I sat down at the desk, and Laura plopped herself down in a chair across from me.

"Here," she said, reaching into her bag and handing me a foil-wrapped lump. I tentatively unwrapped it and discovered a sandwich inside. It looked good — turkey and ham, accompanied by some lettuce and cucumber, with a drizzling of mayonnaise over the top. Simple but tasty. I took a bite and it made me all the more painfully aware that I hadn't eaten properly since yesterday lunchtime.

"This is good," I mumbled with my mouth full. Laura grimaced. I remembered that people talking with their mouth full bugged her, but it was already too late. She smiled and chuckled.

"I figured you could do with something nice," she said. "But I can't afford to buy you lunch every day. So you got this."

"Thanks," I said, making sure to swallow first this time. She took out another foil-wrapped package from her bag and unwrapped it to reveal another identical-looking sandwich. She started eating it, and we both sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the simple but comforting food and each other's company.

"I–" I began, before realising that I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. Unusually for me, I felt like I wanted to actually talk about the things I'd been thinking and feeling, but found myself completely unable to express them. Where to begin? And was it even a good idea to bring it up? It was so much easier to just shoulder it all by myself, but–

"You…?" Laura replied, putting the last of her sandwich in her mouth and looking at me quizzically.

I paused for a moment, then figured I'd test the waters.

"I've… I've not been doing so great recently," I said.

"I know," said Laura gently. "It's okay."

"Well," I said, "I'm not sure it is. I'm kind of worried."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Uh-huh. Is this anything to do with you working yourself to the point of exhaustion and scaring the crap out of me?"

"Partly," I said. I hesitated. Where to go from here? "I've… Well, my mind has been going back to that time, you know?"

"Mm," she said, leaning in a little closer. "Yeah. I'm not surprised. I can't even begin to imagine how much it must hurt."

This was probably the first time we'd actually had a serious conversation about all this. Laura knew how much I hurt, of course, because she'd borne the brunt of my irrational lashing out when I was at my worst. But we'd never really talked about it. It was always just implicit understandings and mutual avoidance of difficult topics. Today felt different, though. I felt like I'd opened the floodgates a little, and just behind them was a torrent of… what? Feelings? Emotions? Memories? Something was waiting to burst out, and I wasn't quite sure I was ready for it.

"It does," I said. "It does hurt. And I thought I was dealing well with it, but now I'm not so sure."

She nodded and waited for me to continue.

"I've… I've been…" I faltered. I wanted to say that I'd been seeing things, that I'd been seeing my sister, but I just couldn't. It just sounded too insane. I still didn't know how she'd react, and I wasn't quite ready to find out.

"You've been what?" she asked. She reached out her hand and took mine. "It's all right."

"I've just been… thinking about her a lot," I said eventually. "My sister. Alice. I miss her."

It wasn't, strictly speaking, a lie. But there was enough padding between it and the actual truth to protect me from coming across as a complete madman. My eyes were stinging a little. I really didn't want to start crying.

"I know you do," she said softly. "And it's okay. It's okay to miss her."

She stood up, walked around the desk and put her arms around my neck and shoulders from behind. I could feel the warmth of her body pressing against mine. It was comforting.

Something burst inside my head and I started to cry; big, gulping, undignified sobs. The emotions I'd been bottling up and keeping to myself were breaking through and crashing through the barriers I'd built up. I couldn't speak. I couldn't explain. I couldn't tell Laura why I was putting on such an undignified display in front of her, but she didn't seem to mind. She simply held me more tightly, but that just made me want to cry more.

After several minutes, the outpouring of emotion started to subside a little. Laura passed me a tissue that she'd produced from somewhere, and I wiped my tear-soaked face. She knelt down beside me.

"Did that help?" she asked quietly.

"Uh?" I said dumbly.

"Did that help? Letting all that out? You've clearly been bottling that all up for a while now," she said. "I didn't want to push you too hard because I figured you should probably come to that conclusion yourself. But for what it's worth, I'm sorry you're suffering. I wish I could do more for you."

"Uh-huh," I said, sniffing. I wiped my dripping nose with the now-sodden tissue. Laura passed me another one without a word.

"Are you all right for this afternoon?" she asked. "Or do you want me to take you home?"

I thought about it for a minute, and decided that I really didn't feel up to the afternoon. I didn't want everyone staring at me, even though I had a sneaking suspicion that no-one really gave a shit.

"Home," I said. "Please."

"All right," said Laura. "Let me go sort some things out, then I'll take you home. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Okay," I said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. She smiled at me and walked out the door, closing it behind her. I was left alone in the classroom.

I leaned forward and rested my head on the desk, then closed my eyes for a moment. I took some deep breaths, trying as hard as I could to compose myself.

When I sat back up and opened my eyes again, I was confronted with an unwelcome sight. The lights in the room had gone off, and the muted background sound of students milling around the building at lunchtime had gone. I felt a crawling sensation on my spine as I recognised this strange phenomenon from what had happened before.

"Hello," came an unfamiliar voice from somewhere behind me. "How are you feeling?"

I froze in shock. There was no-one else in this classroom a moment ago. Who was this?

"You know, it's rude to ignore someone when they're talking to you."

I closed my eyes. This wasn't happening. I was not hearing voices. I was not hearing voices. I was not hearing voices.

