“PLEASE, OFFICER!”

“Ma’am—”

“Please!” Mrs. Lucifay begged. “I know you know something! A tip, wasn’t it? Someone tipped you off? Was she seen?”

“Ma’am!” the officer yelled, “I apologize, but I recommend you to go home! If any news comes, you will be the first informed. I sympathize with you, and the countless other parents that lost their children. You know we won’t hold back any information.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mrs. Lucifay muttered, obviously not convinced or listening. “What about the other man? The witness that saw her last? Where is he? Does he not know something?”

“Ma’am!”

“Officer…”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to take stronger measures if you continue to stay. You will know whenever news comes. I give you my word.”

“Of course…” Mrs. Lucifay repeated, again in that distant voice. “Yes, yes, I will be informed.” She shuffled away as if in a trance.

Officer Trent felt a little guilty telling a lie to woman. It was part of his orders, of course, to prevent her from doing anything rash. But Trent could hardly fathom the amount of emotional and psychological pain the woman must be going through now. He himself was a father of two.

With a deep breath, he reminded himself that it was this pain that prevented him from speaking out. Pain is contagious. All the police does is to control pain and quarantine those who’ve been infected.

The Officer decided that donuts would be a good distraction.

THE OFFICER LIED.

Mrs. Lucifay knew it.

She had enough experience with lies to determine the honesty of one’s words immediately, whether it be a trained professional or an emotionless psychopath. And one thing was certain. The Officer was lying. He didn’t even try to hide his exasperation and his hand fidgeting when Mrs. Lucifay had pressured him.

The problem was not the Officer’s lies. It was what he had been lying about. That was always difficult. Mrs. Lucifay wanted to believe that the Officer had been lying about the news. Perhaps he’d really had gotten word from a witness. But he also may merely have been lying about giving her his word. Nearly no one gives their word without a lie.

Mrs. Lucifay spun her steering wheel around, skidding down the driveway. Why was everyone always against her? What had she done to deserve it?

Calm down. There might be something online about her disappearance. Social media, perhaps. Everyone posts on social media.

Mrs. Lucifay nearly forgot to open the garage door before she drove in. Her fingers automatically unlocked the key pin at the door. Running inside and shedding her coat, she leapt up the stairs to reach her computer. Her computer was never shut down.

She didn’t even need to type in the full name, before her browser automatically filled it in for her. These spur-of-the-moment searches were no rarity. Mrs. Lucifay constantly checked her computer, afraid that if she left it for too long, she’d miss some crucial news that would allow her to find her daughter back.

Mrs. Lucifay scrolled down the list of search results. There was nothing new, it seemed. School website…a mention in an art contest five years ago…Mrs. Lucifay’s own business page. A few addition pages also sprung up, including the missing person police page and a local news article. The rest were all social media accounts that just so happened to share the same name.

There was a new one though, in the fifth place. Mrs. Lucifay had scrolled down the search page enough times to know all the links by heart. And she was certain that one of them recently appeared, just as certain as she was that the officer had been lying.

Perhaps it’s that social media account I’ve been looking for!

With a trembling hand, Mrs. Lucifay clicked the link.

It wasn’t social media. It was an online blog, with a few hundred views. The title, framed in a cheerful green border, read “Marine Nick Lucifay ~ the truth”

The truth? What was the lie? Was there a lie?

Mrs. Lucifay scrolled down the webpage, confused.

It was not written very well, full of grammar incorrections and spelling mistakes. But it achieved the same effect on Mrs. Lucifay.

It wrote:

Marine Nicole Lucifay was recently reported to be missing. The police website states she had gone missing a few days ago, on Saturday. But did she really?

The only clues we are given is the approximate age and a blurred photo. Such a photo is easily recreated with the resources police have access to. Even a random stranger’s blurred photo could do.

The appearance description is also very generic and vague. A black-haired, medium height girl with brown eyes—how boring could you be? No prominent features. No health difficulties. No nothing that distinguishes this one person from the billions of others.

Then comes the evidence, or rather, the disturbing lack of it. All that’s written is that she disappeared suddenly behind the woods of McDonalds which, conveniently, was destroyed in a gas accident. The only witness was a man who was knocked out during this accident. It could have easily been a dream.

There was another person who reportedly talked to this girl just before she left. An old lady of ninety-three, who herds more than a dozen cats. This description is also laughably generic and stereotypical. A kindergartener could have made up a more unique character. Even if this old lady were to be real, you could hardly trust the memory of someone at such an age.

Finally, there are the schools. The schools themselves are real, I’m assuming. But the photos could easily be photoshopped. If a school’s receiving money, they’d do anything. Besides, this girl only appears in six photos altogether. This is far from the sufficient amount of information needed to prove of her existence and disappearance.

Where am I going with this? It’s obvious! This whole ‘Marine Nicole Lucifay’ person is a scam! It’s completely false. It was all just a test by the government to see if we would respond to a disappearance. We will not be fooled! The government did this all on purpose!

Together we can help stop this. No one should be allowed to joke on the expense of a real-life person. I cannot believe that the government really thought it was funny to fake a disappearance. If something like that happened for real, it would be the government’s fault that they couldn’t stop it.

This next theory is about another girl…

Mrs. Lucifay could not bring herself to read another word.