On the day Violetta left, I decided to skip my classes and see her off. When I was 18, I never saw her off. We only talked to each other on the phone, I decided things would be different this time. Violetta’s mum decided, a middle-aged woman with grey hair and a tired look on her face was haggling with the luggage guys and Violetta was standing at her side. She left her and walked over to me. We hugged each other.

“We cool,” I said. “After all that drama?”

Violetta giggled. “We’re cool.”

There was a pause. “I… I just don’t know how to feel about…”

“Yeah,” I said. “You… you’re never going to know 17-year-old me. She’s…”

“Dead now,” Vi said.

“Such a weird thought huh,” I said. “I’m 17 years old but I’m not 17 years old. Guess I died two times.”

Vi’s mother called after her.

“Guess it’s time huh?” I said, swinging back and forth on my heels. “It’s just weird.”

“What is?”

That back when I was 18, I didn’t know any of this about you. This… this is all news to me, I thought.

Vi took that in and smiled. “Yeah, that’s another thing I liked about you. You were sometimes always too busy in your head to notice what was going on around you. It made it easy to forget your problems.”

Is that a good thing….

“Depends on the person you ask,” Vi said, shrugging.

“I’ll call you, alright,” I said firmly. “I’m not going to make the same mistake I made at 24, we’ll keep in touch.”

“Sure,” Vi said. “When you’re not busy trying to come back to life.” And then she paused. “There’s just… one last thing.”

Vi’s voice suddenly turned serious. “They’re people like you. People who aren’t themselves. I’ve known about them for a while now but now they’ve taken a special interest in…”

Vi suddenly saw something in the vacant space behind me. Her face turned pale. Her purple eyes were widened in fear. I looked back and I saw nothing. When I turned to Vi, she looked as if she saw a ghost.

“Vi, are you…?”

She snapped back to reality, giving me an unconvincing smile. “It’s nothing. I need to go. I’ll call you.” She left, running to her mother’s side without so much as looking at me.

After our goodbyes, I went to the bathroom and once I was sure the coast was clear I tapped my new gem.

“Hey Voice,” I yelled. “Talk to me!”

It took a whole but soon I was greeted by a silver glow.

“Do you know what the hell Vi was on about?” I asked. “She looked terrified. I…”

“It’s nothing.”

“Don’t tell me it’s nothing,” I snapped. “She mentioned they’re people like me. What’s that…?” I paused. “Do you know what she’s talking about? Are you part of this conspiracy?”

“Look just don’t worry about it,” Voice said. “Just focus on getting your bracelet filled. All will be cleared up in good time.”

“What the hell?” April said. “What’s that supposed to mean? Do you know something?”

The silver light disappeared. I was left alone in the dark stall, with a lot more questions.

And not a whole lot of answers.