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  Hoddesdon (England)

  5 November 20XX

  15th day since Ethan’s disappearance

  – – – – – – – – – –

  At Stanstead Secondary School, the lunch break is drawing to a close. The students are in the classrooms where they will have their afternoon lessons, waiting. Dazed by the recent meal, most of them are idly gathered near the windows, exchanging a few words and gazing out through the glass.

  In England, November’s arrival hasn’t brought much surprise in terms of weather: the sky remains almost constantly leaden, and fog is common at various times throughout the day. Rain does fall from time to time, but nothing comparable to the exceptional storm that struck the country more than two weeks ago.

  In truth, England wasn’t the only victim of such phenomena: nearly all of Europe, along with the northern part of the American continent and part of Asia, experienced tremendous weather events. Aside from the simultaneity of the incidents, the common factor was one: the presence of powerful electrical discharges, which caused extensive damage and widespread blackouts.

  “Look.”

  Lucy Price, a sixth-form student, hands her smartphone to her friend Lizzie Mills. The device’s browser displays a photo of a sky lit up by bright coloured patches. What appears to be the tip of a pyramid, darkened by the evening gloom, juts out from the bottom edge of the image.

  “Wow!” says Lizzie. “The northern lights… wait—this is Egypt?”

  “Told you so!” Lucy nods.

  “It’s AI… or a photomontage,” chimes in a bulky, bespectacled boy nearby, who hasn’t even looked at the picture. “The northern lights only appear…”

  “Leopold Cox, apart from reading schoolbooks, do you follow the news?” Lucy shoots back.

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “It’s got everything to do with it! If you kept yourself informed, you’d know about the auroras showing up in Egypt—and not just there!”

  The girl seems eager to show off what she knows.

  “It happened while the storm was going on here, last month,” she declares. “In parts of the world where the sky was clear, there were auroras… even at the equator!”

  “It’s true,” confirms Nate Price, the top geek in the class alongside Leopold Cox. “Apparently, they were visible also here at one point, when the clouds cleared.”

  Falling silent, Leopold seems to decide it’s best not to press the matter. If even Nate says so, it’s probably true.

  “It’s definitely unsettling,” Nate adds, speaking to Lucy and Lizzie but also to anyone nearby who cares to listen. “Not to side with the doomsayers, but this is exactly the kind of strange event that makes you think the end of the world is near.”

  “Give it a rest!” exclaims Lucy, stirred by such remarks.

  With a laugh, Nate takes off his glasses to clean them. After a moment, his expression shifts from amused to serious.

  “Have you thought about it? We haven’t heard anything about Ethan since then.”

  He puts his glasses back on and looks around at those present. At his words, many averted their gaze. It’s hard to say why: Ethan tends to keep to himself, without forming any close friendships, so it may be that his classmates simply don’t care much about him. Or perhaps they don’t want to face those thoughts—and the worry that comes with them. After all, the possibility of foul play can’t be ruled out.

  “I wrote to his father the other day… there’s still no news about what’s become of him,” a girl chimes in.

  Maggie Barker: at least she, along with a few others, shows some anguish over their classmate’s fate. Perhaps because she’d had more recent dealings with Ethan, Lizzie, too, shows some unease—though not to the same extent as Maggie. In fact, the latter is the person who comes closest to being a friend of the missing boy.

  When his parents started looking for anyone who might have been in contact with him, she immediately offered to act as a go-between, although unfortunately she didn’t know anything that could be of help.

  “He’ll turn up,” declares Nate, with an optimistic tone. “A person doesn’t just vanish into thin air.”

  “He might just not show up again,” comes a grating voice from behind him.

  Nate turns around. He knows who spoke—and sure enough, slouched across his chair in a decidedly inappropriate posture, a boy with a mocking grin is staring at him.

  “What was that, Justin Carter?” says Nate.

  “Knight can disappear,” declares Justin.

  Beside him, two students seated in similarly slouched positions nod in agreement. The three of them have been Ethan’s torment ever since he started at Stanstead Secondary School: every single day, they pester him in some way—be it with idiotic pranks, insults, or other low-grade bullying.

  Nate isn’t entirely sure what motivates such “attention,” but it’s likely because Ethan is an easy target: few would stand up for him, and he himself does little to defend himself. Nate tries to encourage the boy to react, but he seems to prefer a passive stance.

  “And why do you say that?” asks Nate, putting on the most disdainful air he can manage.

  Elvin White and Chaz Hall—Justin’s two sidekicks, when all’s said and done—snigger at his words. Justin joins them for a moment before replying:

  “He’s a pathetic loser. He’d be doing everyone a favour if he just—”

  “You three idiots are the ones who should disappear,” bursts out a girl, suddenly appearing behind them.

