Missing

I run through the woods, my heart pounding in my ears, the ground beneath me crunching with every step. I look behind me, wanting to see what I’m running from at the same time as not wanting to see anything at all. Then, I lose my footing and I’m plummeting down a riverbank. And then everything goes dark.
I’ve had this dream for as long as I can remember. I wake up screaming and my dad has to rush in and hold me until I stop. “It’s just a dream” he always tells me and then he would sit beside me until I fell asleep.

It was my first day at a new secondary school. I was so nervous I wouldn’t eat my breakfast. I picked crumbs of toast up in my fingers and then crumbled them back onto the plate.
“Don’t play with your food please, Bella.” My mum called from over by the sink. I threw the rest of it on the floor while she wasn’t looking for the dog to eat.
I arrived to a sea of navy and grey, girls huddled by the gates and boys kicking footballs at the wall. Not only was this a new school but it was a new area. We’d moved here at the beginning of the summer holidays and I hadn’t had time to go out and try to make friends before the new term started. Mind you, I think it was more a case of I didn’t want to go out and find friends. We were always moving so I didn't see much point. Plus I was quite happy sitting in my room watching TV and writing. I wrote poetry; in fact I loved to write about anything. My parents weren’t very creative, my mum was a doctor and my dad was a physics lecturer at the University. They preferred science and maths and I preferred losing myself in a novel.
In my form room, I sat at the back in the hopes that I would direct any attention away from myself. Then a girl came and sat beside me; mousey and petite with a thick fringe and a skirt that was far too big for her.
“Hi, I’m Esther.” She smiled setting down her pencil case on the desk.
“I’m Bella.” I replied, watching her rearrange her books into a line with her case.

“How was your first day at school?” My mum asked when she got in.
“It was… school.”
“So, no good?” She dropped her bag with a heavy clunk and sat beside me on the couch.
“It was ok. There’s a girl who sits next to me in the form room called Esther. She’s nice.”
“It’ll be good for you to make friends Bella.” She kissed my cheek and walked off into the kitchen

The next few weeks were progressively better. Maybe my parents were right after all. Being on my own all the time was ok but I did prefer the company of someone else. Esther was sweet if not a little odd. She would often talk seemingly to herself and then suddenly stop if she noticed anyone watching her. Then one day, she invited me to her house. It was a small humble place, with a typical suburban feel. Perfectly manicured lawn, estate car parked in the driveway, that sort of thing.
Her mother met us in the hallway. She was also petite and mousey, dressed like a stereotypical housewife. She said hello to me sheepishly before scurrying off into the living room.
“Don’t mind her.” Esther said leading me upstairs. “She is a bit funny about me having friends over.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m not really supposed to say.” She started as we stopped outside a door off the landing. She pulled out a key and unlocked it. Strange that somebody would lock their bedroom door, I thought, but I walked in behind her not saying anything.
Her room was what I had imagined it to be; neutral colours and nothing particularly exciting or interesting about it. There were a couple of posters of pop bands on the walls and a corkboard sat above her mahogany posted bed with various clippings and pictures pinned to it. I walked over to it, curious, as she set the key down on her dresser. There were a number of newspaper clippings and some photographs of a young girl, barely in her teens. I scanned the black and white print. The same few words continued to jump out at me from each article; missing; worried; appeal. I looked behind me at Esther who was now standing in the middle of her room twirling her hair around her thumb.
“I’m not really supposed to talk about her.” She said, trying to avert her gaze elsewhere.
“Who is she?” I looked back at the photographs. The girl looked a lot like Esther.
“My sister, she was called May. Is called May… Is-” She trailed off.
“She’s missing?”
“She’s been missing for three years. She disappeared one night, disappeared from the house. My mum thinks somebody broke in and took her. I think she ran away. Mum thinks she’s still out there somewhere, too scared to come home in case she gets into trouble. So we have to act like she’s still alive and we keep searching for her. My dad couldn’t take it, my mum is quiet full on about it all, and that’s why he left.” She paused for a breath, looking as if she had been dying to tell me all of this from the first morning I’d met her in the form room.
“Wow…” I didn’t really know what else to say.
She walked over to me and stood looking at the corkboard for a while.
“That’s why I have to lock my door. In case whoever took May comes back for me. That’s what mum says anyway.”
“Oh. I should probably go, my parents will be wondering where I am.” I hurried downstairs with Esther hot on my heels. She called goodbye to me as I rushed down the drive and turned to home. I felt terrible for walking out like that but I didn’t know what else to do, I’d felt too uncomfortable although I couldn’t put my finger on why.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I climbed out of bed and switched on my computer. I typed the name ‘May Harrow’ into the search engine. Immediately it threw up lists of articles and interviews, appeal videos and campaign groups set up to help find her. There were dozens of photographs, I clicked on a few and wondered how on earth someone can just disappear. I watched some of the videos of Esther’s mum, pleading for May to come home, begging people to keep a lookout for her and come forward with any information. At the side of the video was a link to a list of missing children in the last ten years. Surely there couldn’t be that many, kids don’t just vanish. But as I clicked it, hundreds of names began appearing in a never-ending list, each with a small photograph beside it. I found May about quarter of the way down. As the computer light began to make my head hurt, I reached to turn off the monitor. Then I froze. Not too far under May’s name was another name; Julie-Anne Howard, who had been missing for four years. And next to that was a picture that I recognised. As I stared at it, my bedroom door opened.
“I saw your light was on, are you ok? Was it the dream again?” My dad walked in dressed in his plaid pyjamas, rubbing his eyes.
“No, I was just checking something.” I muttered.
“Ok, well, get back to sleep.” He turned and closed the door behind him.
I brought the page back up and tentatively clicked on the name. It took me to a video. Before I could stop myself I pressed play.
A man and woman I thought I vaguely knew sat at a table surrounded by camera flashes. The woman looked drawn and tired; the man had a full moustache and was wearing a teal coloured shirt. I listened as the woman tearfully began to ask people to contact police if they knew where their daughter was while the man kept his hand firmly gripped onto her shoulder. The photograph flashed up a number of times, each time my stomach flipped over. The video played off and I sat in silence staring at the monitor. The missing pieces finally started to come back to me. Suddenly I knew that my dream had never been just a dream at all as I glared straight at the photograph that now took the centre of the screen, it’s eyes staring right back at me.

The missing girl in the picture was me.