Chapter 4: Four Years Later

Chapter 4: Four Years Later

Four years. One thousand, four hundred and sixty days. That’s how long I had lived in the grey.

My world had shrunk to the four sterile walls of a cheap, anonymous apartment in a city where no one knew my name. The windows stayed closed, the blinds perpetually drawn against a sun I felt I didn’t deserve. My life was a flat, repeating loop: wake, work, eat, sleep.

My job was a digital reflection of my existence. I was a data entry clerk for a massive, faceless corporation, my fingers tapping out endless strings of numbers and codes onto a spreadsheet. It was monotonous, soul-crushing work, and I was grateful for it. It demanded just enough of my attention to keep the thoughts at bay, but not enough to make me feel anything. It was the perfect purgatory.

I didn't have friends. I didn't date. The cashier at the corner store was the person I spoke to most, and our conversations were limited to "Just this" and "Have a nice day." I was a ghost haunting the edges of my own life, a man in his late twenties who already felt ancient. My reflection in the dark computer screen was a stranger: thin, gaunt, with tired eyes hiding behind thick glasses. The haunted look was permanent. It was the price I paid.

Every night, the television flickered, its meaningless chatter a bulwark against the suffocating silence. The silence was the real enemy. In the silence, I could hear the scrape of fingernails on concrete. I could hear a bone snap. I could hear my own name screamed in a voice choked with pain and betrayal.

So the TV was always on. A game show, a sitcom, the news—it didn't matter. It was just noise.

Tonight, it was the regional news. I was half-listening, spooning cold chili from a can into my mouth, my eyes tracing the spreadsheet on my laptop. A story about a municipal tax debate droned on, a perfect lullaby of civic boredom. Then, the anchor’s tone shifted.

“And in our top story tonight, a tragic discovery in the small town of Blackwood brings a somber end to a mystery that has haunted the community for years…”

My spoon clattered against the ceramic bowl. My head snapped up.

Blackwood.

The name was a physical blow, a punch to the gut that knocked the air from my lungs. On the screen was a shot of a dense, overgrown forest, the trees dark and menacing even in the daylight. It was them. The woods behind the school. Police tape, a stark, ugly yellow, was strung between the familiar oaks.

A reporter with a grim face stood in front of the scene. “Behind me, in the Blackwood State Forest, investigators have confirmed that human remains discovered by a pair of hikers yesterday are those of Jacob Vance, who disappeared four years ago at the age of twelve.”

The chili turned to acid in my stomach. So, it was finally over. The lie I had told, the story of two boys getting lost in the woods and only one making it out, had found its final, grim chapter. They had found him. A part of me, a dark, selfish part, felt a flicker of relief. Closure. The end. Maybe now the ghost that sat on my chest every night would finally fade.

The report cut to an old school picture of Jacob. That bright, curious smile. That slightly messy hair. The video game character on his faded t-shirt. The kid who had been my entire world. My vision blurred. I was twelve again, standing in that suffocating, chemical-stinking darkness, the flashlight beam trembling in my hand. I saw the empty eye sockets of the tiny corpse in the corner. I saw Jacob’s face, contorted in pain.

I blinked, and I was back in my grey apartment. The reporter was speaking again.

“While the Vance family has asked for privacy at this time, Police Chief Miller held a press conference this afternoon. He confirmed the identity but released few other details, citing the ongoing investigation.”

The camera cut to a portly man with a tired mustache standing at a podium. “At this time, we are treating this as a homicide investigation. The official cause of death has not yet been determined, pending a full report from the medical examiner.”

Homicide. Of course it was. They just didn't know the monster who did it wasn't human. My lie had protected him. The story of a hiking accident had sent the search parties looking in the wrong places, far away from the rotting school that festered on the edge of town. My cowardice hadn't just doomed Jacob; it had given his killer a four-year head start. The familiar, crushing weight of my guilt settled back over me, heavier than ever.

I reached for the remote, my hand shaking. I couldn't watch anymore. I needed the noise to stop. I needed the silence, as terrible as it was.

But the reporter started talking again, her voice low and serious, and her words froze my hand in mid-air.

“While the chief was reluctant to provide details,” she said, her expression grave, “our sources at the state medical examiner’s office have revealed a truly disturbing preliminary finding. Based on forensic analysis of the skeletal development, particularly the epiphyseal fusion in the long bones…”

She paused for dramatic effect, letting the technical jargon hang in the air. I stared at the screen, uncomprehending. What was she talking about?

Then she delivered the final blow.

“What this means,” she clarified, her voice dropping to an almost conspiratorial whisper that felt aimed directly at me, through the screen, through the years, “is that the medical examiner has concluded with near certainty that Jacob Vance was approximately sixteen years old at his time of death.”

The room tilted. The air became thick, unbreathable. The words didn't make sense. They were just sounds. Sixteen? No. No, he was twelve. I was there. I saw it. I heard the snap, the thud, the scream that was cut short. He died that day. He had to have died that day.

“To be clear,” the reporter emphasized, driving the nail deeper into the coffin of my sanity, “the boy who disappeared at age twelve was kept alive by his captor… for four years.”

The remote slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floor.

Four years.

The number echoed in the sudden, roaring silence of my mind. Not a memory of four years ago. A duration. A sentence.

He hadn’t died that day. I hadn’t left him to die. I had left him to live.

The carefully constructed walls of my grey world didn’t just crack; they vaporized. The past wasn’t a static, horrific memory. It was a living, breathing nightmare that had continued, day after day, week after week, year after year, in the dark. While I was numbly tapping numbers into a spreadsheet, Jacob was still in that place. While I was eating my tasteless meals, he was with that… thing. The thing with the dead, black eyes of a shark.

One thousand, four hundred and sixty days. In the dark. With a broken leg. In the company of the monster I had run from.

The chili rose in my throat, hot and bitter. I stumbled to the bathroom, collapsing in front of the toilet as my body violently rejected the food I couldn't stomach. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to vomit up the last four years. I wanted to vomit up my own soul.

When the retching stopped, I was left kneeling on the cold tile, shaking uncontrollably. The image of the tiny, mummified child in the closet flashed in my mind. The trophy. The Caretaker had taken Jacob to replace his old one.

The dull, chronic ache of my guilt was gone. In its place was a fresh agony, a screaming, white-hot wound. My suffering was a pathetic indulgence. My self-imposed prison was a luxury resort. I had spent four years hiding from a memory that lasted five minutes. Jacob had spent four years living it.

My fragile peace was shattered. My life of quiet penance was a grotesque mockery. There was no running. There was no hiding. The past wasn't over. It had just been waiting. And now, it had finally, truly, found me.