The first time Drystan noticed anything missing he couldn’t find his phone. It was late at night and he’d spent almost an hour searching every inch of his room trying to find it, to no avail. The second time, three of the pans had disappeared. His mom wouldn’t stop bringing it up for weeks after. It was only when people started disappearing that people started to pay attention.

It had been on the news for weeks, people simply disappearing where they stood. Some buildings had disappeared too, thankfully no one had been seriously hurt yet. The first time Drystan saw it was in math class. He’d been whispering with his friend Tyler. The kid that sat in front of him was asleep, which was quite rare. He had been known for always paying attention in class. One second he was there the next he was gone.

Everyone had exploded into a panic after that, and he and the rest of the class got sent home for the rest of the day. Tyler and the rest of his family stayed over that night and they all watched a movie together. School had been canceled after that, with parents fearing they would lose their children without even getting to see them again.

Within a month  there had been hundreds of reports of disappearances all over the world both people and things. Tyler’s family had permanently moved in when their house disappeared. His mom had broken her leg when she fell from the second floor but other than that there were no serious injuries.

Drystan and Tyler were at the pond near their house, it had taken forever to convince their parents to let them go, but they'd been stubborn. They sat on a bench tossing bread into the pond for a few ducks, when the bench beneath them disappeared. They'd both fallen to the ground in tangled piles of limbs. They were still staring at each other in shock when one of the ducks flew up and landed on Tyler’s chest as it started pecking at the bag of bread that sat between them.

Tyler had blinked at it before turning back to Drystan with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. They’d both burst into a fight of laughter that had them gasping for air. Drystan rested his head against Tyler’s shoulder, while the duck, apparently unbothered by the laughter, had sat down on Tyler’s chest and continued the peck at the slice of bread it had successfully pulled out of the bag.

They returned home later that day with matching grins and a duck in Tyler’s arms. Drystan explained to their parents that it had refused to stop following them when they’d left. Drystan’s mother was adamant that the duck couldn't stay and had them return it to the pond. However it reapeared outside their house the next day. She’d sighed exasperated, and told them to take care of it. It was surprisingly easy to do so, it would leave for a few hours every day, presumably to get food and then would return later and rest in the artificial pond Tyler’s dad had helped them set up in a corner of the back yard.

The boys were woken up one morning a few weeks later by a loud crash and someone swearing. Drystan peered over the edge of his bed and made eye contact with Tyler, who was in the process of sitting up from the futon he’d been sleeping on for the past few weeks since the fold out couch Drytsn used to have in his room had disappeared.

They both stared at each other for a moment before hopping out of bed and taking off through the house in the direction of the noise, the guest bedroom where Tyler’s parents had been sleeping.The reached there at almost the same time as Drystan’s patents. His father pushed open the door and they found both of Tyler's parents on the ground where the bed had been the night before. His mother lay there with her hand covering her face as she sighed, while father was sitting up and doing a poor job of concealing his laughter.

Tyler had run into the room and hugged both of his parents, while also making sure neither of them had been hurt. Eventually Drystan had pulled him off of them so that they could stand up and they all made their way to the kitchen for breakfast, albeit an early one.

It was a few months after Tyler’s family moved in that they started taking things more seriously. His dad had been out by the ‘duck pool,’ as they’d started calling it, the water came up past his knees, and they’d all started going out to cool off. He stuck his head under water, and never came back up. Drystan’s mom, who had been working the garden, had walked over after a few seconds to check on him and found the pool empty. Drystan had hugged Tyler for four hours trying to console him, to no avail. He could hear his parents doing the same for his weeping mother.

After that it was rare to see Drystan and Tyler not touching each other somehow, Tyler with arm around Drystan’s shoulder, Drystan leaning against Tyler while they watched something or other on the tv. Being in each other's presence seemed to calm them both. Even when sleeping, they were often together, the futon Drytan had been using had been given to his parents after the bed disappeared and now they were often curled against each other on the slightly too small mattress when they slept. 

Drystan’s mother had been the next to disappear, by then people seemed to have realized there was no way to stop the disappearances, people had started doing more risky things, and crimes skyrocketed across the world as people started to lose hope. She’d been leaning against her husband, asleep late at night when she disappeared. He’d told them all the next morning, his eyes were red from crying and his usually extroverted and energetic personality had died after that.

