Inhale

Ashlynn

Ashlynn Grayson sits wide-awake in her bed, her computer propped open in her lap. Her platinum blonde hair falls in messy waves down her back, neglected and forgotten for a few days now. The wind pounds against her small bedroom window, and she shivers.

Pulling her turquoise comforter over her shoulders until she is thoroughly cocooned in its warmth, she sets back to her current web search:

reported cases+ missing children+ Portland

The server goes blank for a minute to load, but then brings up a series of pages, all of names accompanied by pictures of small, smiling faces. She burns each face into her mind; an open wound on a permanently set stain. One picture in particular is of an eight-year-old girl with dusty brown hair and green eyes, her face so similar to what Katie looked like when she disappeared. Below the photograph, in large bold print letters, reads, "Bethany August missing since July 2, 2005".

Ash closes her eyes, imagining that the name "Katelyn Grayson" replaces Bethany's. Eleven years. Ash sighs, slamming shut the laptop. They're never going to find her.

Tossing the laptop onto the carpeted floor next to the bed, she pulls the string on the lamp resting on her nightstand. Darkness shrouds the room like an awaiting audience, applauding the death of the incessant light.

Burying her head in her pillow and pulling the blanket tighter around her, Ash allows her mind to wander back to before Katie disappeared. The way she laughed when the neighbor's dogs had gotten into their yard one summer and spent hours bounding through their piles of long-dead leaves, her sister had seemed so full of warmth. But now she's gone. And when Ash had seen her mother that afternoon, just as she had every day from the last month, she knew that her mother was gone too. All she had left behind was an empty shell.

With that thought in mind, Ash sobs silently into the pillow, desperately trying to ease the pain in her chest. If mom hears me, she worries, she'll just sink deeper. I need to be strong. For her. She takes deep breaths in and out until the hiccups stop, and then takes one final breath for good measure.

It's useless to let that get to me. Ash closes her eyes. Mom can't do this on her own anymore. I need to be able to handle this.

The wind pauses only once that night, the earth standing still just long enough to gaze through Ash's bedroom window while she fades into a dreamless sleep. Then, it continues its roaring, for it needs to be loud to keep the evil prowling the earth silenced. At least for now.