To start, I would like to first say that this story is one hundred percent true. Her name was Caroline Thompson. She was a sixteen year old girl with bouncy curly blonde hair and haunting green eyes. She was a sweet girl, you know one of those girls that everyone likes and wants to be friends with. She was a dancer selected to dance in a major role on Broadway. That is until she…disappeared.
It was a rainy March Wednesday, that day Caroline went missing. She had come to me that day in tears saying she had had a fight with her mom; but the look on her face told a different story. I could tell that something wasn’t right. Aside from her tear filled eyes, she had lost all color and light in her usually bright face. She was shaking but it wasn’t the shaking you get from when you’re cold and wet. No. This was the kind of shaking you get when you’re scared for your life. At the top of her arms were hand prints as if someone had forcibly grabbed her to keep her from running away. I wondered if had been her boyfriend, Carter, he always seemed like the abusive type. But I didn’t question her; there was no reason to make her more upset. I simply calmed her down and made plans to go to the mall later. As she walked away, I had a feeling that it’d be the last time I’d see her. Little did I know, I was right.
You know how when you’re worried and waiting for someone, time seems to drag on and on? That’s how I felt waiting for Caroline that afternoon. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours, and hours like centuries. I stood by my car in the pouring rain waiting for her to show up, but she never did. Countless times my fingers pounded her number into the keyboard of my phone but every call had the same robotic woman answering saying the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Disconnected? Caroline would never disconnect her phone. I became so worried, even more so than before. My head began spinning like a basketball on someone’s finger. I lost all control of my thoughts. I felt like I was going crazy. What was going on? I had little time to figure that question out before I slowly faded into unconsciousness.
I saw her. I saw her while I faded in and out of consciousness. We were in first grade, the day we first met. I remember that day because we had been fighting over the same stuffed bear and ended up ripping it. After that, we were both sent to the “peace table” to talk it out. I don’t think we ever resolved that problem, I think we just moved on and years later, we became friends. But that’s where the memories stop as I was jolted back to reality. I was no longer lying on the cold wet pavement of the parking lot, but I was lying in the warm familiar comfort of my bed. My head hurt. My hand made its way to my head and discovered there was a bump on it; I must have hit it when I fell in the parking lot. Slowly, my hand made its way down my face. Rather than feeling the smooth skin it usually possesses, I felt long, tender scratches running down my cheeks. I jumped up and ran to my mirror to examine them; they looked like they came from someone’s nails, as if someone had been struggling with me. But that wasn’t possible I hadn’t fought with anyone. I must have scratched them on the pavement when I fell.
Suddenly, there was a soft rapping at my door. I dove back into bed and bid the knocker entrance. It was my mother who entered and I could tell by the look on her face what she was about to tell me wasn’t going to be pleasant.
Caroline was an obedient girl. Very rarely would she break the rules or disobey an elder. She was always punctual, never missed her curfew. So when my mother told me that Caroline hadn’t gone home since I saw her in school, I knew something was wrong.
I had been drifting in and out of consciousness for longer than I had thought. It had been two days since I had fallen on the pavement in that parking lot. Caroline hadn’t been home in two days, that wasn’t like her, not at all. Her family had sent out a search party when she didn’t return home the first night, but they came up short. There was no sign of her anywhere. Where had she gone? It was almost as if she had…vanished.
