I wasn't out for long, if the dim, grey sky I opened my eyes to find outside the window was any indication. Seemed like couches weren't half as comfortable when your brain wasn't on the lowest level of functioning possible. That was one nice thing about the hangover, I realized as I sat up to greet the brick walls of Gwen's living room once again. At least I couldn't feel things. Except gravity on eight times strength anyway.

"Hello? I'd like to file a missing person report."

Gwen's voice caused me to sit up, and I hobbled over to the kitchen to see her sitting in a thin, blue nightgown on one of the stools, eyes rimmed red as she gripped the phone by her ear. Blyke hovered over her in a pair of black gym shorts, stroking a thumb over her shoulder as she talked into the speaker.

"His name is Dustin Palinski. ...March 3rd, 2071." There was a small pause, and she nodded even though whoever she was talking to couldn't see it. "Yes. He has a large scar over his left leg and can't walk the greatest."

My foot started rapidly tapping against the cold tile of the kitchen floor. So he's really gone then.

I wasn't surprised, but somehow, it didn't feel real to me. Like any second now he'd just walk through the door and wave off the entire thing, or roll his eyes with a smile and tell us he was fine. For him to actually be missing... My eyes darted around the room, unsure where I should be or what I should even do. It felt wrong to be here, and wrong to leave. It was my fault after all, wasn't it? I told him to leave me alone.

"Crow," Gwen called out, and I turned to find her cupping a hand over the receiver, watching me intently. "You said he texted you before he went missing, right? When was that?"

"Three o' clock yesterday. Let me see." I pulled out my phone to look. My message was still unread, a fact that somehow made my heart start pounding a lot harder, to the point it ached. "Three seventeen specifically."

"Three seventeen in the afternoon," Gwen repeated. "He sent a text to our friend Crow Morais. ...Yes, him."

I winced at the reminder that they'd heard of me. After all, everyone did, for better or for worse. My mind continued to run with the idea, until suddenly I was remembering parking my broom outside the student center, and all the missing person reports posted on the walls. What if he got taken? What if that's why he went missing? It's just another way for people to get back at me for everything I did.

The back and forth dragged on for a while, but I didn't get asked any more questions other than if he'd left his clip card behind. After a short bout of looking around, it seemed like he had taken it with him though, along with everything else. He was just... gone. Spirited away.

"Okay, thank you," Gwen finally said flatly, although I could hear the amount of strain it was taking her to do so. "And how long until-? Okay. I understand. Thank you. Have a good day."

With a tap, she ended the phone call, and as she sank further into the bartop that was their table, Blyke moved in to fully wrap bare arms around her. "What did they say? Any idea how long it'll take?"

"They said disappearances are serious cases, but there's no guaranteed time frame because... obviously they have no idea. They only said the first forty- eight hours are the most important, and they will-" Her voice choked up a bit. "They'll do what they can."

I sighed, once again caught between staying where I was and moving closer. I decided on the second option until I, too, was awkwardly resting a hand on the tangled locks of blond hair along her back. "I'm just glad they didn't ask you to wait for another forty-eight hours so we knew for sure that he was missing in the first place."

Blyke moved his head up at that, giving me a weird, squinty look. "What? This isn't a tv show, Crow. If someone's missing, why the hell would they wait to look for them? He could be in danger."

I could feel Gwen tremble underneath my hand at the words, and settled for a shrug. "Well, at least they didn't. And they're looking for him, and..." I ran my other hand through my hair. It felt like I was doing that a lot recently. "I'm sorry."

"Please just stuff it," I heard her mumble through where she'd tucked her head into her arms. "I'm trying not to blame you, but it's really difficult right now. So please, before I say something I end up regretting, just stop."

I swallowed, retreating from the two of them until I was backing out of the entire alcove of the room. "Okay. I'll just... Yeah."

There wasn't much to grab, I realized as I got ready to head out. No clothes to bring, not even a phone charger. Just... my broom with one less passenger than before.

I grabbed it, feeling the sleek wood in my hand as I slowly headed for the door. I could almost laugh at how similar it all felt to pause here with my hand on the cold metal of the knob.

"Thank you," I managed to get out as I twisted it open to find a hallway as empty-sounding as the words continuing to come out of my mouth. "For everything. I mean it."

