School is an awful place in my opinion, especially when your sister has been missing for almost two months with no leads. I haven't  attempted to become friends with anyone. But today at school, a kid in my class named Daniel starts talking to me. Then him and his sister, Kaylie, sit with me at lunch.
Kaylie feels bad about Maria and I think she is crying. I am happy to get on the bus and head home. The day was just too... weird.
I walk in the front door and my mom runs to me and hugs me.  She is crying. "What's going on?" I ask. Mom steps back and says,"I found something... maybe a message from Maria..." I'm very confused as she leads me upstairs. I look at her, she looks dead serious and a little scarred. She opens the door to what was going to be my sister's room. The boxes that hold her stuff are all taped shut and stacked in the corner. Except for one.
One box sits in the middle of the room. The tape cut clumsily. On top of the box was Maria's stuffed blue bear." Mom," I say slowly,"Why did you take out Maria's bear?" She shook her head," No I didn't take it out. After you and your dad left, I head a noise in here. I walked in and found the bear. I know it wasn't you or your father... so it must be a sign from her..."
I'm not following what she's saying, but I don't want her to feel worse than she dose. "If it is a sign, form Maria, what do you think she's... telling us?" Mom looks down at the bear and says," When she was younger, she would get scared easily. Whenever it was dark or stormy or anything bad happened, she would cling to the bear as if her life depended on it," Mom laughs a little at the memory as she continues to cry. "So...?" I ask. "So I think Maria's saying she's scared."
Somehow this made sense but there is still a problem. "How did she get in here without us knowing? And if she did... why didn't she stay?" Mom again shakes her head," I don't know. But at least it means she's alive." She looks at me and smiles a little. When dad gets home we show him the bear and him and Mom cry together.
I still have the mystery of her leaving a message but not staying weighing me down. I go to my room and try to sleep. After hours of starting at the dark ceiling, I get up and walk back to Maria's room. The moon light throws odd shadows on the boxes. I look at the bear, remembering the times when I'd seen her holding it. I pick up the bear.
Suddenly I'm in a dark cloudy woods running from something. My bear feet hurt as they hit the hard cold dirt. It's getting hard to breathe. I trip over a tree root and fall on the dead leaves. I look back and see a shadow growing closer and closer. I scream, but it wasn't my scream. It the scream I herd when my sister would find a spider. It was her scream.
I drop the bear and spin around looking for her. Looking for that... thing. But Maria wasn't there. Neither was whatever was following me. I wasn't even in the woods. I was just in the dark bedroom that should be my sister's.
I guess I made a lot of noise because my parents rush into the room. Before the can speak I say," Sorry I didn't mean to wake you... I was just going back to bed." I squeeze past them and return to my room. I flop down on the bed. What just happened?