WITCH - ARA

Thirty three

It's been almost two months now. Two months since everything happened—the demon, the rituals, the nightmares—all of it. I managed to put the pieces together, solve the mysteries that haunted me day and night. I should feel relief, but all I feel is a heavy, suffocating emptiness. What happened to Silas and Ava?

Silas is gone. She’s *dead*. I’ve repeated it to myself a thousand times, and it still doesn’t feel real. She should be here, laughing and dragging me along on her wild adventures like she always did. But she’s not. I can’t even visit her grave because there isn’t one. There’s no body. There’s no closure. Just the knowledge that she’s gone, that I failed to protect her.

And Ava—she’s still missing. The authorities said they’ve done everything they could. They went over the evidence, traced every lead, interviewed witnesses. But there’s nothing. No clues, no suspects, no sign of her. And now, the court’s closing the case. Lack of evidence. As if that makes it acceptable, as if that means I should just accept it and move on.

I can’t move on. I can’t sit here, pretending everything’s fine when my best friend is out there somewhere. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. Every time I walk through the library, I remember the last time she was here. We were laughing, making plans—plans we’ll never get to live out.

The library used to be my escape. I could disappear into the world of books, pretend that everything outside didn’t exist. But now, it feels different. Every corner, every shelf is a reminder of her. The silence here is oppressive, like it’s closing in on me, mocking me for thinking this place could ever feel the same without her. I try to focus, to drown out the memories by burying myself in work, but it’s useless. Everything I do, everywhere I look, she’s there, lingering like a ghost I can’t shake off.

The police have moved on. The city has moved on. And I’m the only one left still trying to make sense of it all. I’m the only one who still cares, and it feels like I’m screaming into a void, begging for someone to listen. But no one does. They’ve marked Silas’s case as closed, and now they want to do the same with Ava’s. It’s like they’ve accepted she’s gone too. But I won’t. I refuse to accept that. She’s not just some case to close; she’s my best friend. And I’m not giving up on her. I can’t.

I slam a book down on the table, the sound echoing in the empty library. For a moment, the silence shatters, and I almost expect someone to come and tell me off. But no one does. It’s just me, alone with my frustration and helplessness.

I’ve retraced our steps over and over, going back to every place we’d been, looking for any sign, any clue that could lead me to her. But it’s like she vanished, and all I have are the memories. Memories and an ache in my chest that won’t go away. Silas’s death haunts me, and Ava’s disappearance feels like a knife twisting deeper each day.

No one else is going to look for her. No one else cares enough to keep searching, and I’m starting to realize that if I want answers, I’ll have to find them myself. Because I refuse to let Ava become just another unsolved case, another name on a forgotten file. She’s still out there somewhere, and I owe it to her—and to Silas—to find out what really happened, even if it means going at it alone.

I’ve been to the courthouse more times than I can count in these last two months, pushing, begging, pleading for them to keep Ava’s case open. Today, it’s no different. I stand in front of a polished wooden desk, my hands clenched so tightly my knuckles turn white. The lawyer, a man with graying hair and a tired expression, looks at me with the same detached sympathy I’ve seen from everyone else in this place. It’s like they’re all trained to look at you like that—as if to say they’re sorry while making it clear they don’t really care.