Even though it was all around her, she felt like she was the only one who could see it. The way the street seemed even emptier at night. The cold chill that feels too early to be here, considering summer isn't fully over yet. The way people disappeared, as if no one really knew they were there.

Imagine you were to look into a patch of trees, however, every time you glanced back there was less forest. Very slowly but surely, you almost doubt it was really happening. A few trees are missing every time. Only when the one you met eyes with, the one you knew was there, is gone.

That is definitely how she felt when Ms. Bridges, the mother of the child she baby sat, seemingly forgot her child. Was she going crazy? How did she not realize her child was missing? The blatant evidence, the solemn expression, as almost if she wanted to remember but could not. "Look, I really don't know what you're talking about. I'm too young to have a damn kid, girl."

The young adult was dumbfounded. "Where is he? You're scaring the hell out of me. Don't act like you don't know who I'm talking about." "I don't. Honest to God." There was an absence in her face that made her seem inhuman. The young woman began to feel herself shake in a thick layer of anxiety. "You don't know, so why am I in your house then? What else would I come here for?" The older woman stared back at her with an expression of fear that deemed her unrecognizable. She stared silently even when (Y/N) threatened to call the police. She stared and stared so the young woman left her house. Is this what happens when one loses someone they love? Their entire sense of that person just vanishes in a psychological explanation for trauma? Almost remembering but never seemingly able to.

Even on campus. Students she met the eye of who sat in the large lecture rooms now replaced by vacant seats in the sea of young scholars. It was like a prickling paranoia, always falling deeper into a pit of realization. Being that she wasn't a very social person only contributed to the increasing sense of isolation due to this knowledge. Who would she even ask if they noticed anything? There was no one close enough to ask her if they noticed it. She'd sound crazy asking, she felt. Prior to learning about the child she'd once cared for, this feeling always dragged over her. It could be explained away by many things, such as people dropping out of classes, being absent and so on and so forth..

But the empty holes of those seats never stopped. She was staring at the back of the bus seat in front of her, its dingy fabric being enough to lose her thoughts. With each stop the bus dramatically threw itself into a stop, to which she'd grip her seat. There was a certain possibility she was going insane, she figured. Did she hallucinate every day she spent with the young boy Sam? Every stress induced hour of dealing with a hyperactive eight year old being only a figment of her imagination? If she were hallucinating a false reality, she thought it would be fair to make it at the very least entertaining. However despite this the emptiness there sunk deep into her, a sickening sympathy for the child she apparently created.

Frantic exchanges with the police, shouting that this boy was real. But no one seemed to realize it, as if it were all an elaborate prank gone too far and Sam was just right in the other room. Despite searching areas she knew he would likely be in, in a desperate attempt to prove he was a living being. That he existed-

The bus pushed forward and so did the weight of her body. More people crowded the bus, the stench of humans so humid she felt herself becoming nauseated. Every police officer she went to did a background check to see for this child and every one of them came back saying he was not real, or coercing her into professional help. The echoes of the words from her mother insulted her mind.

She couldn't stand to be around anyone, not her family, not her peers, not the police. He was real. She knew it. If he wasn't, then she was truly crazy. Although, there was just no way she made all of it up. It couldn't be.

The bus came to its final throw of a stop before the girl ushered herself off through the mess of people around her. She'd gone to his school, although no one was there due to school being out for elementary kids. Checked the small gap of woods around and even called out to him several times. An elderly couple passed her timidly. "You lookin' for your son, sweetheart?"
"No, he's not my son. His name is Sam Duncan. He has short brown hair and brown eyes and he's a bit pale. He's missing. I need to find him." She spat frantically, only realizing how unstable she sounded. The couple did nothing but stare at her with an unnerved look until she sprinted off from their unsettling presence.

She'd gotten so frantic she'd gone down the basement steps leading into a classroom on the last floor. She looked around before seeing a bathroom window. She failed to pry it open with her hands due to it being locked. Instead, she grabbed the duct tape she'd figured she'd need to break in. Placing pieces to cover the entire window, she grabbed the knife she brought (and now always carried) and slammed the end into the tape colored glass. This reduced the noise and also prevented glass shrapnel from spreading. She peeled it off with leather gloved hands, carefully removing glass that might cut her. Climbing through the window and entering the classroom through the bathroom door, which conveniently was not locked, she began to observe her surroundings. She walked through the doors and looked for the counselor's office. She knew where it was from picking Sam up from school time and time again on the request of his mother, Ms. Bridges, a negligent chainsmoker. Inconveniently, this door was locked. Much to her luck, she was able to pry it open without damaging the lock. She began to search through cabinets looking for anything regarding the class he was in. She noticed then the very bottom filing cabinet, which she was able to easily open.

Sam Duncan was eight years old about to go into the third grade. If he was real, she reasoned, that must be true. And if his name is there playing dead in one of those papers, she'd know she wasn't crazy.

Papers spread messily into yellow folders scattered on the floor. A lump in her throat and the sense of dread ate at her very core as not one Sam Duncan was to be found, thirty-four other student names repeated hundreds of times across hundreds of papers but not one of them after hours of searching. Her brain beat into her skull. Pounding.

It was only then, carefully placing these envelopes back into the cabinet, did she get the feeling she was being watched. The lights were shut off in the room besides a flexible lamp she'd found and plugged in. Shoving the rest in with less care, she grabbed her flashlight (which doubled as a taser), unplugged the lamp and left through the door. She closed it carefully. When she realized she wouldn't be able to lock it anymore, she glanced down the hallway.

And there it was- that now very familiar beating headache that torments her. And that thing facing like a liminal void right down the dark hallway.

She didn't take another second to look at it. She wasn't trying to be stealthy anymore. She was quick on her feet and naturally quiet and that guy was all the way down at the end of the hall wearing a suit so she doubted he would catch up in time. She ran into the room she entered from, locking it, all while slowly registering something. Isn't it funny how in a rush and panic you can be from fear but how all your thoughts are slow? That's how she felt as she crawled through the window into the safety of the outside world. What she assumed to be some principal about to call the police on her was so tall it's head almost touched the ceiling. That it was bald and pale like an old man dying of cancer or a very serious pandemic inducing sickness which she could not recall the name of.

But it had no face to recognize, the scariest part. She reasoned as she ran through the streets with her hood up, that because he was so far away she could not see his features. But even from that far away, one could make out at least the basic structure of a very dim face. It couldn't be explained and maybe it shouldn't be either. That headache she got moments before she looked at the thing still beat against her head like angry fists, even on the bus back to her house.

She had to be going crazy.