"The son of Olga is missing!!!"
Rachel, a maid ran in calling out in a loud voice to the head of the training house, Mr. Edga.
"You said what?"
Mr. Edga replied with a question.
"Late Olga's son Bryan is missing!!!
He insisted he wanted to go into the fields to visit his mother's grave which he had been doing everyday since she died, but for hours he hadn't yet returned.
I eventually went into the fields and searched till I was worn out but couldn't find him.
I have inquired concerning his whereabouts from everyone who lives around but those who saw him go said they didn't see him come back!"
Rachael replied.
Bryan was the boy who had been at the graveyard kneeling at the grave of his late mother.
His late mother Olga had been the last surviving heiress to the wealthy family of the Auroras.
The Aurora family was a notable family well known for their wealth which had been passed down from generation to generation.
Olga Aurora being the eldest among four girls born to her father became the heiress to the family's wealth when their father passed away.
When she was thirty, her husband died of sickle cell.
Olga had gone to the outside world beyond the walls to obtain civilized medical education to further improve her competence as a medical practitioner leaving their only son Bryan to the care of the servants and help.
Olga had finished her assignment in the outside world and had come back to live in the family house.
She however, subsequently visited the outside world every once in a while for reasons best known to her.
It was when Olga returned from one of those trips that the first attack on Monkogon was launched by the looms.
Unfortunately, she had visited her childhood friend who lived in the neighborhood which was eventually attacked.
She had concluded her conversation with her friend and was about to leave when the community was suddenly attacked and brought to the ground, every living creature being laid waste.
The family of the Auroras had been in a state of mourning for weeks for the sudden demise of the heiress.
Her son, Bryan had been very close to his mom so much so that he could not be consoled.
He went to the graveyard almost everyday since his mom was buried and refused any form of consolation from any source, human or material.
The ten year old boy could not figure out the reason as to why he should be left all alone in the world, abandoned to face the cruel nature of life without his life support which was his mom.
His love for his mom being very deep, caused the poor boy to be left in a devastated state regarding her demise.
Now, it appeared that fate wasn't satisfied with only denying the boy his life support, but also wanted the boy's life as well.
Immediately Mr. Edga heard of what happened, he mobilized a search team for the rescue of the boy.
The team which consisted of four men started out searching at the grave of late Mrs Olga.
There were still traces of footsteps around the field on the treadable sandy path.
They were able to observe the traces of what would probably be Bryan's footsteps.
The footsteps went through a path that ran down to the gravestone of late Mrs. Olga and another set of overlapping footsteps from apparently the same feet could also be traced back through the same path, all the way to the entrance of the graveyard.
As they were still observing, one of the members of the search party drew their attention to the point where the returning footprints terminated.
"Take a close look." He said to the others.
"The returning footprints terminate at this point, which is technically awkward because one has to walk all the way through this entrance to leave the yard."
He said.
"Which can only mean one thing...
Whatever happened to the boy happened at this point.
Look closely, the distribution of sand and debris around this area show that he must have fallen down here."
Another contributed.
"This definitely means a projectile was fired at the kid unless he just suddenly fainted".
Yet another contributed.
The first member then continued again.
"So from what we have been able to observe , we can deduce that the kid came in through this main entrance and walked all the way to that gravestone with his mother's inscription and then walked back all the way to this point just before the main entrance and then was attacked by something or someone that had no contact with the ground." He said.
"But how is it possible that the attackers have no discernable prints on the ground. At least they should have come to obtain their hostage right?"
One of them contributed.
"Apparently, they caught the idea that we'd do this kind of investigation and made sure all contacts with the ground were avoided.
Take a look at this point.
The slide pattern on the sand suggests that the body was dragged a bit first into this grass area of which we can guess that a means like a rope was used to hook and drag the body so they could probably swing it into the air and take it without any traces."
Another said.
"Take a look, the direction of this slide pattern on the ground goes North by a few centimeters.
They all turned Northwards.
"Which means, whoever did this was must have been hiding in that tree over there.
He said pointing towards a tree in the direction.
"That's quite plausible.
Let's go check the tree out".
The first speaker said again.
They all started heading towards the tree tracing their way along the direction of the slide pattern.
They finally got to the tree and two of the members climbed while two others stayed at the bottom of the tree to watch.
They started off trying again to detect whatever situation took place on the tree.
They checked for disturbed dust, bent branches and every other sign of activity.
"They were definitely here".
One of the two on the tree said to the rest.
"Look carefully.
First, there's a freshly broken thin branch, probably stepped on by them when they stood carelessly on this spot.
Also, taking a close look at the bark, some of the dried scales have been peeled off at this point and at this point" he said drawing their attention towards two points on the tree.
He continued.
"Also the leaves on this tree are still fresh and not withered yet. But if you look carefully at the ground, there are a number of leaves that have fallen and are directly beneath this point where all the disturbance must have happened".
He concluded.
The second observer on the tree then started to look around until he picked up something.
"Everyone, look towards that direction".
He said pointing towards west.
"Footprints"
One of them said.
"Yeah.
They definitely escaped through that way" another said.
"Then let's follow through".
The first speaker said again.
They all started off again continuing their investigation westwards.