After a few hours of Caius going to the garden, and specifically at nine in the morning, both Leona and Talia walked through the streets of Helen while observing the place around them.
Limited in their usual noble surroundings, this small city was not like those areas they were used to wandering in; compared to the large cities in the Empire, Helen looks like a rural village.
In any case, they were not here today to criticize the city’s appearance, or to wander, but to investigate the disappearance of ordinary citizens.
And now they were heading to the home of one of the missing persons.
After some time, the two girls arrived in front of a residential building with several floors.
"I think this is the right building" Talia spoke while looking at her phone.
Leona nodded "Let’s enter then."
The two girls entered the building and headed to the third floor, and there they stopped in front of the door of one of the apartments.
"This is apartment number 5" Talia hid her phone while Leona pressed the doorbell.
After some time, the sound of footsteps was heard behind the door before it opened, revealing a woman in her forties.
Her swollen eyes and pale skin were evidence that she had not had rest recently; even the black bags under her eyes were very clear.
The woman looked at Leona and Talia with tired looks, while her voice came out faint and broken
"Who are you?"
No words of welcome or anything, but the two girls were not annoyed.
Leona smiled and stepped toward the woman "Hello madam, I am Leona, a student from the Axis, and my friend Talia here is the same... we were sent here to help investigate the disappearance cases."
She said that while pulling out her card and showing it to the woman who looked at it with cold eyes.
"We hope you will cooperate with us madam and allow us to enter and take a look at the place of your daughter’s disappearance."
When Leona said these words, she caught a glimpse of some tears forming in the eyes of the lady before them.
Leona did not hurry, instead she remained silent looking at the woman who raised her hand to wipe her tears and restrain herself from crying.
After a few moments the woman nodded and made way for them to enter "Please come in, and please forgive my previous behavior... "
"No problem, madam, we are the ones who should apologize for coming without prior notice" Leona tried to take the blame to comfort this poor mother.
After moments this lady guided them to her daughter’s room in their modest home.
She opened the room door while speaking in a tired voice "She spends most of her time here and doesn’t go out of the house much, on that day I had gone to work and left her at home as usual, but when I returned in the evening, I didn’t find her."
"I thought she might have gone out of the house to buy something or the like; because she left everything behind even her phone, but after night fell and she didn’t return I reported to the police and tried to search for her but to no avail" the mother uttered word after another in a heartbreaking tone.
Leona nodded at the words she already knew from the girl’s file, while Talia entered the room and looked around.
There was nothing special, just an ordinary teenage girl’s room, with a bed and a desk with a computer in the corner.
Leona tried to treat this broken mother with as much kindness as possible while asking "Madam, do you usually get visitors?"
The police had already reviewed the surveillance cameras and found no one who entered or left this house on that day except the mother.
The woman played with her hair "No... we don’t usually get any visitors except the owner of this house who comes sometimes to check on the condition of the apartments, but he doesn’t enter unless there is a problem."
Leona nodded.
"Madam, do you have any disputes with anyone?"
The mother shook her head in disagreement "No... I don’t have any problems with anyone."
Leona smiled at her "Can we examine the room and the house now? I know the police did this previously... but I hope we don’t disturb you with this request."
"You can do anything as long as this will help in finding my daughter."
Leona nodded and she and Talia began searching the room as thoroughly as possible, after that they moved to the rest of the house while they occasionally asked questions to the mother.
In the end they stood outside the house door saying goodbye to the elderly woman.
"I promise you we will do our best to find out what happened to your daughter madam."
With some simple parting words, both Leona and Talia left the residential building.
Talia looked at Leona "It was literally nothing... it seems as if these people disappeared from the world in a moment."
Leona nodded in agreement with Talia’s words "We will take over the file of this girl while the police and the others work on the rest of the cases... now we will start by visiting every place this girl went to in the last days before her disappearance."
...
Both Ellen and Izel arrived at a small house on the outskirts of the city.
Ellen stood in front of the door while inserting the key she got from the police into the door lock before turning it.
With a faint clicking sound the door opened and Ellen and Izel entered behind her before she closed the door.
This was the home of the missing couple.
In their file it was mentioned that these two people got married only a few months ago, while they live alone in this small house.
The wife was an ordinary housewife while the man works in a full-time job, in one of the small companies.
These two spouses were lost 6 days ago from now, while evidence indicates that they disappeared while having dinner according to what the police found in the house.
The two girls walked inside the house and wandered everywhere until they arrived in front of the dining table, they looked at everything.
From the positions of the chairs to the full plates on the table.
Then they moved to the rest of the house.
Ellen and Izel checked every corner of the house; those plates waiting to be washed, the clothes in the washing machine, the clean condition of the house.
It is clear that the matter happened suddenly to the couple and without prior warning.
Even the positions of the chairs around the table indicate that they did not get up from their place from the beginning, while one spoon disappeared on one side of the table and a fork on the other side.
...
In another place both Kyle and Elliot left the hospital where the old man was.
After they checked his room in the hospital and asked the nurses about what he usually does and the moments preceding his disappearance.
The answer they got was that he disappeared immediately after one of the nurses checked him, for the alarm to go off twenty-five minutes after that indicating that his vital signs dropped to zero, but when they rushed to his room they did not find the old man in his place; only his trace on the bed and the sensors scattered here and there.
The only thing interesting is that the old man gets visits from his family sometimes where they sit with him for some time, but the rest of their conversations are unknown because they were left alone in the room.
And especially that he was visited by his son an hour before his disappearance.
Elliot sighed "It seems like space manipulation... as if they are being teleported."
Kyle nodded at his words while he said in a calm tone as usual
"What we need to know is not who or how..."
" But why."