  Nate thanks God: Caroline Hunt, the class’s champion, has lost her patience. Beside her stands her friend Tiffany Ali, also visibly annoyed.

  “What…?” says Justin, flaring up. “Say that again, you stupid cu—”

  “Don’t you dare finish that,” warns Caroline, her eyes almost shooting flames. “And watch your mouth about Ethan: one of our classmates disappears, and that’s what you come out with?”

  Justin is beside himself: it’s not often someone talks to him like that—let alone to defend his favourite victim. He starts spitting out insults, but in doing so only makes things worse. Several other students snap at him to shut up, which only infuriates him more.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Nate watches with a mix of satisfaction and disgust as Justin suddenly gets up and storms out of the room, punching a few lockers in the corridor. Elvin and Chaz follow him out, alarmed, and calm returns to the classroom.

  “Impressive anger management skills, no doubt about it,” Nate remarks, sarcastically.

  A faint smile hovers on his face: he’s always been a bit worried about Ethan and his distance from the rest of the class, but now he sees that perhaps things aren’t quite as bad as he thought.

  There’s still potential to try and make things right.

  Ethan… make sure you come back… and this time, I’ll personally force you into class life. Enough of this isolationism of yours.

  – – – – – – – – – –

  Stanstead St Margarets (England)

  Same day

  Several hours later

  – – – – – – – – – –

  Although dinner has already been served, the meal at Ethan’s house has been interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Nathan Yates and Susan King.

  Eve tells her children to carry on eating without their parents, then she and her husband Adam join the guests, who have already been shown into the living room.

  “I apologise again for the timing,” says Nathan. “We would’ve at least contacted you beforehand, but the police wouldn’t give us your mobile numbers, nor were you in the directories.”

  “We decided to give up our landline,” explains Eve, sitting down. “Nowadays we only use mobiles, so it was a bit pointless.”

  “I see,” Nathan nods. “I’ll try not to go on too long. We’d like to ask you about your son because he may have been involved in a phenomenon we’re looking into…”

  “Excuse him,” Susan cuts in. “In these situations, he doesn’t know how to talk.”

  Nathan shoots her a glare, but then shrugs and lets her go on.

  “We work at the Hoddesdon research centre,” the scientist begins. “Our studies focus on electromagnetic waves in space.”

  “I remember… we saw a report about you on the news a while ago,” Adam nods.

  “In fact, it was the same day Ethan went missing,” recalls Eve, her voice low.

  “I’m sorry to speak of events that are distressing for you,” Susan continues. “I’ll explain the reason straight away. During the storm between the 22nd and 23rd of October, a lightning bolt of extraordinary intensity struck a few miles south of here. At that exact location, we detected several anomalous effects, including a significant energy loss. To put it briefly, the energy from the lightning vanished, without spreading through the surrounding environment as it should have.”

  “Wait a moment,” Adam interrupts. “Don’t tell me… that’s the lightning bolt that supposedly hit my son?”

  “Both the location and the time match,” Susan confirms. “We can say that because… we witnessed the moment it struck Ethan.”

  “… ah!” the host’s eyes widen. “The report to the police… that was you.”

  The astrophysicist nods.

  “Unfortunately, we couldn’t do anything for him,” she says. “We left the matter in the hands of the authorities. But when our research progressed, and we discovered the anomalous phenomenon surrounding the lightning strike… we took the liberty of asking how to get in touch with Ethan’s relatives—and that led us to you.”

  “I understand… thank you for doing what you could,” Adam bows his head. “However, I don’t quite see… why the interest? What’s so unusual about the phenomenon you recorded?”

  “It constitutes a violation of the law of conservation of energy,” Nathan jumps back in. “Energy in the universe is constant: it doesn’t decrease or increase, it only transforms and moves. In this case, however, that didn’t happen. During the storm, some of the sensors in the lightning-strike area didn’t record a proportional variation of the… sorry, I was about to get too technical. The point is, the energy didn’t spread into the environment, except in a minimal part. It’s as if it vanished… just like your son.”

  Eve brings her hands to her mouth. As for her husband, his face is a blank mask. It almost seems as though he’s forcing himself not to let any emotion show.

  “What are you trying to find out by speaking with us?” he asks after a few seconds of silence.

  “We wanted to verify what the police reluctantly told us,” replies Nathan. “Some information might come out that is useful to us… and maybe even help find your son.”

  He pauses briefly.

  “I may be… blunt,” he warns. “The point is… truly nothing of Ethan has been… found? No trace? No… remains?”

  A deep sigh escapes from Eve.

