It was Thursday, November 1st. Chelsea Randolph sat at a lunch table in the cafeteria of her school with two of her best friends, Anna and Melanie. They were discussing how they'd each chosen to spend Halloween.

Chelsea wasn't the biggest fan of school, but she enjoyed spending time with her friends. She didn't have any interesting stories from Halloween- she had ended up just staying home and reading. Her friends, on the other hand, had gone trick-or-treating and gotten loads of candy. The previous night, Chelsea hadn't been concerned with collecting candy. For some reason, she'd had the feeling that there would be enough candy from the holiday for her to have some and still have remaining candy left over. Looking back on it, that seemed silly. She was an only child. Who else would've gotten candy to share with her?

Melanie and Anna were trading their stories. Being in high school hadn't stopped Melanie or most of their high school from going trick-or-treating. Melanie hadn't gone in her neighborhood, but she and her brother had collectively picked up three bags of candy, which was much more than they'd ever end up eating. Anna hadn't gone trick-or-treating, but she had gone to a party with her theater friends.

Chelsea was only halfway through the school day, but she was already ready to go home. She did not have the energy to survive her last three classes. She looked up at the clock. It was 11:57, about three minutes until she and her friends would leave the lunch room to go to their next class.

Chelsea sighed quietly. "I could just take a nap right now," she told her friends. She hadn't stayed up too late last night (it was a Wednesday, after all), but she felt emotionally drained. She knew of no logical reason for it. It didn't feel like just something random, but it had to be.

"I know," Melanie agreed. "So could I." That was one thing Chelsea and her friends had in common. All three of them were usually ready for a nap by lunch. They tended to count down the hours until they got to go home, which was usually a smaller amount for Chelsea and Melanie, because Anna had play practice after school.

Anna took a bite of her pumpkin-shaped peanut butter cup. "Do you guys remember what we're doing next hour?"

"I think we're just taking notes," Melanie answered.

"Oh, good," Anna sighed. "I hope so." She stuffed the rest of her candy into her mouth.

Melanie looked at her watch. "Ready to head out?" she asked. The other two girls nodded. The three gathered their belongings. They stood up, pushed their chairs in, and made their way between the tables full of chatting high schoolers.

The three girls walked out of the cafeteria and headed in the direction of their fifth hour chemistry class, which they all shared. Chelsea had a slight nagging feeling in the back of her mind, as if she had forgotten something. It wasn't an unusual feeling for her. Most of the time, when she had that feeling, it would turn out later that she had forgotten something- like to bring her gym uniform on a Monday or to grab her book off of her nightstand in the morning. The feeling had been tugging at her all day, and as much as she racked her brain, she could not think of anything she was missing. The feeling persisted for the rest of the day.

…

Two and a half weeks later, and Chelsea still couldn't get over the instinct that something wasn't right. The nagging feeling in her mind wouldn't leave her alone. Since she couldn't get rid of it, she had learned to live with it. It wasn't ideal, but she'd manage. She always did.

It was the start of Thanksgiving break. Chelsea had three days off of school because of the holiday. She could appreciate that. She was glad to have three extra days to stay home.

Today was the first day of the break. Chelsea had slept in until 9, which was pretty late for her. It was wonderful not having to get up so early to go to school. She was looking forward to sitting around and doing nothing for a while.

At the current moment, she was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, and debating whether or not it was worth it to get out of bed. The house felt strangely quiet, as it had for some time. Chelsea couldn't peg when, exactly, that feeling had started, but it was a strange feeling. She was an only child. There was no reason that the house should be any louder than it was. Yet still, something was just slightly off, so small of a feeling that she didn't even consciously notice it.

Chelsea sat up. Part of her wanted to stay in bed, but she had never been good with purposefully being unproductive. She was not a fan of that feeling. She dragged herself out of bed with a yawn. What would be a good way to spend this extra day off? It was only the day before Thanksgiving, so there wasn't anything big to be done that day.

She supposed that breakfast would probably be a good start. Unlike many high schoolers, Chelsea didn't skip breakfast. She knew that it was a very important meal, and besides, her parents would definitely not allow her to.

Going to the kitchen and pouring herself some cereal, Chelsea pondered her three days off. She would hope to get something productive done. Most days that she didn't have school, she ended up just wasting all of her extra time, which was fun in the moment, but it wasn't very appealing in the long run.

Chelsea sat down at the dining room table and started eating her breakfast.

…

Chelsea picked up the stack of mail on the counter and sifted through it, sorting out the letters. Her mom had asked her to clean off the kitchen counter (the unofficial Place Where Mail Went to Die) for Thanksgiving, since they were hosting it at their house this year. There were some bills, some random stuff for her parents, and one birthday card addressed to somebody called Cole. It must've been sent to the wrong address by someone who wasn't notified that the previous occupants of the house had moved.

Back when Chelsea and her parents had first moved in to this house, they'd gotten a lot of that sort of mail and had to send it back to the post office often. They hadn't so much recently, but she supposed that there wasn't necessarily a limit on the amount of people who still hadn't figured out that the previous owners had moved.

Whoever was supposed to be getting this card- Cole, she supposed- would have to go one birthday card short this year.