Unlike how Tyler had reacted, Drytan didn’t cry. He'd spent the rest of the day sitting out by the pool with his pants rolled up and his legs resting in the water with ‘Richard the Duck’ sitting in his lap. They’d named it before they’d discovered she was a girl. He ran his hand down her back absently as he stared at the water. He didn’t cry, but he felt numb, like everything was really far away, he felt disconnected from reality.

He was only pulled out of his thoughts when Tyler showed up, he hooked his arms under Drystan’s shoulders and lifted him up out of the pool. Richard qwacked as she was knocked out of Drystan’s lap. She flew into the wooden shelter that had been set up for her next to the pond.

Drytan dangled in Tyler’s arms, his feet hanging a few inches from the ground. When Tyler had finally put him down, he took his hand and pulled him back inside, as the last light of the sun disapeared over the horizon. Drystan had stayed like that for a few more days, he spent most of his time either laying in bed or sitting by the pond with Richard. Like usual, Tyler was almost always with him.

Drystan’s dad followed his wife barely a week later, leaving only Tyler’s mother and the two boys left. Sho tried her best to take care of them but there was little she could do. The world had officially crashed a few days after Drystan’s dad disappeared. Most people stopped going to work, electricity stopped working all over the city, officially, the government was still trying to keep people organized, but nothing they did really helped.

They stocked up bottled water and as much food they could and hoped it wouldn’t all disappear. A few weeks after the water cut out, Tyler’s mom disappeared too, leaving Drystan and Tyler alone, although not much really changed after.

The boys never went outside anymore, it was too dangerous, they spent most of their time reading or watching some shows that Tyler had downloaded on his computer, thankfully the generator that Drytan’s family owned hadn’t disappeared yet so they still had some electricity.

Two months after Tyler’s mom disappeared Drytan finally broke down. Tyler held him as he cried and screamed and gasped for breath. “Don't leave. Okay? I can handle everything else, but please. Don’t leave,” he begged.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Tyler reassured as he hugged him tightly, Tyler’s voice was shaking when he spoke.

They fell asleep on the floor in the living room that night. Drystan had pulled the blanket and cushions down from the couch for them but they slept on hard wooden floors.

Drystan woke up alone the next morning. He searched the house and then searched again. The sun was starting to set again and he was weak from hunger when he finally collapsed on the couch, defeated.

Tyler was gone. The only thing he’d left behind was a ring on a chain. They’de bought a matching set a few years ago as promise rings. Drystan felt his copy of the ring around his neck and stared at Tyler’s copy in his hand silently.

Everything changed after that. Or maybe nothing did. But for Drystan the world truly ended when Tyler disappeared. He went outside more often. He hadn’t seen anyone else in weeks, although he couldn’t imagine anyone would want to go outside anymore. The smoke that filled the air never let the sun shine through anymore, and there weren't really many places to go now since things were either closed, destroyed in the chaos, or just plain gone.

He’d returned from a walk -that he claimed to himself was to get some fresh air but was probably just to get away from the house and all of the memories- to find the house gone. He didn’t even bother to stop and see if there was anything left to salvage, he just kept walking. He stayed like that for weeks after. Walking until he couldn’t anymore, then he’d find an abandoned shop here or an empty house there and scavenge for food. If there was nothing he’d just try to sleep and ignore his stomach’s protests.

He felt himself fading before he disappeared, he’d blink and find himself in a different part of the city, his legs shaking from exhaustion. Or he’d be taking a break to lean against an abandoned building and then suddenly find himself in a nearly empty grocery store. He was sleeping more, he might sleep for a few days at a time, only waking up when his hunger became too hard to bare.

He wondered if the other’s felt this way too, or if this was just a side effect of absolute solitude. He fell asleep one last time beneath a tree with his hand wrapped around the promise rings.

The sun rose the next morning, shining through the smoke for the first time in months. Drystan wasn't there to see it. No one was. Two silver rings reflected the sun from where they sat beneath the tree as it too began to fade. One with the letter T and the other with a D.

~END