"You're not going to look for him, are you?" Blyke was asking from around the corner.

My grip around the broom handle tightened. "No," I answered. "I'm done sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. They'll find him. I'm sure of it."

And in the meantime, I didn't need to make more trouble. I'd learned my lesson already. With that, I turned the knob and headed out.

Stupid.

That was how I felt as I walked down the concrete steps of the apartment complex, down from one floor to the next until I was standing on the front steps of the brick red building. I should've known better than to open my mouth like that to him, and now he was just... missing? Lost? Taken? I didn't know, and that alone was enough to send jolts of panic running through my veins.

Tears pricked at my eyes, and I clenched my hands to hold them back. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't just go randomly looking for him, but how could I possibly just go back to college like everything was fine? What if people asked me about him? What would I even say?

Then it hit me. "Oh gods. Odette. She has no idea." Immediately, I reached to pull my phone from my pocket, but I remembered I never got her number. She'd only helped me look for it, and went to hang up those posters for her band.

Right. I dug my hand in my pant's pocket, feeling for a thin strip of paper. Sure enough, it was still in there, waiting to be unfolded. I typed the numbers in, sitting on my broom and yanking at my magik until I had enough balance for the ground to fall out from beneath my feet, letting me head up to the sky.

It only took two rings for her to pick up, her cheery, high-pitched voice only a little difficult to hear over the rising wind. "Hey there! Might I ask who is calling me on this fine, fine day?"

"Odette, it's me. Crow."

"Oh hey! Is... everything all right? Not to be rude, but you sound terrible. Wanna talk about it?"

"No. Listen I—" I paused, but there was no reason to lie about what I did. After all, if I was too embarrassed to tell people, then maybe I should've considered not messing up in the first place. So I continued, "Dustin and I got into a fight, and I haven't seen him since. He's missing, and we're thinking something happened to him."

A sharp gasp came through on her end. "Oh gods! Like what?"

"Like I said, we don't know. He's just been gone for too long for it to just be from that. At least I think." I groaned, reaching up to rub at my temples. "I don't know. I'm worried someone kidnapped him, or hurt him... I mean, you saw how those girls reacted towards me the other day. What if I made him a target?"

"No, that can't be right." I heard the scraping of a chair as she seemed to sit down, voice growing more serious. "I mean, not defending those girls in the slightest, but they were just bullies? Or petty theft, I guess. To actually kidnap someone just to get to you... It just seems like a stretch. At least, not when you don't know anything for sure yet."

A stretch. Honestly, now that I was thinking about it, maybe she had a point. My best friend was gone, and I was making this all about myself. The pressure in my chest worsened, my grip on the broom tightening. It didn't take a lot of focus to keep both it, and the cold feeling of my magik steady, but it had begun to shudder beneath me a bit as my breathing sped up.

I tried my best to slow it. "Yeah, you're right." Then I licked my lips, thinking. " I don't know. I'm just worried."

"Yeah, I..." She paused, and I could swear I heard a small choke in the background before she spoke again. "I wasn't expecting you to call with something like that. Gods, I just... I hope he's okay."

"Me too." My face started to feel wet, and I wiped at it with the pad of my palm. Not that I was surprised to feel tears there. My chest felt like it was going to burst, and there was an ache in my shoulders that wasn't going away, but... I guess I thought there'd be more? But once I pulled my hand away, that was it, leaving me only with a hard feeling in my stomach and a pricking tiredness behind my eyes. The rest was all just numb.

Or maybe I just didn't care that he was gone. It was what I wanted after all, wasn't it?

Stupid fucking bastard.

"Hey uh, Crow? You still there?"

"Hm?" I adjusted my posture on the broom, pressing my head even further against my shoulder to pinch my phone tighter. "What?"

Odette sighed, all her usual energy completely drained out of her next couple words. "Don't go beating yourself up over this, all right? Sometimes friends fight, sometimes they need some time apart, but at the end of the day, if this is more than just him leaving... it has nothing to do with you; you got that?"

"Yeah, I know," I told her. It seemed like the right thing to say, anyway, and if it wasn't, I didn't really care. I was more focused on watching the trees below me, flowing beneath my feet in an endless scene of green, broken up only by random patches of blue to form the Appalachian mountains. That and the wind. It was so cold up here. I should have grabbed a jacket.