"Fine," said the voice, which was soft, gentle and oddly soothing despite the shivers it sent down my spine, yet now displaying the slightest hint of irritability. "Have it your way. This isn't over. And eventually you're going to have to face this head-on. But I can see now that you're not ready yet."

I said nothing. I was too afraid. I closed my eyes and screwed up my face. I wanted to cry again, but no tears would come.

I heard the door open. When I opened my eyes, Laura was standing there.

"Come on," she said. "Let's get you home. You look like crap."

It was a light-hearted jibe, but I was pretty sure it was the truth, too. I got to my feet and found that my legs were shaking. My heart was pounding. I was afraid. But Laura was here now. I could always rely on Laura. She'd keep me safe.

*

Laura stayed with me for several hours when I got home. We didn't say anything to one another. I just lay on my bed and she sat on the side holding my hand, occasionally squeezing it a little more strongly to remind me she was still there. Her presence was a comfort. I didn't want her to go away, but I knew she'd have to eventually.

That time came as the light was starting to fade.

"I'd better get home," she said. "I'm sorry. I wish I could stay longer, but my folks will worry otherwise."

"Okay," I whispered, not moving.

"I'll see myself out," she said. "Take care of yourself."

Then she was gone. I heard the front door open, then close again a moment later. I had no idea what time it was. I felt I should probably sleep, but it wasn't happening. I closed my eyes and all I found myself doing was remembering that chilling voice from earlier.

"What the… what happened?" came a voice suddenly. I jumped and my heart began to race as I recognised the voice as Alice's. "Whoa. You're there. Again. This is… wow. This is messed up. I…"

She'd walked into my room. Or appeared from somewhere. I don't know what had happened, but Alice was standing by the side of my bed looking at me with wide eyes. She didn't look scared or tearful this time, just curious. She always was stronger than me.

I couldn't move. This was all too much. I felt the weight on my bed shift as she sat down beside me.

"It's really you, isn't it?" she said. "I don't know how it's happened or why, but I'm glad I got to see you again."

I turned my head to look up at her face. She was smiling slightly.

"I'm glad too," I said quietly.

Her smile broadened a little.

Then, to my surprise, she simply disappeared. The weight on the side of my bed was gone, and that smile was gone too.

I sat up immediately and climbed out of bed.

"Alice?" I called. "Alice! Where are you?"

I got no response. She was gone. Once again, I was alone in an empty house. I was starting to get tired of constantly regaining and losing the things that were important to me. All I wanted more than anything else right now was some stability, but I had a strange feeling that I wouldn't be seeing any of that for quite some time.

I flopped back down onto my bed face-down and closed my eyes.

I just wanted to sleep in peace. I just wanted all this to go away. How could I make it go away?

A dark thought crossed my mind, and not for the first time, but I pushed it back hastily as I always did. There was one way that all this could go away and I wouldn't have to worry any more. But that was no way out. I couldn't do that to the people who cared about me.

"The people who cared about me." That implied there was more than one. But really, there was just Laura. I couldn't bear the thought of making her cry again, though. So I couldn't do… that.

I just wanted peace, though. Simple, pure, peace. Why couldn't I be left in peace? Why couldn't I just get on with my life?

"I can see now that you're not ready yet," the voice had said to me.

Ready for what?

That was the last thought I had before the world faded out and I succumbed once again to deep, exhausted sleep.

I just stood there, holding her against me for several minutes. The only sound was her sobbing. Her head jerked slightly every time she gasped and sobbed, and I could feel her tears wetting my shirt.

I didn't know what to do. Was what she had just said to me true? Was I–

No, I thought. That couldn't possibly be true. Otherwise how could I be here right now?

But then how is she here? She's supposed to be–

I closed my eyes and suddenly fell forward, landing face-first on her bed. Dust went up my nose, but I didn't move. I didn't want to get up and confirm my suspicions about what had just happened. I didn't want to get up and find her gone again. But I knew that when I eventually did, I would be all alone once again, and that the room would be back as it was before; deserted, dark and dusty.

I groaned wearily to myself and pushed myself up off the bed, my eyes still shut. I took a deep breath and held it, then opened them.

Darkness. An empty room, long-abandoned. Just as I thought. She was gone again.

Or was it me who was gone? Her words had cut deep into my soul and filled me with doubt, even though I knew how insane and ridiculous it was to wonder whether or not I was actually alive. I pinched myself and it hurt. I certainly felt like I was alive, and Laura certainly hadn't made any weird comments apart from fussing over me as usual.

I lay down on Alice's now-empty bed and closed my eyes. I was too mentally exhausted to make it back to my room. The world faded out, and I was asleep in minutes.

*

I wasn't sure what time it was when I woke up, but the sun was up; the light was just peeping through the gap in the curtains. I roused myself slowly and groggily — I didn't feel like I'd slept particularly well, but I obviously had, as there was a big gap in my memory after I lay down on the bed.

I stood up and wandered down the hallway to my room. The clock radio indicated that I had about ten minutes before Laura was due to arrive. I considered just lying down and trying to sleep again, but I knew it was futile at this stage. I was up and about, and there was no way my brain was going to calm down enough to let me sleep now. Last night I had passed out from sheer mental and emotional exhaustion; this morning I just felt like a husk. I didn't know what to feel, what was real or what was my addled brain playing tricks on me. It still didn't make any sense.

