By Emma Stokes, TIWP Student

He knows something and he won’t tell me. These days he spends most of his time alone in his room muttering random phrases to himself that mean nothing. He says it will never be the same. What? He walks around and it seems everyone stares because they don’t know him. He’s not crazy. I really hope he’s not. Last night I knocked on the door and there was no response. Recently that’s become routine. This time felt different, like a rope pulling me into his room. I turned the handle of the door. Empty. His room was empty. I pinched myself to check if I was having the same nightmare I’d had every night for the past month. It wasn’t. On the stool surrounded by piles of crumpled paper, there was a note. “They got me.” Three words. Three syllables. Millions of tears falling upon the last piece of him I had left. The ink smudged and the words made less sense than before. I’ll never know who they are but I know he wasn’t crazy.