"All right." I heard the creaking of a chair again. "Thank you for letting me know. Please don't hesitate to keep me updated."

I just sort of hummed as an answer.

"You uh... you coming to class tomorrow?"

Instantly, a jolt ran through me, enough to jerk the broom, enough to stiff my entire body, a chill lacing through my spine. Of course, that was where I'd been driving to. To college. To my classes, and at the end of the day, my dorm.

But he wasn't going to be there.

The hair on my arms pricked up, my throat dried up, and finally, I yanked at the magik in my chest, because at this point it felt like it was choking me. In response, the broom came to a stop, and I just sat there, hovering over everything. But now I wasn't looking at the trees. I was looking at a room, with one side a mess of littered clothes and unopened boxes, the other a tidy space with a pink bed made, and completely empty. A desk with no one sitting in it, up drawing until four in the morning. And fish, just swimming around with no one to take care of them.

My stomach clenched then, and I wanted to throw up as acid shot up my insides. It took all my effort to swallow it, and I shook my head, hard. "No I—"

I cut myself off. I what? Where else would I go? I couldn't just ditch class, could I? Just... go back home until all this went away?

Taking a deep breath, I looked at the ground again, gaze trailing all the way out behind me, towards the East. "I think I'm gonna visit home for a bit."

"Okay," she said, although she sounded a bit wary. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

I almost immediately said no, but maybe it was because I wasn't able to get rid of the image of that empty room out of my head that I stopped myself. "Actually, Dustin had two fish in the dorm. Would you mind feeding them?" Then I frowned. That was sudden, now that I was thinking about it. Why didn't I think before asking that? Odette definitely had classes, or practice for that band thing she wanted. Why did I just assume she didn't have a life? I cut back in. "Sorry. If you can't, I'll just turn around. Actually, I'll just come back. I don't know what I was—"

"Yeah, I can feed them. It's no biggie."

"What?" I asked, somewhat incredulously. She agreed just like that?

"I said I'll feed 'em. Just text me the code for your lock and where he keeps the food. It's no skin off my back."

My mouth opened and closed, and I winced, trying to find the right words. She really was too nice for someone I barely knew. Hell, everytime I talked to her it was just another favor. "Thanks," I finally managed to get out. "I owe you one."

"Nope! You don't owe me squat. Now go home and try to relax, okay?" The confidence was coming back to her now, at least by the sound of it anyway. I had no clue what her face looked like right now as she continued to talk. "I can't imagine how you're feeling right now so just do something to get your mind off things for a while, got it? There's no need to rush back here until you're ready, and in the meantime... try not to worry too much?" She said it like it was a question. "I know he's gone but, well, he's a smart kid. I'm sure he's fine." There was a pause. "He's gotta be fine. We gotta trust him."

At this point, I wasn't sure if it was really about trusting him, or the general state of humanity, but eventually I nodded. "All right. Well, I'll keep you updated the second I get anything and thank you." I bit my lip, heart clenching as I thought about it all again. "I really mean it."

Her voice softened, and I could almost imagine her round cheeks stretching into a soft, sad smile. "Of course Crow. I'll always be here for you if you need anything."

"All right," I said again. "Thanks. I'll uhh, I'll see you soon."

"See you soon. Feel better."

With that, I clicked the end call button at the edge of the screen, and then it fell to black, the outside bright enough to reflect my own face back: tired eyes, worn expression, hair unbrushed so it formed a thick, wavy mass on the top of my head, sweat plastering whatever was left to my forehead...

I looked like a mess, and my fingers moved to turn the screen back on again. Maps said that home was an hour and ten minutes away by car, and when I tapped on the broom icon, it jumped to almost half that. Granted, I felt exhausted now, all my energy gone somehow from a single phone call, but forty eight minutes? I could do that much. All that was left to do now was let them know I was coming.

My finger hovered over the picture of my mom's face right at the top of my contacts, only under—

The screen blurred and my shoulders drew together. Shaking. I was shaking now, and my eyes screwed shut, head tipping back to the sky as I lifted the phone to my ear once again.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Mind if I come home for a bit?"