The room was silent. Matthew's phone was sitting on the coffee table, abandoned and cold. It hadn't rang, beeped, buzzed, or made any noise in quite some time. However, he knew he shouldn't be worried. Gilbert was the kind of person to be by your side every day for three months, then disappear for a few weeks, only to reappear at the foot of your bed at four in the morning asking if you have any beer. He should've expected this, but no matter what, he just couldn't quell the anxious feeling that had been rising in his gut for a while.

It took around two weeks for Gilbert's absence to get into Matthew's head. Was he okay? Was he hurt, or was he just ignoring Matthew? He could never tell with the guy. One day he was your best friend, and the next he was stabbing you in the back, literally. Matthew had to admit he was mad at himself for trusting the German, but he had been the only one in quite some time to actually notice Matthew. He seemed to care about him. He had been the only one who ever made Matthew feel important, made him feel cared about. It was a nice feeling, but Gilbert had torn that away from him just like someone tears off a Band-Aid. Sure, it hurts, but only for a little while. However, it always ended up leaving a mark or the really annoying sticky stuff that remained on the skin where the Band-Aid used to be. Matthew knew he would get over Gilbert, the pain would eventually go away, but that sticky stuff would be plastered on Matthews heart for the rest of his life.

A month had passed and Matthew was now sitting on the couch, cell phone still lingering on the coffee table, face down and untouched. He hadn't checked it in almost two weeks, but he didn't want to. He knew it would just be the same lock screen it had always been: a picture of him and Gilbert at a hockey game.

But he couldn't take this anymore. He quickly unfolded his legs and reached to the short table sitting in front of his couch to grab his phone. When the screen lit up, showing that he had two missed calls, he gasped out loud, nearly screaming; they were both from Gilbert. He unlocked his phone and listened to the two messages that Gilbert had left him.

The first: "Hey Mattie. Sorry I haven't talked to you much in the last few days. I've been busy. Anyway, call me back when you get the chance."

And the second, which was dated the next day: "Hey Mattie. It's Gil again. I really need you to call me back. Please. I need your help. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't have time to explain, just please, please, please call–" but his message was cut off by a horrible shriek, the shriek of a dying man. Upon hearing this, Matthew dropped his phone and ran out the door.

And he ran and ran, not knowing where he would end up, but eventually arriving at Gilbert's apartment. He reached under the mat where Gilbert hid the spare key and grabbed it, his hands fumbling as he tried to unlock the door. When he succeeded, he threw it open and ran inside, not bothering to close it.

What Matthew saw when he stepped through the threshold from the foyer to the living room made his chest seize up along with his ability to breathe. The furniture was scattered about, like someone had gotten in a fight, and the normally white carpet was red in places—blood red. When Matthew stepped closer to examine the room a bit better, he noticed broken glass scattered about, the shards covered in blood. They seemed to have come from the coffee table that was obviously no longer intact. The very sight of blood, Gilbert's or not, almost made Matthew pass out. What happened?

He could feel the familiar pang of anxiety starting to bubble up from inside his lower abdomen all the way to his lungs, and he leaned against the wall for support. The sight of the upturned room immobilized him, so he sat and stared at the only unbroken thing in the room: a photo of Gilbert and his brother hanging on the wall above a table that was on its side, but the sight of Gilbert slammed Matthew back to reality. Where was he? Was he okay? Matthew decided the best thing to do would be to call the cops. Yeah, that seemed logical.

He stood up and slowly walked to the kitchen, still using the wall and scattered furniture for support. He grabbed the phone off the receiver and dialed 911, bringing it to his ear.

It only took a few seconds for someone to answer. "911, what is your emergency," asked the monotonous voice of a young woman.

"Um. I just… I just walked into my uh… friend's apartment and… and there was… uh. There was…" He paused. He wasn't sure how to explain this.

"Sir, are you still there?"

"Yes. Um. The furniture is scattered everywhere, and there's… uh blood everywhere. I… I don't know what happened."

"Someone will be there momentarily, just remain calm. What is the address?"

Matthew gave the woman Gilbert's address before hanging up. He slowly sank to the cold tile floor and sat while he waited for the police or whoever dealt with this kind of thing to arrive.

