People always imagine that when somebody disappears, everyone notices immediately.
That isn't true.
Sometimes people disappear slowly.
A missed text.
A cancelled hangout.
A phone call that goes unanswered.
A week becomes two.
Two becomes three.
And eventually you realize you haven't actually seen them in a long time.
That's what happened with Sia.
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At first we weren't worried.
Sia was older than us.
She had her own life.
Her own responsibilities.
Graduation coming up.
Work.
Family.
Normal things.
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Then the weeks kept passing.
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She stopped showing up.
Stopped answering most messages.
Stopped calling.
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When she did respond, it was short.
One sentence.
Maybe two.
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"Busy."
"Can't today."
"Talk later."
Later never came.
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"Okay, this is getting weird."
Hashim tossed his phone onto the table.
We were sitting in a booth at a diner after school.
The same diner we'd been meeting at more and more lately.
Not because the food was good.
It wasn't.
But it was crowded.
Bright.
Safe.
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"I called her three times yesterday," he said.
"No answer."
Samiya frowned.
"She answered me."
Everyone looked at her.
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"When?"
I asked.
"Three days ago."
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"Three days ago?" Hashim repeated.
"Yeah."
"What'd she say?"
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Samiya looked down at her phone.
"Just said she was fine."
Neems raised an eyebrow.
"That's it?"
"That's literally it."
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The conversation died after that.
Not because nobody cared.
Because nobody knew what to do.
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Sia was the responsible one.
The mature one.
The one who usually checked on us.
If she wanted space, who were we to force it?
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Still.
Something felt wrong.
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I wanted to focus on something else.
Something productive.
Something that might actually give us answers.
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The missing people.
The sealed reports.
The disappearances.
The people who had seen this thing before us.
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If this had happened before, then maybe somebody had left something behind.
A clue.
A mistake.
Anything.
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So I looked at Neems.
"Wanna go with me tomorrow?"
"Where?"
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"To talk to one of the families."
Hashim nearly choked on his drink.
"You're doing what?"
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"We have names."
I pulled out a folder.
"Missing persons."
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Samiya immediately looked uncomfortable.
"Jamal…"
"What?"
"You can't just show up at somebody's house and ask about their dead family member."
"They aren't confirmed dead."
"That somehow makes it worse."
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Hashim nodded immediately.
"Yeah, that's serial killer behavior."
I ignored him.
Neems looked between everybody.
Then sighed.
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"Honestly?"
"What?"
I asked.
"I'm curious."
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That got a small smile out of me.
"Good."
"You're still weird for this though."
"Fair."
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The next afternoon we drove across town.
Well.
Neems drove.
Because unlike me, she actually had somebody willing to let her practice behind the wheel.
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The address belonged to the sister of one of the missing people from 1987.
The same disappearance we'd found while digging through old records.
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The house was small.
Old.
Quiet.
The kind of place that looked like it had been there longer than the neighborhood around it.
Standing on the porch suddenly felt a lot harder than it had in my head.
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Neems stared at me.
"Why have you been looking at me like that this entire time?"
I asked
"Because i'm worried you're going to say something stupid."
Neems answered.
"I won't."
"You absolutely will."
Before I could defend myself, the door opened.
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An older woman stood there.
Gray hair.
Tired eyes.
Suspicious expression.
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"Can I help you?"
I nodded.
"Hello ma'am."
Good start.
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Then I ruined it.
"In 1987 your brother disappeared in the woods and was never found. Can you tell us everything about that?"
Silence.
Neems closed her eyes.
"Oh my God."
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The woman stared at me.
Then pointed toward the street.
"Get off my porch."
"What?"
"I'm not talking to reporters."
"We aren't reporters—"
"Leave."
The door slammed.
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Neems immediately turned toward me.
"You're an idiot."
"I was being direct."
"You opened with her missing brother!"
"I thought she'd appreciate honesty."
"Nobody appreciates honesty that much."
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We started walking away.
Then stopped.
Because Neems turned around.
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"Wait."
"What are you doing?"
I asked.
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She ignored me.
Walked back up the porch.
Knocked again.
Nothing.
She knocked harder.
Still nothing.
