Arthur's fingers twitched. The silence blared in the background, invading his mind.
One hand was resting on his chest, while the other was sprawled out dramatically.
He was sitting in the dark; the power had gone out. It was hot in his room, for once, and he couldn't turn the fan on because nothing would work. He had lost track of how long the power had been out, seeing as his computer was dead and afterwards he'd just sat in the dark.
But now, he was so damn bored. Eight in the evening in England was always dark as hell.
Finally, he turned on his phone. He couldn't sleep, nor could he read or do anything else, actually.
The silence filled the room. He smoothed his fingers across the sheets as he waited for his phone to boot up.
Silence.
A sudden, disturbing thought flashed through his mind. And it began bugging him, worrying away at his heart.
A friend of a friend of a friend— Arthur laughed at himself. How had he fallen so far down the rabbit hole? How was he so pathetic?
He took in a breath. Damn it!
All of those goddamn useless exchanges, and he still couldn't say he regretted a thing.
Maybe check again? Arthur thought uselessly. So he downloaded an app he hadn't had in months, logged in, and went to someone's profile.
He scrolled through their exchanges, his eyes filling with tears, and then he went up to see how long it had been. Eight months.
Alfred had been in the military for months. He'd befriended Arthur and talked to him quite a bit, but Arthur didn't really know him. They'd never met.
Alfred would always tell him when he was leaving, and he'd text him soon after he got back.
It had been eight months.
Alfred had never texted him again. No more exchanges, no more posts. Alfred wasn't the sort of person who would just leave without telling him— or at least, Arthur didn't think he was.
They had never met. Arthur didn't even know Alfred's full name. But Alfred... was gone.
Arthur had just assumed he was dead. He was most likely never going to come back, but Arthur still checked. He still got his hopes up, only to be crushed everytime.
Nearing the end, they hadn't even talked that much. As a matter of fact, for the first four months of Alfred's absence, Arthur hadn't realized they hadn't talked.
Arthur had regretted it at first. He'd been bitter. Then, the bitterness turned to guilt. He didn't really know how to feel.
Arthur had lost a lot of people. But none had impacted him as much as Alfred had, and none were so blatantly gone.
Arthur hadn't even known Alfred that well, and that was what he regretted most. Such a wonderful person that he would never get the chance to know or talk to ever again.
Not that he had the right to be upset. Arthur didn't know him. He was sure Alfred had a family of people who cared about him; he'd mentioned a girlfriend once or twice.
But if Arthur had no right to be upset, why was he? Alfred's absence had left a sort of dent in his heart, a dip that couldn't quite be filled by everything else.
Arthur didn't even know how he felt anymore. He hasn't come back yet. Maybe next week, he thought.
He scrolled through some articles, watched some videos, but the uneasiness hadn't gone away. He'd forgotten how to live without it, without thinking of Alfred. And now, now that Alfred had just disappeared from his world, he couldn't help but think: What about the other people who have disappeared? What if they're dead, or something horrible has happened to them, and I'll never know? What if no one remembers them?
Arthur stayed up for awhile, checking the time impulsively. Wishing had become a nightly ritual.
11:11. Make a wish.
I wish for Alfred to come back. I wish for everyone I've met to be okay. I wish, I wish, I wish... I wish that, even if Alfred never comes back, that he is okay and safe.
A saddening nightly ritual. It was childish, yes, but it was all Arthur could do. He'd never wished when he was a child, but wasn't anything worth a shot now?
Some people said that if you wished long enough, a wish would have to come true. Childish, hopeless. Still, Arthur couldn't help himself.
He felt like Alfred was closer to him because of the wishes, but how would he know? Maybe he wasn't. Maybe Alfred really was gone, never to come back. Or maybe, just maybe, his wishes would reach Alfred one day. Until that day, he would have to keep wishing.
This story is very personal to me. I admit, I mostly just played around with words. I don't really know how to describe how I feel, but I think this is about as close as I could get. This has been my sort of reality for a good month or so now, and I honestly can't imagine things will get better, but it does help to imagine someone out there. It's easier to imagine I'm not alone, and that my wishes will come true someday.
Anyway, yeah! That's it. This story... I just wrote this because I needed some sort of way to express myself. It's been rather difficult for me to do that recently. It was rather hard for me to put this in words, and I feel this doesn't quite do justice, but it does make me feel a little better.