A boy that never was

For a glimmer of a second Brian seemed to be suspended in the air, sort of like a cartoon character. But then, gravity remembered about its existence, and he fell down with a short shrill scream and a loud thud.

Shocked, I slowly walked over and looked down. All I could see was a distorted body lying in a pool of blood.

Now that I think of it, it was way too much blood for such a fall. As a child, I didn't pay so much attention to these details. I just felt sick. Luckily, I didn't manage to have any breakfast that morning, so instead of vomiting I just dry-heaved for a couple of minutes.

Then I rushed downstairs, shouting as loudly as I could. Silly me, I hoped that Brian might still be saved, if he was taken to the hospital on time.

As usual, nobody reacted to my calls - not a single soul appeared in the corridor. I rushed to the classroom and dragged Mrs.Greene out, explaining the situation as well as I could under the circumstances. My teacher seemed dazed at first, but then her eyes finally focused, and she looked at me with a frown.

"Why were you and Brian on the roof?" She asked strictly. "It is clearly forbidden for the students to go up. How did you even get there?"

Instead of explaining, I just led her towards the ladder. She reached the top and tried to open the latch: "As I expected, it's locked. Only the janitor has the keys. Did he let you in this morning? This is really unacceptable…"

Stunned, I shook my head. I've never had to ask anybody for the keys. I didn't know that the latch could even be locked. Thinking of Brian, who was still bleeding out on the ground, I didn't have time to wonder what happened with the lock, so I just dashed to the exit. Thankfully, Mrs.Greene followed me.

We went around the school building towards the spot where Brian had 'landed'.

But…unexpectedly, Brian was gone. Not just him. All the blood had also miraculously disappeared. It was as if nothing had even happened. I wondered if Brian somehow managed to call for help and had already been taken away by an ambulance.

"Why are we here?" Mrs.Greene suddenly asked.

"Brian… he was… just here. Maybe, somebody found him and took him to the hospital!"

"Who…?" Mrs.Greene looked at me. "Who is Brian?"

"The new student," I responded, confused. Could it be that Brian got infected by my affliction of slipping people's minds?

"What are you talking about? We didn't have any new students this year." Mrs.Greene sounded slightly angry.

"But…but…"

I really had no way to explain myself. I've been in similar situations before - like when a cat appeared in our house out of thin air. Or when my basketball teacher of over a year said that he had never seen me in his life. My explanations were always useless in such cases. Besides, as a child, I myself didn't quite understand what was going on.

"You should go back to class," Mrs.Greene interrupted my unintelligible mumbling.

I did as I was told, thinking of a way to find out what actually happened to Brian. The fact that he wasn't lying on the cold pavement in a pool of blood anymore made me feel somewhat relieved. In my mind, it meant he wasn't dead. I just needed to figure out his whereabouts. As was often the case, the teacher was no help, so after class, I approached those classmates I've seen interact with Brian before.

Funnily enough, not only did they have trouble recognizing me, they also had no idea who Brian was.

"Maybe you're in the wrong classroom?" One girl asked me, as if we hadn't been classmates for the last three years. I couldn't help rolling my eyes. It wasn't her fault, of course, but come on.

Next, I decided to look through the class register on Mrs.Greene's desk. I hoped that it would contain some information about Brian, like a phone number or even an address. Alas, there was no mention of Brian in the register at all.

It seemed like he had just been wiped out of existence.

For the first time in my life, I doubted my own sanity. Could I just have imagined the entire thing? Maybe it was all a weird dream? But in that case, my whole life up to that point was some kind of a weird dream.

I was at a loss as to what else I could do. As a twelve-year-old whose parents and teachers barely noticed his existence, my actions were limited to hiding out in one of my secret nooks and crying. On that day, my tears flowed for the only friend I had ever made, and who was heartlessly erased by the universe. Some part of me at the time wondered if what happened to Brian was my fault. Could my condition actually become contagious, if people talked to me long enough? Maybe if Brian had acted just like everybody else around me, he would still be here?

The following day, a flicker of hope ignited within me, hoping that Brian's parents would arrive at school and cause a scene. Yet... no one came to inquire about him. Not even the day after that. Nor the one that followed... or the next one after that.

It made me wonder, whether my own parents would even notice my absence if I were to fall from the roof and vanish. Instinctively, even as a naive pre-teen, I knew the answer.

At the end of winter, we welcomed another transfer student, Diana, a girl with a face adorned in freckles and short hair that seemed slightly disheveled. This time, I chose to remain silent and refrained from mentioning the empty seat right beside me. What was the point anyway?

Ever since Brian's disappearance, I found myself spending most of my classes lost in a daze, gazing out the window. Mrs. Greene never bothered to call on me, and I could always rely on her to exclude me from group projects and class assignments. In the past, I had made an effort to involve myself as much as possible. However, after everything that had happened, it no longer seemed to hold any significance to me.

As I slowly nibbled on my lunch after the third period, a crisp voice suddenly interrupted my disjointed thoughts.

"Hi, I'm the new girl. Could you show me around the school?"

I didn't even bother to turn around - there was no way she could be talking to me. But a few moments later, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder.

I looked at her with disbelief and blurted out, "Are you talking to me?"

I must have appeared utterly foolish with my mouth hanging open and my eyes widened like saucers. The girl chuckled.

"Is there anyone else here? I'm Diana. What's your name?"

