I wake up from a dreamless sleep with a start, a few rays of pale light filtering through the slits in the blinds over my bed. Something from an earlier nightmare tries to claw its way free from the back of my brain, desperately trying to find purpose, to force me to remember its face, but I can't seem to make out what it was or why it bothered me.

Looking up, I can just barely make out the clock- little after seven. Five hours since the last time I looked… the most I've slept at once since Tuesday. Can't help but wonder if it was because Natsuki was here, after all, like her presence somehow put my mind at ease.

I yawn and stretch before getting up as quietly as I can. Despite the little bit of light trickling in, my room is surprisingly dark for this hour, as is the hallway beyond as I creep into it, careful not to close the door all the way behind me. At the window at the top of the stairs, I peek through the blinds look out into the gloom of the starting day. The clouds are varying shades of gray, patches and streaks of something darker here and there, the threat of rain painted here and there throughout the drab covering. A good day to so nothing, sit around and read, mindlessly binge anime.

Staring out at the gray dawn, the house all but silent around me, it's an almost serene moment, the first time all week I haven't felt like I was going to expel some part of my insides from stress. My mind is empty, still a little obscured by the miasma of sleep, and it's kinda nice, in a weird way. No worries, about what happens to Natsuki when she's not at school, or Sayo-

That thing, that idea, the remnant of the dream, comes screeching back at me, jarring and intense like a deep black metal cut. It's not something from a nightmare, no, not really, even if my subconscious may have brought it up in one this week. I'm hit with a memory, a day Sayori and I skipped school years ago. Summer was just starting, it was the last day of school; we wanted to get an early start, so we just didn't go to the last day of classes. Instead, we got on a bus to the beach a couple hours away, and spent all day exploring up and down the coast. After the bus fare, we only had enough money between the two of us for a couple bottles of water and a single overpriced sandwich, but it didn't matter. From early in the morning until late afternoon, we played in the surf, climbed dunes, and eventually found our way to the top of a series of nearby cliffs.

I wonder if Sayori ran off to somewhere like that, someplace special to her. That would make sense, although I'm not sure if logic is a good thing or not right now. A few months ago, not too long after she convinced me to join the Literature Club, actually, she half-heartedly tried to kill herself, and now that I think about it, her just up and disappearing one day feels scarily similar. I'm hesitant to try and make connections, since it seems like I don't know how she thinks anymore, but if I know something no one else would even consider…

I'm pulled from my thoughts by the slight scrape of a door on carpet; it seems incredibly loud without the ambient noise of anyone else up and moving about the house. I turn, maybe a little too quickly -it's almost a spin, at this speed- to see Natsuki peeping through the half-open door to my bedroom. Hair a mess, the duvet from my bed wrapped around her shoulders, still mostly asleep, she yawns, and I can't help but smile in spite of the new thoughts coursing through my mind. "Morning, 'Suki… I wanted to see what the weather was like, but I didn't want to climb over you to get to the window, since you were still asleep…"

She rubs her eyes, the duvet slipping off her shoulders, but she catches it before it hits the floor and ensconces herself with it again. "Okay. I was a little worried for a second, you weren't…" She trails off, face flushing. I notice a very small smile that she's clearly trying to hide. "I mean, it's weird to wake up in someone's room and they aren't there."

"Uh huh." I don't know to lead into this, so I just… drop it. "I… this is kind of crazy, but I had a dream about Sayori. Are… would you be…" She tilts her head a little to one side. I feel my face going red, too, embarrassed by my inability to speak. "There's somewhere I don't think anyone's thought to look for her, and…"

"We're going. Get dressed, loser." There's something fierce in her eyes all of the sudden. I can't help but admire it. A few months ago, this girl lost her shit on me for dropping one of her precious manga, then broke down crying. Now she's trying to cheer me up, and taking charge of looking for Sayori. I'm almost stunned that she actually agreed to go on a date with me. "Well, don't just stand there, we're not going to get anywhere if you don't get moving!"

I walk back down the hall and past her, into my room, then gently push her out and close the door, more to tease her than anything. She comes right back in, long enough to throw the duvet on the bed and grab her phone, then heads back into the hall. As I change clothes, I hear her call Yuri, then Monika, telling them to get here as soon as they can. Although I can't hear everything she says, between her tone and aggressive shutting down what sounds like an excuse on Monika's end, I'm impressed, doubly so if she managed to convince Monika to cancel her plans.

