Written by: Samrat Nakarmi - 22011, Grade XII
Posted on: 08 February, 2022
Everyday after school, I meet up with my best friend. To tell you about my friend, she’s great! She understands everything I say, and is always there when I cry. Oh yeah, I cry a lot. All the kids in school treat me very differently. They say I’m a weird kid who is crazy. Before, I used to cry alone. I went way into the forest, a place all adults tell kids not to go to. But on days when I could not control myself, I ran into the forest. I stayed there for a long time. Some days I stayed there for hours on end. I stopped doing that, however, after I met the friend I was talking about. She sat beside me out of nowhere one day. It wasn’t some place a kid like her should be in but I wasn’t one to talk. I assumed she had a situation similar to mine so I started talking to her. And that was exactly when it started. After that, we met up everyday in front of my house and started hanging out. She was my first and only friend. So, I talked a lot. She didn’t talk much, she just listened. I paid it no mind though. I wasn’t going to judge someone else the same way others did to me. She became my only friend and I hers. That made me strong enough not to cry due to the school bullies.
When I first met her in the forest, I asked her for her name. She seemed aloof as if she didn’t know her name. All she did was stare at the sky. So, I took the privilege of picking a name for her. Since she always stared at the sky, I called her ‘Stella’. She seemed happy, at least I think she did since she cracked a smile. I’ve been calling her Stella ever since.
I invite her to my home sometimes. My mom seems to act weird whenever she comes over. Her face seemed worried, I don’t know why. Maybe because she’s so thin that she got worried if she’s eating. Another weird thing my mom does is always serve for one person, my half, when she’s around. I’ve told her to bring for Stella so many times but I guess she forgets every time. So, I go and grab her half everytime. We also play together in the park. The people look at me with weird eyes everytime I play so I get angsty but playing with Stella was enough to make me ignore them.
One day my mom got curious about Stella. Must be because the people saw us playing together in the park and talked about it with my mom. So, I told her all about Stella. How I met her, her name and everything we do throughout our time together. I could not understand my mom’s expression when I told her about Stella. But then again, there are a lot of weird things adults do that I don’t understand.
For a few months, everything went normally. I went to school, got picked at and came back. Well, maybe it wasn’t so normal. But it felt so to me since it happened to me on a daily basis. I disregarded the thought though. Now that I had a friend, it was useless to get worked up about it. Having said that, strange things kept on happening. My mom took me to the hospital more frequently. People in white coats talked to me for lengthy periods. They asked me how I spend my day, and what I do at school. All seemed strange to me, but I guess my mother got worked up about me being ostracized but I’d grown calluses toward it. That’s how a series of months flew by under my eye.
It was finally here, the month of spooks as they say. October, the month of Halloween, the nights of terror, desolation, trepidation and horrors to come. At least that’s what they say and want us to believe but we knew that it was a time of fun. Dress up as cute ghosts and get treats. Couldn’t be a better holiday for us. I mean who wouldn’t want a basket full of treats. And unlike all the other times, this time I had someone to accompany me. That’s right, Stella. I’d prepared a cute vampire dress for the both of us. Took me a few weeks to prepare it but it was worth the pain. You could even say both of us looked bloody good. Anyway, judgement day arrived. Well, night to be specific, but that’s beside the point.
We head out to the front door. My mom was waiting there for me to see me off. I felt like this was such an auspicious day, we definitely need a picture of this moment, especially me with Stella. So, I asked my mom to take a picture for me. She seemed hesitant, I don’t know why. I mean what kind of mother wouldn’t wanna take a picture of their own son with his friend. I sort of forced mom to take the picture and went on with our journey across the city.
The trick-or-treat part didn’t go as I thought it would, however. I was still getting chocolates and other goodies like usual. But the eerie thing was that Stella wasn’t getting any. I thought it was whatever for the first few houses but it went on. Everyone continued to ignore her even though I signalled that she was actually there. All of them just laughed as if it was a part of my play. I, however, wasn’t so jolly about it. I got very furious. So much so, that I decided to return back home without even getting through the block.
When we got back home another weird thing happened. There were people there. People other than my mom. People who seemed familiar to me. It was the same people in white who used to talk to me for lengthy periods of time. Why were they there? It all seemed so…sudden. Also with Stella being ignored the whole day, everything was so unreal.
I’d guessed the people were doctors since they dress in white coats as well. The one who seemed like the head doctor approached me and asked me about Stella, about how I met her, how I know her and all sorts of things. The feeling that I got during this interrogation was the same as the time before during trick-or-treat. But this time I was sure, he spoke with the clear intention that Stella wasn’t real. In the end, he told me something that was hard for me to swallow. He told me that my friend, my only friend, wasn’t actually real. The audacity, it was laughable with the claims. What did he know about her? Sure she didn’t talk much but she was there for me when others weren’t. He had no right to speak about her as if she didn’t exist. Infuriated, I had decided to shut him up. We had taken a picture together earlier. If I just show it to him then he will have to admit that he was wrong. I snatched the iPad from my mom and opened the gallery. Now he would surely admit that he was wrong. What? The picture…it wasn’t complete. This had to be some kind of glitch or a mistake. Why was I the only one in it? This didn’t make any sense. This is like– it's as if what the doctor said was true. Is it? I don’t know. I panicked and looked up to see that she wasn’t there. Stella was nowhere to be seen. Surely this was a dream. I had to wake up, right? I pinched myself, cried, jumped, did everything that I possibly could but I didn’t wake up. Meaning, this was reality. The doctor stepped forward to explain. No, no, no I couldn’t accept it.
I ran. Ran away from my home and into the forest. The doctors couldn’t catch up to me. I went blindly ahead. I tripped, fell, got caught in a bush, but I still kept running. I reached the place where I always went before. The days when I used to cry. Never had I thought that I would come back. Especially after meeting Stella. I stayed there for a long time. I couldn’t think of anything. Just when my eyes were about to fall into slumber, I saw her. Her, the girl, Stella. Ha ha. I knew it was a mistake. She was right there, with me.
***
Unable to pursue the boy, the mom and the doctors called the police. They arrived at the scene shortly with their torches lit bright and trained K9s at the leash. The mother was emotionally unstable so she had to be put aside. The doctors explained the situation in her stead. After getting up to speed, the police covered the entire forest and started entering. They checked each bush, pit, opening, you name it. They came across a restricted area. They found it strange. They looked it up in their database. Surprisingly, the entire forest was a remnant of some facility. A military facility, now abandoned. What was left in it were the landmines to keep trespassers out but they were mostly inactive. Seeing a gap big enough that a child could enter, they were convinced that the boy went in there. So they went in. As they grew closer, the dogs grew agitated, signalling that their person was close. And so he was. The boy nestled underneath a tree. But they found it strange. The boy was talking. He had to be the only one there. They shone their flashlights in the direction of the boy. What welcomed them was a sight of despair. There was a corpse, rotting with worms and bugs making it their home. Some cops looked away in disgust while others were in shock. The body description of the girl however was familiar to the cops. It was something that seemed familiar to them. One of the cops opened their case-files titled ‘Missing’. And there she was. The girl. The same girl who the boy was so fond of. The exact depiction of what he described her as. The date however, was 10 years ago. The boy had made a friend. A friend with a girl who was no longer alive. A friend who died. A ghost.
