All Desktop files and folders disappeared - they're not in icloud either

Hi,

After a system update, all the files and folders that were on my Desktop disappeared.

I'm using MacOS Catalina 10.15.7.

"Desktop and Documents" is unchecked in iCloud Drive settings.

On icloud.com, there's nothing to restore in "restore files".

I'm logged as my regular user, not as a guest.

The various file recovery apps that I tried did not find any of the files that were on my Desktop previously.

I booted in safe mode and my Desktop also was empty.

They are not in the trash either.

From the terminal I tried "cd Desktop" and then "ls -a" and my files aren't there - only ".DS_Store" and ".localized"

What can I do? I really need those files

Thank you