"Um... Colin," I stammered, feeling so astounded that my brain seemed both muddled and empty at the same time.

"So, could you show me around, Colin?"

I nodded and guided her to all the usual spots - the cafeteria, lockers, the gym, and what they called the "recess room." The room was mostly filled with old junk and seemed to serve no purpose for recess, at least not in my recollection.

"It's stuffy in here," I said awkwardly.

"True," Diana easily agreed.

There was something about her that evoked memories of Brian, although I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was at that moment. While I didn't feel the same intense connection when I looked at her, she did possess a similar distinctiveness that Brian had.

"Well, that concludes our tour," I said, holding the door open for her like a true gentleman.

However, she appeared upset and even a bit impatient.

"Is that all?" she asked.

"It's a small school. We're not very fancy around here," I replied.

"I mean... isn't there a place that only you know about?" she pressed further.

Instantly, thoughts of my secret spots throughout the school flooded my mind. One of them being the damned roof. Since Brian's incident, I had avoided going up there and had no desire to ever return to that place again.

I also had no desire to show my secret nooks to this new girl. Ironically, if someone had initiated a conversation with me just a few months ago, I would have been overjoyed. However, at that moment, all I felt was weariness, and all I wanted was to be left alone.

I gave a nonchalant shrug in response.

"The class is about to start."

"Fine," Diana rolled her eyes and followed me to the classroom.

The next day, things took an even more curious turn. When I arrived at school, I saw Diana's bag on the seat next to mine. She proceeded to hang around me throughout the whole day. After classes were over, she even followed me all the way to the bus stop.

"Are you going home already?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Don't you want to hang around school for a bit?" Diana asked, giving me a peculiar smile. I couldn't quite put my finger on what was off about that smile but something was definitely off. In that brief moment, I wished I could ask Brian what he would make of it.

"My mother will worry, if I'm late," I lied.

"Will she now?" the girl asked innocently, but for some reason, her question struck me as malicious.

I shrugged and was about to squeeze myself into the crowded bus when Diana suddenly took hold of my hand and pulled me away.

"Come on, I want to see the roof," she urged.

"You… what?" I finally snapped back to my senses.

"The roof. Let's go up there." Diana said, her tone more resolute than excited.

"You can go up there, if you want," I said. "But I need to go home." For some reason, my hands started shaking, and I could almost feel my heart jumping up and down in my chest.

"You have to come with me. I can't go alone," Diana narrowed her eyes.

Eerily enough, these were exactly Brian's last words to me. Therefore a nonsensical thought crossed my exhausted mind.

"Are you… do you know Brian?" I asked and immediately regretted it. It didn't make any sense. Why would there be any connection between those two?

As expected, Diana shook her head, "Who's Brian?"

"Nobody," I said and then quietly added. "He doesn't exist."

"Well then, will you take me to the roof?" the girl kept pushing.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why do you even want to go there?"

"That's… the right path, isn't it?" Diana asked me with a trace of doubt. "There is no other way, as far as I can tell."

I had no idea what she meant and at that point I didn't care to ask. This particular conversation was freaking me out, and, believe me, I was no stranger to weird conversations.

"Students are not allowed to go up." I blurted out, and without looking back, began sprinting away as fast as my legs could carry me.

I didn't even know where I was running to and couldn't quite tell why I was running at all. It's not like Diana was strong enough to drag me to that roof against my will. Not sure how much time had passed, before I finally stopped in the middle of nowhere.

It took me ages to get home from the abandoned industrial part of town I ended up in.

My father had already come back from work. As usual, he barely acknowledged my presence during dinner. Normally, I would go out of my way to ask my parents to pass me butter or salt, so they would be forced to look at me. Some nights I would even try to tell them things that happened in school, but that strategy usually backfired - they either started talking to each other, while I was still in the middle of my story, or something else would happen that would interrupt me. The doorbell would ring, or the phone… Or the TV would just randomly switch itself on. Maybe it was for the best - my school stories were not very exciting, since nothing ever happened to me anyway.

That night I just stayed quiet and tried to finish my food as soon as possible, so I could retreat to the safety of my room.

Diana continued to pester me about the roof for what felt like a really long time. I tried to ignore her as well as I could. It seemed a bit funny to think that it was me who was usually on the receiving end of this kind of treatment.

At one point, she suddenly changed her approach and instead of just begging me, she asked me point blank, if there was something I wanted in exchange for taking her to the roof.

There were many things I wanted, but she couldn't give me any of them, so for the millionth time I told her to just forget it.

"But there is no other path. I've tried everything," she muttered. I pretended not to hear her incoherent ramblings.

The next day, she finally left me alone, and I saw her hanging out with other classmates. Maybe things were finally going back to normal.

One rainy afternoon, while passing through the school gates, I noticed her and a couple of other girls throwing snowballs at each other in the yard. They seemed to be having a lot of fun. I felt a slight pang of regret - did I drive a possible friend away because of some vague suspicions and weird thoughts? I was certainly not someone who could afford driving friends away. I sighed, shook my head and was about to head to the classroom, when I suddenly heard a loud scream.

I turned around and saw the girls who were just happily playing in the yard standing in a half-circle next to the wall, looking terrified. I slowly approached them and pushed through to the front. Since the girls barely noticed me, it was easy.

What I saw almost made me scream in terror.

It was Diana lying in the snow, her belly pierced through by a rusty pipe.