Only she remembers what happened on her wedding night.


She wasn't sure when it began to happen, but people began to vanish into thin air, without a single trace of them left behind. No one that once knew them seemed phased, like they had never been real at all. Any photo of them was blurred, and everywhere they were mentioned in writing was illegible.


But for whatever reason, she was different. She didn't disappear, but rather, everyone around her did. It began with the barely noticeable; people she'd pass on her way to and from work were no longer there. There was a man that walked onto the sidewalk from the café at the corner every day at the same time on her way to work. His absence was the first that caught her attention. At first, she thought that perhaps he was sick or had gone on a vacation, but after nearly a month, she came to the conclusion that he must have moved away. After all, she didn't know him. How would she be any the wiser?


As it slowly continued happening, it became easier to detect. A coworker vanished in her department. Perhaps they had just quit, but when she asked about him, wondering why the man had left the company, everyone seemed confused. There was no one by that name that ever worked here, they said. Even management claimed to have no idea what she was talking about, looking at her with creased lips and raised eyebrows when she asked. It must have been some kind of weird office-wide prank, she thought, though she didn't understand why anyone would find that funny.


The frequency of the disappearances began to speed up before long. The office had gone from a bustling workplace filled with employees to being dangerously understaffed. Several of her more distant friends just randomly cut contact with her, never answering any messages that she sent.


Eventually, closer friends began to go, seemingly blinking out of existence quicker than the snap of a finger. Three months after all this had begun, she only had one friend left: her longest held and best friend. They had known each other since middle school. There was no way she would just leave, at least, not without saying something.


But she would be proven wrong about that as well. Nearly two weeks after the last of her other friends disappeared, her best friend would as well. She would call the police and claim her missing, begging that they do a wellness check on her home, but according to the police department, her house had been empty for years. Even in real estate records, there was never anyone by her name living there. In fact, there was no record that she had ever existed at all.


She was sure that something was going on now, something strange and perhaps supernatural. Was it some kind of government cover-up? Some kind of brainwashing scheme? Or was she really just losing touch with reality?


The final straw was when her own brother went missing. And her parents didn't seem worried at all.


"What are you talking about?" they would say. "You were an only child. We never had a son."


But the pictures, all the pictures on the wall of her parents' home... There was supposed to be a fourth figure there. There used to be a fourth figure there. But in every picture she looked at, her brother wasn't there. Instead, there was a faint smudge of blurred color, one that almost resembled a person. Her parents chalked it up to a camera glitch, or maybe a smudge on the lens, but she knew what was real. Somehow, in some way, it seemed as though her brother, and everyone else that had gone missing, had been erased from reality. The only remnants of their existence now were these abstract blobs of color in old photographs.


Fearing whatever odd phenomenon was going on, she became a recluse, almost never leaving her home. Her job didn't amount to much anymore anyway. It was almost completely empty, filled only with empty cubicles and half-finished reports sitting exactly where their owner had left them last. Some of their desks even still had the chairs pulled out like someone had just been sitting there only a moment ago.

Throughout all of it, her husband had been there for her, a constant source of support and comfort. She told him about the disappearances, and he said that he believed her. But something about the look in his eyes when he said those words made them feel hollow. Fake. He was lying. He didn't believe her at all.

While helping to prepare dinner one night, she was in the kitchen with her husband. She couldn't have turned around for more than a few seconds, but when she turned back, he was completely gone. There had been no sound, and nothing at all was out of place.


After going to the police once again, she got the response that she was expecting: no one with her husband's name existed. Just the same as she had gotten before.


Everyone had begun to think she was insane ages ago, but she couldn't prove them wrong. She herself agreed with them. She didn't go outside much anymore; her neighborhood was now empty, and all the once friendly neighbors were replaced with silent, empty houses. On the rare times that she would leave her home for food, roads and stores nearly were as well. Even when she did see another person, they simply went about as though it was an average day, like they weren't aware that most of the human race had seemingly been wiped out without a trace.


Within a few weeks of her husband vanishing, there was no one left at all. Empty, abandoned cars lie in the streets, left scattered and wrecked about after their drivers had disappeared. Stores were empty and barren, without even cashiers or attendants. Even the animals had been taken. The entire world was plunged into an eerie, unnatural silence.


She waits in the odd silence now. For what, she's not sure. An answer? A way to bring them back? Or perhaps she waits to join them, wherever it is that they've gone.


Only she remembered what happened on her wedding night. Because there was no one else left.