I don't talk much about the Dark Ages. All I'm ever going to tell you guys about the Dark Ages is that I was young, stupid, and wrote a bunch of cringey fanfiction that I never even completed. And also I made a friend.

She called herself Acorn Tree. I once asked her, why Acorn Tree? She told me that her family had an inside joke involving some story about an acorn falling off a tree and hitting her head. She thought it was the funniest thing. I didn't get it.

I forget how we even met in the first plait's been so long, but I can remember how warm and kind she always was to me. She was my mentor first, teaching me the rules of internet etiquette and how to realize what was and what wasn't a stupid decision, and then that relationship slowly developed into friendship. I remember getting excited for my parents to grant me a little time on their laptops so that I could check to see if I had any messages from her.

She never lost her temper with me, and she always had something positive to say, even when critiquing some writing of mine that I ran by her. She would randomly send me funny jokes that she had heard throughout her name, and she would give me sound advice whenever I confined in her about some real life issue I was facing.

She really was an important person to me. But then one day, she just... disappeared. Her account had mysteriously been deleted by the website that we were on. That was my only way to communicate with her. Gone. I remember waiting for the longest time for her to pop up again, with a new account to replace her old one and an explanation over what happened, but she never did.

It's been a long time since the Dark Ages, since I spent hours a day messaging Acorn Tree back and forth. It's been a while since I've thought about her. Looking back, she really helped me grow as a writer and as a person. I wonder what she's up to these days. I wonder what she would think of me now.