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Here is the expected sentence order:
27, 30, 5, 14, 3, 29, 11, 31, 19, 4, 24, 12, 13, 22, 6, 25, 20, 8, 16, 17, 23, 26, 21, 9, 18, 7, 10, 2, 28, 1, 15
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“It’s just weird how pets are vanishing every day and the numbers just go on piling,” Clara hardly looked at Aaron who was waiting for his orders.
The small town of about five hundred families was spread between a hill on one side and the river on the other side, making it vulnerable to wild animals, occasionally.
“It was a record, yesterday.”
“The only record is the incidents happening every night,” Clara turned to her deputy.
“No, besides that.”
Aaron knew getting Clara’s attention was one of the toughest things, and more so now, that her childhood town was immersed in panic at the back of those incidents.
“I meant that there were 22 pets lost,” Aaron tried again.
Clara was preoccupied with the lack of leads to the incidents, “I think someone has messed things up with the forest and all these wild animals have gone out of food.”
“Well, I worked with the ranger on that angle too and we were dumbfounded that all predators are missing.”
“What are you blabbering?”
Aaron was happy that he got Clara’s attention finally, “the rangers monitored the forest, and they did not find mountain lions or wolf packs.”
“So then what is hunting the pets, the bison and the deer?”
“No, their population has been wiped out too,” Aaron put the report down.
“Wait, wait, wait, so you are saying that there are no wild herbivores or carnivores and yet these pets continue to disappear.”
“That’s exactly what I am saying. The ranger feels there is some apex predator out there which first took down the wild herbivores, then the carnivores and now the domestic animals.”
“Mountain lions are apex predators and I don’t think that even a Siberian tiger would want to take it on.”
“Well, after exhausting the logical explanations, I happened…”
“… you jumped to the absurd, so what were they?” Clara did respect Aaron’s investigating technique.
“You remember the dinosaur artworks placed around the park?” Aaron already sensed Clara’s disapproval of the topic.
“Aaron, you are a smart lad, and I like you, so don’t give me something that you will rue forever,” Clara warned him.
“No, hear me out,” Aaron gestured for her patience, “these were given as a gift from the Egyptian museum when our Governor last visited the country. After that, when our Governor visited us six-months back, he gifted these dinosaur artworks to our mayor during the annual ceremony.
“I know the story, Aaron, so what’s your point?”
“I found that the Egyptian museum was famous for cursed artworks, one of which also sailed the Titanic.”
“Go on,” Clara’s frown acknowledged Aaron’s story.
“That dinosaur had an amulet,” Aaron showed Clara a photo.
“It’s missing.”
“Sheriff, that’s a Velociraptor which is faster than a cheetah, stronger than a lion, and sooner than later going to exhaust its food sources before turning on humans.”
“S**t.”
“Without the amulet, every night the curse brings the Velociraptor and its mayhem to life.”
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