You would want to believe that I found her all those years ago. I didn’t.

Times were different now. I was different. She was gone, so how could I not be?

I live in the town of Terrowin. 184 years it had been since I last saw her. Since I last heard her voice. It felt like just yesterday sometimes, and other times she felt so distant from my brain that it was all a dream. I longed to wake up.

We used to live in a state called New York. She and I together in a little apartment complex, smack down in the middle of the city. We were happy.

She promised me we would live forever, that not even the splitting of the Earth could pull me from her grasp. She lied.

It was 5:04 a.m. when I woke up to her sitting up in the bed, gasping for air. “Lorelei?” I struggled to sit up, but I got there. She hadn’t looked my way. “Bad dream, Lor?”

The thing about Lorelei was her imagination. She was labeled as the “crazy girl” in our hometown. I loved her endlessly, but the labels were true. Lor was always very passionate about make believe concepts, and when she told me about them, all I could do was smile in awe of her love for something that was just for her. Nobody else understood.

I met her when we were only four years old. Crazy that 14 years felt like forever when I gazed in to her eyes. We had been together for a long time.

Little four year old me saw her. Her curly auburn hair caught my short attention span, and that was a rare thing to do back then. “I’m Bo.” She squinted at me, and gave an almost scary grin from ear to ear. “I’m Lorelei. Lor is my nickname, though. The rest is too hard.” At this she looked at me, waiting to see what I would say. “Hey Lor. We can be friends now.”She grabbed my hand carelessly, smiling the whole time. Struggling to catch up, I let her guide me from the park into the nearby woods. We sat down by a huge oak tree, and she looked at me sincerely. The smile was gone.

“Since we’re friends now, I should tell you that the Earth will split soon. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, but it will, and we will be here for it.” She grabbed my hand. “Well, I’ll find you. We will be okay!” My four year old heart. So good, but so off. She smiled, and I never forgot those words.

“It’s happening. I’m not ready. I can’t go. Bo!” She screamed, getting up out of the bed. Her slippers barely on her feet, her robe being positioned over her nightgown as she ran out the door.

“Lorelei!” I screeched. I had been running for hours. She was always faster than me. I was temporarily comforted by the first time I ever saw her run so carelessly. The day I met her.

That’s when it hit me. The tree.

“I knew you’d be here.” I said, startling her as she turned to see me, limping toward her in the pouring rain.

“Bo, you need to go hide. Now! It’s happening.”

“Come with me, Lor. Let’s go home.”

She scoffed. “Fourteen years ago I told you this would happen. Have you forgotten? I’m telling you to go hide. So go.”

“Stop! Lorelei, stop with all of this nonsense! Come home! I’ve put up with these fantasies because I love you, but you’re crazy Lor. Come home!” I hissed, only realizing what I had said before it was too late.

Her eyebrows scrunched, and she shook her head. “You were the only person that had never called me that.”

I went to say more, but the ground under me began to crack, shaking me to the ground. I hopelessly backed up on my feet.

“You’ve broken me. Us. You never loved me. And now, you will never find me. You can live with those broken promises for the rest of your sorry life.” She gushed. I got one last look at her face before I was swept under the ground, rolling and tumbling for minutes until I landed safely on a deserted underground. Terrowin.

The look of her face as I fell was hopelessly depressing. She was lost. But, I would find her. Count on that.