I walked to the bathroom, turned on the cold tap and splashed some water on my face. It didn't do much to help the way I looked, but it at least made me feel a little more alert. I splashed it again and kept my head in the sink for a moment; temporarily mesmerised by the droplets falling from my cheeks into the bowl. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, turned the tap off and looked up.

I felt a sudden sharp, stabbing sensation of absolute terror. When I looked in the mirror above the sink, there was a figure standing behind me; it was dressed in black, its face, as pale as snow, contrasting sharply with its dark clothes. Its piercing, oddly beautiful eyes were looking straight at me.

I looked away immediately. My heart was suddenly racing, and my stomach felt like it was full of angry bees. I didn't want to look in that mirror again. I couldn't. But I had to know. I had to know if I had just imagined that, or–

Deliberately banishing such thoughts from my mind, I tentatively glanced back into the mirror… and all was normal. There was no sign of the shadowy, pale-faced figure whose eyes had felt like they were burrowing into my soul. It was just me. Now I was the one with the pale face. I looked positively green, in fact.

Suddenly, uncontrollably, I felt the urge to vomit. I doubled over and threw up into the sink. I'd eaten so little that it was mostly just acrid, bitter liquid, and it burned as it came up. The suddenness of the attack left me breathless, panting into the sink. I rested my head on the edge and supported myself with my arm, trying desperately to compose myself.

"You're a fucking state," I whispered to myself. I knew talking to myself was one of probably many signs that I was losing my grip on reality, but right now I didn't care. "Come on. Pull yourself together."

I heard Laura banging on the door downstairs. Should I go–

Yes, I thought, interrupting myself. I should go. Otherwise she'll only worry and fuss. She doesn't need to know about this. I'll just clean myself up and go.

I rinsed out my mouth with water, then mouthwash, and washed my face with cold water once again. It didn't help my pale appearance, but it was better than having flecks of vomit dripping from the corner of my mouth. I sighed as I looked at my reflection, my heart still beating quickly from the fright it had had before, but gradually subsiding as the rational part of my brain kept repeating that it couldn't be real, couldn't be real, couldn't be real…

Laura banged on the door again.

"Coming!" I shouted in a cracked voice, even though I knew she couldn't hear. I picked up my bag from where Laura had left it in my room yesterday and headed downstairs. By the time I opened the door, Laura was already turning to leave.

"Sorry," I said. "Overslept."

"It's okay," she said, smiling at me. "I guess you needed the sleep. You sure you're all right to come today?"

"Yeah," I said. "I feel like I need to get out for a bit."

"Uh-huh," she said. "All right. But don't overdo it. Let me know if you feel like crap and we'll… I don't know. We'll sort something out. If you're sure, let's get moving, otherwise we'll be late."

I tried to display a convincing smile, then gave up, turned around and locked the door behind me. Another day was beginning, and I inwardly hoped that it would be calmer than the previous — although going by what had already happened before I'd even left the house, I wasn't feeling too confident.

We said nothing during the ride to school and walked to our respective classrooms for the first sessions of the day in silence. It wasn't a tense silence — Laura had learned long ago that there were times when it was okay to push me and times when it wasn't, and today was one of the latter times. Instead we sat in a comfortable, familiar silence, not needing to make a sound or fill the space with inane conversation. We sometimes joked that we were like an old married couple whose need to communicate constantly had long since faded away; one of those couples who were happy to just sit there in peace and quiet.

The conversations usually got a little awkward and embarrassed around that point, so one or both of us usually changed the subject.

I'd never quite sorted out my feelings towards Laura. We had been together for a very long time — I couldn't even remember quite how we had first met — but things had never progressed beyond the close friendship we had. I wasn't sure if I wanted them to, and had even less idea if she did. She was a pretty girl, sure — and she'd only improved as she'd gotten older — but I honestly felt a little strange about thinking about her in "that way." She was kind of like–

I dropped my pen and it clattered onto the desk. I tutted to myself.

Yes. She was kind of like my sister. Except not. In many ways she was the opposite of Alice. Alice was always louder, more confident, almost brash at times. She always said what she was thinking — I winced at the memory of her using the "d" word so unashamedly — while Laura was quiet, calm and respectful of my feelings most of the time. The most upset I'd ever seen her was yesterday when I woke up in the nurse's office. I felt bad about getting her into that state, because she was normally so composed, so calm, so cool about everything. I didn't want to make her worry any more, but I was starting to grow afraid that whatever was happening to me was going to affect her too.

I had to solve this problem — whatever it was — by myself, the same as always. I couldn't rely on others. I could be strong — I'd survived this long, after all — so all I had to do was endure it until it passed. Until it passed.

If it passed.

The thought occurred to me that I had no idea what was causing the strange incidents, and thus there was no guarantee that they would ever go away. Rationally, I figured that they were symptoms of the combination of grief, depression, anxiety and exhaustion that I was suffering — there was no other reasonable, practical explanation, after all — but irrationally, I wondered if there was really something strange happening, as impossible as it seemed. Could my sister — could Alice — really be out there somewhere, occasionally visible to me? And if so, what was causing it?

A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered the shadowy figure in the mirror this morning. There really was no explanation for that. Unless, of course, it was just another hallucination. It disappeared after the first time I saw it, after all, though that didn't stop it having a profound physical effect on me.

