TWENTY

Hello World.

I’m fine.  I got out of the apartment with a backpack full of essentials before the cops arrived to search the place.  I watched carefully from across the street as they rushed in and banged down the door.  They searched everywhere for me and for Riley but the only living thing they found in there was Dexter, who I was struggling with the decision on whether or not I should take him with me.  Before I left with Justine and my things however I decided that it would be best if he were left there for the police to find and give to my parents to take care of.  Dexter was more of a typical ferret than Justine.  Justine and I have this weird connection and that’s why she never leaves my side no matter what.
I didn’t stay long enough for them to come back out of the building.  I couldn’t risk any of them spotting me and giving chase.  I had more important things to do than sit around in some random psych ward for who knows how long.  I got up from where I was sitting and headed down the street.  I guessed the first place I could look for Riley would be at work.  Maybe someone had seen him in the time I was gone, maybe he was looking for me as well and asked some of his colleagues if they had seen me.  I arrived at the building after walking for 30 minutes and before entering I waited across the street and looked for anything that might be suspicious.  I was mostly just checking to make sure there weren’t any cops around.  After I was satisfied that the building was okay, I walked in the front door and headed to the department where Riley worked.  I saw a few familiar faces right off the bat and they recognized me as well.  I guess nobody knew that Riley was even supposedly ‘missing’ which reassured me that they wouldn’t think I had been ‘missing’ either.  I asked a few of Riley’s work friends if they had seen him at all in the past two weeks and they all told me that Riley had been coming to work up until the 30th of September.  I found this strange.  So I had been missing until the 2nd, but Riley had been here all along?  Nothing was making sense anymore.  I thought that Riley was the one missing.  I thanked Riley’s friends for the information and walked out of the building.  Maybe mom had thought we were both missing because Riley had been too afraid to tell her anything had happened.  The other question that popped into my mind was where was he now?  As far as I know, no one has seen him since he stopped coming to work.  Was he looking for me?  Why did he wait so long to start looking for me if that’s the case?  So many questions flooded my mind and I was so distracted I bumped into a woman who was getting up from her seat in front of Starbucks.  She cursed at me and told me to watch where I was going before storming away in her bright red pumps.  I stared after her intently until the people around me began to stare so I kept walking.  Justine, who had been asleep in my hood the entire time, had woken up because of the commotion with the woman and started to sniff my ear.  A few people who noticed stared at her and me and after a short while I started to notice that one or two of the people were pulling out their phones and they completely turned their direction around to follow me.  I tried not to make it obvious that I could see them so they wouldn’t back off.  I wanted to hear what they were saying on their phones.  We were forced to stop at a crosswalk and the two people stood a little closer to me.  One was a man and one was a woman, they turned to each other and were pointing at me and I heard one of them say, “That’s Riley’s sister, the police are looking for both of them right?”
That was enough for me to hear and instead of continuing on the crosswalk I broke through the crowd of people gathered there and booked it down the sidewalk to my left.  The man and woman instantly freaked out and started shouting at people to move out of the way.  I could tell the woman wasn’t still running after me because she had been dressed in a well fit knee length skirt and some heels.  There was no way she was going to be able to follow me.  The man however had managed to break through the crowd and was now only a few feet behind me.  I kept darting through the people on the sidewalks and knew that I had to lose this guy fast if I didn’t want the police to show up.  I made it to the edge of the city and into a neighborhood and took off into one of the yards, jumping the fence that surrounded the backyard and darted across that as well.  The man, being in a business suit and spotlessly shined shoes slowed down and tried to find another way around to where I was.  I kept going and eventually slowed down to a stop so I could breathe.  I looked all around me and didn’t see the man anywhere.  I sat down under one of the many tall trees that lined the sidewalks and reached my arm back to my hood to grab Justine.  She sniffed my nose curiously, letting me know she was okay.  I set her down on the ground and she wandered all around the base of the tree.  Just as I managed to get my breathing back to normal a hand reached down and grabbed my jacket sleeve roughly trying to haul me to my feet.  It was the business man who was chasing me.  I struggled against him and right before he dragged me upright I grabbed one of the large rocks next to me and swung it right into the side of his head hard.  He grunted and dropped like a log.  I stared at him for a moment before I noticed the blood trickling down the side of his jawline.  “Shit.” I cursed.  This was going to be a problem.  If he was still alive he would tell the cops that I was the one who hit him and then I’d be in big trouble for assaulting this man.  I had absolutely no emotion towards the possibility that I may have just killed this man, but all I could think about was how big of a problem it was going to be if anyone found out.  I cursed at myself for being this way and leaned down to check and see if he had a pulse.  He did not.  I sat back on the grass and stared at his body.  I hardly noticed Justine crawling from around the base of the tree onto his arm and then his chest to look at me as if to say, “Wow bitch, you fucked up.”  Justine then suddenly scurried over to me and buried herself into my lap.  I looked up and was startled to see the tall man standing across the street.  I stared at him for a moment before I looked around myself to see if there was anyone else around.  When I looked back he was closer, so close that I actually jumped back and screamed.  These large black arms that looked more like an octopus’ tentacles were flailing around, coming out of the tall man and a few of them reached out as if to grab me so I instinctively put up my arm to shield myself.  Then just like that he was gone….and so was the man’s corpse. 

