To be taken doesn’t necessarily mean someone will forcibly grab at you and disappear off into the unknown. To be taken here in Calixtro means one moment you are with your family eating hot mashed potatoes with a side of bacon, next you are in the forest with no escape as everything looks the same.

They say its punishment for all our sins, this takening. If so no amount of praying ever stopped it from happening. Every service there’s someone new who has been lost to whatever therefore we must pray they come back by sunrise.

Thats the one rule we know, if they found by sunrise they will never be taken again.

What makes someone ripe for the taking? No one knows. Its not age. That’s for sure. A 90 year old grandma was recently taken and was found napping inside a phone booth.

A 6 year old was found burried beneath a ball fit, thankfully still alive breathing. A 21 year old was lost after their shift at work and was found sleeping on one of the boats at the docks.

There’s no sense to who gets picked either. Its like they have a glass jar of everyone’s names in Calixtro and whoever gets picked is going to disappear mysteriously. No matter if they were with someone that day. No matter if they are a helpless child who barely knows their way in their own house. No matter even if its their wedding day.

My dress is already getting stained from dirt as I keep wandering aimlessly in this giant forest. No matter where I go its the same. Tree, tree oh there we go another tree.

I’ve already thrown my heels first 10 min in trying to escape this place. Its winter right now in Calixtro why are the trees so green and healthy here? Am I even in the same town?

A while ago I was ready to walk down the aisle to be married to Drake the unexpected love of my life. He used to pull my hair and run away when we were kids. Now he helps me detangle my hair from protective hairstyles and binge watch random shows as we do so for hours.

Getting hot, I forcibly rip off the long sleeves of my wedding dress. If I can tell time by feeling then I have 2 hours til sunrise and I’ll be lost forever.

Good thing I can’t actually tell time by feeling and this is just negativity talking. According to my wedding schedule I was supposed to walk down the aisle at 4 then the party starts.

Well for them its a search party.

Every time someone is found after being taken its always at some random place. Or so people thought. Drake has made maps and theories of all the people discovered. He always used to tell me there was a pattern to it we’re not seeing.

Hopefully he’ll see the pattern when it comes to me. I really don’t want the start of the rest of our lives to get cut off like this.

*

Most grooms waiting at the altar when they hear their bride has disappeared would think they ran away.

But I am a groom of Calixtro.

Bad luck or karma the takening has happened to me on my wedding day to my bride, Carmen. And I was so ready to cry during my vows and kneel when I see her walking down. Call me dramatic I don’t care. I’ve tried to be the one for her since we were kids.

If it means I have to flip this entire town upside down to do so, then the takers will be damned.

They should have known better than to target me a man who has contingency plan if anyone I know gets taken.

A contingency plan that has been meticulously organized especially if it happens to Carmen.

It feels like days have passed since I’ve been searching for Carmen. My binder book of all the places she could be if she were ever taken was almost all crossed off and sunrise was on the horizon.

Yet I refused to give up. Its hard to do for me when it comes to Carmen.

“So you’ve been trying to be with me since we were kids?” Carmen laughed when I told her my first impression of her. I thought her hair was pretty and wanted to play with it.

“More or less.” I remembered how she cried and for the rest of the school year, glared me down. It wasn’t my best move.

When I saw her again working at the diner, the whiplash of all the feelings I thought was puppy love returned with an undeniable force. So like the lovestruck fool I am, every day I dined at the diner and slowly worked my way to her heart.

Thankfully she accepted me and no one was going to stop the happy life I wanted for us.

“Shit, is that a polar bear?” Trixie my sister asked. We were climbing a snowy mountain and we saw a figure on the ground, all white.

My senses were tingling and adrenaline ran through my veins as my legs moved first. Everything in me told me it was her and that she was found.

Her sleeves were ripped and her feet were bare. Taking off my jacket and wrapping it around Carmen, I lifted her into my arms.

“Wedding’s canceled.” I informed Trixie, planning to turn up the heater to max level and making some warm soup. Carmen was too cold. Breathing but I wouldn’t risk losing her to hypothermia.

“You found her though?” Trixie sounded confused, lighting the way with a big flashlight.

“We’ll elope. I don’t care as long as she’s there.”

“I’ll officiate. I’ll get a license for you love birds.” Trixie cheerily replied, the sun rising and the takening beaten this time around.