The days blurred together. Each one felt like a mirror image of the last—endless, hollow, with no sign of the answers they were desperately searching for. But Maya couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something. Some clue. Some moment they overlooked. They had to be.
The park had become their unofficial base. Leo and Riley would join her there every afternoon, sitting in the same spots, staring at the same rippling water, waiting for something to change. But the silence between them was louder than anything else.
As the evening sun dipped below the horizon, Maya couldn't help but remember that night—Elena's last "Last Day" scenario.
It was one of those strange moments when everything feels so normal, and then suddenly, it doesn't. Elena had been sitting in her usual spot, her expression distant, as if she wasn't quite with them. She had always been the most expressive of the group, full of wild ideas and contagious laughter. But that night, she was quieter than usual.
"I'd just disappear," Elena had said, her voice flat. "No one would know where I went. I'd vanish into thin air."
The others had laughed it off at the time, thinking she was joking, just another one of Elena's random "what ifs." They had all joked around so often, making up outlandish plans for their last day that they never took it seriously when Elena said something darker, more personal.
"I mean, if it were really my last day, I'd just leave everything behind," she'd continued. "The people, the noise, the chaos. I'd go somewhere quiet, somewhere no one could find me. Maybe... maybe somewhere I could stop pretending."
But Maya had been distracted, her mind somewhere else, and didn't even register the depth of those words. Riley had snorted and said something about Elena disappearing into a cave to live like a hermit, and Leo had made some sarcastic remark about how Elena would probably end up starting her own cult in the mountains. They all laughed, but no one noticed the way Elena's smile didn't quite reach her eyes, the way her shoulders had slumped as if she had already resigned herself to something.
Now, it hit Maya like a slap in the face.
Those words, those small, seemingly insignificant words, had been a cry for help. And they hadn't heard it. They hadn't seen it.
Maya leaned against the park bench, her fingers gripping the edge until her knuckles turned white. How could we have missed it? She kept asking herself. Elena had been so damn good at hiding things, always brushing them off with a joke or a smile, and they had been too wrapped up in their own lives to notice.
"What if…" Leo's voice broke through her thoughts. "What if she wasn't just making a joke? What if she really meant it?"
Maya turned to look at him, but it was Riley who spoke next, her voice soft and strained. "What if she was trying to tell us something? Something no one wanted to hear."
The silence between them was thick with regret. They were all trapped in their own guilt, but Maya's felt heavier. She had been the closest to Elena, and yet, she had been the one who ignored the warning signs.
"I should've known," Maya whispered, almost to herself. "I should've seen it. Elena wasn't okay. She was never okay."
It hit her in that moment—the deep, suffocating weight of everything they had missed. Elena's struggles had been right in front of them all along, but it was as if they had been too afraid to look. Too afraid to confront the things that were too dark, too messy, to handle.
Flashback to That Night
It was the night of the "Last Day Club," just days before Elena disappeared. They had all sat in Riley's basement, the usual snacks scattered on the coffee table, the conversation flowing easily, as it always did. But something about Elena's demeanor had been different.
When it was her turn, Elena had leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "What if tomorrow really is my last day?" she had mused. "I think I'd disappear without a trace. I wouldn't even tell anyone where I was going. I'd just vanish."
Everyone had thought it was just one of Elena's dramatic moments. They had laughed, joked, teased her about running away to join the circus, but Elena had only smiled faintly, as if she didn't care about their teasing.
"You're being dramatic," Riley had said, tossing a chip in Elena's direction. "Don't you want a more epic 'last day' than just disappearing?"
But Elena's smile had wavered, her eyes empty. "Not everything has to be epic," she had replied, her voice quieter than usual. "Sometimes, you just want to be… gone."
Maya remembered the way Elena had looked in that moment. There was something in her eyes, something that said she wasn't talking about a "last day" scenario. She was talking about something real. Something that had been brewing for a long time.
Back to the Present
Maya snapped out of her reverie, the weight of those words pulling at her chest. She couldn't just sit here anymore. The truth had always been there, buried beneath the layers of jokes and distractions, and now it was rising to the surface.
"We need to find her," Maya said, her voice tight, but filled with determination. "We need to understand what she was trying to tell us."
"Agreed," Leo said, standing up. His face was set with resolve. "But where do we start?"
Maya's mind raced. They couldn't keep going around in circles. They needed answers, and they needed them now.
"I don't know yet," Maya said, shaking her head. "But I'll find out. I promise."