The Girl Who Vanished at Dusk

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Mirabel, who was just a thirteen-year-old, loved sunsets. Her village is closer to a riverbank, and every evening, Mirabel would go and sit on the old wooden swing at the riverside and watch the sky turn pink and orange.

Mirabel didn't return home, on one Friday evening.

At the beginning, her mother thought that Mirabel had stayed longer at the riverside, laughing and playing with her friends. When darkness came in and the crickets began their nightly song, worry replaced patience. Her father who heard about it, rushed to the riverside.

The swing moved gently in the wind. Empty.

Mirabel's small blue backpack lay beneath it. The town on the riverbank changed suddenly overnight. Smiles disappear. Posters with Mirabel's bright, dimpled face covered shop windows and electric poles. Volunteers searched the forest trails. Police visited the place and knocked on the doors. The river place was checked more than three times.

Days passed by. Then weeks. No sign.

Everyone thought Mirabel was lost, but she wasn't as everyone thought.

On that same evening, while she was walking home, she had taken a shortcut through the woods. She heard something mention her name, and withthinking twice, she went to help it. But the soil beneath her feet way, and then she slipped into a narrow hollow hidden by thick bushes.

Mirabel wasn't that hurt badly, but she couldn't be able to climb out. For about two days she called for help, and her voice grew weaker.

The next day, something then changed.

The puppy that she tried to help barked loudly. Searchers had nearly given up on that part of the forest when they heard barking. A volunteer then followed the sound and pushed through the bushes.

He shouted. "Over here!"

Mirabel then looked up at the light of the circle above her and began to cry not from fear, but from relief. As she returned home, the villagers celebrated her as if it were a holiday.