for hours, thumb tracing the cracked blue stone. It always reminded him of the way her eye twitched when she lied. She wasn’t lying in that voicemail.
He checked her laptop. Wiped. But the last file recovered from cache had a title: "Population Reshaping Protocol." It didn’t open. Just a string of numbers and letters, endlessly repeating one phrase:
“They take who won’t comply.”
At a late-night corner store, he asked the old man behind the counter, “Do you remember Ava? She used to come in for coffee.”
The man paused. Looked around. Then leaned closer.
“She asked too many questions.”
Liam’s heart pounded. “Who took her?”
The man nodded toward the ceiling. “Not up there. Behind. The ones who regulate the space between things. They erase people... to make room.”
“Room for what?”
A pause. “Not people.”
That night, Liam stayed awake, staring at the hallway light. It flickered in perfect rhythm: four seconds on, two seconds off. Four. Two. Four. Two.
He checked the lights in his building’s security feed. Every hallway, same pattern.
When he traced the intervals back to a timestamp, it matched the moment Ava’s phone went dark.
It wasn’t just coincidence. It was coordination.
He opened his window and stared out across the skyline. Pockets of darkness. Silent spaces that once held lives. The world was being rearranged, piece by invisible piece.
In the morning, a letter slipped under his door. No envelope. Just his name.
“You were seen last night.”
Beneath it, a symbol. A perfect circle split down the center. He recognized it—Ava had scribbled it in her old notebooks, claiming it was “the mark they leave on blank spaces.”
He sat with the letter in his hand. The necklace warmed against his chest.
He knew he could go to the press. Or run. Or stay still and vanish.
Instead, he opened a new file on Ava’s laptop. Renamed the old cache. Began typing.
“If you’re reading this, it means I was next.”
Entire city blocks were quiet. Not peaceful. Just... absent.
It began after the tenth disappearance in his apartment building. No police tape. No reports. Just locked doors, empty mail slots, and neighbors who suddenly didn’t remember who lived next door.
His sister Ava vanished first. She left a voicemail the night before: “Liam, I think I’m being watched. If I’m gone tomorrow, it’s not an accident.”
She had always been paranoid. But never wrong.
Liam worked night shifts as a hospital tech, so he wasn’t home much. But lately, even at work, patients were disappearing from their beds. Charts erased. Their names deleted from the system.
When he asked the nurse manager about Mr. Kessler—the old man with the burn scars—she blinked slowly and said, “There’s no one by that name on our floor.”
But Liam remembered his laugh. The way he’d tell the same story twice in one night.
It wasn’t memory loss. It was removal.
At home, Liam found Ava’s necklace tucked beneath his rug—an old pendant she never took off. He held it for hours, thumb tracing the cracked blue stone. It always reminded him of the way her eye twitched when she lied. She wasn’t lying in that voicemail.
He checked her laptop. Wiped. But the last file recovered from cache had a title: "Population Reshaping Protocol." It didn’t open. Just a string of numbers and letters, endlessly repeating one phrase:
“They take who won’t comply.”
At a late-night corner store, he asked the old man behind the counter, “Do you remember Ava? She used to come in for coffee.”
The man paused. Looked around. Then leaned closer.
“She asked too many questions.”
Liam’s heart pounded. “Who took her?”
The man nodded toward the ceiling. “Not up there. Behind. The ones who regulate the space between things. They erase people... to make room.”
“Room for what?”
A pause. “Not people.”
That night, Liam stayed awake, staring at the hallway light. It flickered in perfect rhythm: four seconds on, two seconds off. Four. Two. Four. Two.
He checked the lights in his building’s security feed. Every hallway, same pattern.
When he traced the intervals back to a timestamp, it matched the moment Ava’s phone went dark.
It wasn’t just coincidence. It was coordination.
He opened his window and stared out across the skyline. Pockets of darkness. Silent spaces that once held lives. The world was being rearranged, piece by invisible piece.
In the morning, a letter slipped under his door. No envelope. Just his name.
“You were seen last night.”
Beneath it, a symbol. A perfect circle split down the center. He recognized it—Ava had scribbled it in her old notebooks, claiming it was “the mark they leave on blank spaces.”
He sat with the letter in his hand. The necklace warmed against his chest.
He knew he could go to the press. Or run. Or stay still and vanish.
Instead, he opened a new file on Ava’s laptop. Renamed the old cache. Began typing.
“If you’re reading this, it means I was next.”
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