[ELLE'S PoV]

I knew something was off when Mags didn't kick down the door at four o'clock on the dot demanding to play the DR demo.

I had pulled an all-nighter just to make sure I'd extracted every interesting bit from the code. While Mags was in class, I bought a giant bottle of Dew and two family-sized bags of nacho cheese Doritos in preparation for our epic night of fangirl dreams come true.

When four became eight and my texts turned from jokes about her dying of excitement, to threats of kicking her in shin or worse if she didn't answer soon, to literally begging for a response... I knew something was really off.

I paced our dorm stuffing my face with Doritos (I was stress-eater.) And when our RA announced ten o'clock quiet hours, my panic turned to nausea. Mags wasn't the type of person to just drop off the earth. And she definitely wasn't the type to vanish without at least texting me about what was up. We told each other everything, that was just the law.

Anxiety eventually got the best of me and I scrambled to my nest. I had a program on my laptop for emergencies only that let me connect to any cellphone I had the number for. Like yeah, that sounds creepy and a tad stalkerish, but when I installed it I had a feeling it would come in handy eventually. And there it was, coming in handy. Score one for paranoid Elle.

I entered Mags' number and fidgeted in place while the program took its sweet time loading. Her phone was off. It had been since noon. That was worrying in itself, but the fact that the phone was off meant I couldn't track its location. I had no clue where she was.

I didn't sleep that night, not that that was anything new. I went to the Campus Security Office first thing the next morning.

"What can I help you with?" The officer asked, barely looking up from her paperwork and Starbucks.

"I need to report a missing person." Ugh god, those words felt awful in my mouth.

That at least caught the officer's attention. She looked up at me, dyed red eyebrows arching. "Go on."

"Magdalyn Rose Darrow, my roommate." In my mind I repeated: Don't cry. You're a warrior. Stay strong, over and over and over. It wasn't achieving much.

The officer pulled out a long, detailed looking document and a pen. "Alright. When did you last see her?"

"Seven-thirty, yesterday morning." Pen scratches.

"When did you last hear from her?"

"The same time." More pen scratches.

"Any chance she could be staying with a friend? A boyfriend?"

I laughed out loud, a short quick burst, before shaking my head. "No. We're both sort of loners." Mags hadn't had a crush, let alone a boyfriend, since she dated that jerk Ben in eighth grade.

"Mhm." Scratch, scratch, scratch.

I was already on edge. That pen wasn't making things any easier. I tapped my finger on my thigh and bounced in place.

"Age?"

"Twenty. Her birthday is March 22nd."

"Home address?"

I answered so quickly she had to ask me to repeat it.

For what felt like hours and mere heartbeats, I answered question after question until the form was completed. The officer sighed and looked the form over again before looking up at me.

"Normally a person has to be gone for forty-eight hours before we file a missing persons report, especially on a college campus. Have you tried calling her house? Perhaps she just went home—"

"Please," I blurted. "Please. Mags and I have been like family since kindergarten. She wouldn't just vanish like this. I know something happened to her."

The officer sighed again and glanced at her now empty Starbucks cup. "I'll see what I can do, Miss. Can I please have your name and number to contact you?"

I gave her my information, the returned to my dorm. It felt big and empty without Mags, which in all honestly was a pretty stupid thought. All of her stuff was still here, her bed was still unmade from when she left for class the day before. It was still as cluttered and cramped as it always was. The only difference was now I was in there alone.

A day passed.

Then another.

Before I knew it, a whole week had gone buy without a sign from Mags.

I stopped going to class. Not that I went often to begin with. The neat thing about computer classes is that most of the work is online anyway and attendance is hardly ever mandatory. I stopped going to class in the sense that I stopped handing junk in. Stopped taking the online tests. Stopped opening worried emails from my professors.

They finally got the word out about Mags. And once the school contacted her parents, her picture went up in papers and on the news, too. Nearly every forum site on the internet had at least one post dedicated to her dissapearance. Being the daughter of a politician has its perks, I guess.

My parents called me as soon as they heard. My dad yelled at me for not telling him sooner. Well, no, he didn't yell. He just sort of scolded in his dad way, then asked over and over if I was okay and if I wanted to go home. I'm keeping it together, I lied. I need to focus on school, I lied. I don't want to be home right now. That was true at least. I needed to stay there and find Mags. If I went home I'd most certainly sink into some sort of helpless depression. That would be of no use to anyone.

