His parents found him in a fetal position on the couch downstairs in the basement, curled up and with a pillow over his head, and when they asked him what was wrong and he told them Nothing!, they'd believed him. He was good at fooling them. Or maybe it was more that they were easy to fool, because it had taken them a long time to figure out he had issues in the first place. Maybe it was because they didn't want to believe their one son was screwed up. Maybe they were in denial. Or they didn't want him anyway—hadn't wanted him for years—and had decided to kind of give up on him.

Which only made things worse.

He'd tried to call Ada, but she hadn't answered. He couldn't blame her. Just because he was losing it didn't mean she was, too. She felt guilty still, that was obvious, but that didn't mean her head was coming unscrewed again. He couldn't believe it. He'd tried to just pretend the maggots had some rational explanation for being on the floor in his room, but after returning from the post office and finding his bed writhing with the puss-filled little things . . . well, he couldn't explain that away. It was too much. And the thing was, the others had been real—things he could pick up and get rid of. But when he'd gone into his room to see the disgusting filthy things covering his bed, they'd disappeared before his eyes seconds later. So had he imagined them? He didn't think so. That was how he knew it was happening again. And if it was happening to him . . . maybe . . . just maybe . . . Ada would understand. After all, they'd been through that horrible night on Halloween. She was the only person who would even believe what he had to say.

But she didn't return his call, and it was already night time. He was pretty certain that if she'd wanted to call, she would have by now. Her not calling had depressed him further. He didn't know if he could deal with all this alone. He didn't want to, anymore.

He'd refused to go back to his room to sleep. He told his parents that he wasn't going upstairs if he didn't have to, and they hadn't even asked him why. That had almost been enough to make him never want to speak to them again, but then he realized they probably wouldn't notice anyway, so he just lugged some blankets and a pillow into the family room and slept with the television on until about two, at which point his father came down and asked him to turn it off because they couldn't sleep upstairs. Then, without that background noise and light to keep his mind occupied, he was restless. Tossed and turned. Had half-formed dreams of being in woods in the darkness, flopping goldfish breathing their last breaths, himself up on stage acting out the scene from his last play, only the girl who had played opposite him was missing an eye.

Awaking at about 5:30 AM, when his dad got up for work and made noise in the kitchen, Evan felt entirely doomed. Ada hadn't called. He was losing control again. He couldn't afford to feel so unstable. It wasn't safe for him or for the things around him. Everything had been downhill since Zach. Everything. Why hadn't he gone to meet him?

For the remainder of the dark morning, sleep was sporadic and twisted, and when he finally woke up in daylight, he felt only that he was on the verge of entirely losing control. He was a bomb waiting to explode. His mother left for work and he did nothing but pace and fume and try to put a name to the things he felt but couldn't understand. He tried to know how to get rid of his creeping sense of powerlessness. But it was too hard for him. When his brain was seeing things, when he knew he had no real friend to get through this with . . . when he knew that Zach was gone because of him . . . that he did so many worthless things, so many sick things—

But they made him feel better. They did. Why? He couldn't say. And it had been a hard few days. They were only getting harder. Short of hurting himself, there wasn't much else to do.

Evan didn't know how he even found the grounded robin. Saw it moving across the yard through the window, maybe, or he might have gone outside for some reason and caught sight of it. He couldn't remember how exactly he'd found it, because the whole morning had just passed in a blur. He didn't remember if he'd eaten, or how he had actually passed the time. It was as if all of a sudden he found himself sitting on the bathroom floor, holding the thing in his hands; one of its wings angled funny as if it had been broken, which was why it had been flopping around on the ground and why he'd been able to pick it up. And he sat there on the tiled floor, the bird struggling to get free, but he wouldn't loosen his hands; his fingers laced around it, forming a sort of cage. He almost squeezed it to death right there, but something about watching it struggle made him pleased inside. Made him feel . . . not exactly happy . . . but intrigued. And warm. Like something, somewhere, was made more perfect because of its fear and frustration.

He felt its feathers thrust against his hands, its beak and claws scratch at him. It was warm in his hands. Soft, too. But it didn't make much noise.

Evan thought of the fish. On the table. Out of place in the air instead of the water. And he knew why he'd come to the bathroom. A bird would be out of place in the water instead of the air. He needed to see what it would do. Wanted to watch it.

He hurt. He felt pain well up in his chest so he had trouble breathing. It hadn't been this bad in so long.

Inching forward on his knees, he lifted up the toilet seat. The water inside looked red, momentarily—dark red, like blood—but then it went back to being water. It startled Evan only for an instant. He wasn't going to be stopped. The world shifted. He lifted his hands, bird still struggling inside, and dropped the pathetic wounded thing into the water. It seemed to move in slow motion—or perhaps it was just his imagination—but as it hit the water, Evan's pulse quickened. His eyes shone with a brilliance that was never visible except during such times, and he became lost in the situation.

