Bullet 8
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Emina held a photo between her fingers and her eyes soaked wet in tears. She stared at the photo for a long while as she murmured some random words.
"It was only a nightmare from back then.." she cried "However, why does it feel like it all happened now? I feel tired but I must focus on my case… Father.. Please lend me your powers.."
Emina gave a look around the room, she noticed some documents on the desk which were probably put by Thomas. They involved many disappearing cases around the USA whom the victims were expected to had visited St. Louis. She checked the documents quickly to find out many names with different names, ages, sex, cities, colors and nationality, however the only common trait between all of them was that they paid a visit to St. Louis. Then, she read every page of the documents from the oldest to newest disappearing cases in St. Louis, which were approximately five hundred cases in 20 years.
The first case that happened in St. Louis, on 19 February 2020, at 2:03 am, was the disappearance of a high-school girl when she had an appointment with her friends at 2:00 am. All of the girls were chatting together on their group chat as she assured that she was in the southeast of the city, then she had suddenly stopped texting at 2:03 am as if something had swallowed her. The girls waited for her to reach the meeting point as the called her several times until they felt something was abnormal and reported their friend's disappearance. After the long search, the police closed the case when they found no clue about the girl.
Another case was on 1 May 2020, when a mother sent her 10 years old daughter to the mart, again in the southeast of the city. The mother searched for her daughter in the whole neighborhood after two hours had passed since the daughter left the house, so she rushed to the police station who searched every corner of St. Louis but did not find the girl. The exact time of her disappearance was unknown, but the cashier at the mart said that the girl had left at 8:33 pm.
A different case had occurred in 22 August 2021, when that time two girls had vanished away together. The girls were said to be helping an old granny to carry her luggage to the southeast of the city, they looked heavy for her to handle so the young girls offered help. When they reached her house, the granny thanked them with a cup of tea and cookies. The first girl left before the second who was helping the granny washing the dishes they used. The granny said that the first girl had left at 2:00 pm and the second at 2:43 pm, and the neighbors assured the time.
An interesting case happened in 4 October 2023, as a whole family was banished and disappeared. The exact time was unknown as the grandparents of the family had reported that it had been a long time since they got in contact with them and the last time they talked to them was on 11 August 2023. That time their house was in the northwest of the city, which was the opposite side of the repetitive crimes.
A new case was reported in 17 March 2026, as a teacher of a class disappeared at 3:06 pm after the school period. The students confirmed that they saw him for the last time after the school in the southeast of the city, however they also mentioned that he got into a fight with a very rich student and he had threatened to kill him. So, the first suspect was the student and his family, so the policemen searched for the teacher and investigated with the suspect which resulted then in fruitless results since there was no evidence that the student killed the teacher. The case was closed then with an unknown reasons fro disappearing.
Another odd case had occurred on 29 March 2030, as it was a disappearance of a bride on her wedding day. Her family confirmed that she did not love her groom nor wanted to marry him as she was forced on the marriage, so they expected that the bride had escaped the St. Louis and ran away not to show herself again. After a long search, the bride was not to be found anywhere as if she disappeared from the whole world, she was nowhere to be found in the cities of America nor had a ticket outside the country.
A new special one happened on 16 July 2035, as a man in his middle age was indebted to a tavern for gambling all of his money, the man threatened to take his own life and commit a suicide after his wife had left him for having many debts. The woman did not take his words seriously and left him harshly, however after a month she paid a visit to her old house to take some of her stuff when she did not find him home. The policemen searched for him all around the city but when she checked her spam messages she found from an odd number a message which had said "I did not want to die!", and the number was the deleted contact of her ex husband. The message was considered a death message which made the police amazed yet scared.
Also, many cases occurred around America with many different reasons for disappearance, and the common trait between all of the cases was that the victims had visited St. Louis and disappeared there. So, Emina became assured that there was something fishy specifically in the southwest of the city, so she decided to focus her forces around that spot of the city. Lastly were the cases of those six victims that disappeared in the same city throughout the same month which made Emina lose her mind from the blurry events of the cases.
Emina marked all of the important and odd cases considering that they might hold the edge of the thread to solving those crimes. She only understood that most of the cases occurred around the southwest of the city however she did not get to know any clue about the criminal nor what he wanted. She waited for any response of the FBI and police agents roaming around St. Louis as baits for the criminals to come out of their lairs, she was sure that they could attract the enemies by any method as they were professional and trained agents that could fight any well equipped criminal.
Their response had surely took a long time, because maybe the criminals were ones of a profession or maybe they were waiting for the perfect time to feast on their preys, however there was no new disappearance case in the last days..