"Hey." Through the door. "They'll be here as soon as they can. Do you want to tell me where we're going…?" I open the door and Natsuki immediately falls forward, crashing into me and sending us both to the floor. We linger there momentarily before she climbs off of me and helps me up. There's something very déjà vu about it, but I can't remember this actually happening before.

"Well, there was one day when we were kids that Sayori and I skipped school to go to the beach…" I move to sit on the edge of the nearby dresser. Natsuki leans in the doorway. "There's no dramatic, like, 'I could die happy here,' or anything, but between us and the police, I figured the whole town's been looked over at least once by now. Looking somewhere else might…" I feel like I'm grasping at straws, like the words I'm looking for are just out of reach. "I don't know, Natsuki. It's probably nothing, but I have to try."

"We have to try."

"Yeah, we. Thank you."

And that's enough. We head to the bottom of the stairs, where we sit and wait for the other girls to arrive. Natsuki nods on and off, her head on my shoulder. If we weren't about to embark on a mission from the heavens themself, I might have let her stay there a little longer.

There's a knock at the door. A sleepy Yuri yawns as I open it, and steps in without saying anything. There's something urgent in the air, something that I hadn't noticed before. None of us can be bothered with small talk, and the silence between us feels like it has a personality of its own, taut and tense, miles past nervous. We all shift uncomfortably, leaning, standing, slouching. I almost want to tell Yuri the plan and explain it a third time when Monika gets here, but I force myself to wait and have at least a little patience.

It's not too long before our last friend shows up, even though it feels like an eternity. It looks like Monika went to a lot more effort to look like she was up and ready to go, more than the rest of us, her body language shows she's probably just as tired as Yuri. She stifles a yawn as I open the door, but doesn't make a move to enter the house. I imagine she can sense the tension from the porch.

"This… doesn't seem any less crazy the second time." I try to sound like I'm convinced, like I'm not starting to heavily doubt my own stupid plan; unsure if it works. "It's just a hunch, but maybe no one's been able to find Sayori because she's not here… in town, I mean." I decide to leave out the part about coming to this conclusion by way of dream-vision… I have a feeling I've already convinced the only person who would buy into that. "There's a place a couple hours from here where we used to go over the summer every year. I don't know if it'll lead to anything any more than us looking the other day did, but…"

"We have to try." Monika echoes Natsuki's words from earlier, and a giddy excitement builds in my chest. Or something like excitement… more than anything, I think it's the possibility of relief after half a week of agonizing.

Not that I hadn't been before, but I'm suddenly struck at how grateful I am to have the three of them as friends. I don't think I ever would have really met any of them without Sayori… I should tell her that, sometime.

We work out the details quickly; as it turns out, there's a bus to the beat that leaves in about half an hour. It's a stretch, but if we hurry, we should be able to get there in time. My parents are still sleeping off last night, it seems, so the four of us head out without any interference.

At the bus station, Natsuki comes up a little short for the ticket. I'm in the process of digging through my pockets for a couple coins to make up the difference when Yuri hands the cashier enough to cover the entire thing without a word to either of us. Natsuki and I watch this exchange in surprise, then she takes the ticket and the four of us get on the bus. Still relatively early, in both time of day and time of year to be visiting the coastal town, the bus is fairly sparsely populated, and despite out seats being almost directly in the middle of the bus, we end up surrounded by empty seats by the time it gets moving.

There's not much conversation early on- Monika jokes that her position on the student council might be in danger after abruptly canceling whatever she was supposed to be helping with this morning; Yuri teases Natsuki for going along with my plan so easily, without even thinking if she had the money for a bus pass. I hear it, but none of it really sticks. Even with Natsuki openly resting her head on my shoulder, my head's miles away, and as we leave the city, the girls talk amongst themselves, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I try to trace our route around the resort town that day, and any of the other times Sayori and I had gone back there since. No matter what I try to think of though, my thoughts keep coming back to the cliffs. Nothing else stands out like they do. At least once a year, the two of us would spend hours -entire days, sometimes- sitting near the edge, watching the waves come in, sometimes talking, sometimes not. The times blur together, but I can smell the salt and hear the crash of waves out of sight below us reverberating in my ears, and suddenly I'm cold.

Please let her be okay.

I don't know if it's a thought or a prayer. If it's a prayer, I don't know who I'm sending it to.

Anyone who will listen.

Anyone who might help.

Please let her be okay. I'll do whatever it takes to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, that Sayori never feels the way she did again.

Please just let her be okay.