Chapter 1

There was no warning.

One second the history teacher was standing at the front of the room, giving a lecture on the Civil War that Artemis Tavian was only half paying attention to. The next second he was gone.

Completely vanished, as if he'd never been there to begin with. He had been in the middle of a sentence, an excited look on his plain face as he talked obliviously to the mostly daydreaming students, and then he was gone.

No flash of light, no explosion, no gradual shift from being 'there' to 'not there'. Nothing except the empty space where Mr. Trentlake had been standing.

Artemis tensed and straightened up from her slouched seating position, dark green eyes wide. They abruptly narrowed, flickering from one end of the room to the other. A pale hand reached up to brush a piece of black hair from her face as she continued to examine the room, looking for a possible explanation (and a threat. What did this? Was it dangerous? How to fight it kill it escape it- three windows one doorway an air vent) for the man's disappearance.

Briefly, she considered the idea that it might have just been her imagination, before it was dismissed. The other teens in the room were staring in shocked silence at the front of the room, some frozen in the middle of a whispered conversation or doodling on a piece of paper (two seats forward one left – talking to the boy next to him – three to the right two forward – staring through the window), and each of them now looking at the place their teacher was previously standing.

She noted that one boy was missing; Josh Ainsworth, who had been reading a comic for the past ten minutes. The only fifteen year old in the class.

She watched them warily, assessing them (were they dangerous? Could they have done it?), but none of them had ever done anything threatening before, certainly nothing of this magnitude. They were children, dependant and largely useless without adults to direct them.

Of course, there were some exceptions. Samuel Temple, as famous as anyone could get in the small town, having earned the nickname 'School Bus Sam'. In seventh grade he saved the people on his bus by taking control of it when the driver had a heart attack.

She hadn't been on the bus, but the story had spread quickly throughout the school, and Temple had even been in the local paper. But, he had faded back into the background soon enough, though she predicted that if the need arose he would quickly take up the 'hero' mantle again.

He was the first to speak, turning to the girl next to him as the rest of the class listened in. "You saw that, right?"

It was Mary Terrafino, she could see from the back of the classroom, who was still staring at the spot where their teacher had been. Artemis was grateful she always aimed to sit at the back, close to the window. It meant she could watch everyone without turning around or bringing attention to herself, and provide herself with accessible of escape routes.

She was well aware of how this reasoning would sound to others, but had long since come to terms with her general paranoid nature, adapting accordingly. It was not like there was any harm of being suspicious of others. In fact, she though amusedly, it was probably one of the more positive aspects of her personality.

Terrafino hadn't replied, eyes fixated towards the front and body frozen, similar to some of the other teens in the room.

"Um, where's Mr. Trentlake?" asked the boy who sat right behind Temple. He was Quinn Gaither, best friend of Temple and a slightly odd but average student. Artemis made it a habit to memorise the names and any other useful information of those she met. She may need them one day.

"He must have left," Terrafino finally said, though she didn't sound like she believed it. Artemis didn't either. There was no way he had just 'left', he had disappeared too quickly for that. No, something must have happened to him. What, though?

Edilio Escobar, an immigrant from Honduras (illegal, perhaps?) as he had repeated enough times for Artemis to know about it, since many people mistook him for Mexican, spoke next, "No, man. Poof." He wiggled his fingers in what she thought was unfortunately a rather accurate representation of the concept.

Artemis leaned her chin in the palm of her hand. Many of the kids around her were craning their heads to look at each other, giggling nervously. No one was scared, or worried. It seemed funny to them. They weren't panicking.

She thought they should be, though it would happen soon enough when they realized the severity of the situation. Then again, she herself was only just coming to terms with it. Her mind whirred with the possibilities of what could be happening, and why, each more ridiculous than the next. Aliens? Magic? Superpowers? Some kind of experiment? Or was some lame celebrity going to jump out from behind the desk and yell "Gotcha!", claiming that the class had unknowingly starred in some inane new show?

But no, that couldn't be possible. No amount of special effects could cause a grown human to spontaneously disappear, and she wasn't aware of any technology that could do this either. It was something else, but she just didn't know what.

"Mr Trentlake poofed?" said Gaither, a suppressed giggle in his voice and a grin on his face. Some of the others chuckled with him, evidently finding the term hilarious.

"Hey," someone said, their face blocked from her view by the girl in front of her, "where's Josh?"

So they finally noticed. Heads turned to look, as if Ainsworth was hiding from them and would reveal himself.

"Was he here today?"

"Yes, he was here. He was right here next to me." Bette Paton, also known as Bouncing Bette, for reasons unknown to Artemis, said. "He just, you know, disappeared. Just like Mr. Trentlake."

So it wasn't just a one off. Had more people disappeared throughout the school, even the whole town? And why was it only those two? As far as she could tell, the teacher and student had nothing in common. They weren't related. They didn't know each other personally. What was the connection?

The door to the hallway opened, and every eye locked on it. Maybe it would be Mr. Trentlake and Ainsworth, explaining teasingly how they had managed to pull of the magic trick. But, her mind pointed out, what was the point in such a trick? Neither had shown any inclination to magic tricks or the like, and it made no sense to do so randomly during a History lesson.

It was neither male, but instead another confused and frightened student. Astrid Ellison stood in the doorway, the proclaimed smartest girl in the school, Astrid the Genius, seemingly as stumped as they were by the event. Tall, blonde and blue eyed, with intelligence surpassing many adults, she was both envied and admired by many children, subject of more than a few crushes. Artemis didn't like her much, but nor did she hate her. Then again, this was the opinion she had of the vast majority of the people she had met.