I'd tuned out completely and had no idea what the teacher was saying any more. I picked up my pen from the desk and started twiddling it absent-mindedly. I became engrossed in the strange optical illusion of the pen appearing to "bend" as I moved it rapidly. I don't know how long I just watched it, but before I knew it everyone around me was getting up and leaving for lunch.

I stood up and followed the other students out of the room. I wanted to get out of there quickly in case the teacher had noticed that I had been spacing out and hadn't written a single thing in my notebook. Fortunately, he said nothing, and I was out into the freedom of the corridors before long. I had automatically set my course for Mr Gladwell's room to meet up with Laura, but she caught up with me before I got there.

"You all right?" she said, linking arms with me. "You look a bit better than you did this morning."

"Yeah," I said, though I wasn't sure how much I meant it. Too many things were still racing around my mind.

We walked together, our arms linked. It was an oddly comforting feeling to be in such close physical contact with Laura. I felt safe, for once; simply touching her made me feel… less alone. I didn't want to let go. But I knew that eventually I'd have to. I had to solve my problems by myself.

For now, though, I decided to enjoy the short-lived feeling while it lasted.

I'd spent so much of the day asleep that despite the unsociable hour, I actually felt surprisingly alert. I sat straight up after seeing the time, and propped myself on the side of the bed. I rubbed my face and yawned, then sighed dejectedly.

Why couldn't I just lead a nor–

No, I thought, interrupting myself. I gave up a "normal" life long ago. It wasn't entirely voluntarily, of course, but there was always the possibility of moving in with some distant far-off relative that I didn't really know. I had put my foot down, though; I had no desire whatsoever to do that. I struggled enough to make friends as it was; uprooting myself from the home I'd known since I'd been born would be too difficult. Enough money had been left for me to continue living here, so that is what I decided to do. It was the most assertive I'd ever been.

The money would run out eventually, of course, but that was a bridge I would cross when I came to it — and it was also the main reason I was still sticking with college and attempting to better myself. I knew that 18-year olds were supposed to prioritise socialising and getting drunk or something — judging from the conversations I often overheard in the common room, anyway — but for me, left all alone, the priority was getting my life in order. Forced to grow up too fast, as people tended to say in this sort of situation.

I sighed again. No, the "normal life" ship had sailed long ago, but that didn't mean that I had to suffer from these constantly-disturbed sleep patterns and… whatever it was that had happened yesterday. I was trying not to think about it too much, but the more I tried to put it out of my mind, the more I remembered. The strange, sudden darkness; the feeling of desertion, of being all alone — what had happened? Had it really happened at all?

And then there was the matter of the night before, too. I still couldn't explain what had gone on there, and I was still uneasy about it. But alongside the uneasiness, a feeling of curiosity was starting to creep in — the same feeling you get when you know that there's a massive spider in a hole in the wall and that it will freak you out when you see it, but you find yourself wanting to peek in anyway.

I had to know. Or I had to try and find out, anyway.

I stood up. I was still wearing my clothes from earlier. Laura and I were close, but she evidently drew the line at undressing me when putting me to bed. I was okay with that. As fond as I was of Laura, I didn't really feel comfortable with the idea of exposing myself to her like that. And she probably didn't either.

I shook my head to eject the stray thoughts and focus on the task at hand. I had to see what was going on. Would it happen again? Or would I have just imagined it all? It could go either way, and there was only one way to find out.

I paused at the door to my room. What would it mean if it did happen again? Would it mean my sister was… alive? And if so, how? And why? And where was she when she wasn't here? There were too many unanswered, unanswerable questions; questions that threatened to bog me down and prevent me from pushing forward to satisfy this gnawing sense of curiosity.

I flung open the door to my room rather more forcefully than I intended and stepped out into the hallway. A few steps later, I was outside the closed door of my sister's room. My heart was pounding. My breathing was rapid. I felt uneasy. And that peculiar sense of tension I'd experienced before was back once again, and stronger this time. It was hard to describe; I felt it deep in my stomach, and it wouldn't go away. If I had to attribute a particular feeling to it, it was as if I was being watched by something so horrifying that I would go mad if I ever saw it, that it was toying with me before it did something unspeakably awful, that it was biding its time, waiting to strike when I least expected it.

I swallowed. Concentrating on the feeling hadn't made me feel any more confident about what I was going to do. In fact, it had made me freeze up in terror. My hand hovered over the doorknob to my sister's old room and I found myself unable to move.

Keep it together, I thought. Keep it together. Come on. Come on. You can do this. It's just a room. Just a room.

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. I opened my eyes again, grasped the doorknob firmly and pushed it open.

Inside, the room was dark, and I couldn't make anything out. It was a cloudy night, so the moonlight was far fainter than it had been previously. I considered turning the light on, but thought better of it. Instead, I simply stood in the doorway, waiting for my eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness.

Vague shapes gradually started to swirl into view as my eyes adjusted themselves. I could see her bed resting against the far wall, but I couldn't tell if there was anyone in it from the doorway. I couldn't hear anything, but that didn't mean anything.

What was I expecting to find? What was I hoping to find? Did I want to find my sister in that bed, or would it be better to find just empty covers? What would it mean if she was there? What if she wasn't? Should I wake her if she was? Should I try again if she wasn't?

The questions started coming thick and fast in my mind, and they weren't helping with my already-frayed nerves. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath again, trying to clear my mind; in, two, three, four; out, two, three, four.