Matthew spent what felt like an eternity on that hard kitchen floor before he heard footsteps coming from the general area of the living room.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" The voice was unfamiliar, but definitely a man.

"In the kitchen," Matthew yelled in response. He didn't look up from the red-stained tile in front of him, even when he heard the footsteps get louder and eventually saw a pair of shiny, black shoes in his peripheral vision.

"Sir?"

"Hmm," he replied, still without looking up.

"Are you alright?" The man had a heavy British accent, and when Matthew finally looked up, he met a bright green gaze, shadowed by bushy eyebrows. Behind him was another man. Matthew didn't realize until then that there were two people. They were both staring down at the young Canadian, making him feel like he was about to explode. He hadn't understood the gravity of the situation until then. Gilbert was gone, and although the police would try, there wasn't much they could do to find him.

"I'm fine," he replied, but it was nearly a whisper. He obviously wasn't fine, but the police couldn't help him with that.

The cop extended his hand to Matthew to help him up, but Matthew ignored it and stood up on his own. He looked at the two men standing in his kitchen. "So is there anything you can do? To find Gilbert?"

"That's what we're here for," the other cop replied. Even with that short sentence, Matthew could hear the man's thick accent, which he assumed to be French. "Now why don't you come with us down to the police station so we can ask you a few questions?"

Matthew sniffed and realized that there were tears pooling in his eyes. "Okay." He wiped his sleeve across his face and walked back to the living room. The sight of the bloody carpet made his stomach hurt again, so he looked away and followed the two police out of Gilbert's apartment.

It had been a month since they had given up. A month since they had stopped looking, stopped caring. They said they would do all they could to find Gilbert, but Matthew doubted that they really did. They had searched for a week, a week was all the time they took to find him. The thought made him sick. All that time he spent answering pointless questions was wasted because Gilbert was gone, and probably dead.

It took Matthew a month to accept the fact that he would never see those obnoxiously red eyes again. He would never hear another "awesome" in Gilbert's stupid accent. He never thought he would get attached to silly things like that, but then Gilbert came into his life.

Not much had changed since they pronounced Gilbert dead. A few articles of clothing lay scattered here and there around Matthew's bedroom, though he barely went in there anymore. The ruffled, grayish sheets reminded him too much of Gilbert's messy hair, and his smell still lingered on them from the many nights they spent together.

These days, Matthew spent most of his time on the couch, where he passed out, drunk, nearly every night. He Decided to finally get up and stretch, as he had been sitting for the past few hours. His legs were cramped from being in the same position for so long, but he couldn't sit there forever. He looked over at the phone still laying on the carpet where he had dropped it over a month ago. He hadn't bothered to pick it up, so it remained on the dusty carpet which probably needed vacuumed but Matthew didn't care. He often heard the phone ringing or making some sort of noise—probably just his brother, Alfred, trying to get ahold of him—but he was always to exhausted to answer it.

Feeling a little bit faint, Matthew made his way to the kitchen. He hadn't eaten in a couple days; he felt dehydrated, and his skin was starting to get pale, so he decided it would probably be a good idea to at least drink some water. The window in the kitchen was the only one in his house that wasn't covered by curtains or blinds, and Matthew was just now realizing that the sun had set more than a couple hours ago. He was confused for a moment before looking at the clock on the kitchen wall, then he knew why he was so tired. It was nearly four in the morning, and he had woken up at five the previous morning because of a recurring nightmare that he had almost every night after Gilbert died.

After Matthew had drank as much water as he could without throwing it back up, he slowly walked back to the living room and fell onto the couch, instantly passing out.

He was running. He didn't know where, and he didn't know why, but he had to keep going. He couldn't stop, even if he had no idea what would happen if he did. His legs just kept going, one foot in front of the other, until the scenery blurred around him. He didn't know where he was, but his surroundings were made up of what seemed like never-ending trees.

Eventually he came to a stop in a clearing. In the distance he could barely make out a small cabin. Finally, there was someone to help him. He ran to the front door of the building. It was barely intact. The paint peeling off of the walls, the door falling off of the hinges, and glass lay shattered on the ground outside where the windows used to be.

