AN: Alright, I decided to pick the pen back up and start writing again for the first time in what? 5 something years? Possibly. Let's just hope I've improved in that time. I couldn't bear to watch another one of my OC's to turn into a Mary sue.
So yeah, I've returned with a new name and a new story. The plot's been done before (more times than I could care to count) and it is absolutely unoriginal, but I hope to give it a new twist for your own amusement. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Without a trace.
Summary: I felt like I had fallen into a bad fan fiction and the joke's on me. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to be doing here. And what did the Thule society have to do with all of this?
TAP
TAP
TAP
TAP
I was beating my pen against my History essay in annoyance as a stared out into the distance, which happened to be my bedroom wall. It was 10 pm, my essay was due tomorrow and I was tired as hell. I couldn't focus, even if I tried. I sighed, put my pen down and stretched. I wasn't even half trough the books I had borrowed from the library. The internet would've been easier, but Wikipedia wasn't the bible. I didn't like the librarian, though. She was always staring at me with that suspicious glare. Almost like plotting.
'Maybe I should've just listen to mum and gotten myself a job' I thought and shook my head.
If I did, I would probably have been working in some kind of cheap supermarket, complaining how I should've listened to myself and gone to college. Living a satisfactory life suddenly didn't seem so easy anymore.
I raised the book I was reading before and picked up where I left off in a last effort to finish my essay.
The Thule society
The Thule Society, originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum ("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity"), was a German occultist and völkisch group in Munich, named after a mythical northern country from Greek legend. The Society is notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), which was later transformed by Adolf Hitler into the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party). There is no evidence that Hitler ever attended the Thule Society. But there was great enthusiasm among Thule members for Hitler, most notably Rudolf Hess and Dietlinde Eckart. The occultists believed Hitler to be the prophesied "redeemer of Germany". They were Hitler's first "disciples" and as such were crucial to his meteoric rise.
I loved history. I wanted to know all about the great things men had done in the past. And all the not so great things. World war II was by far the most interesting and most gruesome subject I had ever laid eyes on. I was amazed and terrified how the world could be altered so drastically by one man. A very charismatic, charming and sick man at that. One doesn't simply raise an all-obeying army out of the ground.
I typed the last few paragraphs to my essay and decided to leave it at that. Books be damned. I printed the whole thing out and stuffed it in my backpack. When I went downstairs, I headed towards the kitchen for a drink when I heard Jack starting to bark up the neighborhood. He probably saw me trough the kitchen window. I used the veranda door to get into the yard and opened his gate.
"What's the matter, Jack? Didn't mum let you out yet?" I asked as I patted him on the head and tied a leash to his color.
If anything, the barking got more frantic.
"Alright, alright. But just a short walk, okay? I got class tomorrow and I really need to sleep" I said as Jack started tugging forward.
We had Jack since I was six and he was starting to get old. We could probably do our routine walk with our eyes closed by now. We lived in a nice neighborhood. Little traffic, stealing and burglary was rare. The only thing I was bothered with was the park. It was the farthest point of our route. It lay closer to the city and it showed. As we rounded the corner to the park, Jack began barking again and as tried to shush him, I noticed two shadowy figures standing near the gates. Not unusual, I knew there were druggies in and around the park. It was part of the reason I didn't like to go on nightly park walks with Jack, but having him on me always secured my fears. The scary part, though was that he stopped walking and started growling. Jack never growled. He was looking directly at the two figures. Not once in my life had he done something like this before.
"You know what? Let's go home and try this again tomorrow, huh? When there aren't shady people around" I whispered and tried to tug him back, but he kept howling and snarling.
It took me quite some effort to get him around the corner again but when I did, he darted back to the house like a bat from hell. I didn't know what set him off so badly but I didn't want to stick around and find out. I put him back in his doghouse and closed the gate. By now, he was moving from one side to the other, whining. I was officially starting to get freaked out. I hurried back to the house and locked all the doors. Only after that, I felt a bit safer. Mum and dad weren't home and Jane had just moved out. I was all alone and vaguely considered letting Jack inside. Then again, mum would probably be pretty mad when she found out I let him in just to soothe my paranoia. I could still indistinctly hear him whining in the backyard. I headed upstairs and buried myself in my bed. If they were to steal every God damn last thing out of the house, I would let them be. Fake sleep, if necessary. As long as they left me alone.
Jack let out a specifically loud bark, followed by a whine and then nothing. I didn't dare to look out the window.
I should have.
I didn't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, it was still nighttime. It was at that precise moment that I knew something was wrong.
'Oh God, they really are cleaning out the house' I thought, fearfully hiding deeper into my sheets. When I heard no noise though, I got a bit braver and stepped out of the bed. I noticed I didn't even change into my nightgown. I searched the nearest object that could serve as a weapon which happened to be my bedside lamp. I tiptoed down the stairs with my 'weapon' in attack position, growing more afraid with each step I took down. I decided to check the living room first. I quickly flipped on the light switch and jumped from behind the door. No one. I left the light on anyway and moved to the next room. The study was connected with the living room and had no way out. I hoped nobody was there. You never knew how people reacted when cornered. When I opened the door and lit the room, it was empty too. I looked around one last time in both rooms to make sure I didn't miss them. I was beginning to think I really was paranoia. But for good measures, I settled on trying the kitchen too. I had loosened the grip on my lamp as I opened the kitchen door and switched on the lights. Nothing seemed amiss, but the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up and my brain informed me something was out of place. I looked around the kitchen, even checked the cupboards. I couldn't put my finger on it.
Then I looked outside. Jack was lying in front of his doghouse, which was strange because he always slept inside. I shrugged it off since he was behaving bizarre all day until I noticed that he lay way too still. I flipped on the lights outside and opened the veranda door to have a look at him. That's when I noticed the grass around him wasn't green anymore. It was red.
I tried to scream, but it froze in my throat the second I saw them. Two shady figures, standing just outside the range of the light. I saw a small shimmer of reflected light from the duo and I recognized it as a knife.
Adrenaline kicked in and I started to run. As far and as fast as I could, my heart beating against my ribcage and in my neck, tears blurring my vision. The last rational thought that crossed my mind was that I needed help. I didn't want to look back, but I did. I never knew what I tripped on, but my last memory of anything, were two grinning faces and a knife.
And I knew I should've listened to myself and just stayed in bed. Because by opening that veranda door, I had sealed my fate.
On may 16th, at 3:14, Amber Birch went missing without a trace.
AN: Cookies go to who got my joke. Dunno when next chapter will come around. Let's see how quick my muse works.