I clutched the side of the armoire as I quickly slid behind, my breath escaped in short bursts. Focused on my pounding heart, but over the loud noise, I heard footsteps approaching. My heart raced, and my stomach dropped to the floor. It’s over, there’s no hope, I’m a goner I thought as the footsteps drew near. Thud. Thud. Thud. The feet stopped, dead in their tracks, the old discolored office door swung open slowly.

  “I am going to find you, wherever you are,” a voice cried, brimming with confidence.
I started to breath harder and harder, my lungs expanding, my heart pumping, but it wasn't enough, my breath became increasingly apparent every time. I felt as if I was suffocating behind the small space between the armoire and the wall. Struggled to control my breaths, just wanted the game to end. I tried to move out from behind the armoire and underneath my father's desk, in this brisk action the floor creaked under me, and the footsteps came closer.
“I found you!!” Cried the voice of a little boy.
I popped up from behind the splintery desk and awaited my punishment. The young boy, Nate Oswald found me and said-
“You must help me find the last person, Sophia.”
I knew exactly where she had hidden, I raced out of my father’s office, down the hall, and into the mud room with Nate in tow. I opened the mudroom door and  pulled at the shoe closet handle, I briskly opened the door and yelled in a mocking tone;
“We found you, we found you!!”
But Sophia wasn't there. No big deal, I thought, spot switching was a common pastime when playing hide and seek. Nate and I checked the rest of Soph’s favorite hiding spots around the house. We started racing around, shouting her name.
Nothing.
All the while feeling afraid, wanting to know where she went, needing to know if she was okay, demanding to know why she wasn't responding. Telling my parents only served to worry them, they were unable to find Sophia as well. We searched and scoured the house for forty-five minutes, screaming, her name. Finally after an hour the police were called. When the 911 operator told my father that these sorts of cases were only acted on if the child was not found for twenty-four hours, my father yelled into the phone, my mom sobbed on his shoulder, with me, tightly squeezed in her grasp.
  “Hey, Nicole, I can’t wait twenty-four hours to find Sophia, lets find her ourselves.”
“Yeah, (sniffle sniffle, ) I like that idea”
“ I have an idea, remember when we watched like thirty seconds of “The Andy Griffith Show,”  and we saw a scene where the boy was lost and they had to find him with a search dog.”
“Mhm, I remember that.”
“Well let’s get going.”
“What are you doing! Why are you going to Soph’s room?” I hollered over the loud sound of trampling feet on hard wood.
“I need a sample of her scent,” Nate cried back.
Nate slid open the closet door, reached into her hamper basket and pulled out a dirty, brown, stain infested shirt.
“YUCK, YUCK, TRIPLE YUCK!!”  declared Nate, cringing at the sight.
We rushed to Sammie, my golden retriever, and extended the shirt in front of his little wet nose, to track Soph’s scent.
“Go boy! Find Sophia” exclaimed Nate.
Sammie just sat, he didn't even flinch an inch.
“Well, do we have a plan B?” inquired Nate. We decided to thoroughly search the house once more, thirty minutes into the third search we heard a faint creak from the attic above us. I turned to Nate, Nate turned to me,
“Ummm, are we gonna go up there?” Nate mumbles questioningly.
“ UH, DUH captain obvious.”
Precariously we opened the attic door, and there she was, asleep, on the hard wooden floor boards, covered by our Great Grandmother’s afghan.
“Sophia!!, You’re alive!!” We screeched as we pounced on her eagerly.
Her first words were
“Is the game over already!?”
“Sophia!?” my parents hollered as they  rushed to the attic.

“Mom, you're squishing me!” Sophia murmured through the tight embrace of our mother.
“Alright now girls, it’s time for bed.”

At the end of the night everything had settled, and the whole matter was dismissed, when we went to bed that night nothing changed,
“Good night Soph, I love you, and please, don’t do anything like that again.”
“Uh hu (yawn) I won’t Nicole, good night.”

