Mila Santos Is (Not) Dead

xiv: three cheers for sweet revenge

MILA NESTLED INTO a ball in the corner of her bed and pulled her blankets over her head. She turned her computer on, plopping her earbuds in while she waited for the screen to load. She readied her journal beside her, clicked open her favorite pen, and searched for the exact song she wanted: My Chemical Romance's "This Is How I Disappear." Not as fitting as "Fake Your Death," but still fitting, and she liked it better. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge was the best MCR era, even though The Black Parade was up there.

Mila was still an emo kid at heart. Or should I say an emo kid "To The End"?

With her journal, music, and laptop ready, she labelled a fresh journal page in neat cursive.

HOW TO FAKE YOUR DEATH

She'd take the journal with her, keep it close by her side. One day, she'd burn it. She needed this all written down somewhere, and she couldn't trust her notes app. She never had—everything she needed written down, she wrote by hand. Same reason she switched to paper money a long time ago. Malachi had been the one to convince her.

Technology could be traced.

Paper couldn't.

She'd thought about it in the shower. There were some things she'd have to Google. Like how to fake your death and not get caught, or where to get a gun under the radar, or the directions from here to Nowhere, Arizona. She could either do it on her own computer or a public one. Using a public one was risky. There were always people around and what it was monitoring was out of her control. But her own personal computer? No one would see her using it. She knew it was searchable, knew it would be the first thing they did search when she went missing, but she had a plan.

They couldn't search her computer if they couldn't find it.

And if it was even better if it no longer existed.

She'd destroy it. Throw it in a garbage dump, toss it in a river, dump it in the ocean. Definitely not good for the environment, but what was these days?

She opened Google Chrome and created an incognito tab. She knew it was still trackable, but it made her feel better. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She typed into the search bar...

[ how to fake your death ]

A Wikipedia article was the first hit. What was she, a school girl doing an essay on faked deaths? The next hit, an article from NPR, was more promising. She skimmed it, taking notes as she went.

MOST IMPORTANT

missing while hiking in the woods is best

avoid anything that would make you identifiable

no contact with past life - CUT ALL TIES

She stuck her pen in her mouth, cupping her cheeks in her hands. That was going to be the hard part—she had to cut all ties with her loved ones. She'd never be able to see her friends or family again.

But she knew it was worth it. That she needed to do this. That she'd only be happy if she broke free. That she could never be happy so long as her rapist was walking free and she was stuck in her hometown.

She wrote:

STEP-BY-STEP

step one: plan/prepare

step two: fake your death

step three: go to arizona

step four: somehow track him down