I took a step forward into the darkness. Then another. A floorboard creaked beneath my feet. I froze — I don't know how long for, but it felt like an eternity. When nothing happened, I relaxed a little and took another step forward. I was nearly at the edge of the bed now, and–

Suddenly, all at once, my eyes were assailed by bright light and I heard movement. I was dazzled by the light, but could tell it wasn't the main room's light. It was coming from the bed.

I heard a sharp intake of breath.

"Oh my God," came a familiar voice, little more than a whisper. "Oh my God. Oh my God. How…"

I froze again. There was no sense in running now. It would achieve nothing. My answers were sitting in front of me, shining some sort of bright light in my face so that I couldn't see.

"Is that you?" hissed the voice, still whispering. "Is that really you?"

Silence. I didn't quite know what to say. There was one obvious thing to say, of course, but it proved difficult to make my voice cooperate and actually say it.

The long silence was probably only a few seconds at most, but it felt as if time had stopped. Eventually, the voice broke it before I could get a word out.

"It is, isn't it?" it said, answering its own question. It sounded like it was cracking; was she crying? "How is this possible?"

"Yes," I managed to say eventually in a broken, dry voice. "It's me."

I heard that sharp intake of breath again. The bright light was still shining in my face, but it moved as I heard the owner of the voice shift. Was she getting up?

I heard footsteps on the floor coming towards me, and the light dropped as I felt a presence close to me. I heard her breathing, then I felt a delicate hand on my chest. Another gasp from her; I was too nervous to make another sound.

A moment later, I felt a pair of arms throw themselves around me and a head barge into my chest. The bright light fell to the floor with a "thump," its glow illuminating the area around us. There was no mistake; sobbing in my arms was my sister Alice, and as I hesitantly embraced her and placed my hands on her shoulders, I felt that she was warm; alive.

We stood like that for a few minutes, Alice crying into my shirt, me standing dumbly embracing her. She eventually released me from her iron grip and stepped backwards, slumping backwards to sit on the bed. She reached down and picked up the light from the floor, using it to guide her way to the lightswitch by the bed. She flicked it on and suddenly both our eyes were assaulted by an even brighter glow than before, this time from the room's main bulb.

I screwed up my eyes against the bright glow. The inside of my eyelids glowed red from the brilliance of the light. I gradually opened them a crack, a little more at a time until I was looking on a sight I thought I'd never see again.

My little sister Alice, her mousy-brown hair bedraggled and her face weary-looking, was sitting on the side of the bed in her nightdress. Her mobile phone — the source of the bright light from before — lay on the bed beside her. Her bare feet and legs were fidgeting uncomfortably, and she was looking to one side, seemingly trying to avoid looking in my direction. I couldn't take my eyes off her, though. I gazed at her, unblinking, for several minutes. Neither of us said anything, but I felt a tear fall from the corner of my eye. I didn't know if it was because I hadn't blinked or whether it was the sheer emotion of the moment. But she was there. There was no mistaking that fact.

After a moment, she turned her head and looked up at me at last. Her eyes were red, and the bags under them showed how tired she was. Tears had left streaks down her face, and she looked like she was in some distress.

"How…" she whispered to herself. "How…"

"I don't know," I said to her, finding my voice finally. "But however it's happened, it's happened. I'm here now, Alice, and I won't let you go again."

I knelt down on the floor in front of her and moved to embrace her again, but she stopped me. She steeled herself and spoke.

"Wait," she said softly, her voice wavering. "What do you mean?"

"I thought I'd lost you forever," I said. "I thought I'd never see you again. But now that you're here… Alice, I'll do everything I can to keep you safe."

Her face loosened and I could see that she was starting to cry again.

"I don't know what you mean," she said, her voice breaking and her words coming more quickly, more urgently. "You never lost me. I never left you. You never failed to keep me safe."

She swallowed deeply and looked straight at me, her eyes brimming with tears.

"You never lost me," she said again. "I'm the one who lost you. You were dead, at least I thought you were, but you're not. Why are you not dead? Why are you here now? I don't understand!"

She broke down in uncontrollable tears and was unable to say anything else. I took her in my arms and hugged her sobbing face to my chest. But comforting her was far from my mind; I held onto her feeling nothing but a horrible sense of nauseous shock at what she had just said to me.

The morning at college passed relatively uneventfully. I threw myself into my English language and literature studies, and by the time it got to the lunch hour, I was starting to feel a little more human.

Laura came and found me as I was leaving the classroom.

"C'mon," she said. "I'm buying you lunch, and you can talk about what's eating you."

I considered protesting for a moment, but thought better of it. Laura usually knew better than to pester me, but when she had made her mind up that she was going to "help", she was difficult to get rid of. And besides, I'd been thinking that talking about it all might actually help.

I still didn't know how I was going to bring it up, though. It was all too weird, still.

I followed Laura through the bustling lunchtime corridors to the cafeteria. She bought us each a plate of the goopy but delicious macaroni cheese that they served here every Monday, and led me out of the busy cafeteria back in the direction of our tutor group's classroom. It was always deserted at lunchtime, and our tutor Mr "Call Me Bob" Gladwell didn't mind us borrowing it as a nice private hangout on occasion.

Today, it was empty as usual. Laura set down her plate at one of the desks and sat down. I pulled a chair around and sat across from her. We took our first few mouthfuls in silence. Then, she laid her fork down, and I knew the interrogation was about to begin.

