Looking back, she had always been kind of unusual.

I don't want to use her real name, in case she's still out there, so I'm just going to call her Val. She used to go to the same fencing club as me. The building that the club meets in is on the very edge of my college campus, the entrance and a nearby forest separated only by a single road.

I fenced foil and she fenced saber, so we didn't get a lot of chances to talk. Then again, Val was quiet with the other saber fencers as well. She was always there before everyone else, and would never talk with us before club started, instead choosing to sit against the wall, either looking off into space or taking a nap. It was sometimes hard to tell which one she was doing, behind that thick black hair of hers. She was just a bit shy, I suppose. There isn't anything wrong with being shy.

What was really weird, though, is that I've never seen her drink any water. I know that that's a bit of a strange thing to notice, since usually you don't pay attention to other people's drinking habits, so let me explain myself a bit. Keep in mind that I knew Val because we were in the same fencing club. With fencing, you are both participating in a sport and wearing multiple layers of clothing. This, as you would imagine, results in a large amount of sweating. Sweating usually results in people being thirsty. Val never drank.

Like I spent the last few paragraphs saying, Val had always been pretty weird. I never paid her too much attention, though, instead allowing her to be left to her own devices. One week, however, I noticed a change. I don't know what was going on with her or what had happened, but she just seemed...different. She was more tired than usual. Her fencing was slower and the bags under her eyes were abnormally dark. She had trouble reffing bouts for people, and would regularly forget the score. She also mentioned suffering from headaches.

This continued on for a while, her condition getting worse and worse. I tried to reach out to her. Telling her that if she ever needed help with anything, we were there for her, and that I'd always be happy to talk to her about anything she needed to talk about. She never took me up on the offer.

The second strangest thing happened a few months back.

The pistes, or the strips of metal on which we fence, have these circular holes on them. Occasionally, someone will trip on the strips and scrape a hand or a knee against it. We call it getting 'cheesegratered'. A goofy name, I know, but accurate.

Well, one day Val got cheesgratered. There wasn't an abnormal amount of blood or anything, but she just freaked the fuck out. It wasn’t a loud freaking out, like, she wasn’t screaming or anything, but I could tell that she wasn’t okay. She froze when it happened, and what little color there was in her face drained away. She stood there for what felt like an hour, just staring down at her hand. Val was snapped out of her daze when one of our coaches asked if she was okay. Instead of responding, however, she just stumbled a bit. Instinctively, I moved to help her, but before I could she ran out of the fencing room and, presumably, the building.

We didn’t see Val in the weeks following that, so we all just assumed that she had quit. Sometimes we speculated on what had happened to her, but the conversations were always stilted and awkward. No one knew her phone number, e-mail, where she lived, or even what classes she took, so we didn’t have any way of contacting her. Eventually, we stopped mentioning Val altogether. We had reached the general consensus that she wasn’t coming back, and that whatever was happening with her was none of our business.

I was going to fencing one Thursday night when I was reminded of my friend’s existence. I don’t know what drew me to do it, but I looked across the street before entering the building. Val was there. I’m not sure how I even recognized her, given the state she was in. Her skin dry and cracked, her eyes sunken, and her figure leaner than one would think possible on a human. The extreme discomfort I felt couldn’t draw my eyes away from the sight (or maybe it’s what kept me looking, I dunno, people are weird like that). My lips were the first thing to regain movement, followed by my hands, as I mouthed the name “Val...”, and gripped my fencing bag closer to myself. I didn’t say it out loud or anything, but her head snapped up in my direction anyway. The second of eye-contact between us was interrupted by her sprinting deeper into the woods.

I feel bad speaking about someone who used to be a friend as though she’s some sort of monster, so I feel like I should say that that’s really not what I think of her. Val, if you’re reading this, just know that my offer still stands. If you’re having trouble with anything, I want to help you. I don’t know what’s happening in your life, or what’s going on with you, but remember, I’m your friend, even if we never talked. I just want you to be okay.

Anyway, sorry for getting a bit dramatic near the end there, lol, thanks for reading.