I started my laptop up as I had every day at the same time for the past week and typed Maggie's number into the tracker. I didn't pay it much mind since it told me the same thing every day: "Phone off. No activity since 12:08pm, Friday October 17th."

I busied myself searching all the local news reports, and on my other computer I hacked into the police communication network. Illegal? Probably. But also not the first time I'd broken the law. Useful? Unfortunately not so far. No one had spotted her or anyone who looked like her. No one had heard anything.

I wasn't sure where else to look.

A sudden "ping!" made me jump out of my skin. I looked over at my laptop and actually shrieked out loud.

There, in bold green letters, were the words: "Phone on."

"Mags, Mags, Mags," I breathed. I pulled my laptop onto my lap and clicked "find location." My fingers tapped the keys rapidly as my computer loaded way too slowly.

Finally, a map came up. A little red dot indicating the location of Mags' phone flickered to life. She was here on campus. In the basement of the old art building.

I transferred the tracking program to my phone and pulled my sneakers on without bothering to put socks on first. I grabbed my jacket and sprinted from the dorm in the direction of the art building. Luckily my room keycard was in my jacket pocket or I would have forgotten it. I ran across campus looking like a crazy woman with my fluffy hair bouncing everywhere. I was also in my pajamas, which probably didn't help the look any. But I didn't care. I had to get to Mags.

And I had to kick her freaking butt for letting me worry about her for this long.

I nearly tripped down the stairs to the art room basement. The flickering lights were annoying, but were easy enough to ignore. My lungs burned. My muscles ached. But the tracker on my phone said Mags' dot was close.

"Mags I'm gonna kill you!" I shouted as I turned the corner into the supply room. That wasn't true. I was gonna tackle-hug her. Then maybe I would kill her.

But Mags wasn't in the room. Her backpack was there, open, with her art supplies and textbooks strewn about around it. A man was there, holding Mags' phone and looking like a deer in the headlights.

Without giving the guy a chance to speak, I delivered a flying kick to his abdomen. He was lighter than I expected. He hit the ground with a loud "ughff!"

I snatched the phone from his hand and stood over him. I ground my foot into his chest to keep him pinned. "Who are you!" I demanded. "Where's Maggie?"

"Spare me, demon woman!" He stared up at me with wide-eyed terror. His hands were up to cover his face. His eyes were an electric shade of blue, and his wispy black hair splayed around his face. He was pale, though to be fair everyone looked pale to me. But he was paler than Mags, and that was saying something.

I pressed my foot down harder and leaned closer to him to glare into his eyes. Demon woman? I'd show him if he didn't give me answers quick. "Where. Is. Maggie."

"I do not know who Maggie is!" He insisted. "Please, I do not even know where I am!"

I scanned his clothes. A dirty and stained white linen shirt, brown pants that looked tattered and old, no shoes. Of course. He was some sort of homeless druggie or something. That explained him calling me a demon. I kept him pinned as I looked through Maggie's phone, just in case. Eighty-two texts, forty-seven missed calls. No hints about where she went.

But her bag was here. Her phone was here. So where was she?

"Alright weirdo," I said. "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

"I am Marcellus Villiers, of Samsara in Aeterna. I came here through a door, but the door is gone now, and this world is strange— ah, please remove your foot!—"

His words jolted through me. I must have misheard. "Where did you say you were from?"

"Samsara. It's the capitol of Aeterna. In the Northern Territory—"

"Of the Shadow Realm?" I finished in disbelief.

He nodded quickly. "You have heard of it! Please, can you tell me how I might get there?"

"It's fake," I answered quickly, feeling my throat tighten and tears prickle my eyes.

Marcellus frowned. "I beg your—"

"It's fake," I repeated. "It's from a video game, and you're drunk or high or mocking me, and I don't appreciate it."

He shifted under me, hissing in pain. "Please demon, remove your foot. I swear I tell the truth—"

"Go to hell," I snarled. I stepped away from him, fighting the urge to pummel him into the dirt. What kind of sick joke was he playing? I scooped up all of Mags' belongings and shoved them into her backpack, then left Marcellus whoever-he-was laying on the floor of the supply room.

"I promise I am telling you the truth, demon!" He called after me.

I ignored him. I kept myself from crying until I made it back to my painfully empty dorm room. Once inside though, I let myself cry. And for the first time all week, I let myself sleep through the night.