Chapter 2 - The Forgotten Girl

Laura was laying in her bed, staring at the ceiling and hoping that her pulsating migraine would go away, to no avail. Her misery was compounded by the fact that the phone on the desk opposite her bed started ringing. She grabbed the smaller of the pillows her head was resting on, and put it over her head in an attempt to make the ringing less annoying.

"This is the third time this morning," her shout, directed to whoever kept insisting on calling her, was mostly muffled by the pillow. "Just leave me alone!"

Once she realized that her attempts to smother herself weren't particularly successful in making the silencing the phone, she grabbed the pillow and threw it roughly in the direction of her desk, hoping that she'd manage to hit the damned device and make it stop ringing. She realized that this might not have been the best of ideas immediately after the pillow left her hands. This ill-fated throw also proved rather unsuccessful, much to the dismay of her desk lamp. Once she came to terms with the fact that she'd have to get out of bed, as well as the fact that the person on the other side of the phone was extremely persistent, she decided to finally get up on her feet, only to nearly fall back down again after some sudden dizziness kicked in. She glanced in the direction of the fallen lamp to make sure nothing was broken, then started walking over towards the cursed phone. Just as she was about to answer the call, the ringing finally stopped. In slight disbelief over what just happened, she glared at the device with a stare of contempt, as the bright orange glow of its screen decreased in intensity, before turning off completely.

"You're dead to me," she told the inanimate object, and then decided to leave the room. Immediately after opening the door, she was overwhelmed by a sudden, uncontrollable urge to sneeze, which culminated in her nearly falling over again and having to prop herself up against the railing to regain her balance. Once that brief adventure was finished, she headed down the hallway, towards the bathroom. After managing to open the door without tripping over herself, she was faced with a mirror. Even her own reflection seemed to pity her. The first thing that caught her eye was her scruffy, unkempt, dark blonde hair, that couldn't decide which direction it wanted to go in. She winced a bit at the sight of it, then a bit more once she noticed how stupid she looked in the mirror, what with a shirt that seemed two sizes too big and the lack of pants. She grabbed a toothbrush from the yellow cup it was in, and started brushing her teeth. It didn't take long for her to realize she forgot to apply any toothpaste, but as soon as she went to grab the tube, the phone in the bedroom started ringing again. She casually strolled over back to her room and finally answered the call.

"You've missed work again," a male voice said, without so much as a greeting.

"Really? I haven't noticed," Laura replied, toothbrush still in mouth.

"You can't keep doing this! You haven't come to work all week!"

"What, do you want me to come to work and make you all–" Laura moved the phone away from her mouth for a moment in order to not ruin the other person's hearing with the sounds of her deathly coughs. She decided to not finish the sentence she started, almost in protest of her sickness. The person on the other side of the phone silently conceded that she might have a point, and changed the topic.

"I hope you haven't been procrastinating, though," her colleague continued. "Five days should've given you loads of time for research."

"No procrastinating here," Laura glanced at the pile of papers on her desk. "Everything is going smoothly."

"I can't tell if you're being serious," the man responded in a drab monotone.

"I don't really feel like doing much," Laura replied. "I've done a bit of work, but for the most part, Nell was happy to do more work on our story while I'm sick, and I promised her that I'd make it up–"

"What are you talking about?"

"Huh?"

"I thought this story was all yours."

"No, it wasn't," Laura replied in a somewhat condescending voice, as if she was explaining something blatantly obvious. "It wasn't even my idea. Nell was the one to take it up, and I just decided to help–"

"Who is Nell?" her colleague asked. "Are you working with someone from another paper?"

"Are you messing with me?" Laura asked.

"I swear I'm not," the man insisted. "I have no idea who you're talking about."

"I mean, I know she didn't like you a whole lot, but surely you haven't forgotten–" Laura's speech slowed down as she approached the end of that sentence. Her eyes widened, and a cold sweat washed over her as she came to a sudden realization. The man on the other side of the speaker attempted to continue the conversation, but his words faded into the background.

"I'll call you later," Laura mumbled into the phone, and hung up, despite her colleague's protests. She stood next to her desk in silence, blankly staring at her reflection in the bedside window as dark clouds gathered outside.

"Shit," she muttered. "Why is she so stubborn? Why does she always rush in without thinking!?"

Still holding out hope that this was a practical joke, she turned on her computer. After briefly going back to the bathroom to put back the toothbrush, so she wouldn't keep aimlessly walking around with it. After the PC booted up, she immediately attempted to find some of Nell's past articles, only to realize that most of them are missing, and the ones that she could find were credited to somebody else.

"Why has she done this? Why couldn't she just be patient?" Laura thought. "Every time she stumbles upon something interesting, she just rushes in there like a headless chicken!"

She briefly stopped ranting, and took a deep breath to relax.

"Nell, you idiot," Laura said, now slightly calmer. "You just had to get yourself into this mess. And now I've got to get you out of it."

