The Unseen

It started with Caleb.

One second, he was standing in front of the bonfire, poking at the flames with a stick and telling one of his ridiculous jokes. The next, he was gone. Not in the "wandered off to pee in the woods" kind of way. Gone. The space he occupied felt… wrong, like the air where he had been was thicker somehow.

“Where’s Caleb?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Who?” Julia said, tossing another log into the fire like nothing had happened.

I froze. “Caleb. Our friend? The one who just—” I stopped. The words didn’t feel right. Caleb’s name hung heavy in my throat, alien and wrong, like I wasn’t supposed to say it.

Julia laughed nervously. “You okay, Emily? You’re acting weird.”

Acting weird? Caleb was gone, and she didn’t even care. I turned to the others, but they all gave me the same confused look, like I was the one out of place. That’s when I noticed something else—there were fewer chairs around the fire now.

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It wasn’t just Caleb.

The next day, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was stalking me. I sat at my desk at work, staring at my phone, scrolling through photos of the camping trip we’d taken last summer. Caleb wasn’t in any of them. His tent was gone. His laugh, his goofy grin—all erased.

I looked up to ask Julia about it, but her desk was empty.

Her mug, the one with the chip she refused to throw away, was gone too.

“Where’s Julia?” I asked my boss, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Who’s Julia?” she said without looking up.

My heart thundered in my chest. “Julia, from marketing! She sits right there.”

My boss gave me a look, the kind you give a crazy person. “Emily, that desk’s been empty for weeks. Are you feeling okay?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Because when I turned back to the desk, I realized the space wasn’t just empty—it was wrong. The air seemed… smudged, like an erased chalkboard where her presence used to be.

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By the time Lucas disappeared, I’d stopped asking questions.

It didn’t matter anymore. No one else remembered them. No one else could. And it was happening faster now. Every time someone vanished, it left a hollow ache in my chest, like a piece of my soul had been carved out.

I tried to hold on. I wrote their names in a notebook, filling page after page. But when I looked back at it the next morning, the pages were blank.

And it wasn’t just people. Things were disappearing too. The mug I got for Christmas. My favorite book. Even my dog.

But the scariest part wasn’t the losses. It was the silence.

The world was quieter now, like the universe was slowly unraveling, thread by thread.

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Last night, I dreamed about Caleb. He was standing at the edge of a black void, his face barely visible in the gloom.

“They’re coming for you,” he said, his voice echoing unnaturally.

“Who’s coming?” I whispered.

But he didn’t answer. Instead, his face twisted in terror, and he was dragged backward into the darkness, screaming.

I woke up gasping, drenched in sweat.

That’s when I noticed the photo on my nightstand—the one of my family at the beach. Only this time, I was the only one in it.

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This morning, there was a knock at my door.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

The air outside my apartment feels heavy now, almost alive, pressing against the windows.

I can feel them, whatever they are. They’re close.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll last. I don’t even know if anyone will remember me when I’m gone.

But I know this: when they take me, it won’t be the end. Because after me, they’ll come for you.