"So what's up?" she asked bluntly. "You looked like crap this morning and you still look pretty knackered now. Did something happen?"

I took another bite of my lunch, considering the best way to tackle this. Just telling the truth — or what I thought was the truth, at least — would surely make me seem like I was going mad, so I decided to be vague.

"No, nothing happened," I said quietly. "I've just been… you know, thinking."

"Uh-huh," said Laura. "About… that time?"

"Yeah," I said. Neither of us liked saying it. Those words — the d-words — were all so final, so utterly without hope, that I just couldn't ever get them out of my mouth. Whenever possible, I used euphemisms like "passed on" or distancing words like "deceased" — or more commonly, simply referring vaguely back to "you know, that time". Laura had picked up on this quickly — she was always sharp — and followed suit. We knew each other well enough by now that we didn't have to make things explicit. It made me feel comfortable talking to her that I didn't have to explain these things. I had never been good with putting my feelings into words, but Laura understood me just fine.

"So what was it this time?" she asked. "Bad dreams? Dark thoughts?"

"Bit of both," I said, trying to brush it off. "I'm not sure. I think I'm just tired."

"That much is obvious," she said, brushing a strand of hair out of her face as she leaned forwards to look more closely at me. "The bags under your eyes are so dark you look like you've been punched in the face."

I chuckled slightly at her blunt comments.

"You should take better care of yourself," she said. "I know you think you can handle all this stuff by yourself, but, you know, you can ask for help if you need it."

My face fell somewhat. I didn't like it when people had this conversation with me. I was resolved to surviving through my problems and not dragging anyone else down with me, but everyone always seemed so desperate to help all the time. I couldn't win. I felt guilty if I asked someone for help; I felt guilty when people suggested that I wasn't asking for enough help. It was easier to just hide away and deal with things myself.

"Hey, now, come on," said Laura. "Don't make that face. There's no shame in it. It's all right. People are looking out for you. People are worried about you."

I appreciated her attention, I really did, but this conversation was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. It always did, whoever had it with me, and I knew it was completely irrational, but there was nothing I could do about it. It was an automatic response. Any time it came up, I just found myself wanting to get away from it as quickly as possible.

"I, uh, I'll be right back," I said, pushing my plate away and standing up from the desk. "I just need to  go to the toilet."

Laura smiled. "You could have just excused yourself," she said. "I didn't need to know the details. But I'll be here. See you in a minute."

I walked out of the classroom. I wasn't running away, I just needed a breather. And I did kind of need the toilet, too.

I walked down the corridor, avoiding eye contact with my fellow students who were still wandering around aimlessly as the lunch break continued. Eventually, I came to the gents' bathroom door and went inside.

It was empty, brightly lit by the flickering fluorescent light on the ceiling and stank of piss as usual. I was pretty sure the cleaners had long since given up on trying to give this bathroom any kind of pleasant smell, because it always stank this bad in here. I wrinkled my nose and tried to ignore it as I pushed the door of a cubicle open, locked the door behind me and sat down on the toilet seat to compose myself.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. In, two, three, four… out, two, three, four. In, two, three, four… out, two, three, four.

I opened my eyes again. I blinked. And blinked again.

Something wasn't right.

For starters, the bright light of the fluorescent tube was gone. It was dark. Secondly, there was something strange in the air. Or, more to the point, the air seemed to be completely still. The stench of stale piss had gone, and there didn't seem to be the slightest breeze or movement in the air, even as I stood up and moved around.

I fumbled in front of me for the latch on the cubicle, which was difficult to find in the darkness, and popped it open. I pulled open the door and stepped out into the darkened bathroom. My footsteps echoed on the polished floor, but that was the only sound — I couldn't hear the plumbing, the heating or indeed the sounds of any people outside.

I carefully felt my way to the bathroom door, opened it and stepped out into the corridor. It was dark out there, too.

My throat went dry, and I started to get a familiar feeling of uneasiness. This obviously wasn't right, and I had absolutely no explanation of what was happening here. I swallowed deeply and felt my pulse quicken somewhat.

Laura, I thought. I should find Laura.

I walked back down the corridor towards where our classroom should be. This passageway was deep inside the building, so there wasn't much in the way of natural light, but the occasional recognisable glow of daylight off in the distance helped me to get my bearings. My senses felt like they were heightened; I could hear my blood pumping in my ears. Thump, thump; thump, thump. What was happening to me?

I reached the classroom door, grasped the handle, pushed it open and stepped inside–

–and Laura was there as if nothing had happened. The lights were back on, and she was there, smiling at me, obviously oblivious to the strange occurrence. I turned around and looked behind me, and the lights were back on in the corridor, too; the students were still milling to and fro, and the familiar ambient noise of the college at lunchtime was back once again.

Laura's smile quickly disappeared when she saw my face.

"Jesus Christ, you look white as a sheet," she said, standing up and rushing to my side. "Are you feeling all right?"

I staggered slightly. I felt a bit dizzy. I slumped to the side and steadied myself on the door frame.

"No," I said. "I'm not feeling all right. I… I don't feel well at all."

"Come on," she said. "We're off to the nurse's office."