She sat down at her desk, and started looking over the notes she already gathered regarding this incident. She made particular note of the location of the building where everyone disappeared, likely including Nell. Unlike her friend, Laura wasn't immediately go there without thinking. She started thinking about other people who might also remember her, but the list of names wasn't too long.

"Wait, wasn't there someone…" she thought, and immediately started listing through all the papers on her desk in an attempt to find one specific post-it note. Once she found it, she let out a barely audible squeal of excitement.

"Here it is!" she exclaimed, and triumphantly waved the small pink paper around, but her mood instantly worsened once she realized she'll probably have to leave the house in not too long. "Guess I better put on some pants."

Alexander woke up later than usual, although it didn't really matter, given that he didn't have anywhere to be. Regardless, he wasn't a fan of procrastinating, so he immediately got up, and went to start his morning ritual. As soon as he exited his room, he came to a vague, non-descript realization. It was like his brain was trying to remember something, but it had no idea where to find those memories. Whatever caused this strange feeling also caused him to feel incredibly dizzy.

"What the hell was I doing yesterday evening?" he asked himself, but that question only ended up confusing him more, as most of yesterday seemed like a blur to him. He decided to ignore the feeling and walk towards the bathroom, but subconsciously his brain was still working on filling in the gaps.

After Alex got out of the shower, and loosely threw on some clothes, he headed downstairs to get breakfast. He descended the stairs carefully, since he was still somewhat dizzy. Once he safely reached the bottom floor, he turned a half-circle to the right, and looked through what little food he had left in the fridge. It was a fruitless effort, and he closed the fridge door. He felt disappointed that there was nothing to eat, though he only had himself to blame for that. For lack of a better option, he grabbed a couple of tangerines from the bowl on the counter. He slowly made his way out of the kitchen, peeling the citrus in the process.

"TV on," he said as he entered the living room, and the large black slab on his wall complied. He threw himself onto the dark grey couch opposite the television, and looked at the countdown that signalled the mid-day news broadcast was about to start.

"Did I really sleep for that long?" he asked himself while chewing on a slice of tangerine, which turned out to be far sourer than he expected. As the clock on the TV hit noon, the newscaster's face appeared, although something seemed wrong. There was a small square covering the woman's left eye.

"I really am losing my mind," he thought. "How didn't I notice that before?"

He got up off the couch, and went to pick up the note. Written on it were two words: Remember me.

"Remember what?" he asked himself, noticing the handwriting was way too tidy to be his own. He couldn't make out the signature below the cryptic sentence, and stared at it for a few seconds before something in his brain finally clicked.

"Oh my god, Nell!" he exclaimed. "How could I forget?"

Despite this realization, his recollection of last night's events was still mostly incomplete. He didn't have much time to piece back the puzzle though, as the phone behind him started ringing. He turned off the TV, and went to answer the call.

"Is this Alexander Maurer?" a female voice greeted him as soon as he picked up the phone.

"It is," Alex replied after initial hesitation. "And who am I speaking to?"

"Laura Hathaway, I'm a colleague–" Laura's sentence was interrupted by another coughing fit. "A colleague and friend of Nell's, and I was hoping that you might–"

"You can remember her?" Alex blurted out.

"Oh, thank god," Laura replied. "I was hoping that I wasn't the only one."

"So, what happened to her?"

"This is not something I really want to discuss over the phone," Laura said. "I was hoping that we might be able to meet in person, but if you don't want to do it that's perfectly fine."

"I'd be alright with it," Alex said.

"Great! I'll send you the time and location now," Laura said before hanging up. Moments after, a map opened on Alex's phone showing him where and when they were supposed to meet, and roughly how long it'd take him to get there.

"What am I doing?" he questioned his choice immediately after. "Nell's just disappeared, and I just agreed to go meet a complete stranger."

He glanced at the map again to check exactly where they were meeting.

"Granted, it is in a very public place," he thought. "And I need more information about her disappearance, so it's probably best if I just go."

Alexander was walking towards where he was supposed to meet Laura. The street itself was fairly crowded, as a fair few people were out on their lunch break, which meant that she would have a hard time getting away with doing anything suspicious, and getting away with it, in case that really was her intention. He arrived at the café that Laura designated as the meeting place, and headed towards the corner of the veranda, where she was supposed to be sitting.

"Alexander, right?" she asked after she heard him approach the table.

"Yeah," Alex sat down opposite Laura, and waited for her to stop looking at her phone.

"Sorry, I was just mailing my boss to let him know I'm extending my sick leave," Laura said as she put the phone back into her pocket. "Probably should've done it sooner, to be honest."

As soon as she lifted her head up and looked at Alex, he was caught off-guard by one specific detail. Her right iris was a hazel colour, while the left was a vibrant blue.

"So you noticed, huh?" she asked, interrupting the awkward silence.

"Sorry for staring, I just–" Alex replied.

"It's fine," Laura replied. "It's the first thing most people notice. I've gotten used to it at this point. At least it's something that people remember about me."