He pushed the door open, causing it to fall to the ground, the crash it made echoing longer than it should have. He stepped over the fallen door, into the one-roomed cabin. The furniture, although in almost new condition, was strewn around the room. There was blood on the floor and all four walls. The whole scene was familiar—almost too familiar.

He walked up to the only chair that was not on its side, with its back facing him. He could've sworn he saw someone sitting in it when he walked in, but when he approached it and jumped to the front, it was empty. That's when he heard the door slam shut, and everything went dark. How did the door slam shut when minutes ago it wasn't even attached? He had no idea, but that was not his biggest concern at the moment.

Then he heard footsteps. They were growing in on him, getting louder and louder. The amount of feet coming towards him kept increasing. He tried to run to the door, and though there was no light, he eventually hit the wall, hearing it crack upon impact. He felt for the doorknob but only found more wall. With the footsteps coming closer, the only thing he could do was wait. He sank to the ground and covered his ears, but he could still hear the pounding in his ears, along with screaming. He closed his eyes and braced for the worse.

Suddenly, everything was quiet. He uncovered his ears but did not open his eyes yet. It was silent, but a bad silent, the kind of silent that left him feeling uneasy, like he was in the eye of a hurricane.

However, when he opened his eyes, he was back in the woods, sitting on the ground, surrounded by fallen trees that formed a nearly perfect circle. He stood up and walked to the edge of the ring of trees, but whenever he approached them, he heard the same screeching sound from earlier, so he went back to the middle of the circle and sat down.

For some reason, he decided that digging into the earth below him would help him escape, so he began to claw at the dirt with his hands. As soon as he had effortlessly created a basketball sized hole, he felt cracking beneath him. The earth was falling apart, and it was taking him with it.

He looked at his hand, which resembled the shattered earth below him. He barely got a chance to scream before the earth gave out beneath him and he was falling.

He fell for what seemed like forever. Facing the bottom of the pit, he could see it coming towards him, closer and closer, until he was only inches from the ground

Matthew's eyes flew open, and he sat up as fast as he could. He had had that nightmare nearly every night for the past month, and as always, he woke up sweating, left with an empty feeling inside that refused to go away, even when he was awake.

He had no idea what the dream meant, if it meant anything at all. The only thing he knew for sure was that the inside of the cabin was exactly how Gilbert's living room had looked. The only difference was that one chair. It nearly drove Matthew insane whenever he jumped to the front of the chair and no one was there. He knew it was just a dream and that he shouldn't let it get to him, but he felt like it had some hidden meaning that would tell him where Gilbert was.

Feeling exhausted, Matthew fell back onto the couch, only to quickly sit up when he heard footsteps. They weren't like the footsteps in his nightmare though. He could tell it was only one person, and they were in the kitchen.

Matthew stood up as quietly as he could. He grabbed the hockey stick that leant against the wall and snuck to the kitchen. He peeked around the corner, but as far as he could tell there was no one there. They must have heard him coming (despite his efforts to stay silent) and hid in the closet. He cautiously stepped onto the kitchen floor, knowing exactly where to step so it wouldn't creak. Walking to the large closet on the other side of the room, he raised the hockey stick, ready to strike as soon as he threw the door open. There was no need for him to open the closet, though, because it threw itself open as soon as he placed his hand on the doorknob. Matthew flew backwards, more out of fright than from the force of the door. He nearly screamed, but remembered it was still the middle of the night, and he didn't want to wake up the neighbors or have someone call the cops. He could handle the intruder himself.

In the small amount of moonlight that shone through the one window in Matthew's kitchen, he could scarcely make out some of the features of the man standing before him: crimson eyes, silver hair… Wait a minute.

"Gilbert?" Matthew nearly shouted the name. No. It couldn't be Gilbert. He was dead. It wasn't possible.

"Hey Birdie. You got any beer?"

At the sight of the smirk on Gilbert's face, Matthew nearly smacked him with the hockey stick.

A/N: So that's the first chapter. Sorry I published it a couple days late. My computer was messed up and it took me a while to fix it. I'll most likely be updating every Friday unless I'm too busy or my computer decides to be a jerk again. Anyway, I hope you liked it. More Prucan coming up next week!