Mina woke up late the next morning. After she had been woken up by that strange feeling of being watched, she had spent the rest of the night tossing and turning. She hadn't been able to shake the feeling, and had felt like a child again, laying in the darkness, her eyes darting around the shadowed room, and starting at every sound that the old house emitted. She had been glad when the first rays of sunlight had begun to peek into the room, and she could fall asleep in the safety of the sunlight.

She dug in her suitcase for an outfit for the day, finally settling on her favorite rose pink sweater and a pair of dark jeans. She mentally groaned at the thought of having to unpack all her suitcases and boxes. She had only asked her mother to pack her a few things, but aparently her mother had packed her whole flat . She moved to the dresser and brushed out her wavy, chesnut hair, wincing as she encountered a mass of tangles. She hated her curly hair. Finally giving up, she threw it up into a bun, quickly dabbing on a bit of make up. She sighed at her reflection in the mirror. There were heavy bags under her eyes, and her face looked gaunt and she was pretty sure that she could have passed as a member of the walking dead. She wondered how she had ever found this type of face, so lifeless and sick looking beautiful. And to think that she had actually wanted to be thinner.

She found her mother in the kitchen, reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. "Good morning,"

"Morning," She mumbled as a reply, going over to the counter and picking up a bananna. After a second thought, she switched it out for the smallest one in the bunch. Her mother noticed but said nothing.

"I thought that we might go to town and go shopping."

Mina looked up from where she had been cutting the bananna into small, equal pieces. She hadn't been to town in years and she wondered if they had added anything into the tiny town square that had served as a shopping center for the residents. That also meant that she might run into her best friend since she had been in diapers, Amanda Little. They hadn't talked as much as they would have liked to ever since Mina had moved to London to dance with the company. Mina had been busy dancing, and Amanda had started taking classes at the university only an hour away, in the hopes of one day becoming a doctor. With them both being so busy, they had almost lost contact completely.

"Do think we will have time to stop by Amanda's?" She asked. She notice her mother stiffen, and her face had paled. "What's wrong?"

"Mina..." Her mother trailed off. She sat her coffee cup down on the table, wringing her hands like she always did when she was nervous, a trait she had passed onto her daughter. "We didn't want to tell you because we wanted you to focus on getting better..."

"Mom, just spit it out. "She said, worry beginning to knot itself in her stomach.

Her mother sighed. "About a month after you were admitted to Garden Ridge... Amanda... She went missing."

Mina felt her mouth go dry and the worry that had knotted itself in her stomach felt like a heavy bar of lead. Amanda go missing? It felt like something out of those cheap, low budget movies she and Amanda always used to watch. It was impossible. Things like that only happened to people in movies or on the news. Something like that couldn't happen to someone she knew, let alone someone she had been so close.

"I'm sorry we didn't tell you earlier, Mina. " Her mother said, but it felt like a distant echo in her mind. " We wanted you to focus on getting better, and not have anything prevent you from getting well as fast as you could."

"Mom, my best friend went missing!" She cried. "How could you not tell me something that important?"

"Honey, we didn't want anything to distract you from getting better.. You know that the doctor said that if you didn't gain weight immediately that you..." Her mother trailed off, gripping her coffee mug tightly. "You only needed to worry about getting better."

"Mom, Amanda went missing. That's way more important. She could be dead,being tortured, or worse, and you thought that me getting better was more important? You could have at least told me."

"Mina-"

She stormed out of the room, slamming the kitchen door behind her. How could her mother not tell her that her best friend, practically her sister, had gone missing? She had been so busy mopinng over her own, now much more less important, problems, when Amanda had been kidnapped or killed by some psycho. She thought about all those crime programs she and Amanda used to watch all the time, each of them guessing who the guilty party was. It had never seemed possible that one of them would end up in the same position as one of the people that had been killed, or worse, on the shows.

It didn't even seem possible that something like that even had a chance of happening to Amanda. She was the most cautious person that Mina knew. Apparently, watching all those crime shows had made her paraniod and she never left the house without her pocket sized bottle of mace. She had even taken a few self defense classes, and had dragged Mina along with her to them. And she had had this weird habit of never going outside alone at night. Mina had teased her about, telling her that all the local legends of goblins an elves had gone to her head. Now, Mina felt bad about it. Even though it most certainly wasn't any mythical creature that had kidnapped Amanda, she had been right in being careful. You never knew what kind of monster could be lurking in the dark.

Mina was suddenly reminded of the strange feeling she had had last night. She had had the feeling that someone had been watching her, even that someone had been in the room with her before she had been jolted awake. And as her eyes had darted around the shadowed room, she had had the feeling that someone-or something-had still been in the room with her. It was the very same feeling that she had always had after she had stayed up late, watching horror movies with Amanda. It was simply her mind playing tricks on herself, she told herself. And besides, her window had been shut tight and locked, as had her bedroom door. It was impossible that anyone could have been in the room.

Too upset at her mother to go back down and ask her the details of Amanda's case, Mina resorted to using the Internet. She grabbed her laptop from her desk, sitting down Indian style on the bed and opening it infront of her. She quickly typed in her Amanda's name and found that it popped up several results from major news networks. She found it was odd that she hadn't heard even the news that a girl had gone missing. But then again, at Garden Ridge the only television they had only played DVDs. She clicked on the first result and it pulled up an article dated only a week after Amanda had gone missing.

'Amanda Little, 19, was reported missing last week after attending a party with a group of friends. Her friends reported seeing her willingly leave the party with a man, who they claimed to have never seen before. The police currently have no leads and are offering a reward to anyone with any information. Little was a pre-med student at the nearby university and had plans to become a doctor.'

Mina frowned. The Amanda she knew would have never left a party with someone she had only just met. In fact, Amanda rarely ever even went to parties. Mina had always had to beg her to go with her, with promises that she wouldn't leave her by herself. She hadn't even spoken to people she didn't know, despite often being hit on at every party they attended.

"They are just pigs," She would always say, with a disgusted expression on her face.

"You'll never meet anyone if you never give anyone a chance."Mina would reply.

"Hmm.."

That was Amanda's way of ending an argument. Mina had always thought it was Amanda's way of not accepting that she had been beat and not wanting to argue further. If there was one thing Amanda hated, it was being wrong. Amanda had always been top of the class and the best at everything she did. She had a competitive spirit and hated being upstaged. Even though it would sound like Amanda was stuck up, she was one of the sweetest people that Mina had ever meant. She was literally the type of person who would give you the shirt off of her back, while hounding you with obscure facts about her newest obsession of course.

She closed the laptop with a sigh, burying her face in her hands. She could feel the start of a headache coming on, and even though she had only just woken up, she felt exhausted. It would be much easier to sleep, and hide from the aweful reality that her best friend was gone, then to stay awake and try to deal with it. But wasn't that what she had always been good at? She had always had a habit of putting off her problems and telling herself that she would deal with them later. The problem with that was that she usually kept putting them off and never dealt with them.