Alex composed himself as Laura reached into her bag and took out a folder with a couple of papers in it.

"I thought you might not believe me, so I brought along some notes that she left me," she handed the papers over to Alex. "It's her handwriting, if that means anything to you. It might not be entirely convincing, but it's the best I got. Any photos I had of her, and anything digital in general, is completely gone."

Alex took Nell's note out of his pocket, and compared the handwriting on it with the scribbles on the paper. The two seemed to match, at least to the naked eye.

"What are these notes for?" he asked, and gave the papers back to Laura.

"I was helping her investigate disappearances from all over the city," she replied, and Alex immediately started putting the puzzle back together, as he slowly began remembering the events of last night. "Unfortunately, it seems she might've been too eager to find out what's going on."

"Yeah, she came to talk to me last night, and mentioned that she wanted to investigate further into the matter."

"And you didn't try to stop her?" Laura asked.

"Come on, you worked with her. You should know how hardheaded she is," Alex answered. "Any attempt to change her mind would've been completely futile, and you know it."

"Yeah, I know," Laura said. "I just thought that, maybe, since you're her best friend, that you might've been able to persuade her otherwise."

"Not a chance," Alex shrugged. "Hold on, how did you know we were friends? And as a matter of fact, why did you have my number?"

"As soon as I realized what happened to her, I tried coming up with a list of people Nell knew who might remember her," Laura started explaining. "And I remembered that she once mentioned you, and gave me your number, in case I needed your help with a piece I was writing. I ended up never finishing it, which is why you never heard from me."

"Really now?" Alex seemed somewhat surprised. "What could I possibly have helped you with? What was the story on?"

"Graduate unemployment."

"Oh," Alex frowned, and immediately changed the topic back to the reason behind their meeting. "So, are you positive she's been taken away?"

"Almost certain," Laura said. "I asked a couple more people at work about it, and the fact that nobody remembers her is the most obvious way to tell that whoever is behind the other disappearances also took her away. The only exception to how these usually go is that they didn't seek her out, but she went to them of her own volition. But for all we know, that could've been the case with some of the previous victims as well. It's hard to know when you're investigating someone who, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist anymore."

"And how far did you get with your investigation?"

"Not very. We tied the disappearances to one specific building, which she went to yesterday, but other than that, we had next to nothing. It was impossible to see the faces of the kidnappers without them noticing. We made note of the fact that most of the victims didn't have academic degrees, but their professions were way too over the place to make out any patterns," Laura briefly paused, as she noticed a waiter walking towards her. He placed a cup of tea on the table in front of her, and she promptly thanked him.

"Anything for you, sir?"

"A glass of water will do me just fine," Alex replied to the waiter's question, and waited until they walked away from the table. "Anyways, continue."

"Their social status didn't matter at all either, as one of the first victims was a millionaire, which only made the fact that they managed to cover everything up even more surprising. Overall, there seemed to be no pattern to how these people got chosen, or at least none that we could find. Keep in mind that, because traces of these people were hard to find, we still don't have a complete list of everyone who went missing, and probably never will."

"So, what's our next step?" Alex asked, as the waiter once again came along, this time with a glass of water.

"I have no idea," Laura replied. "I haven't really had time to think about that in detail. One thing I know for sure, though, is that we will have to be a hell of a lot more careful than she was."

She stared at the dark clouds overhead, as the first drops of rain were starting to fall. She quickly finished the rest of her tea, and left just enough money on the table to pay for it.

"I've got to go," she said. "Don't want to get caught out by the rain."

Alex offered to shake her hand as they both got up, but Laura decided against it.

"I wouldn't recommend that," she said. "Unless you really want to get sick."

They both walked to the exit of the veranda, where their paths split.

"We'll keep in touch," Laura said before she rushed off. Given that he wasn't in a particular rush, Alex watched her walk away, then started heading home himself.

"I already told you that a change in approach isn't necessary, Mr. Taylor," the woman behind the desk said. "Besides, I thought I instructed you to increase the strength of the data wipe."

"You did, ma'am, and we did exactly that."

"So how do two people still remember her after last night?"

"Both of them had a deep-seated emotional connection to her, so they weren't affected nearly as much as others," he replied. "This has been a noticeable flaw for a while now, which is why I wanted to suggest–"

"No," the boss cut him off. "I am not going to keep repeating myself. Our approach to this remains the same, unless something drastic happens."

"Understood," the man replied begrudgingly. His facial expression made it clear that he wanted to leave, but he wasn't allowed to do so quite yet.

"I had one more thing I need to discuss with you," the woman said, still not averting her eyes from the map in front of her.

"Which is?"

"Why did you send Everett to duel yesterday?"

"Because we're paying him, and he really hasn't done enough recently to justify–"

"We're paying him because the Emperor sent him here!" she interrupted him once more. "He was tolerable at first, but now he's become a liability. You cannot allow him to duel anymore."

"Understood."

The woman behind the desk waved her hand through the air, which made the door behind her slide open.

"You're dismissed."