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I open the Hollow Truths scheduling dashboard. A blank post waits. I begin typing.

Anonymous Question:

Have you ever experienced someone disappearing from your life in a way that never made sense?

I pause. Delete. Too vague. Try again.

Have you ever known someone who vanished—and the official explanation never matched what you witnessed?

Better. I continue.

I'm researching stories involving unexplained disappearances, missing records, and situations where families felt something was overlooked. Names and locations can remain anonymous.

Then I add:

Sometimes the details we dismiss are the ones that matter most.

I schedule it. Not publish. Schedule. A tiny part of me still believes that if I wait long enough, I'll decide this is all ridiculous. That I'll close the laptop. Make tea. Walk downtown. Laugh with Everly about how quickly Sleepy Hollow residents turn every strange occurrence into a ghost story. But I don't. Because I know better.

The post goes live. The first response arrives in thirty seconds. Then ten. Then twenty.

Then fifty.

Hollow Truths has always moved quickly. People are always waiting to tell their stories.

I open the first submission.

Anonymous User 8472:

My younger brother disappeared when he was 15. Everyone said he ran away. He didn't. He was scared of something. He kept saying someone was watching the house.

My stomach tightens. I open another.

Anonymous User 2219:

My cousin disappeared two years ago. She was sixteen. Police said she left voluntarily. Her phone was found inside the house.

Another.

Anonymous User 9031:

My son started acting different before he disappeared. He said he could hear something calling him.

I stop scrolling. Not because I've found enough. Because I've found too much.

I create a spreadsheet. Username. Age. Location. Date of disappearance. Reported circumstances. The numbers begin forming a shape. Not a straight line. A circle.

I pull public records. News archives. Old missing persons reports. Local databases. Anything accessible.

My background in investigative writing isn't glamorous. People imagine journalists chasing criminals through dark alleys. Mostly it's sitting in front of a screen for twelve hours realizing someone forgot to remove a tiny detail buried in a county database. Tiny details matter.

A timestamp. A location. A repeated phrase. A name.

By eight in the morning, I have fourteen cases. By nine, twenty-three. By ten, thirty-one.

My hands go cold. Because almost all of them have one thing in common. The missing person was between fourteen and seventeen years old.

Teenagers. Like Sayer. I lean back from the screen.