Laura took me firmly by the hand and led me through the milling students — some of whom might have been giving us a strange look, but my head was too clouded to care by this point — until we reached the nurse's office. I didn't remember walking there — before I knew it, I was lying on the bench with the nurse peering at me over the top of a pair of thick spectacles.

I closed my eyes as she examined me. I couldn't hear anything any more. I just wanted to sleep. I needed to sleep. It was all too much. Just let me sleep.

*

I awoke several hours later, still on the bench. I sat up suddenly, which caused the woollen blanket that had been laid over me to fall to the floor.

"Where am I?" I blurted out. I blinked and tried to orient myself. My eyes were bleary and took a while to come into focus. "What happened?"

"You scared me half to death, that's what happened," came a familiar voice. I heard running footsteps and felt a pair of arms fling themselves around me long before I saw its source. "What's wrong with you?"

Laura was sobbing. I felt bad. I'd made her cry. This is exactly why I didn't want people to get involved. I only dragged them down and made them upset. I didn't deserve to be worried over. But still, there she was.

I heard the door open, and the nurse came back in.

"Ah, welcome back," she said. "I hope you feel better after a good rest. You clearly needed it."

I did feel a bit better. Evidently my body had just given up on trying to remain conscious and passed out.

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry," I added, turning to Laura and sheepishly putting my hands on her waist.

"Look after yourself, for fuck's sake," Laura said, pulling back from me. I could see the tears streaming down her face. She was really worried. I felt awful. "Please."

"All right," I said. "I'll try."

"Are you all right to take him home, Miss?" said the nurse. "He should be all right now he's had a bit of a rest so I won't refer this to anyone else for now, but make sure he gets home safe and sound, all right? And come back if this happens again."

"Uh-huh," said Laura, sniffing. The two were talking about me as if I wasn't here, but I didn't really feel capable of saying anything meaningful right now, so I just let them carry on as if I was a sick child.

"Come on," said Laura, grabbing my hand and pulling me up off the bench. "Let's get you home."

I didn't remember much about the ride home. I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Laura helped me into my house and upstairs into my bed, and I fell asleep almost straight away. I don't know how long she sat there watching over me, but she was gone when I eventually awoke.

I turned my head and looked over to the bright green glow of the digits on my clock radio.

Hello again, 2:30 a.m. We meet again.

I couldn't deal with it. It was too much. The book fell from my hands, forgotten, and hit the floor with a thump. I fled the room at high speed, not looking back.

That couldn't have been true. It couldn't have happened. It just couldn't. She was… No. She was definitely gone. She couldn't have been there. It was just the tiredness in my mind playing tricks on me. Just the exhaustion.

I flew into my room and slammed the door behind me. I sat down on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes, trying to compose myself. I was hyperventilating; my heart was pounding. I could hear the blood pumping in my ears, and my senses were keenly alert.

What had just happened?

I took some deep breaths — in… out. In… out. In… out. I felt my pulse slow a little, but I still felt on edge, like something awful was about to happen, or something dangerous was about to "get" me.

The rational side of my brain said to me that this was ridiculous; even though what I saw should have been impossible, it wasn't dangerous, it was only my sister, after all. There wasn't anything strange about her, just that…

Just that she shouldn't have been there at all.

My mind kept coming back to that point. She shouldn't have been there. There was no way that she could have been there. It was impossible. Physically impossible. And yet I was finding it difficult to believe that right now, because if it had been some sort of hallucination, it was a damned realistic one.

I didn't have much experience with hallucinations. I'd had a couple brought on by tiredness, but there had been nothing with such clarity — in most cases the rational side of my brain had been able to win out and convince the irrational part that what it was seeing was, in fact, complete nonsense. It hadn't stopped me from hiding under the bedclothes in a panic, of course, but when I eventually emerged and found myself alone with nothing but my own thoughts as usual, I was able to relax… somewhat.

This felt different though.

I clenched my fists and opened my eyes. I had to know if what I had seen was real or not. Was I going mad? It was possible. I hadn't had any proper human contact for a few days now, so it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that my mind was conjuring up imaginary people for me to interact with, but…

I stood up, opened my door with an attempt at confidence and walked down the hallway, back towards my sister's old room. My hands were trembling. Every sound the creaky floor of the upstairs hallway made felt amplified, and the journey — one of just a few steps — felt like it was going on forever.

Eventually I arrived at her door. It was still slightly ajar from when I reached it, but there did not appear to be any light coming from within. Had she simply turned out the light and gone back to sleep? Or had I imagined the whole thing?

There was only one way to find out.

My hand hovered over the doorknob once again as I prepared to push it open. I felt uneasy and tense — my hands were still trembling slightly — but this was different from before. I didn't feel the same palpable sense of anxiety and fear that I did last time.

No more hesitating. I pushed the door open a little more forcefully, causing it to bang into the wall with a loud "thump."

Inside, the room was just as I expected it to be — the bed neatly made up, the lights off, nothing out of place.

And no sign of my sister.

I wasn't sure how I felt about it all. I sat down on the edge of the now-vacant bed and tried to clear my mind, tried to make some sense of what had happened. But there wasn't any sense to make of it. It absolutely did not make sense. At all.

"What is happening to me?" I said out loud to no-one in particular. The empty room did not answer. I rubbed my face and eyes in frustration and looked around the dark room, the small pool of moonlight creeping through the gap in the curtains still casting its eerie glow on the floor.

That's when I noticed something odd.

