Simulacra

Chapter 4

How was I supposed to go to school after finding out Anna was or could be in serious trouble, because I had discovered her phone in my bag.

She sounded seriously messed up. And why was Greg not at school? There were so many thoughts running through my head, but now it was time to get through the school day.

The school day seemed to be going really slow. Slower than usual because of how much I wanted to go home and locate Anna. The whole day I was tangled up in confusion and thoughts.

In Math class, my teacher asked if I needed a calculator, but I was too caught up in my thoughts to even hear. it did get quite laugh out of my classmates

At lunch I decided not to eat and it caused everyone to ask what was wrong, but I didn't know if could tell anyone. She told me in her video to not try and find her. I was practically sitting in a puddle of sweat just thinking about the possibilities. Knowing that someone could be in trouble even if it was the one person I despised most.

When school was over I raced home with sickening thoughts that had been running through my head the whole day. tried to catch up but I didn't want to talk.

I pulled into my driveway and noticed a car parked outside that normally wasn't there. My mom was working late and my dad was never truly at home. I ignored the car figuring it was one of my dads many cars he bought and never showed anyone. I walked inside only to notice a tall male figure in a hoodie going through my fridge.

I could only see the back of this person hunched over taking whatever food they wanted. I figured it was most likely a burglar, so i held onto my backpack and decided to make a run back out the door.

Before I could make an inch towards the door, the tall figure turned around and I realized it was a figure that I should've easily recognized. It was Greg.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" As if my day couldn't have gotten any weirder. There were days throughout my life were I would've wished for Greg to be standing inside my house, but today was certainly not that day.

"I need your help." He backed away slowly from my fridge and kept looking around as if he was being watched.

"I don't think my fridge can help you." At this point I was frustrated. Frustrated by the idea that nobody was looking for Anna and frustrated by the fact that Greg took it upon himself to break into my home.

"Look I know you have it, so please just give it back!" He demanded with a half eaten strawberry in his hand that I knew came from my fridge. And I also knew that he could only be talking about the phone. Anna's phone.

"w-what?" Was the only word I could get out. How did he know that I had the phone? Did he know Anna was missing? And why does he need her phone any how?

"Anna's phone! I need to talk to her and I know she's here!" Greg stepped away from my fridge and started to walk closer.

"Anna isn't here, Greg..." But sadly he was. Which was what I wanted to add on, but I decided to take it easy on him because he looked as if he didn't sleep. As if he hadn't ate besides the food that was in his hands gathered from my fridge. Although I noticed these things still did not mean I hadn't wanted to yell. It didn't mean I hadn't wanted to kick him out of my home.

"Anna hasn't returned any of my text and I tracked her phone all the way here. So, where is she hiding?" This made me return to the thoughts that Anna was truly missing. I also found it creepy that Greg decided to track her phone after not one day of talking to Anna, but understood.

"Somehow Anna's phone ended up in my bag. Other than her phone I don't have any connection to where she is." I didn't trust him one hundred percent, but it felt good to finally tell someone about what I had discovered. I decided not to spare him the details of exactly what I found on her phone no matter how much he begged to see it.

After half an hour of explaining to him about my discovery of her phone he decided to leave. I needed to hear more from him before I'd let him take her phone. Just in case he truly knew where she was. We agreed on not contacting the police because Anna could truly just be hiding out from him, although I knew in my gut that she was in danger. It made me feel uneasy not going to the cops because this sounded like she could actually be missing.

An hour after Greg had left, I finished cleaning the mess he made in my kitchen from going through my fridge. He told me he hadn't ate in two days and that he was sorry for breaking in.

My mom was now home and working on dinner. I had been working on my chemistry homework so I hadn't touched the phone yet. But the notifications coming from the phone were now starting to bother me.

Anna had a nearly 200 miss calls, majority from Greg and. And 312 messages mostly from you guess it, Greg!

Even if I didn't like Anna, I had to admit that I was jealous of the way people cared about her. How so many people missed her after not seeing her for a day. If I happened to go missing I'm not even sure my parents would notice.

I silenced the notifications until I particularly read one that stood out to me. It read "Greg_14 liked your post" from Instagram. And then I realized most of the notifications were from Instagram so I decided to open the phone trying to understand.

And there it was. A post posted by Anna..... 10 minutes ago. It wasn't one of her old pictures, it looked brand new. Which didn't make sense because Anna didn't have her phone and was no where to be seen.

I started to creep myself out with the conspiracies that Anna was forced into taking that picture until I came to the conclusion that maybe Anna wasn't in any danger at all. She was fine and just misplaced her phone.

I read some of the comments to try and make my conspiracies disappear. To try and make sense of what was happening and where she was.

"Omg Anna where were you today? Imy ❤️" read one of the comments that stood out to me from Sadie.

"Anna?.... this isn't funny!" read a comment from Greg......

A/N: I know I haven't posted in a while so I decided to make this chapter a little longer than the others. What are your conspiracies on the whole Anna situation? Should Lauren go to the police?