Marine Boy and the Well-worn Green Boots

It was a bright, sunny day in our little corner of the world. The sun shone down on the various farming villages, providing warmth and light for those working in the fields. Of course, it was also the perfect weather to be wearing a long-sleeve shirt and woolen sweater, but I suppose that's just something you learn to deal with.

I'd been dispatched to go and check out a village about 10 miles outside of our area. We're not sure what's going on over there yet, but we've noticed some suspicious activity. There's a bit of a pattern to it- people are disappearing, but no one is really sure when or where. And it's not like they're going missing overnight. It's almost like they *want* to disappear. Like they know they're going to disappear, and they'll do anything to make sure that happens.

The thing is, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Actually, it's not even the second time. In fact, this is about the fifth time that I've gone out to check on a village only to find that everyone has either disappeared or is dead already.

But this time, I'm worried. This time, people have been disappearing for weeks now without being found. If someone is taking them away alive, where are they? Why haven't we found them? And why haven't they left any signs of what they're doing?

I don't want to get paranoid here, but something *is* going on up there. We may have more than just an isolated incident on our hands here. We may have an outbreak of some sort occurring right now within a few miles of us. I went ahead and got permission from my superiors to take some supplies with me before heading up there myself. I've got food for three days and two bangers for protection if I need it (although we all know how useless those things are against actual assailants).

And so I started my journey towards the village that had been flagged as 'unusual'. As I walked along the dusty road towards my destination, I saw several other villagers walking around, doing their daily routines with no idea of what was about to happen to them. Most were on foot as well - even these poor folks couldn't afford a motor vehicle of any kind! But then again, I couldn't blame them for that - most of their money goes towards feeding their families every week; it's probably better than spending all your money on fixing up an old car just so you can drive your family around in relative safety!

As I continued walking along the road towards my destination, a thought suddenly popped into my head: "What could be causing these strange disappearances?" Then another thought came: "What could be behind all of this?" My mind began racing faster and faster as more thoughts popped into my head at once! What was making people go missing? Was it some sort of disease? Or maybe some sort of animal? A wild beast from Africa? No... there are no animals here stronger than a human being! There must be something else going on here! An alien invasion? An evil wizard? Maybe an ancient curse? What if someone is trying to take over our territory and no one knows about it?! What if one of our own citizens has gone rogue!? Is this some new form of warfare!? Is this war even sanctioned by our country!?

Questions kept popping into my head faster and faster until eventually one thought rose above all of them: "What if there is no answer!?" That thought alone made me stop dead in my tracks - my heart sank as heavy rain started pouring down around me and thunder crashed overhead...

I sat still in the rain, thinking over what had just occurred in my mind. After sitting still for nearly an hour in the cold rainwater soaking through my clothes and chilling me to the bone, I finally realized what had caused my momentary freakout earlier: "There must be an answer!" Even if there wasn't an official explanation given by our government or whatever higher power might exist in this world, *someone* would have noticed all this craziness going on if nothing was behind it! So why was everyone acting like nothing was wrong? Why weren't we looking into this more closely!? Were we just going to sit back and let people continue disappearing!? Were we going to let these villages go extinct?!"