I always remembered that day, and I always will. I had never experienced anything like that in my life. In those few hours my world came toppling down; and at the young age of eight I had to realize that there are so many awful things that can happen to someone in life. I carry many memories of that day with me, I never wanted to experience anything like that for the rest of my life. But I wasn't so fortunate. Everything until that day was so simple, my faith in people and in mankind was not as easily lost as it is today. I am eighteen years old now and once again my world has been destroyed. Not only have I lost my sister, I have lost my twin and my greatest and dearest friend. It has been three weeks without Sophia, three weeks, two days, seven hours and thirty six minutes in which I last saw her smiling face. No one knows where she went, with whom, or if we'll ever see her again. Part of me believes that she is merely sleeping up in the attic, but believe me when I say that she’s not, I've checked. I've talked to a million grieving friends, and I have been interviewed and interrogated by at least fifty reporters and police officers. I know that I sound insane but I want this all to stop. I want everything to magically  become the way that it was before, before all of this chaos set in. As the days drag on my hope dwindles and my ability to eat sympathy meals, becomes low. I spend my days waiting for a sign, anything from her to let me know that she’s safe, or even... that she’s in a better place. I need to know something, anything, because right now I know nothing and it hurts. I just want to know if she’s alright, and that’s one thing that no one seems to know. For three weeks I have gone to bed without my sister. For three weeks I have been thinking, dreaming, praying and questioning. “ What could I have done... if only I went with her that night this would have never happened. Please God, if you send Sophia back, I promise to be a better sister to her. Things like this never happen here in Smuggler’s Notch Vermont, it’s too quaint, were all too kind” I can’t help but to blame myself. Three weeks ago last Friday, Sophia wanted me to go to a senior party with her. (Sophia is the outgoing, bubbly sister, while I am the nerd of the Ritz family.) Naturally, I detested her invitation. Oh, but if I went with her that night I could have protected her, steered her in the right direction, I could have...
“NICOLE, Nicole, Nate’s here!” mom called to me. Nate was the one person who I could actually talk to without feeling weird. Nate, Soph, and I were the three amigos, we went and did everything together. He knocked to the tune of shave and a haircut.
“Hey Niki, can I come in?” 
The door opens widely, as a bulky and muscular looking boy with dark brown hair and glasses slips through the door.
“Niki we really need to talk, against my better judgement, I may have found out some information on Soph.... I overhe----
“Finally!!”
I have waited three endless weeks for this... am I ready to find out information about Sophia yet? Yes, I think that I’m ready. I scoot close to him,
“ Today I happened to overhear that Dylan Coulson was the last person to have been seen with Soph on Friday night,”
“Oh, that meat head, that dumb D average student, if he wasn't the star QB he would have been expelled from the moment that he stepped into this school; he is a real awful guy. Why would Sophia hang around that jerk at the party.”
My blood begins to boil as Coulson takes the number one suspect spot on my list.
“I don’t know, that’s only what I overheard, it could be entirely wrong for all I know.”
“We need to interrogate Dylan Coulson.”
“ Just let the police handle it,” Nate suggested.
  Ears turning red, I swear that you could see steam rising from them.
“How can we possibly NOT investigate!!! I NEED to know something!!”
Nate combats my shouting with a sympathetic scowl.
“Please, I need to know something,” my voice weakens at each new letter uttered , and tapers off.
“Alright, fine, I will go hunt down Dylan with you,” Nate says reluctantly.
“Phew I thought I was going to have to start crying and begging.” Our manhunt began at the one place that all the self proclaimed “cool guys,” like him hung around at; the old creepy, dull mustard yellow, concrete building at the side of  the football field. Abandoned, secluded, up on the far left side of the property, near a thick lush forest. Duct tape, pepper spray, and two paint ball guns, all items packed away in our bike bags, ready to ambush Dylan.
“Why do we need all of this stuff?” Nate pondered.
“It’s all part of the plan, just keep biking, we’re almost there.”
Biking off toward the field, Dylan has been spotted alone.
“Hey Dylan!”
  “What do you want?!”
“Where is Sophia, we know that you were the last one to be seen with her at the party. Where is she?” My tone is as  calm as it could possibly be. After many bouts of yelling, threats of pepper spraying, paint ball gun shooting, Dylan never cracked. On our last attempt, Dylan slipped the name of the person who he believed to be the kidnapper.
“Amanda Branch,” he uttered as he ran away from us.
“Come back here Dylan, tell me more! What did Amanda do!” At this point I am yelling, at the air.
“Nicole, Nicole, you need to calm down.” Nate’s last two words stretched out like he was talking to a kindergartner, in hopes that they will comprehend what he is trying to say.
“Fine, fine, I get it, I’m calm.” I respond, through gritted teeth. “Well what are we going to do now? I have no clue who this Amanda chick is, how are we ever going to find her?”
“Nicole, I think that it would be best if we left before Dylan comes back, can we talk about this as soon as we get back to your house, I don’t feel like going to prison today.”
“Wait!, what if I Google her, something is bound to come up!”
“Did you find anything Nicole?”
“No,  just a picture of a kitten and a quiche recipe.”
“Well, what are we gonna do now?”
“We don’t have much of a choice Nate, we just have to keep searching.”
So we sat and waited, we kept searching for Sophia. People were tried, but no one was convicted, no one was held accountable for that night, for those months in which we searched for her, or for the damage that it caused our family. I watched her case close right before my eyes, I witnessed the creation of a hotline for any “new tips”, I watched as her face was posted and plastered on billboards and magazines, I watched as the minimal evidence was placed in a large filing cabinet, to float, fester and collect dust. I watched and waited and kept hopeful for any news, but soon I realized that it was too late, nothing could be done, we would never see nor hear nor hold her again. Tears taste so salty to the mouth. And so I press on, if I listen close enough, I swear, on some nights when I can’t sleep, I can hear the creaking of the attic, and in my heart, I know that she’s there, and that she’s okay, and that’s all I ever needed to know.