Summer gradually morphed into Autumn without a child being uncovered, without a single body being found. For a while, we all foolishly thought it was over. Who or whatever possessed these children in that far off land wasn't giving them back, and no more were vanishing, so to us, the trouble was long gone. That is, until whole villages in the third world were robbed of their children, overnight. Until whole classes of schoolchildren in China would dissolve into thin air while their teachers turned to write on the chalkboard. Until child actors from Who's That Robot? on some American kid's TV channel failed to show up for filming. Suddenly, the internet was alive with rumours. Spontaneous Human Combustion, they said. A deadly pandemic, they said. Secret pacts propelled by Facebook and MySpace, they reckoned.

   A lockdown was placed on all social networking sites - no message, wall post, comment or request could be sent without being monitored for suspicious content in some government building. Television documentaries profiled all the missing children so far, and attempted to establish the kind of mind that would take them. Extracurricular activities were cancelled indefinitely. Air Force planes scanned jungles, rainforests and deserts for hotspots, camps or hideouts. The war on terror was quickly forgotten. The world began to revolve around missing children. And just before Christmas 2010 was when they noticed the pattern - all these children, these victims, they were all from religious families. Families with faith. Be it Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism or fucking Gnosticism, these kids were all disappearing from religious households. None of them were disappearing Atheists.

   Just as the disappearances spread through Europe, overtook Russia, infected Australia, reached the shores of England, that's when the accounts of daylight child robberies were documented; publicised on the news, in cartoons, in re-enactments. The day would always be cloudy. The dark clouds would break apart, be torn by some force, and a blue sky would momentarily be seen to sit above them, serene and beautiful and alluring. A light, a blinding light, whiter than anything anyone had ever seen, would beam through this gap and onto the children. The smell of cinnamon, of roses, of freshly baked bread would fill the air, and a calmness would spread through everyone present. Standing there, docile, blissful, these people would watch as their children were pulled by this light, gently and slowly, until they were above the clouds, which would close as fast as they had broken.

   The case was solved. This was the work of some deity. Whatever higher power was governing this world, it was claiming our children back as its own, and we were powerless, and we should feel lucky to have given them up for a higher purpose. Suddenly, it was a social faux pas to still be in possession of your child. Atheists were converted. School was resumed, as a food bowl for this wonderful lord we now had direct contact with. Hymns would fill the streets. Tens, hundreds, thousands of children under 12 went missing every day, and for the first time in human history, this was celebrated wildly by their parents. At local parks, "Heaven Parties" were held with an open invitation to any children living within 5 miles, where they could attend and watch their friends be "saved" - since that's what they were now calling it - and hope to be saved themselves. Nobody thought to question the theory, and nobody quelled the fears of our children, who were just terrified of being taken away from their parents.

   For me, it happened in the shopping centre, in late Spring 2011. As Emily and I walked from the bank to Primark (where everything was now half price, due to nobody knowing for how long they had to cater for their children), a warmth surrounded us. Cinnamon filled the air. I smelt Parma Violets. I smelt my childhood. I smelt cut grass and fresh rain. Emily holding my hand, a balloon in her other hand, she began to raise off the floor. Instantly, I was happier than I had ever been. My child was chosen. She was to be one with the Lord. I was no longer a bad parent. We were absolved. I turned to look at the sky, at the blinding white beam that reached like a greedy hand and drenched my beautiful 6-year-old daughter in warmth and sparkle. Emily began to cry as my arm, still gripping her hand, reached up above shoulder height, pulled by her gently rising body. As she was dragged too high for me to reach any longer, she began to scream, wailing, distraught, and I could only smile at her through misty, tearful eyes, as she was lifted higher and higher and the happiness engulfed me and I wanted to tell her she was going onto a better place but I couldn't get any words past the lump in my throat and out of my mouth. Still flailing her arms, still reaching out for me, for her mother, Emily was dragged past aeroplanes, past flocks of birds, past the clouds, and out of my sight. Emily, my beautiful Emily, my perfect gorgeous charming daughter Emily, was saved.

   Of course, if we knew then what we know now, we wouldn't have given up the children of Earth so easily. If there had been something we could've done, we would've done it. If killing our children was the only answer, I'm sure we would have obliged. If we knew this then, OK! and Hello! and Closer and Heat and The Sun and Nuts and The Daily Mail and Sky News and all the other corporations would have paid a lot less for stories from parents of the saved. As parents, we wouldn't have been so selfish. We would've prayed for cot death. But no one suspected that our children would be sent back to us mutated, mutilated, inflated, engorged with alien slime, sewn together into beasts seventy feet tall; still screaming, still as tormented as when they were taken. These beasts, they fell from the sky in the harsh, black Winter of 2011. They landed on their knees, if that's what they are, and stood slowly, and wandered every major city looking for buildings to destroy and blood to spill. They stomped, they pushed and they pulverised anything in their path, as the screaming faces of our children stared out at us from every inch of their skin; our kids' eyes a luminous green, their lips ripped off and revealing blackened, bloodied teeth, their eyelids removed so that they could never shut out the pain they were enduring. None of us saw this coming.

   But now, we're the ones who need to be saved.