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Then suddenly—
the door flew open.
The woman appeared holding a cane.
"You better get off my porch, you little brats!"
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Neems immediately put both hands up.
"Wait!"
The woman paused.
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"We aren't reporters."
"Then what do you want?"
Neems swallowed.
Then spoke carefully.
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"The reason we're here is because we think something—or someone—took your brother."
The woman's expression changed slightly.
"And we think the same thing is after us."
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Silence.
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"If we don't figure out what happened to him…"
Neems hesitated.
"…we might be next."
For a moment nobody spoke.
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Then the woman stepped aside.
"Come in."
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The house smelled old.
Not bad.
Just lived in.
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Family photos covered the walls.
Boxes stacked near shelves.
Years of memories packed into every room.
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The woman sat slowly in a chair.
"My brother's name was Michael."
Neems and I exchanged a glance.
For the first time all day—
somebody was actually talking.
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"He went into those woods one night."
The woman looked down.
"Way too late."
"How late?" I asked.
She thought for a second.
"Near midnight."
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Neems looked at me instantly.
I looked right back.
Neither of us needed to explain why that mattered.
Midnight.
Always midnight.
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The woman continued.
"When he came home…"
She shook her head.
"…he wasn't the same."
"What do you mean?" Neems asked quietly.
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"He was terrified."
The room felt colder.
"He kept saying something was following him."
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Neither of us interrupted.
"He stopped talking to friends."
"He barely talked to family."
"He'd lock himself in his room for hours."
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The more she spoke—
the more familiar it sounded.
Not identical.
But familiar.
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Fear.
Isolation.
Obsession.
The woman stood up.
"One day I finally went into his room."
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"What did you find?" I asked.
She laughed sadly.
"A mess."
Her eyes drifted toward a distant memory.
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"Sticky notes."
"Photos."
"Old newspaper clippings."
"Strings connecting things."
The image hit me immediately.
An evidence board.
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Just like ours.
Just like Sia's.
My stomach tightened.
"He spent months trying to understand what happened to him."
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Nobody spoke.
Then came the worst part.
"One night he walked up to me."
The woman folded her hands together.
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"He said he was going somewhere."
"He told me if he didn't come back…"
Her voice cracked.
"…not to look for him."
Neems froze.
"Why?"
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The woman looked directly at us.
"He said if I went looking…"
"…it might come after me too."
Silence swallowed the room.
"That was the last time I ever saw him."
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The drive home felt different.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
The city rolled past outside the windows.
Finally Neems broke the silence.
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"Do you think that'll happen to us?"
"What?"
"The obsession."
I stared out the window.
"I don't know."
"That guy basically went insane."
"Yeah."
More silence.
Then I shook my head.
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"Maybe.."
"Maybe not."
Neems glanced over.
"Why?"
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Because unlike that kid—
we weren't alone.
"We all saw it together."
"The cave."
"The Listener."
"The Walker."
"We've had each other's backs since the beginning."
Neems smiled weakly.
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"That's surprisingly wholesome."
"Don't tell Hashim I said something wholesome."
"Too late."
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For the first time that day—
we laughed.
A small laugh.
But real.
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And neither of us noticed how wrong that conversation actually was.
Because while we were talking about whether this thing could break a person's mind—
it already had.
Weeks ago.
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And somewhere in the woods—
beneath stone.
Beneath earth.
Beneath darkness.
Sia Moore stood inside a cave that shouldn't exist.
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The pale light illuminated the walls.
The discarded objects.
The impossible depth.
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And for the first time since the beginning—
she stood before the source.
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The voice.
The Listener.
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She didn't run.
Didn't panic.
Didn't look away.
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"I'm tired."
The cave answered with silence.
Good.
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She was tired of being afraid.
Tired of waiting.
Tired of watching her friends fall apart.
"Take me instead."
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The words echoed through the cave.
A pause.
Then something listened.
"Leave them alone."
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For a moment—
nothing happened.
And then the cave smiled.
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Not literally.
Something worse.
Because Sia realized it understood every word she said.
And deep down—
it had never intended to make a deal.
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THIS WEDNESDAY:
CHAPTER 20: "What We Lose"