Two years and many more disappearances later the children lived like prisoners, always at home, always being watched with parents in constant state of fear of what could happen, who would disappear next.

Perhaps the thing that annoyed Hye Min the most was that even though they lived by the rules, they never prevented any disappearance. Now that she was fifteen and so close to freedom the rules had become tighter and there was a rumor saying that chaperones would be needed until the age of nineteen, something that was already causing anger in the youth of the town. 

What she would never understand was how the boys were treated much less stricter than the girls, how they would look at their windows and see groups of teenage boys playing outside until midnight. Although she and her brother had as a chaperone her cousin who was 21 years old, she was quite strict and would often get into fights with the rebellious boy. Hye Min knew he wasn't a bad kid, but over the years he had grown a rebellious streak that was hard to control, not that she actually thought was wrong considering how caged their childhood was. 

She could feel the tension that had settled in town, not even one window was open, she couldn't hear people laughing like before, it looked like the whole world had turned grey after so many tragedies. Over the years a legend had appeared among teenagers who were avid to try and explain why one day their best friend or cousin or sibling would suddenly disappear without trace. 

It stated the missing children were actually special children that the old magician who lived in the circus of the abandoned amusement park recruited to teach magic. They said that when he took you he would first ask if you believed in magic, and if you didn’t he would make you disappear forever.

Of course she thought that if it was true then the police would have found him one of the dozen times they went to investigate, plus he was just a child thief and should definitely not be glamorized and taken for some kind of wonder. But somewhere in the back of her mind the curiosity itched, it itched so much she couldn't completely ignore this story.

While she was sleeping she heard a loud noise that came from the window, not her window but her brothers window which scared the life out of her. 

Grabbing a bat which her smart dad had given her if anything happened she wandered into his room, mostly ting herself but also scared for her little brother. Stepping one foot at the time she carefully opened the door, one eye opened and the other closed, what she saw took all the life out of her.

He wasn't there. 

He wasn't there and he should have been. He wasn't there and chances were she would never see him. He wasn't there and she had never thought it was her turn to suffer. 

With tears gathering at the sides of her eyes she searched the room until she stood in front of the window, watching as a shadow moved through the trees. 

With no time to even think she went running through the stairs and outside the door, half of her frightened and the other half furious that the man who kept her captive of fear all these years thought he could just take the most important person in her life without consequences. 

Although admittedly she at sports and couldn't run for her dear life she tried her hardest to chase the shadow which seemed to notice she was there and had decidedly go much faster. 

As she ran through the thick trees of the forest that surrounded town she started to think about how she usually hadn't paid much attention to the thief as she had never had any close friend affected by it until six months ago when one of her best friends at school banished. She could still hear her annoying laughter which would always send Hye Min on a string of curses when it wouldn't let her concentrate on her latest novel, that was when she first paid attention to the legend and when she first started to doubt what lied behind the mystery ''child thief ''

She also remembered how miserable she felt the first month when everyone looked at her like a weirdo who sat alone staring at the desk of her friend. She definitely wouldn't let that happen to Ji Min.

What she didn't expect was the sudden pain that had shot through the back of her head once she stopped running and how she lost her footing or how hazy her sight got until she couldn't differentiate color. Then she saw something shocking, there wasn't one shadow or two, there were three and they seemed to be surrounding her.