The Disappearances That Haunted My Dreams

You know, Anonymous, when I started this whole arcane detective gig, I thought I was prepared for anything. I mean, dead parents, creepy magic curse, mysterious mentor disappearance – my life’s been a train wreck from day one. But nothing could’ve braced me for the case that still keeps me up at night. It started with a trickle of missing persons reports – people vanishing without a trace, no clues left behind. At first, the cops chalked it up to runaways or foul play, but I knew better.

I spent weeks chasing shadows, hitting dead ends so often I started to wonder if maybe the cops were right after all. But then I stumbled onto something while tracking a faint magical signature – an abandoned warehouse on the city’s outskirts. Inside, hidden behind crates and debris, was a sacrificial altar that made my blood run cold. The air was thick with dark energy, and the symbols carved into the stone… well, let’s just say they weren’t from any grimoire I’d ever seen.

As I pieced together what happened there, a sinister pattern emerged. The disappearances weren’t random – they were targeted sacrifices to some ancient entity lurking in the shadows. And that’s when it hit me: this wasn’t just about finding missing people anymore. It was about stopping something far bigger and darker than I’d ever faced alone. Sometimes I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about how close we all came to disaster… but that’s a story for another night.