• I woke up and walked around the house as I called out, "Anyone?"
    I walked outside and strained my ears, but all I heard was the deathly silence of the wind in the lonely trees,
    "Anyone?"
    I walked down the street and felt like you were dead, though I knew you weren't, I was so alone.
    Wandering, up and down streets, searching for a hint of life....
    "Anyone?"
    I walked to your house and saw a flickering light as hope grew inside me.
    I ran to your house and ran inside to see nothing but dreadful loneliness of the empty house. I looked up at the light that was on and noticed it was just a broken lamp that wouldn't shut off, wouldn't give up.
    I was that lamp.
    I was refusing to give up on you, refusing to shut off.
    As I reached to touch the lamp I realized, I was dead.
    You were alive; you all were alive.
    But I wasn't.
    That's when I remember those days, going to school and feeling lonely, like I didn't belong. Being mad at everyone and being sad most of the time.
    I covered up my loneliness with laughter, hoping the happiness I once felt would return.
    But the last few days at school, no one noticed me.
    My friends partnered with other people, like I wasn't even there.
    Like they didn't care.
    Like they wanted me to feel this empty loneliness, like they wanted me to have hate and resentment burning inside me for every time they did something.
    When my fingers touched the broken lamp a shock ran through me as I remembered my final day of school when they all ignored me like I wasn't there.
    When I got home I called my friend to talk to her about it but she was busy with her other friend.
    She said she'd call me back but of course she didn't.
    No one ever remembers anything to do with me.
    But why should they?
    I'm nothing.
    I'm apparently not worth anyone's time.
    This was the thing that flashed in my mind as I fell down onto the floor, broken lamp still clutched in my hand, but I didn't hit the floor.
    I fell right through I kept falling and falling.
    I saw the hole that I fell through from the floor start to close as you happily ran around with your other friends, oblivious to the fact that I was dead.
    Gone forever.
    As the hole closed up a word flashed in my mind as I struggled to catch my breath.
    It was the word that had followed me around everywhere I went.
    Tears fell down my cold, stiff face as I remembered the lonely word.
    The last word I would ever hear.
    "Anyone?..."