Hey, Im not normally one to go to strangers for help and Im even less likely to believe in anything paranormal but that has been tested recently and I don’t know who to go to, so here I am. At first I thought I was going crazy but I swear this feels all too real for it to just be in my head and maybe someone on here will believe me and can help me out. About two weeks ago my best friend and I were eating lunch together in the cafeteria as we always have.
We’ve known eachother since 5th grade and have been practically attached at the hip since. It’s always just been my mom and I and making friends had been consistently hard for me. I love Ma to bits but it got lonely as a kid so when I met Calum everything got better. He’d sleepover, spend summers with us and both my mom and I grew to love his family like an extension of our own.
Calum and I walked up to our usual table, sneakers squeaking on the floor and fluorescent lights beaming down on us, exactly the same as it’d been for our entire time is high school. We set our trays down, doing our typical small talk but as lunch went on noise continuing on around us I realized that Calum himself was being much more silent than normal. He wasn’t talking much or doing anything at all really save for staring off into space, vaguely in the direction of a far off wall with various posters promoting school events and fundraisers. I studied him a bit more to see that his face was not only void of its usual expressions but also of most of its color.
“Cal” I had to repeat myself a few times before his head shot up as if he’d just woken up from sleeping and stared at me with bloodshot eyes
“Huh- yea bro whats up?” He rubbed his eyes and tilted his head a bit to the side.
“You’re looking a little rough, mate you alright there?” His expression didn’t change he just simply shook his head
“Im fine man, just- calc test”
“Already!?”
“Yea” he chuckled dryly. I know it’ll sound like me just reading into things but Calum is usually so lively. He’s hardly ever quiet and whenever he laughs its always in this weird and loud way and when he laughed then it was nothing like it. I asked him a few more times and rather than getting annoyed or mad he just seemed to get more and more tired each time I asked. Eventually he stood up, face still void of anything other than exhaustion, tossed his bag over his shoulder, grabbed the lunch tray of food he’d barely touched and turned around to go quickly looking over his shoulder before leaving.
“I’m gonna head to my next class early, gotta go over some notes.” He waved his hand briefly and walked away. I sighed.
“Mettle after school at our normal spot?” I yelled as he was a few tables away now walking towards the exit. Though I’d tried to be as loud as I could I couldn’t seem to get him to hear me as he just continued walking not even slightly turning back. I let out another sigh and continued to eat my own lunch, he’d probably just been having a rough day. It really wasn’t that weird. Though something about the situation felt for I really wasn’t that worried about it. I was sure he’d be better in the next few days and knew I’d be there to help him if he needed it.
I went through the rest of the school day not seeing him, as on A days, which that day had been, we don’t share any classes so I’d kinda forgotten about his mood at lunch until after school. There’s a 7-11 about a block away that we always meet at after school and then start our walk home together. We always get coke slurpees, him getting his with cherry in the middle always saying he liked cherry coke better. I sat outside, the cold drinks in my hands watching cars passed until he showed up. He had club stuff after school some days so he was always a bit later than me to our meet up spot so I’d gotten used to getting both our drinks so we could start our walk as soon as he showed up. The flow of students walking past slowly dwindled and the slurpees melted, now just two cups of syrup. I checked my phone for the time and for a message from him but nothing came up and the minutes just ticked by. Eventually it’d been 40 minutes and I was worried. I called his number, it rang for a bit til his voice talked into my ear.
“ Hey this is Calum! I’m currently not at the phone right now, so just leave a message, I’ll answer when I can!”
The phone beeped and I felt my jaw tighten. I kept telling myself I was probably overthinking this but god something just didn’t feel right.
I walked back to the school looking around in his normal spots, but nothing. I eventually just came to the conclusion that in his haze of tiredness he’d seemed to have at lunch he’d just walked home early and forgotten to tell me. So I headed home myself, I had work to get done anyways.
I did my work, not having much as it was the first week of school and then heated up some ramen to eat as Ma was working night shift and wouldn’t be home til the next morning. I finished my food, sent Calum another message, adding onto the already existing pile from me worrying about his ditching me and went to bed myself, all the anxiety over it was making me exhausted.
I woke up the next morning, no new messages, but I’d see him in less than an hour so it’d be fine. I slipped on clothes, grabbed some toast and went to head out, seeing my mother pulling into the driveway just as I began walking out.