Time melted. Or it was more as if it didn't even exist. Evan knew only the task at hand and his attempts to prolong it as much as he could. A quick end wouldn't do—he hurt too much for that. It had to last. It had to go on for minutes—an hour or more. Let the thing thrash, be afraid, come close to death . . . then pull it out. Watch it sputter, move lethargically, slowly recuperate . . . and then do it again. The process, Evan realized later that day, lasted over two hours, and even as he cleaned his work area and buried the poor, tortured, finally dead creature in the backyard, feeling a mixture of emotions, he knew that as sick as what he'd done was, there was a sort of art to it. After it had all been done, he sat for quite a few hours in the family room, staring at nothing in particular. He felt better—there was no doubt about that—but he also was disgusted with that fact. He'd nearly cried—but hadn't—when he buried the broken-winged robin, because in the relief and fulfillment he experienced, there was also great shame. And in the desire he felt to move from this point to larger things, more intricate techniques, some part of him was begging himself to stop, to get help. Of course, even if he listened to that part, he wouldn't know where to go for help.

Dusk had dropped over the house by the time he finally moved off of the couch. The halls were filled with a cool orange glow, dusting the furniture and his face with the strange light. On the way upstairs, he caught sight of himself in the hall mirror and saw the long, dark hair hanging limp across his forehead, the black-lashed, deep eyes staring back at him, now reflecting the glow of the sunset. He knew, vaguely, fearfully, that the sort of things he did—the types of things that made him more complete—were how serial killers began. But that thought didn't entirely emerge, because he wouldn't let it. It scared him too much.

He kept on past his stoic reflection and made his way upstairs. None of the house lights were on, so it was shadowy, but Evan's mood matched the half-darkness, so he left the lights off. In his room, he found everything in order. No strange hallucinations took place as he stood in the center of the floor, surveying all around him. Good.

Now that he was feeling calmer, less uncontrolled, he lay down on his bed, which he wouldn't dared to have done the night before. But he was tired, suddenly—so drained. And he just needed to lay down.

Was he truly guilty, he wondered, cold eyes staring out the window by his bed at the traffic below, for Zach's disappearance? If only they could figure out what had happened to him . . . perhaps that pained part of Evan could be forgotten. That was what had happened to Zach, Evan realized—he'd been forgotten. By his friends, by his parents, probably, and by the world at large. It was how Evan was feeling now. As if nothing and no one knew he existed or cared he was alive. If it had been him that disappeared instead of Zach, would his parents or anyone at school even care he was gone, or would they just enjoy the mystery and horrific suspicions of it all, as they were doing with Zach?

What happened to someone who was entirely forgotten? When they felt invisible to the world . . . when nobody knew they were alive . . . did time swallow them? Did the layers of the world overlap and leave them behind in their wake? Did whoever painted the pictures lived as seconds just forget to paint them?

It didn't make much sense, that Zach had just entirely disappeared. There had to be a reasonable explanation for it. Although, Evan couldn't find one for what he'd begun seeing after his friend's disappearance. None of it made sense, and the only person who could possibly help him was Ada, but she refused to see him.

The sound of crunching pavement told Evan that one of his parents had come up the driveway. They wouldn't find anything out of place; he'd carefully erased every detail or speck of evidence of what he'd done. They'd see him sleeping on his bed, figure the problem was solved, and go ahead with dinner. They'd call him down, he'd eat with them as if nothing happened, casual expression and typical surface conversation. Nothing more.

Nothing more.

He jumped when, moments later, he heard the simultaneous sounds of the door opening downstairs and the phone ringing. Within several seconds, he could hear his mother's voice as she answered it, and then when she called up the stairs, saying the phone was for him.

Wondering who in the world would be calling him, Evan went downstairs and incredulously took the receiver from his mother's hand.

"Evan?" said a familiar voice before he'd even had a chance to say hello. "Evan, it's me. I know I should've called you yesterday . . . I wasn't going to, at first . . . but it's happening again to me, too."

He didn't know what to say for a minute.

"Evan? Are you there? Do . . . do you not want to meet anymore?"

"No! Ada, no." He found his voice. "I was just so happy to hear you and kind of . . . yeah. I want to meet. When?"

She hesitated, then said, "Tomorrow. During the day. I'll come over."

"What time?" He kept his voice low, hoping his mother wouldn't hear.

"I don't know—how about around eleven."

"Sounds good."

"See you then."

"Ok."

"And Evan?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry we stopped talking."

He sighed. "Me too. See you tomorrow, then."

"Bye."

When he hung up the phone, he thought he saw blood on his hand, but it was gone too quickly for him to know if it was really there or not.