Chapter 1
Two years ago and three minutes ago. That was the last time that I saw Sara alive.

I was laying in the field by my house surrounded by the last people who ever spoke to her, staring up at the clouds.

I heard Natalie sigh next to me. "What are we doing?" She sat up. "It's been three years now. There's no going back, we all know that. I'm the only one who has come to terms with it. It's time you all realize that."

I sat up and looked at her, but I couldn't get myself to respond. I opened my mouth, and closed it again, but I couldn't find the words to express what I was thinking.

"I know." I sounded small, my voice quieter than normal. "I'd like to keep pretending."

"But you can't. You know you can't. It's time to move on. I'm not asking you to forget her, I'm just asking you to continue with your life. Ever since she passed away, you haven't been doing anything with your life."

I looked at her, my eyes icy and cold. "You didn't know her the way I knew her. I loved her. At least I thought I did."

Before I knew it, we were all sitting up, and looking at each other, our faces blank and emotionless.

I heard Jenna next to me begin to speak. "Look, this isn't what she would have wanted from us, and you guys know it."

"How do you know that? you hardly even knew her." I looked at Jenna.

She stood up. "Trust me. I knew her. I knew her. I did. Why are we fighting? Why are we even remembering? It's all over. We aren't going to hear her speak again, and just because I didn't hear her last words doesn't mean that I don't hear her voice in my head. That I'm not terrified that one day I will stop hearing it. What if we all forget, because one day we will. We'll remember how she looked, or what she liked to do, but we won't remember her. I think we should go. We've been here for far too long. There's no point in this anymore." She exhaled and turned on her heel, jogging off into the distance. Her car was parked about a mile down the road, and she was going to get it.

"Maybe she's right." Hayden spoke, his voice shaking a little. "It doesn't do us well to remember things, to pretend. We're never going to get her back. Look, I know it's painful, but we can't just spend our lives pitying ourselves for what happened."

I sighed as I watched the rest of my friends leave in separate directions. I sat there for a moment, taking in the view, feeling the cool Autumn air against my skin. I stood up, and started walking back to my house. I walked down the hill, watching the houses go behind me. But there weren't any people. It was just as quiet as when she died.

It was quiet, too quiet. There was only the sound of the wind blowing, and the sound of my feet hitting the asphalt.

A bird chirped.

I stepped on a leaf, and it crunched.

There still wasn't much noise. Not enough. This felt to similar.

Out of all the times in my life when I wanted silence, this wasn't one of them. Sometimes I loved the quiet, but quiet wasn't so straightforward.

I opened the door to my house, relieved to find that it was just the same as normal. Olivia was running around the house, and my mom was sitting on the couch watching TV. My dad wasn't anywhere to be seen, but that was what I had expected. I opened the fridge, smiling a bit at how normal it was.

That was a luxury that I couldn't have. Being normal. I wanted it, so badly.

I closed the fridge, and I went to sit down next to my mom on the couch. She was watching some cheesy rom-com, but I didn't care at that moment. It was so easy to sit there, and I was almost jealous of how simple it was, no worrying or fear. My mom smiled at me.

"Hey Alton!" She cocked her head at me. "You were out an awfully long time, sweetie, is everything okay?" She didn't mention why I was out, even though she knew. I knew that she knew.

"Yeah, everything's fine. Don't worry about it," I shook my head. "Yeah. It's all alright." I stood up and slipped away, going upstairs to my room. I opened the door, and it was quiet.

Only not like the quiet that there was outside. Because I could still hear Olivia's giggles, and the quiet hum of the television. It was quiet, but not silent. There wasn't a feeling of loneliness. My family was there, and I knew that they wouldn’t be gone. One moment she was there, and the next she was gone. I sighed, getting some water to water my house plant.

It's name was Snefjord, and I liked it.

It was a bit odd, my obsession with my plant, but it didn't argue with me, it listened. Even though it could hear anything because, it was a plant. That was nice, however, because it couldn't judge me if it couldn't hear me.

I sighed, opening my window and breathing in the fresh air. My hands ran against the screen, and I popped it out of place, leaning it against the wall. I pushed myself on top of the frame, my feet resting on the roof underneath me. The leaves fluttered around me, their colors bright. The air smelled fresh. I remember breathing it in, smelling it. Wishing that I could be as free as the birds flying above me in the sky.

I laid my hands along the frame in an attempt to steady myself. They were so dry that often times they ended up looking purple. They were rough and calloused from my years playing strings. Mainly violin, but also guitar, ukulele, and bass. I moved out of the window, discreetly popping the screen back in place and pulling down the window pane. I walked down the stairs, jumping ever so slightly.

When I got downstairs, my mother was cooking spaghetti, and my sister was sitting down watching television. We almost never were able to calm Olivia, seeing her like this was pretty rare. I sat down next to her, running my hands through my curly hair. I tried my best to pay attention to whatever she was watching, but my mind was buzzing, filled with ideas. Ideas that said maybe I could change it all, even though I was sure that I couldn’t. Natalie was right, there was no going back.

