CONSUME

05.

CHAPTER FIVE

The poster was old and decaying, hanging onto the large pinboard with a weak will and slowly deteriorating for every second that passed. The once bright letters were decrepit and impossible to read. It stood out among the other posters for several reasons, the first being that it was a missing person poster. Nothing was colorful or appealing about it, which made it much more eye-catching. It also stood out because she knew that the smiling person on the poster was dead.

The eyes could be mistaken for ash and the hair resembled coal against the pale skin of the young boy. The cheeks were puffy and still held the fat that lingered from being a baby, creating a look of adolescence. Large dimples adorned the cheeks and the wide smile was proudly showing a big tooth gap. The chubby hands were holding a teddy bear, the fluffy thing obviously being of importance as he gripped it tightly with care.

No matter how much she wanted to, Esther couldn't tear her eyes away from the missing poster. Despite how hard she was thinking, she couldn't remember the boy's name. It was strange, she remembered when he went missing but other than her mind was empty. She had forgotten. It scared her to think that a person was forgettable and lead to a repeating question that troubled her much more then she would ever like to admit.

If you went missing, would anyone notice?

She couldn't give the answer, she could guess, but the fact was that no matter what people forget. The world was big, too big for her. People would care to some point, they would notice, they would search, but how long would it take before they stopped looking for her? It wouldn't take long for her to be forgotten and that was a terrifying realization. People would give up on her, presume her dead and move on with their lives, cause who would look for a dead girl? No matter how much she wanted to deny it she was a forgettable person, which lead to the gut feeling that if something went wrong, face on poster wrong, the chances of her returning were slim and undeniably nonexistent.

She tore her eyes away from the poster, the unsettling feeling heavy and wrapped tight in her strained chest. Her blood felt as led clogging up her veins. Esther could feel her heartbeat pound in her ear, an anxious feeling wrapped tightly around her chest and creeping throughout her whole body. Her nails dug into her palms, creating crescent marks in an irritating red color.

A hand landed on her shoulder and she jumped, for a slight second feeling true fear.

"Hey! Didn't mean to scare you." Mia's smile was large and dimpled, her eyes soft and comforting for the ball of anxiety the shorter girl had turned into to. Relief washed over her, knowing she was safe.

"I hope you're ready to shop because, I don't have the money for it but I'm gonna treat myself big time. And tell me if you get overwhelmed or something and need a break, since there's probably a lot of people and I know you don't like that." Esther nodded with a grateful smile and listened as the bus rolled in, despite hating the mall she was quite content to have a day with her friend and be distracted from reality.

The sad fact was that she was starting to hate reality, now more then ever before.

"You know I heard something about you." The words made anxiety spread trough Esther's body like quicksilver, her overthinking kicking in and her brain going haywire with all possibilities of what could have been said about her.

"From who? And what? And when?" She instantly questioned.

"I ran into a certain officer the other day," Mia smiled, "He had great things to say about you, I didn't know you two were so close! You should've told me." Since when had the two ever been close and why out of all people, was she last to be informed of it? "He went on and on about you, if he wasn't so much older I would think he has a crush on you. The way he talked, yeesh, like you were actually together." The tone was happy, but the words were nothing but a full blown kick in the face.