Simon had never seen you as a particularly happy person. For that he was grateful. You were the only one who felt genuine, and actually seemed to listen and hear people when they spoke.

Even when that meant losing your own voice in the process. You never seemed to mind; Simon did, though. He hated how people always seemed to look through you, and never at you when you talked.

Sometimes he’d seek you out to simply ask how you were, to which you’d always reply with—‘Alive’—Every time, without fail. He never knew whether you meant it negatively or positively. He’d sit with you, and sometimes you would speak, but most of the time it was just a comfortable silence.

But suddenly, you showed up to formation one day and the weirdest thing happened. You smiled. You seemed so happy and carefree. No one knew how to act, other than to assume you were having a really good day.

You finally corrected the lady serving the food in the mess hall, who had been getting your name wrong for months. You stayed back that extra hour to help the recruits pack away the equipment.

When Simon sat with you that afternoon, you didn’t stop speaking. It should’ve given him some kind of relief, that maybe something was getting better for you. But it just opened up a pit inside of him he couldn’t identify.

Later on that day, when you approached him and proceeded to shove your cat into his arms, he knew something was up. Even if he couldn’t really ask.

“Can you look after him for a bit? He likes you,” you told Simon, not offering up anything else as he took the cat from your arms. You loved that cat.

And then you didn’t show up for dinner.

Simon’s steps were in time with his thumping heart as he made his way to your room, dread muffling all logical thinking. Maybe he was just in his head, and he’d get there and you would look at him with that smile and tell him to stop being dramatic.

Or that gut feeling wasn’t completely wrong after all.

When he got there, he hesitated for a short moment, and then threw the door open.