I remembered why I had originally come into this room in the first place — to get a book — and I suddenly remembered dropping it when I fled. But looking down at the floor right now… where was it?

It wasn't there.

I got down off the bed and onto my hands and knees, and crawled around on the floor, feeling around to see if I could find the distinctive lump that was the hardback book I'd pulled randomly out of the shelf before. I was too afraid to turn the light on, as it would confirm my suspicions beyond all doubt.

It wasn't there. It just wasn't there. All I could feel everywhere on the floor was carpet. There was nothing there. The book had gone.

I stood up and walked to the shelf where I had taken it from. I felt along the row of books on the top shelf — sure enough, there was the gap. But where was the book?

I swallowed deeply. My throat was dry again, but this time from fear rather than dehydration. My stomach was churning and I felt nauseous. I couldn't understand what was happening here. It was all too much.

I ran out of the room, back to my bedroom and hid under the covers. I closed my eyes and covered my ears, trying as hard as I could to will myself out of this strange and terrifying world that the night had become.

It wasn't long before I eventually succumbed to exhaustion and fell into a dreamless sleep.

*

I awoke several hours later as the alarm on my phone went off. I no longer trusted the old clock radio to wake me up reliably, so I tended to set my phone's alarm to be as loud and obnoxious as possible, then leave it on the other side of the room so I had to get up to make the noise stop. This morning it was some sort of awful klaxon noise. Groaning, I hauled myself out from under the covers into the welcome sight of daylight and staggered over to my desk where my phone lay, bellowing its obscene noises to anyone who would listen. I silenced it and just leaned on my desk for a moment.

I really didn't know what to make of last night. The only explanation I could think of was that I was so exhausted I had conjured up the whole scenario from my imagination. That had to be the case.

But it didn't explain the book.

That book. I didn't even know what book it was, having picked it up in the dark and dropped it in terror before I'd even seen the cover. I knew it was a hardback, slightly oversized volume, but that's it. It wasn't important what book it was, of course, but I found myself wondering whether even that was something my addled brain had imagined.

Was the whole thing a dream? I didn't think so. It felt far too vivid and there were far too many details that were still all-too-clear in my mind. Details that didn't make any sense, of course, but details nonetheless.

There was nothing to do, though; the weekend was over, and I was going to be late if I didn't get moving.

I pulled on the clothes that I'd left hanging semi-neatly over the back of the chair and made my way downstairs to get some breakfast. Laura would be here soon, and I didn't want her worrying about me any more than she already did. At least I'd managed to actually get some sleep last night for once, but I felt — and probably looked — like a wreck.

Laura was one of a few people who'd stuck by me through thick and thin. We'd been friends for a long time, and she'd been a particular pillar of support ever since that night. She came by every so often to make sure I was all right; sometimes I didn't want to see her, and she'd learned not to argue when that was the case. The fits of irrational anger born of my own sadness and frustrations had subsided somewhat recently, meaning that I hadn't yelled at her for a very long time — and still felt guilty about all the times I had — but still she watched out for me.

On weekdays, when I felt up to it, I went with her to college. The one thing I had refused to give up on even in my darkest hours was my own future, so I was determined to get through my course intact. I knew that the teachers and my peers trod carefully around me and tried not to do anything to put me out due to my circumstances. I kind of wished that they wouldn't. As cold and detached as I'd become — even more than I used to be — some days I just wanted to feel like I "fit in," that I had a normal life.

That was never going to happen any more, though. The idea of "normality" had been taken from me that night along with those dear to me. I'd come to accept it — mostly — but it was occasionally painful to be reminded of it.

As I sipped my coffee and put the last of my hot, slightly-burnt buttered toast into my mouth, the doorbell rang. I glanced up at the clock on the oven to see that Laura was right on time as usual. I drained my coffee cup and swallowed my toast hastily before walking out into the hallway, throwing on my coat and picking up my bag before opening the door.

"Hey," said Laura, her kind, gentle face looking up at me. "You ready?"

"Yep," I said. "Let's get out of here."

I closed and locked the door behind me and we walked together to her car, which was parked just outside on the road.

"You all right?" she asked as she fumbled with her keys in an attempt to unlock the door. I'd told her a thousand times that she really didn't need to lock her car for the minute it took to come and pick me up and walk back to it, but she never listened.

"Mm," I said, my mind elsewhere. The cool, early morning breeze was feeling surprisingly good today for some reason.

"You sure?" she said. "You look knackered."

"Didn't sleep well," I said. "I'm all right, though."

"Uh-huh. If you're sure," she said with a kind smile. She knew not to press me any further for now. If I felt like talking about it, I'd talk about it.

To be honest, I did feel like talking about it, but I had no idea what to say. I couldn't explain the strange events of the previous night at all. And I wasn't even sure that they'd actually happened. People probably already thought my mental state was fragile enough as it was; I didn't need Laura thinking that I'd gone completely nuts.

I resolved to try and figure out a way to bring it up later. For now, I'd just try and occupy myself as much as possible with college work and deal with it later.

I leaned back in the car seat and let the music on the stereo wash over me as Laura pulled away and we set off on our daily journey. I closed my eyes and tried to relax; I tried to smile.

But that smile wouldn't come. Moments after I closed my eyes, my mind just started picturing her face — that face I never thought I'd see again. My sister.

Where was she? Was she really out there somewhere? Or just in my mind?