Immediate missing persons report filed
Case entered into national police system
Patrol units notified and instructed to conduct area search
Alert issued to nearby jurisdictions
Hospitals and emergency services notified
A formal search operation has been initiated.
Additional Notes
No evidence of forced entry or third-party involvement at residence.
Investigation ongoing.
Reporting Officer
Sgt. Piotr Zielinski
Komenda Miejska Policji we Wroclawiu
The Demise
Chapter 31
Yeah.
And how the fuck are you supposed to process something like that?
Truth is, I couldn’t.
More than anything, I wanted to throw the papers across the room, crumple them up, stomp on them, burn them. But instead I just placed them back on the table, my eyes hyperfocused on the corner where the paper had bent from my fingers pressing too hard into it. Like if I focused on something pointless enough, the rest of it wouldn’t catch up to me.
But it did, of course it did.
It came in small pieces, things settling where they shouldn’t, connecting without asking me first, and I hated that, more than anything. My stomach turned before I fully understood why. It crept up, like something rising too close to the surface, and I had to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth just to keep it down.
I leaned back, then forward again. Couldn’t sit still.
The sofa felt wrong under me, too soft, like it was trying to hold me in place when I didn’t want to be held. I could hear the room too clearly. The clock somewhere behind me, the ticking hurting my skull, a car passing outside, tires against the road, his breathing, mine. Everything kept going, like nothing had changed.
He had been looking for me.
That thought wouldn’t leave. It didn’t even come with anything attached to it at first, just those words, sitting there like they belonged to someone else’s life.
He looked for me. I dragged a hand over my face, slow, pressing harder than I needed to, like I could push something back intoplace if I just… No. It didn’t work. Because right next to it, her. Not a memory, just the idea of her, twisted in a way that made everything else feel unstable.
She thought I was something, not just unwanted but wrong. I swallowed again, but there was nothing to swallow. My throat felt dry, tight, like it had closed up completely. For a second I thought I might laugh. It almost came up, that kind of empty, hollow sound that doesn’t belong anywhere but still forces its way out sometimes.
Instead, it stayed stuck somewhere lower, turning into something else.
I thought no one wanted me. That had always been the truth I lived with, and it was perfect, because it was clean enough to live with. You build around it, you know? You take something like that and you make it make sense.
You tell yourself it explains things, why things happened, why you are the way you are. It becomes useful. And all of a sudden, that illusion broke. Because I was sitting in his house, his voice was still somewhere in the room.
I pressed my fingers harder into my temples, trying to stop the way the thoughts were stacking over each other, not lining up, just fucking piling. It didn’t help, because it wasn’t just that. It was everything. That’s what broke it.
