I remember the morning she disappeared.
Not because anything unusual happened — but because it didn’t.
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The sky was grey, heavy like it had something to say but couldn’t. The kind of morning where your breath clouds the air even if it isn’t that cold. I sat in the back of the bus, headphones in, pretending not to notice her.
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She always sat three rows ahead. Left side. Window seat. Hair tied back like she couldn’t be bothered. Same green jacket. Same worn-out notebook on her lap. She never talked much — not to me, not to anyone. But there was something about her presence that made silence feel sharper.
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At school, we didn’t speak. We never really did, not properly. We’d exchanged one or two sentences, awkward nods, shared glances that lasted a second too long. That was it. I didn’t even know if we were friends.
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She looked tired that day. Pale. A little off. Like she hadn’t slept. In homeroom, she stared out the window instead of at the board. In literature class, she didn’t write anything. Just tapped her pen against the desk, again and again, until the teacher told her to stop.
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Then, lunch came.
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And she wasn’t in the cafeteria.
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People noticed, kind of. Not enough to panic — just enough to say, “Huh. Where’s she gone?”
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I saw her around the back of the school, where the field meets the woods. She was standing there, looking at the fog that had started to crawl across the grass like something alive. I don’t know why I went over to her, but I did.
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She didn’t look at me. Just spoke, like she knew I was there.
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> “Have you ever felt like you’re not supposed to be here?”
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Her voice was calm, but her hands were shaking. I remember that. Fingers curled tight into her sleeves.
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> “Here as in… school?” I asked.
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> “No. I mean… here. Alive.”
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I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.
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She finally turned her head, looked at me, and smiled — not the happy kind. The kind people make when they’ve already made a decision.
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> “Tell them I wasn’t scared.”
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Then she stepped into the fog.
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I thought she was messing around. Thought she’d come back out in a minute, laughing, maybe calling me dramatic.
She didn’t.
I waited. Five minutes. Then ten.
Nothing.
No footprints. No sound. Just fog swallowing up the edge of the world.
I should’ve run. Told someone. Screamed.
But I didn’t.
I just stood there.
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And said nothing...
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ns216.73.217.39da2
and then Add to home screen.