〆 𝖆 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝖘𝖑𝖎𝖒𝖊 𝖎𝖓 𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉 〆 ᵗᵖⁿ ⁺ ᵗᵗⁱᵍʳᵃᵃˢ

X. Disbelief

Several Minutes Earlier:

Yukko wrote in her ledger, marking off the days before the shipment of the next product, aka the orphan, was due. She had decided that it would be Simon, as he seemed the obvious choice. The last month had been eventful, to say the least. Grandmother was now gone, and replaced with a new one, but no exact information had been revealed about that. All she knew was that Grandmother had apparently made some kind of mistake, which had got them furious with her.

Yukko was a tall, slender woman in her middle years, with light-coloured eyes, blonde hair tucked behind her ears, and short bangs framing her forehead. She had been a mom since her early twenties, and thus had many years of experience. She found the idea of Grandmother making a mistake almost incomprehensible, as the old woman had always been efficient in her work, and yet she knew something big had to have happened for them to dispose of her. And the fact that they were now patrolling the grounds only added to the mystery.

Them had always had a strict policy of staying out of the plantation, so that the children would grow up obliviously safe and carefree. And yet, in one month they had broken tradition and started coming into the grounds, lying apparently in wait for something, but whatever that something was, she had no idea. She was, after all, only told what she needed to know, and apparently, they saw no reason to tell her why they were doing all this security. Fortunately, they were good at hiding themselves, as none of the children had seen them since they first began coming onto the grounds in the last month.

Shoving the papers inside her desk-drawer, she got up to go check on the infant children. As she walked out her office, she noticed how quiet it was. Still, though, she saw nothing strange in that, as the children were all playing outside, and the infants were taking their afternoon nap.

She walked over to the nursery, where the infants slept, and peeked inside to check on them... and froze.

The nursery was completely empty. All the cots where the infants should be sleeping were empty, and not even their blankets were there anymore. Yukko's first thought was that the older children must have taken them outside with them for some reason, and immediately rushed downstairs. She ran out the door and quickly began calling for the children, but there was no answer.

Where the children would usually be found playing all around the yard, was now as empty as the nursery. It was here that Yukko, for once, started to feel panic. She snatched out her radar, to look for where the children could be, but what she saw on the radar's screen chilled her to the bone and placed her mind in a state of incomprehension.

"It's not possible..." she whispered, staring at the screen in disbelief. The screen, like the yard and the nursery, was empty and blank, which could only mean one thing... and that was the children were gone.

"How?!" she all but shouted.