“Hey sweetie! Heading to school?” She smiled and reached out for a hug.
“Yea, Ima little late though, couldn’t sleep too well” I talked into her shoulder.
“You okay honey?” She separated from me a bit to look at me and tilted her head.
“Im good, just a little worried about Calum is all” I sighed “He was acting weird and then completely stood me up after school, I just hope hes okay” She tilted her head even more concerned. I expected her to be worried, to comfort me, but what came out of her mouth next just made my stomach drop.
“Is Calum a new friend of yours? I haven’t heard you mention him before” I laughed.
“Very funny Ma, like you don’t know Calum” She squinted.
“I’d love to meet him, Im glad youre making friends but, I really don’t remember ever hearing about him” I stopped smiling, I know my mother and it didn’t seem at all likes she was joking.
“Mom he was over for dinner like-“ I let out a deep breath “two days ago”
“I think I would’ve remembered that, bud, but if you’d like to have him over thats alright, were having gnocchi tonight if you’d like to ask him to join us” I stated to feel my eyes tear up but no, she was just having a weird memory lapse or something, shed just worked a 12 hour shift.
“Mom are you sure you’re not teasing me.” My voice cracked a fair bit asI asked her this.
“Why would I be sweetie.” She looked concerned. I shook my head a bit and adjusted my posture.
“I- I have to go to school, love you Ma, I hope you sleep alright.” I leaned back in and gave her a hug and she squeezed me talking into my ear.
“If you say he exists I believe you, I’m probably just being forgetful.” She laughed softly “You know me. I’ll see you after school sweetie, take care” She smiled at me and watched as I slowly walked away from the house, trying to hide that fact that it was getting very hard to simply stay standing. Mom had known Calum as long as I had, she loved him like a son. Why did she not know who he was, this couldn’t be right. I knew she wasn’t lying to me but at the same time how did she not know him???
The rest of my day was just as horrifying if not more than that conversation. Calum was nowhere to be seen, none of our usual spots. I asked teachers about him, they had no clue what’s I was talking about and just asked what I was going on about. I was told there was no Calum attending the school. I looked in all the old state champ pictures for the soccer team, I knew he’d been in those, I was not wrong I couldn’t be. But as I searched the sea of soccer boys I could not found the face of the person I found the most comfort in, the puzzle piece to my world that Calum is was gone. I will spare you the details as most of its just depressing and hard for me to even think about. More people not knowing who he is, more being told theres no student with that name. I couldn’t focus on anything other than this. I wanted to find him i had to.
But I didn’t. Again I do not want to dwell on details that don’t matter, this is all still so fresh in my brain and talking over everything is just salt in the wound but about a week and a half went on of me asking about Calum and everyone around me only answering saying they’d never met him. I started falling deeper and deeper into the state I currently am in, I don’t go out other than school and all I do in school and at home is research and questioning trying to make sense of something. At first I thought maybe I was losing it. Maybe he didn’t exist. I’d made him up of severe want for friends but all my memories of him were so vivid.
I told mom again and described everything, telling her that maybe something was wrong and asked if I could start going to a psychiatrist. She agreed and I started going, trying hard to accept that maybe this was all truly in my head.
But one night all those thoughts of faking left, and I knew that the boy I called my best friend had not just been made up by me.
One night mom was off, I walked into her watching something on TV drinking her tea that she usually drank before bed. The news was on which she didn’t typically watch so I asked her what was happening and if something was wrong.
“There was a murder recently, but theres almost no evidence as to who did it or even who the body is.” I raised my eyebrows and sat down next to her, watching the TV with her as the solemn news aired.
A body had been found in the river in our town by a few people who had gone tubing and ran into it toward the end of their venture. Thy couldn’t identify the body and not even DNA work was helping, but the body really wasn’t even that deformed. They droned on about various details and getting bored I started to get up but something made me freeze as I went to leave the room. They cut to pictures of the body, hoping maybe someone would be able to identify the poor deceased individual. But as I saw this, my stomach sank. I hadn’t been wrong. He wasn’t fake. As I stared into the TV, I stared into the lifeless face of my best friend, the by who’d gone missing nearly two weeks ago.