“I saw the whole thing!”My nosey neighbor exclaimed, pointing fingers in our direction.

As frail as she appeared, she holds her finger up with the strength of her judgemental eyes.

“Saw what?” I say keeping my tone neutral.

There was only one way to get out of this and that was by gaslight girlbossing my way to freedom. Usually, I’m better at dodging Mrs. Simmons with her vacuum-like eyes ready to find dirt and prying questions bent on entrapping but with the unexpected visit of my friend, Danny, I was caught off guard. Minutes ago, Danny had knocked on my door and I opened it to see a frightened expression on his face. I was confused as to why but then I noticed my friend was floating, sadly, so did Mrs. Simmons.

“Oh, don't give me that, you both know what I saw!” the woman points her finger like a weapon.

“We really don't, M’am,” Danny says from beside me.

His tone cracks at the end and I give him a warning look, praying Mrs. Simmons didn’t jump on the weakness in his tone. I lock my front door then grab his wrist and plaster on an innocent smile that I direct at the old lady.

“We must go,” I say, moving forward and pulling my friend along with me.

I hear the old lady protest but I ignore her as we walk past. We walk in silence for a long while and then we reach a startling empty park. I gesture to a park bench and he sits there, looking around. His gaze ends up staying on a tree covered in blossoming flowers. My gaze stays on him, and I feel exasperated by it.

“So what exactly are you now?” I wonder.

It’s strange asking this type of question to someone you’ve known for so long. He looks down, sighing. His left hand nervously rubs his other arm.

“Do you remember when I disappeared and no one knew where I went?”

I think, not remembering what he was referring to, then shake my head.

“No, I don’t.”

“Maybe it didn’t feel like disappearing to you,” he mumbles then looks up at me. “It was at Elaine’s party when I lost my phone signal, do you remember?”

“I remember calling you to see where you went and you not picking up.”

“I told you back then something strange happened.”

I go back in my memory and let my mind return to the scene where he approached me at Elaine’s party. Earlier, he had wandered off and he now returned with dirt covering his clothes as if he rolled in it. There were also sticks in his hair and his eyes looked so distant.

The music in the house was loud so I had to scream to talk.

“Where have you been?!”

He turned and looked at me with a blank expression. He didn’t give a verbal response, in fact, he didn’t talk at all that night. It wasn’t until we were sharing a cab to go back to my place that he uttered a word. We sat in a cab as the sun rose and he touched my hand to break my attention away.

I looked at him.

“You…I need you to believe me, okay?” he asked, his tone pleading.

I responded with a nod. “Okay, what is it?”

“Something…something took me and they injected me with—“ he lifts his arm, lifting his sleeve to show his bare shoulder.

I looked at it but saw nothing. “Maybe you should get some rest.”

“No…” he said, his voice so low and broken. “They…”

“It’s okay,” I said, reassuring him and he was quiet the whole way back.

That was months ago and admittedly, I didn’t think about it much. I just assumed…what did I assume? I felt guilty for not trying to find out more about it prior to today. At least, now I’ll get to know what happened that night but in the past few minutes, he’s become quiet again. Sitting down beside him on the park bench, I grab his hand to give it a reassuring squeeze.

Finally, after what feels like forever he speaks.

“Something changed me that night.”

“Do you remember what?”

“It was cold and I ran, ran so fast, and I was in a forest where I fell and—“ he shivers in fear by my side and I squeeze his hand once more.

“It’s okay,” I reassure with a sad smile. “You don’t have to try and remember anything. We can figure this out together.”

“Yeah?” he says, his tone hopeful.

I nod, “Yeah.”