"Hey," I said, pushing my introvertedness away. She looked up from her phone.

"Miri! Hey!" she greeted me cheerfully. She turned off her phone.

"So uh, I was thinking.. about us.. and I couldn't seem to remember anything about what we did together.."

"Like, what we played?"

"Ye-yeah! Do you remember anything? I kinda wanna, reminisce, y'know?" She looked at me thoughtfully.

"Well, there was the time we fought with these two guys over if white was a colour," She said, "And when we got in trouble for starting a poke war."

I thought about it. I didn't remember that. It was either evidence that she wasn't real and was lying or evidence that my long term memory was terrible.

"Anything else?" I asked. She motioned for me to sit next to her on the bench. I complied.

"We'd play this game where we draw some random line of a whiteboard, then we'd trade whiteboards and the other person would have to make some sort of thing out of it," She said, looking at me. "You really don't remember me?" She asked. I could hear a twinge of sadness in her voice.

Suddenly, I wasn't sure that she was an imaginary friend. She seemed genuine, unlike how I first thought she was. Her face had a little tint of kindness to it, and when she expressed emotions, it didn't seem fake or like acting.

She suddenly felt like a person I could get to know and maybe even be friends with. Her hazel eyes looked welcoming and friendly.

I shook my head no. She frowned slightly.

"Well, that makes things harder," She mumbled.

"Hm?"

"I was hoping we could bond over our old memories, and become friends again? I just moved back here this year." She explained.

I felt bad that I had ever accused her of being unreal. I was being stupid, anyways. How could I have possibly believed that she was a drawing? It was a coincidence, nothing more. Quinn was almost magnetic, I felt attached to her, as if I did remember all the good times we had.

And actually, the things she told me did ring a bell. Though the memories were fuzzy, I could remember some of the things she said. Though, I felt as if she wasn't telling me the full story to the memories. Something felt off, but I didn't know what.

I brushed off the thoughts and continued to talk to Quinn as casually as I could. She tried her best to fill me in on some of the stuff that we did as little kids, while I tried my best to not seem like a complete idiot. I was pretty sure I failed, though.

The rest of the day went by like normal. That was, until I got some troubling texts from Chris.

CompleteLoser: miri

CompleteLoser: miri answer me

CompleteLoser: come on this is important

CompleteLoser: MIRI. RESPOND. IT'S URGENT

Mirror: what?? what's going on???

CompleteLoser: LYRA IS GONE

Mirror: who??

CompleteLoser: YOU KNOW WHO, MIRI. SHE'S GONE. I'M REALLY SCARED

Mirror: who is lyra?? I've never heard of her before

CompleteLoser: SHE'S MY GIRLFRIEND AND YOUR BEST FRIEND, STOP PLAYING DUMB

Mirror: I swear to you that I've never met anyone named lyra before, are you okay?

CompleteLoser: YOU SET HER UP WITH ME LAST YEAR. WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU??

Mirror: this isn't funny, chris

CompleteLoser: YOU THINK I'M JOKING? LOOK AT THE NEWS. SHE'S BEEN REPORTED MISSING FOR 8 HOURS NOW

Mirror: okay, I'll go see

I went onto my town's prime news website and checked the first article. Sure enough, the headline was '14 YEAR OLD LYRA KELLY REPORTED MISSING'. I read on.

'14 year old Lyra Kelly has been reported missing October 4th, at approximately 9 AM. Her parents say that she told them she was going out with friends the night before, and hadn't seen her home since. Lyra hadn't specified which friends that night, and police are interviewing and questioning every kid from her school in hopes to find the friends she was out with.

Police could not find any evidence as to where she went last night, being unable to locate her phone or anything else that might've lead them to her. Parents fear that Kelly was kidnapped or killed.

Not much else is known about her disappearance, yet. We'll be updating you on this case as soon as we get the information.'

CompleteLoser: I was just interviewed about it

CompleteLoser: they're probably coming to you soon

Mirror: she's your girlfriend, you say?

CompleteLoser: yes!! you know this already, why are you acting like you don't know her? you've been best friends since like 2nd grade

Mirror: I really don't remember her.. then again, I haven't been able to remember much lately, it seems

Mirror: especially things including other people

CompleteLoser: that's weird, but we have more important things on our hands at the moment, don't we?

CompleteLoser: like finding out what happened to Lyra

Mirror: do we really need to?

Mirror: I think the police will have it covered

CompleteLoser: but what if they don't!?

CompleteLoser: what if I never see her again?

CompleteLoser: what if she ends up being dead?

CompleteLoser: or worse?

Mirror: shhhshshshshshshshshsh it's gonna be fine

Mirror: she probably just got lost on her way home

CompleteLoser: but what if she never comes back?

Mirror: stop over thinking this, that's my job

CompleteLoser: well you're obviously not doing very well at it

Mirror: at least wait a week before you go all conspiracy theory on me

CompleteLoser: that's too long

CompleteLoser: besides, you clearly haven't been waiting less than a couple hours, why should I?

Mirror: fine. a day?

CompleteLoser: fine.

Mirror: good

Mirror: in all seriousness, I'm sure she'll be fine

Mirror: she'll probably be back by the end of the week

CompleteLoser: today's Thursday

CompleteLoser: I doubt that

Mirror: relaxxx, want me to play the relaxation playlist?

CompleteLoser: I guess

Mirror: it'll be okay, trust me

The relaxation playlist was a playlist full of soft songs Chris had put together for me whenever I got stressed, frustrated, or got a headache. We had a similar music taste, so it could work for him too.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get him to calm down and stop worrying so much. It was never good when Chris's anxiety built up too much.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, just how I like my days to be.

The next day though, I told Quinn about Lyra's disappearance.

"Lyra?" She asked, "Isn't that the girl that you became best friends with after I moved away?"

"So it seems," I replied. "But I really don't remember her, like at all."

"Are you bluffing?"

"No, the first time I've ever even heard the name Lyra was yesterday when she went missing."

"Strange."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Any new reports on her? I left my phone at home today."

I whipped out my Ipod and looked on the website.

"Nope, nothing yet."

"Keep me updated, okay?"

"Ye-yeah, sure."

I tried my hardest to remember something about Lyra, but nothing came to mind. I had never met anyone with the name Lyra Kelly before, and I certainly have never been best friends with someone named Lyra Kelly either.

The whole situation was extremely confusing. Why did everyone keep saying that I was best friends with someone I'd never even heard of?

It didn't make any sense to me at all. Was it all just a joke? A prank? But that didn't make sense either. My town's number one news outlet wouldn't've gone along with it, would they?

I learned that, in fact, it wasn't a joke at all.

When I got interviewed.