The Vanishing of Emily Hart

This summer of 1993 was just like any other summer, when Riverton was tucked into a nook and far from the vision of most of the world by the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains. It was one of those places where everyone knew everyone else, where you could leave your front door open and the most action that would ever happen in town was the occasional town fair or high school football game. That summer was to be different. It would be the summer that Riverton would forever be known as the place from where Emily Hart vanished.

She was seventeen, a straight-A student, and the pride of her parents, Martha and John Hart. She had long, chestnut-brown hair, bright green eyes, and a smile that could light up a room. At school, she was popular; the kind of girl everyone wanted to be friends with. Behind her mask of perfection, though, were secrets-secrets nobody knew, not even the people who were her closest friends.

It all started that warm June evening. Emily had gone out with her friends to celebrate the start of summer break. They went to the local diner, a place where everyone in town frequented, got milkshakes, and gossiped about school and boys and their plans for summer. At 10 p.m., the group began to break up and head their separate ways. But Emily never made it home.

When she had not returned home by midnight, her parents started to worry. Well, by the time the morning sun pierced through the curtain, John and Martha had called everybody they knew, but nobody had seen anything of her. The police were called, a search ensued, but she was nowhere to be seen-no witnesses, no clues, nothing.

Panic set into town. Anyone who was anybody had a theory. Some whispered that Emily, tired of her perfect life, had run away, while others firmly believed that something far more heinous had occurred. The police combed the surrounding woods and talked to every friend and family member, every acquaintance that Emily had, but it was a cold trail from the very start. The police, led by Chief Harold Grayson, combed the surrounding woods and interviewed every friend, family member, and acquaintance Emily had, but the trail was cold.

Days turned into weeks and the case of disappearance of Emily Hart began to grow cold. What once was a hustling town named Riverton became a ghost town. People dared not venture out at night; parents watched their children with keen eyes, and rumors became wild. But there was one rumor in particular over the town-the story of the Old Prescott House.

The Prescott House was an abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town. It had been built during the late 1800s, a home to one of Riverton's wealthiest families. After a series of tragic events-fires, accidents, and a string of deaths-the house had been left to rot. The locals claimed it was haunted, even cursed. Teens would dare each other to stay a night in the house, though none of them ever made it past midnight.

They said strange things happen there: lights turn on without power, whispers arise from rooms, and some say they'd caught glimpses of figures flitting about in the dark corners. Those stories were fobbed off as urban legends, but suddenly many wondered if all this had something to do with Emily's disappearance.

A month following the disappearance of Emily, two local boys, Matt and Ryan, decided to take matters into their hands one night. Convinced that the police weren't doing enough, they would search Prescott House themselves. With flashlights in hand and an old baseball bat for protection, they set out into the dark of night.

The house now was looming ahead of them, its windows like hollow eyes staring into the night. The once grand front porch is now consuming with moss; the boards creaked loudly beneath their feet as they stepped onto it. Inside, the air was thick with mildew and decay. Their meager flashlights barely cut through the darkness, but on they pressed in determined fervor, to find some clue that might lead them to Emily.

The only sound inside the house, besides the periodic creak of old wood beneath their feet, was an eerie silence. Nothing was out of the ordinary while going down those dusty hallways: just old furniture, broken windows, and peeling wallpaper. But reaching the second floor, Ryan came to a dead stop, his heart racing. He could have sworn he heard something-a faint whisper, it sounded like, of someone calling very far away.

Did you hear that?" he whispered.

Matt nodded, clenching the baseball bat. They followed the sound to the other end of the hallway until it was louder. At the very last door, they came to a stop. The whispering now sounded like soft sobbing. Someone-or something-was on the other side of the door.

Summoning all their courage, Matt slowly turned the doorknob and swung the door open. Inside was a very small room, completely empty except for one solitary mirror on the wall. The sobbing stopped. The boys took a step into the room, their flashlights casting long shadows across the floor. The room was freezing cold, much colder than the rest of the house-and their breath fogged the air.

When they drew closer to it, something strange happened: the reflection in the glass wasn't of their own. It was that of a young woman named Emily Hart. She sat in a chair, pale-faced and wide-eyed in terror. Her lips moved with no sound.

They were frozen on the spot instantly, their eyes wide with incredulity. Then, just as the figure came to them, so too was Emily's image fading away once more, replaced by their own reflection once again. As before, for a few moments, there was complete silence in the room.

Terrified, they fled the house, running all the way back to town. They told their story, but few believed them. Yet, those that did began to piece together an even darker theory-that Emily had somehow become trapped in the Prescott House, caught between this world and the next.

The following day, a very skeptical but desperate Chief Grayson took a team of officers to the house. They scoured room by room, finding absolutely nothing out of the ordinary or any sign of the missing girl. Their story was dismissed as a hoax, a product of overactive imaginations and the hysteria of the town.

But with the coming of autumn and colors of change, stories of stranger phenomena began to creep out. People spoke about seeing Emily's reflection in mirrors around town-at the diner, inside their homes, even in the rearview mirrors of their cars. And each time, she looked the same-pale, terrified, and silent.

It was not the same town after that summer. Of course, the official story was that Emily ran away, but people in Riverton knew better; they knew she was still there, trapped in the Prescott House, waiting for someone to find her. Eventually, the house was boarded up, and nobody dared approach it.

Even today, no one has any idea what actually happened to Emily Hart. Some believe that she still haunts the mirrors of Riverton-a quiet witness to that summer when this little town lost its innocence. Others believe she is alive somewhere out there, looking from the other side, waiting for someone to find out the mystery of her disappearance.

And one thing is for sure: Riverton will never, ever forget the summer of 1993, the summer that Emily Hart disappeared into thin air.