  “… nothing,” Adam confirms, casting a glance at his wife, worried about her reaction. “I can repeat to you the little we know. There’s no reason to hide it…”

  With that, he outlines the findings the police made at the site of Ethan’s disappearance. As the exact sequence of events is unknown, the explanation doesn’t take long.

  He has just finished when Eve immediately asks:

  “What do you think happened to him?”

  Nathan stares at her for several seconds.

  “What do you hope I’ll answer?” he asks.

  She shrugs, as if in a gesture of self-defence.

  “Forgive me, but this is an event that escapes my comprehension,” declares the astrophysicist. “Especially now that I’ve had confirmation of Ethan’s disappearance. Given how little we know, I can’t make any hypotheses, let alone prove them.”

  “Not even far-fetched ones?” Adam presses. “At this point, anything would do. I don’t think you came here without at least a vague idea, did you?”

  The researcher glances at Susan, who responds with a downcast expression.

  “I don’t believe energy can vanish,” Nathan finally states. “The energy from the lightning definitely went somewhere. But if it didn’t spread into the surrounding environment, it means either it took on a form not detectable by the instruments in place, or it moved in a… non-conventional way.”

  “So?” Eve urges. “Our son disappeared… are you saying the same thing happened to him as to the lightning? You made it sound like the two were connected!”

  “Let’s… not go down that road,” Nathan pleads, now showing clear signs of discomfort.

  “Don’t hold back, Dr Yates,” Adam speaks again. “Feel free to say… anything at all.”

  “… I warned you,” the researcher says, putting his hands up in advance. “These are far-fetched theories I don’t believe in, and I ask you to take them with a pinch of salt. Thought experiments, if you like… but nothing I would ever use in actual research.”

  He rolls his eyes, making clear just how much he dislikes the subject.

  “But if we want to speculate at all costs… then, if the energy didn’t move along the three spatial dimensions we’re used to, only two options remain: first, the temporal dimension… and then…”

  He pulls a face, as if talking about such concepts disgusts him.

  “… the supposed extra dimensions,” finishes Adam Knight, who seems to have understood for some time what the scientist was trying not to say.

  “Something like that,” Nathan nods, a little surprised that his interlocutor had picked up on where he was going. “Now, I hate invoking unobservable phenomena. But the fact remains: both that energy and your son vanished into nothing. Maybe the instruments gave a false reading… maybe your son left for some reason… but given the simultaneity of the two disappearances, we can’t rule out a possible correlation. So what happened? One explanation—however absurd—is that the energy was displaced into dimensions we are unable to monitor. And those include, indeed, time, and the other dimensions some claim exist beyond the four we all know.”

  “The energy… and nothing else?” asks the host.

  “That… is beyond our investigative capabilities.”

  For a few seconds, no one speaks. Adam Knight stares down blankly, while Eve Wood’s gaze is fixed into space.

  After a while, Nathan stands up.

  “We’ve bothered you enough with our second-rate scientists’ ramblings,” he says, clearly regretting having spoken of such things. “We’ll get out of your way now.”

  Eve remains seated without changing expression. Her husband, on the other hand, gets up wearily and escorts the researchers to the door. As the two physicists step outside, Adam places a hand on Nathan’s shoulder.

  “Dr Yates,” he says, somewhat hesitantly. “I won’t comment on what you’ve said. I partly understand the topics you’ve touched on—also because my son Ethan is mad about them. But believing they’re involved in his disappearance… that’s hard.”

  “I assure you, it is for me too,” Nathan replies. “Forgive my bluntness… but as a scientist, I would have found it more rational if you’d told me that your son’s remains had in fact been found.”

  “Nathan!” exclaims Susan, reproachfully.

  “No… I understand, of course,” Adam shakes his head, motioning for her not to worry. “Could the lightning, absurd as it may seem, have disintegrated him down to the bone?”

  “As immensely powerful as it was… I doubt it,” the scientist replies. “That’s why the absence even of any remains… is ridiculous.”

  “I understand your confusion,” the host nods. “In any case, if you discover anything more, please let me know.”

  “In truth, this is… a side investigation,” Nathan clarifies. “As I pointed out, although they might explain the event, I don’t believe in the hypotheses I shared with you. Your son certainly didn’t meet such a fate. No… the research I’m investing more energy in is another one, though related to this.”

  “How so?”

  “At the very same spot where the lightning struck, another phenomenon occurred: an electromagnetic anomaly similar to some we’d already been studying for a while,” the researcher explains. “Whether there’s any connection, I still don’t know. In any case, if I come across anything useful, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nathan and Susan cross the garden, heading for the street. Adam stays at the door, watching them with a worried look on his face.

  “Could it be…?” he murmurs to himself.

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