"Where's your teacher?" Ellison asked, normally sharp eyes wide with fright. She looked on the verge of panic, and Artemis could nearly see the well-honed cogs in her mind turning. A sardonic smile crept onto her lips as she wondered what conclusion the supposed Genius would come to.

It fell back into a blank expression as she tried to come up with her own. Hopefully, Ellison would shed some light on the situation, as much as it irritated her to rely on another. Although, once she had gotten as much information as she could from those around her, she would see what she herself could figure out.

Most of the class replied in response, herself not included. Ellison appeared even more unnerved, a frown on her face and eyes scanning the room, finally landing on Gaither as he gave an answer.

"He poofed," he said, smile wavering. She wondered if he realized how the 'poofed' joke wasn't funny any more, how the room was beginning gain a more nervous edge.

"Isn't he out in the hallway?" Terrafino asked, brow furrowing. A stupid question; Ellison wouldn't have asked where he was if she had seen him.

Ellison shook her head. "Something weird is happening. My math study group...there were just three of us, plus the teacher. They all just disappeared."

Her maths group...Ellison was in all the AP classes the school had to offer, which meant she was often with teens older than herself. Ainsworth was the oldest child in the class at fifteen, everyone else was fourteen, and their teacher was obviously older than that. Slowly, the pieces if the puzzle began to fit together...

"What?" Temple said, turning the blonde girl's attention to him.

She found herself amused as a very slight, near unnoticeable, blush crept onto Temple's face. His face quickly paled at Ellison's next words, along with those paying attention (the majority) to the conversation. "They're gone. They all just...disappeared."

"What about your teacher?" Escobar asked.

"She's gone, too," she replied.

"Gone?"

"Poof," Gaither repeated, not giggling so much now.

Artemis rolled her eyes and stood up, making her way to the door. Several teenagers turned to look at her, but she ignored them and walked outside into the hallway. No one moved to stop her, but she noticed Temple, followed by Ellison and Gaither, walk out after her.

To the right, room 213, a kid stuck out his head, wearing a half-giddy, half-scared expression. She guessed that his teacher was also gone, and by the sounds of excited children coming from the other classrooms, his wasn't the only one.

Fifth graders down the hall laughing loudly. Three sixth graders across the hall burst out into the hallway, stopping dead at the sight of Artemis and her classmates, guilty expression on their faces. She ignored them, turning left and peering into 211, Ellison's room.

It was empty, as she had expected. Math books and notebooks lay open on the desks, and a row of six computers all showed flickering blank screens. Whatever was happening, it was affecting the electronics too. She reached into her cargo pants pocket, pulling out a cheap Nokia and calling the first number on her contacts, only to have no answer, confirming her theory.

She headed back out into the hall, leaving Temple and his followers to investigate. She could hear them talking about how the teacher and students had disappeared, stating what she thought was obvious. Whatever was happening, it was far from a singular event.

Someone screamed, causing Artemis to jump. Her head immediately turned in the girl's direction, frowning in irritation. Her instincts hadn't indicated that there was any immediate danger, so what could possibly warrant screaming?

It was a sixth grader named Becka Freeman, clutching her cell phone. "There's no answer. There's no answer!" she cried, "There's nothing."

For a moment everyone froze. Then, a flurry of rustles and clattering, followed by the dialling of numerous keypads. Artemis almost wanted to laugh at how they only realized how serious this was when their precious cells failed to work.

"It's not doing anything."

"My mom would be home, she would answer. It's not even ringing."

"Oh, my God: there's no internet, either. I have a signal, but there's nothing."

"I have three bars."

"Me too, but it's not there."

Someone started wailing pathetically. Artemis gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to shut them up, violently. It got harder as the chattering escalated to yelling.

"Try 911," a scared voice demanded.

"Who do you think I called, numbnuts?"

She sighed, tuning out the various comments people were making. This was really going nowhere. She could feel herself becoming impatient, nervous energy building up in the drive to do something.

The alarm bell rang, an explosion of noise. She flinched, not the only one surprised by the loud and familiar sound. It seemed especially loud in the near silent hallway.

Wait. Silent?

She briefly wanted to hit herself for not noticing earlier. From within the school you could usually hear the sounds of cars driving by, and people talking as they walked on the pavement. But now, there was nothing, except for car alarms blaring distantly.

Brow furrowed, she hurried over to the window as everyone began to disperse. There was one down another hall, facing out onto the road. Pushing back the blinds she peered out, a sigh escaping her.

Predictably, the usually relatively busy street was empty of any over fifteens. Near the centre of the road two cars had slammed into each other, neither driver visible in their seats or nearby. A bike lay abandoned on its side close to the traffic lights, some shopping bags dropped on the pavement and car alarms blaring. Further down she could see a stroller with the toddler still inside, its wailing faint through the glass windows.

Turning and leaning against the wall, she closed her eyes. It was obvious what had happened; everyone over the age of fifteen, it seemed, was gone. Where to, and why, she didn't know. Had they, ordinary people going through the motions of another day, simply been dumped somewhere? But why, what possible reason could there be to do this?

She sighed. The most important thing; what was she going to do now?

Home. Or, at least the place that constituted as what most people thought of at home. Nick should be there, since he worked nights at the nuclear plant and would probably be asleep about now. Though, if the disappearances were as she thought they were, he wouldn't be there. If not, then...

She'd take it from there, follow her instincts like she always did. Do whatever she could to survive this.

Green eyes snapped open, murky depths hiding an unidentifiable emotion, and a smirk crossed her face.

"Who knows," she murmured, tone lower and hoarser that would seem to fit her delicate features, "Maybe it'll be interesting."