Obsession.

When the girls began to disappear, I was taught to be paranoid. We all were. My mother never let me forget that there were psychos out there; at least one of whom were residing in our very own little town of Winter Vale, kidnapping teenage girls.

“Pretty,” my mum had added. “Pretty teenage girls.”

I’m not stupid – I know I’m pretty. I’ve never been asked to a photo-shoot, but people don’t recoil at the sight of me either.

We weren’t sure about the kidnapping. They were just disappearing, maybe one a month at the most. Police never found any bodies that we knew of, and certainly no-one had ever been caught.

I began taking precautions at first, making sure I was never home alone, taking someone out with me, never staying out past dark...

Then my dad died, and all that kindof disappeared. My mum stopped being so worried about murders and kidnappings and crime outside our door – focusing on her job and our income. My sister left to go travelling with her fiancé, Bradley. I haven’t heard from them in months. I just stopped caring. It was my baby brother who kept me safe. Not that I noticed back then. He and Tyler had been the only ones I really felt loved me well and truly - would do anything for me. Like saving my life in exchange for their own.

When life got back on track, it didn’t seem as serious as it had a few years ago. Girls still disappeared and people were still both baffled and terrified by it, but when no-one you really know is affected by it, it doesn’t seem real. I was a older and more mature. Maybe that made me arrogant. But I just didn’t think it’d happen to me.

But, you guessed it, it did. And he died. He died because of it.

One moment we were walking down the street, talking and laughing. Next, we heard the obnoxiously loud sound of a car horn and the squeal of brakes. We turned around in surprise and saw a black car come hurtling towards us from round the corner. We stared at it as it zoomed down the road. At about four in the afternoon, you didn’t see many maniac drivers.

The car had stopped in front of us, but his back blocked my view as he’d tried to shield me when the prospect of being hit by a car presented itself to us. Two incredibly loud cracks made me flinch and blink, flinging my arm across my face. The engine had probably died or something. I hid behind his back, startled.

“What was that?!” I heard myself yell over the ringing in my ears. The car then reversed and sped off. He didn’t move. I tapped his back. “Hey. You okay?”

He took half a step forward and suddenly collapsed. Just like that. I stared at him, not sure what he was doing. How was I supposed to know he’d been shot? I crouched down and pulled him onto his back.

“What are you-“

I didn’t scream. I just stopped. Froze. I was unable to speak. To breathe. To blink. I just stared at the two blossoms of red in his chest.

Eventually, I had regained composure and frantically touched his face. I remember thinking: No. No, no, this wasn’t happening. Not now. Not to him.

His hands shook violently as they slowly found the bullet holes – the blood. So much blood... He stared at his scarlet hands looking surprised, but not scared. Why wasn’t he scared? I was terrified. I had never been more afraid. I felt sick, useless, helpless, and most of all – terribly young. I didn’t know what to do, and I could feel the tears running down my cheeks.

He had his eyelids only half open now. I'd wasted so much time already. His eyes were rolling into the back of his head, but he seemed determined to look at me. I could see that they were slowly closing though, and that realisation made me cry harder. His mouth was soundlessly trying to form words. Feebly, he tugged me closer by my shirt, and it was then that I heard his last words.

This is the story of how my life was ripped apart.