I think I was four when my mother disappeared. The same night she disappeared, I had a strange dream about her. She was refusing to give me my dessert before dinner, and when she was feeding the dogs, she just turned into the dog food. People tell me that was just my young self making sense of the situation.

I was in PE the next time it happened. A girl tripped me while playing basketball, obviously on purpose. When no one was looking, I tried smashing her head into the floor. I saw her transform into the ball in my hands. I tried to play it off as me just dribbling, but I knew I looked freaked. People just assumed she ran away after school or was kidnapped.

The third time is when I knew it was me. My teacher gave me an assignment and I turned it in early for extra credit. It was marked missing. I found out later that he had not been able to find it so he marked it missing. He eventually did find it in the old work and marked it as late and took off the points I should have earned. I don’t know what happened to him, but no one ever did see him again, although the picture he had in the classroom did look more worried than peaceful.

I get mad, a person disappears. These people won’t ever feel anything again. They are trapped forever. My mother is in my deceased dog’s stomach. That girl will be smacked around until she is thrown away. My teacher will see the students but can’t teach them or tell them he’s right there. The more I thought about it, the more angry I got.

I stare at myself in the mirror, crying so much that my vision blurred. So much so that I couldn’t hear anything, my head throbbing in pain. I fell asleep and woke up feeling nothing. Those people won’t know a thing. Those people are dead.

I look in the mirror and see nothing there.