I held my breath, and charged up to the cork board, tacking a note to it.

Jackson's Closet.

"Any lead, any sign, must not be overlooked," I told myself.

I then fell into my chair, my head lolling back.

I groaned.

I rolled my head to the side, eyeballing the photo of me taken the night I returned to my room. (Or was returned?)

What intrigued me the most about the photograph was my feet.

Only one sock.

How peculiar.

One sock.

I looked down.

On impulse, I kicked my feet up on my desk and took off the sock on my left foot.

I paused. What. Am. I. Doing?

I hurriedly put the sock back on. What nonsense.

Only one sock.

* * *

I lay on the top of the covers of my bed.

This cannot be happening.

This isn't happening.

Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened to me.

Just let it go.

I rolled over.

"But... It did happen. The police report says so. I was... Taken."

I blew my bangs out of my eyes. "But there's no evidence to point to anyone. All they had was that I said—"

"Monsters come and take your children in the night."

I staggered up, propping my elbows on my flimsy pillow.

"Was I... Taken by a monster?"

I buzzed my lips out, spit spewing everywhere.

"Of course not!" I laughed, and fell back on my pillow.

I've gone insane.

* * *

"Come on, Mary! Help me pick out my costume!" Jackson jumped up and down, pulling my hand into the Helping Hands Store, along with three other children I was in charge of taking to shop for Halloween costumes. It was a big event for all of us.

We never shop for anything.

"Slow down, bud. I'm old. You don't want to break me." I grinned. Eleanor grabbed my other hand and pulled me in the opposite direction. "The princess section is this way!"

Eleanor was the product of a teenage girl's unwanted pregnancy.

"No! Superheroes first!" Before I knew it I was the rope of a raging tug of war.

"Woah Nelly! Hey guys, calm down. We'll do rock paper scissors--"

I felt a tug on my shirt and glanced at my hip. Little Hugh's big chocolate eyes stared back up at me, his skin as dark as night. "Can I have a piggy back ride?"

Little Hugh was put in a cardboard box and abandoned in the very park that was down the street from the home. He was around a week old. Exactly how old we have no idea. The mother didn't leave a note with his date of birth.

"Ug." I threw my head back. "Fine." I lovingly exhaled. I crouched, and he climbed on.

I wobbled up to my feet. "Alright." I groaned. "So as for the rock paper—"

"Boo!" Alex, sun blonde, and the oldest of the bunch, jumped up in front of us while wearing a werewolf mask with a line of sharpie slashed over the nose and cheeks, cracks in the pale paint filled in with pink marker.

Alex had to be taken by the state from his parents at the age of two and a half because they were...

Well, they were making very irresponsible decisions.

Eleanor squealed and dashed behind me, clinging to my leg.

"Your mask is a little off, bub," I replied.

"Awe, really? It's that noticeable?" Alex pulled his masked off and flipped it around to look at its mistakes. "Aw flipper nuggets. And this was the last one. I hate everything."

Jackson grabbed a pumpkin mask and tried to scare Alex in return. "Boo!" He giggled, his hands clawing like a vicious monster.

I laughed. "You know guys, if you really wanna scare someone, 'boo' isn't the best choice of phrase."

"But that's what they always say in the movies, don't they?" Jackson protested.

"Yeah, well..." I looked around the store, noticing how many products were marketed with the word "boo." Little candy buckets with black cats and spiders, stickers, note pads, all branded with the little three letter word, just... Everywhere. Boo. Boo boo boo. Ghosts and pumpkins and vampires and skeletons, cookies and lanterns and paper plates...

I set Little Hugh down beside me, my eyes wandering from product to product.

But it's not even scary. It's adorable, but it's not scary...

At that moment I thought back to the drawing Detective Chapman had given me.

Deja vu swept over me.

"Boo..." I said out loud, lost in my train of thought.

"You know what's better than boo?"

My deja vu disappeared as I turned my attention down to Jackson. "What."

"BOOYAKASHA!"

"WILL YOU STOP THAT?" I chased after Jackson around the store, driven by irritation.

I ran after him until I had to stop for breath, leaving him to run into the superhero costume section, first grabbing a foam padded Mr. Incredible suit with a tear in the shoulder. Alex and Hugh followed him to paradise.

"Hey!" Eleanor protested. "What about princesses?!"

"Well." I panted, cracking my back like an old worn out man. "I guess superheroes first."

* * *

"Alright, who will draw the answer to question five on the board?" Mrs. Casteel asked, twirling her etch-board pen in her fingers from behind the podium.

Silence.

"Come on ding-dongs, this is kindergarten stuff."

I raised my hand. "I volunteer as tribute."

I hopped off my stool and waltzed to the front of the room, my homework packet in hand. I grabbed a lime green dry erase marker and sketched a Bohr's model of silicon.

When I dotted the last pair of electrons on the outer-most orbit of the nucleus, I took a step back to absorb my work, ready to correct any mistakes.

I gazed at the green atom, and thought back to the drawing Detective Chapman had given me.

Giddily, I leaned forward and drew a long pair of green legs, two green arms, two small horns...

"Hey, Boo. What you got there?" Josh snickered from his desk. "Drawing fat stickmen now? As I said, you are really quite the artist—"

The green marker slipped from between my fingers and hit the ground with two low thuds. My stapled papers swished and fluttered to the white-tiled floor.

"Boo? What's Boo?"

"That's... What I've decided to call her. S'there a problem?"

"Sulley, you're not supposed to name it. Once you name it, you start getting attached to it! Now put that thing back where it came from, or so help me—"

"Kitty!"

"Boo! Boo, oh, you're alright! I was so worried! I was... Don't you ever run away from me again, young lady! Oh, but I'm so glad you're safe—"

"Good-bye, Boo."

"Kitty."

"Kitty has to go."

His silhouette disappeared into the darkness of the doorway. As it closed behind him, the wood bursted into flames, and with a catastrophic explosion—

"Mary? Mary, are you ok?" Mrs. Casteel peered from behind me.

"Yeah." I blinked, shaking it off. "I'm fine. Totally fine. Totally fine..."