I focused that on the television. She was watching a show on the Disney channel, one that I didn't recognize. It seemed really stereotypical, but it made her giggled, and I liked hearing her like that. Happy. Before I knew it, we had to go and eat.

My dad wasn't there. I wasn't sure where he was at that moment, but I never really knew. He was flake-y, and ghosted a lot. Too much.

I sat down at our small table with Olivia and my mom, twirling the pasta around my fork, attempting to avoid eating it. I didn't want to eat, not anything that heavy. I thought that I was going to gain weight, and then I would be even less popular than I already was, assuming that was even possible. Which I highly doubted. I smiled at Olivia, before trying to break the silence and make some friendly conversation.

"So, everybody." My fork clanged against my bowl. "Do we have anything coming up this week? Anything at school, Olivia?"

"I dunno." she shrugged, slurping her spaghetti. "Nothing out of the ordinary, I guess."

That didn't work so well, the whole breaking the silence thing. We went back to eating, nobody saying anything.

This was one of the bad kinds of quiet, one with something looming over it, whatever that may be. I considered try to talk again, but gave up on the idea. That wasn't going anywhere. All there was was the sound of silverware hitting our bowls. For the longest time, I associated that sound with home.

"So, Alton." My mother hummed. "How are you.. holding up?"

"Fine." I shrugged. "It could be better, but it certainly has been worse. It could always be worse, right."

"I suppose so." She sighed.

Olivia frowned. "What?"

"Nothing, Livi. Don't worry about it, we'll tell you when you get older."

She sighed. I wanted to tell her. I tried my best to avoid speaking about it more than necessary, as did the test of my friends. My mom knew that it was a sensitive topic for me, and didn't push anymore.

That was one think that I could manage to be happy about. That for once there was something that my mom would leave me alone about.

"Anyway," my mom changed the subject. "There's a new family moving in next door. They have kids too, won't it be nice to get some neighbors? There aren't any other kids here."

"Sure." I shrugged. "Yeah, that's good." We didn't have any other kids in the neighborhood, unless you counted the ones that only came down for summer vacation and occasionally on weekends.

"When are they moving in?" Olivia smiled.

"I think they're supposed to move in tomorrow, but I'm not sure." She stood up, and started rinsing out her bowl. I sighed, and followed after her to do the same. I watched the red sauce swirl down the drain.

It looked a little like blood, and I sort of wished that it was.

When I finished, I went upstairs and crawled out of my window again. I had learned how far I could sit out without risking falling out. I picked up a book and started reading.

It was just a distraction, from everything that was going on. I lost track of time, immersing myself in it, leaving everything behind. It had become one of my escapes.

I shut my book and climbed out of the window, checking the time. It was late enough, I didn't see a reason to stay awake.

I slipped my pants off, running my thumb over the scars and more recent cuts that covered my leg. I shut of my lights and crawled into bed.

I was still awake. The world was still there. I wanted to be asleep. I wanted it, sleep. It was like death, only you could snap out of it at any point, there wasn't any fear of regret, like there was with death.

11:30

12:45

1:15

I swung my legs to the side, and began rummaging through the drawer set next to my bed. I finally found a notebook and pen, and I started writing.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

I can hear the clock ticking in the corner of my room.

It leans over me, telling me that it's always there. That it doesn't matter if I go now or later because I always will go. That time will always be there, even when I'm not.

I sighed, listening to my pen scratch against the paper.

But, so it has to be. Doesn't it? So I'm haunted, that's okay. It pushes me. It's here, and I want to be away.

But hey, why kill myself when I could just kill everybody else?

Be all alone, even though I'm not sure what kind of quiet it would constantly be.

See, there are two kinds of quiet. There's the good kind, the kind that lets you think, and know that you're not alone.

And then there's the bad kind. It's an awkward quiet, and there's always a reason for it. It's not natural, it only comes when people are hiding something. And too often, that one too means that you're not alone. That your thoughts aren't really yours.

But if everybody else were gone, I would be alone, and there would be a new kind of quiet.

The quiet where all you can hear is the sound of your demons, screaming.

I looked at the calligraphy, impressed with myself. It was far from good, but it felt nice to put it on paper. I did wonder that a lot, what the world would be like if I could just make everybody else go away, disappear.

Die.

What if they all died? But, the weirdest part is that I would go with them, because I was just like the rest of them. I couldn't complain about "society", because I was a part of it, I was the epitome of the way that the rest of them were.

A little judge-y, and scared of all the rest. I thought I was different, but I wasn't. I was like the rest of them, and I was even more like them because I thought I wasn't.

I put the paper away, and laid back down.

God.

Why? I wanted to sleep. For a long time. But I couldn't.

I did eventually. It took a while, though. A long time, just sitting there and listening to the clock tick and tock. It never shut up, similarly to my thoughts. It was always going, and the only way to make it quiet was to take out the batteries.

Quiet. There it was again.

The stars were above, but I couldn't see them.

There were so many things that I couldn't see.