I wonder what my brother thought when he heard about me. I wonder what my real mother thought. Probably nothing. I mean, they most likely felt bad, called to see if there was something they could do, whatever—but I'm sure they went on ahead to Germany as planned. You know, because why change their lives just because I'd fallen off the face of the Earth? The world doesn't even miss me. Maybe for one second, things felt out-of-place, but then time passed, and my disappearance is now just a little blip in people's lives that one day they'll tell their grandkids in order to scare them or something. You know, they'll say, "I remember this one kid that just up and vanished into thin air. Never did find out what happened to him. So don't you go wandering out alone at night, because who knows what kinds of things could get you."

And I wouldn't blame them for using me that way. I was used lots of other ways, so why not for one more? Maybe it would be good for kids to be scared of the kinds of things that could get them out there alone at night; one of them got me. Because I think I turned into something else when I was in the woods, waiting for them. Some strange version of myself that did things differently than the me who sat around at school in broad daylight. I don't really know what came over me, except that it was a build-up of everything else. All I do know for sure is that now, I'm paying for it.