Gone Without A Trace

Eliza

I came home with coffee I didn’t even want anymore. That should’ve been my first clue that something was off. I always want coffee. It's like... rule number one of being me: don’t trust the world until you’ve had at least two sips of dark roast. But standing there in front of my apartment door, balancing my tote bag, my suitcase, and a cold cup of overpriced liquid regret, I couldn’t shake the unease crawling up my spine.

It was quiet. Too quiet. Not the usual city-hums-through-the-wall kind of quiet, but the kind that feels like a held breath.

The lock clicked open the same way it always did, but even that felt wrong — like it hesitated a second longer than it should. I pushed the door open and walked in, blinking against the early evening light pooling in through the blinds. The first thing I noticed was the absence of smell. No vanilla incense. No Marley.

I set the cup down on the counter.

“Marley?” I called, half-expecting her to come stumbling out of her room in her ridiculous cactus-print pajama pants, maybe with a snack in one hand and some chaotic idea about rearranging the furniture in the other. No answer. I shrugged. Maybe she was out. But then I glanced at her door — which was slightly ajar — and felt the first true jolt of alarm hit me dead in the chest.

I pushed the door open wider.

Empty.

Like, not “she cleaned up” empty. Like someone-moved-out-while-you-weren’t-home empty.

Her bed? Gone. Posters? Gone. The dresser with the broken leg she always meant to fix? Gone.

I stood frozen in the doorway, my mouth slightly open. It wasn’t just that her stuff was missing — it was that it was spotless. As if she’d never even lived there. No dust outlines on the walls. No pins or leftover sticky tape. Just four blank walls and a hollow echo in my ears.

I backed out of the room slowly. My phone was already in my hand before I realized it, fingers scrolling through our message thread. Or… trying to.

There were no messages.

The last thread I had with Marley — gone. Completely gone. I scrolled through my photos, heart pounding now. Every picture I remembered — birthdays, late-night takeout hauls, that time we wore matching green lipstick as a joke — was missing one very specific detail: Marley.

She wasn’t in any of them.

I sank into the couch, breathing shallow and ragged, willing myself not to panic. Maybe she’d gotten into some kind of trouble? Maybe she had to leave suddenly. Maybe someone had hacked my phone and wiped her stuff? That was a thing, right?

But then I remembered something worse — our lease.

I all but threw myself off the couch and scrambled to the junk drawer, where I kept important documents stuffed between expired coupons and rogue batteries. I found the lease, fingers trembling. I flipped to the tenant section and scanned for her name.

There was only one name. Mine. Eliza Mornings. No Marley Rhodes. No co-signer. No second signature. Just me.

“What the hell,” I whispered, the words breaking like static in my throat.

I grabbed my phone and called her number.

The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again.

Again.

Again.

Same message. Each time it stabbed deeper than the last. I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling.

I wasn't freaking out. Not yet. But my hands had started to shake, and I didn’t feel entirely in control of my own skin. Something was wrong. Not just with the room. Not just with my phone.

With me.

I needed someone to say her name. Just one person. Anyone.

I ran out of the apartment and banged on 4B — Mr. Velez, the retired teacher who always smelled like peppermint and gave me unsolicited crossword puzzles. He answered in his bathrobe, blinking at me like I was the one who just disturbed the peace of the universe.

“Mr. Velez, hey, hi. Sorry for barging in but… do you remember my roommate? Marley? Marley Rhodes?”

He squinted at me. “Roommate? No, dear. You’ve always lived alone.”

I actually laughed. Not a real laugh — the kind that bursts out of your mouth when you don’t know what else to do.

“No,” I said, half-begging. “Tall girl, curly black hair, tattoo of a koi fish on her shoulder. She always wears combat boots? Even in summer?”

Mr. Velez smiled politely. “Maybe you had a dream.”

I stepped back like he’d slapped me. “Yeah. Maybe.”

I stumbled back to my apartment, locked the door behind me, and stood there. The silence crept in like mold, sticking to my skin.

My heart thundered like it was trying to escape.

And then I heard it — from inside the kitchen. A soft creak. Very faint. But definitely real.

I inched forward, every part of me on edge, and found nothing. Just the fridge humming, the blinds fluttering slightly from an open window I didn’t remember opening.

I reached out to shut it.

That’s when I saw it — something wedged into the side of the window frame. I tugged it out with trembling fingers. It was a folded note. Yellowed. Familiar handwriting.

Mine.

Except… I didn’t remember writing it.

It read:

“If you’re reading this, they’ve already started. She’s not a dream. She was never a dream. Don’t let them take her again.”

No signature. But it didn’t need one. I would recognize my own shaky handwriting anywhere. The curves. The rushed slant.

The note fluttered from my fingers to the floor as I stared into the room that was no longer Marley’s.

And then the lights went out.

Click. Just like that.

Total darkness.

No hum from the fridge. No glow from the hallway bulb. The apartment didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt like a vacuum. Like it had sucked all the life out — and was coming for the rest.

That’s when the phone rang.

Not my phone.

The landline.

The one I hadn’t used in over two years.

It rang once.

Twice.

A t

hird time.

Then silence.

Then a voice from the other side of the apartment.

“You’re not supposed to remember.”