I don’t remember much of what I did after that.  I’m sitting in a small coffee shop, I won’t say where just in case the police come looking for me, and I’m currently trying to figure out where I could continue to look for Riley but so far I’ve got nothing.  Nobody else has seen him other than his co-workers and they have only ever seen him at work.  

I will definitely let you all know if I find anything, or if something else happens.

~Willow

NINETEEN

Hello World.

I apologize for my absence…I wasn’t expecting to take this long to write to you but a lot of shit has gone down since I last wrote to you.  The day Riley let me stay home ‘sick’ I simply bummed around the apartment.  I studied the driver’s ed books that Riley picked up for me a while back to study so I could go get my license to drive sometime soon.  Justine ran around the apartment for an hour or so before she took a huge nap on my lap while I was reading the books and watching cartoons.  Riley came home right on time and I smiled a hello at him from the couch.  He returned the smile and asked me how my day was.  He seemed to be acting pretty normal and like his old self until I asked him what he wanted to talk to me about.  His body tensed and he licked his lips nervously before sitting down next to me on the couch.  He wouldn’t look at me at first but when he was ready to talk, he made eye contact with me.  I have NEVER liked making eye contact with anyone ever for any reason.  I don’t know why, it just….makes me extremely uncomfortable.  Anyway, he made eye contact with me and at first I wanted to look away, naturally, but I didn’t because Riley is the only one on earth whom I can hold eye contact with for more than half a second. 
“Willow I want you to know that I believe everything you’ve told me about this…’tall man’, I do.”
I breathed a sigh of relief then.  I was so afraid that he was going to tell me that he was going to admit me to a hospital or something.
“I believe you because I’ve seen him too, a very long time ago when you and I were little.  Remember the time you pulled a knife on mom?  Well, before I grabbed you I saw the tall man in the hallway outside of mom and dad’s room.”
I stared at him for a moment in shock.  I thought I was the only one who could see this man.  I was under the impression that there was a good chance he really was part of my imagination.
“I want to help you because you’re my sister, but we shouldn’t talk about him.  Ever.  The more you talk or think about him the more he appears.  For weeks after I saw him all those years ago I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I started to see him on my way home from school.  Seeing him again only made me think about him more and the more I thought about him the closer he would come.  I forced him out of my mind and eventually he went away.  You didn’t try to hurt anyone after he went away, but…I saw him the day you pinned me in the kitchen.  I saw him on my way to work that day.  At first I thought I was seeing things but I saw him again on my way home.  I couldn’t mistake him twice…and then you told me everything yesterday and I couldn’t believe that this was happening again.”
He stopped talking for a moment, his voice had started to quiver and he was shaking lightly.  I put my hand on his shoulder and he seemed to calm down a little bit.
“You weren’t always the person you think you are Willow…”
I was about to ask him what he meant by that when his eyes widened and he was looking at something behind me.  I turned and saw him immediately.  Standing right behind me reaching out an abnormally long arm to grab me.  I couldn’t even scream but….I’d be lying if I said I even felt the need to scream.  I didn’t feel like I was in danger but I did feel danger for Riley. I turned back to Riley and then all of a sudden he was gone.  He just disappeared right before me.  I turned back around and the tall man wasn’t there anymore.  I sat on the couch wondering what the fuck had just happened before I noticed Justine running out of the kitchen towards me.  She climbed up my leg and right into my lap sniffing my fingers and licking them.  I got up, grabbed her and put her into the hood of the jacket I was wearing and I raced into the hallway towards Riley’s bedroom.  Before I could even open the door my phone started to ring.  I looked at the caller ID and it was mom.  I answered the call and found myself being screamed at by my extremely worried mother.  She kept asking me where I have been and if I know where Riley is.  I told her that I’ve been at the apartment and that I didn’t know where Riley was.  She called me a liar and kept telling me that it’s impossible that I’ve been at the apartment for the past two weeks.  She told me that she had come to the apartment several times to check on us when we didn’t call and said that neither of us where anywhere to be found in that time.  I was so very confused at this point and told her it was still only the 17th.  She was quiet for a moment before telling me that it was actually October the 2nd.  She asked me again, very nervously this time, where Riley was and I had to tell her again that I had no idea.  After I answered her she just hung up the phone and I got a little scared.  Knowing my mother she might actually call the police on me.  She thinks that I know where Riley is and I have a history of hostility towards people….I bet you more than anything she thinks that I’ve hurt him or even killed him. 

I can’t talk anymore, I don’t want to wait around here for the police who may or may not show up and I have to find Riley.  I have no idea where to start looking but I have to try to find him before all of this gets worse than it already is. 

I really hope that he’s okay...I'm really afraid at this point, nothing is making sense anymore...

~Willow