Reaching out into the darkness, grasping for something, anything to ground her, frantically groping for something to save her, coming up empty handed. Feeling for a foothold, slipping further still. The blackness, cold and unforgiving, sent ice running through her veins and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. As the shadows swallowed her, one reoccurring thought danced mockingly through her subconscious. Who would even know? Who would miss her? She was and forever will be invisible.

With a gasp, she jerked into an upright position on the couch. Characters flashed across the television screen in time with her racing heart. Chest heaving, breathing shallow, she closed her eyes taking a moment to collect herself. It was only a dream she told herself. Only a dream. But on the backs of her eyelids, visions of the darkness were projected, and in her mind she saw parallels between it and the empty shell that her life was. Rather than dwell on it, she picked herself up and crept up the stairs to her room. She collapsed on her bed in an exhausted stupor, and sleep quickly found her. She was blessed with a dreamless sleep.

Smiles, laughter, and a general atmosphere of jubilance used to accompany her everywhere she went. Kisses, hugs, and warmth used to accompany her everywhere she went. Faith, hope, and innocence used to be qualities of hers. Now that warm and loving world that used to be hers is gone. That warm and loving world has been replaced by the cold, cruel, reality that is her life. Now she walks the hallways with dread, waiting for the next snide remark to be thrown her way, waiting for the next carefully calculated shove sent her way, waiting for the next venomous reminder that she was no longer, and never would be again, one of them. But really, she is waiting for it all to come to an end.

Her life was passing her by. The days dragged on, the weeks all blurred together; she had no recollection of any specific event. By day she was invisible, treading quietly through life, and by night she wasn’t the passive pushover she seemed to be. She wrote. No one knew about it, but she did it. In her writing she expressed all her anger and helplessness. She unleashed her frustration on the world that couldn’t, or wouldn’t accept her for the person she was. It was through her writing that she met her salvation: Mitchel.

Her day progressed like any other: she walked, she breathed, and she didn’t talk. But today was different. Unlike every other day, someone’s excruciatingly accurate trip sent her stumbling, but instead of slamming into the unforgiving brick wall, he took the brunt of her impact. Unfortunately her bag wasn’t as lucky, and the thing that housed all of her most prized possessions tumbled towards the ground. Among the plethora of objects spilling out of the bag was her journal, but in her haste to recover her scattered belongings, that was the one thing she left behind. Blushing profusely, she muttered apologies under the cover of the curtain of her hair, and without ever looking up, she scampered away.

It wasn’t until much later that she realized the physical documentation of her inner-workings had fallen into hands other than her own. Surprisingly enough, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Whoever had it would return it, burn it, or show it to anyone who cared to see, yet she still couldn’t bring herself to care. The whereabouts of her journal remained a mystery until the following afternoon when a shy, cute boy, incidentally the one who had caught her fall the previous day, approached her with a smile on his face and her journal in his hand. His smile made her wary. She braced herself for the mocking, but it never came. Instead, he smiled shyly until she pushed the curtain of hair aside and met his eyes.

Their intensity mesmerized her; she was caught up in their beauty. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. It puzzled her as well as frightened her that she couldn’t seem to look away just as it terrified her that she knew without him speaking a word he could see right through her façade, and those eyes were gazing right into the depths of her soul. In that exact moment, her life was altered. When asked years later, she would say that in that moment she felt the ground shift as though tremors were reverberating through the Earth. In that moment, she became visible.