CHAPTER 12 — Fading Away
1416 Words
CHAPTER 12 — Fading Away
For almost two weeks, Amani changed.
At first the changes were small enough that most people didn’t notice.
She still came to school.
She still answered when spoken to.
She still smiled sometimes — a small, quick smile that held no warmth.
But Elias noticed.
Zariah noticed.
And the distance only grew.
---
The First Days
The morning after she first watched the USB, Amani walked into school feeling hollow.
Her body moved, her feet walked, her eyes blinked… but her mind was somewhere far away, trapped in a video she couldn’t stop replaying.
She avoided Elias at the gate by pretending she didn’t hear him.
“Amani!”
“Amani—wait!”
She kept walking, pretending she needed to get to class quickly.
Zariah caught up to her instead.
“Girl, you okay?”
Amani nodded. “Just tired.”
Tired.
She said that a lot.
Zariah didn’t push. She thought Amani needed rest.
But Elias… Elias had known her long enough to sense the shift immediately.
---
Drifting
By day four, the distance became impossible to hide.
Amani sat in class but rarely answered questions.
She no longer joined conversations during break.
She sat far from the acacia tree where she used to sit with Zariah and Elias.
And when they tried to approach her, she gave short, empty replies.
“You want to eat with us?”
“No.”
“You feeling better now?”
“Yes.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“No.”
Her answers were always one word.
Her tone was flat.
Emotionless.
Exhausted.
Zariah told Elias, “I think she’s depressed.”
Elias said nothing, but his stomach twisted.
He knew she wasn’t just tired.
He knew something had changed — something big.
She didn’t smile at him anymore.
She didn’t blush when he teased her.
She didn’t look at him with that quiet trust he had grown used to.
Now she barely looked at him at all.
She wasn’t angry.
She wasn’t crying.
She wasn’t cold.
She was simply… gone.
Her body was present, but everything else felt out of reach.
---
The After-School Ritual
Every afternoon, Amani rushed home.
She shut her door.
Closed the curtains.
Turned on her laptop.
The USB still sat in its port — permanently, it seemed.
Her trembling hand opened the videos folder.
She clicked VIDEO_01.
She watched.
Replay.
Replay.
Replay.
Sometimes she cried.
Sometimes she screamed into a pillow.
Sometimes she dissociated, staring blankly at the screen until her mind floated far away.
And sometimes she felt nothing at all.
Each time she watched it, the shock faded, replaced by something darker:
Shame.
Disgust.
Emptiness.
And a strange, growing numbness.
It was like the video was eating parts of her — pieces of her hope, her joy, her trust, her softness.
After a week, the tears ran slower.
After ten days, they stopped altogether.
Yet she kept watching.
Replay.
Replay.
It had become an addiction.
A poison she swallowed voluntarily.
It hurt… but she believed she deserved the pain.
Every night, she fell asleep curled on the floor beside her bed, her laptop still glowing faintly in the darkness.
---
Elias Notices Too Much
By the end of the second week, Elias couldn’t pretend anymore.
He watched her from across the classroom — how she flinched at loud sounds, how she stared blankly at the board, how she no longer responded to jokes or greetings.
She had lost weight.
Her eyes were always red, either from tears or lack of sleep.
Her uniform hung looser around her frame.
And she avoided him with almost painful determination.
It hurt.
It hurt more than he expected.
He wasn’t used to missing someone who was standing right in front of him.
He tried approaching her one afternoon as she walked quickly down the hallway.
“Amani, can we talk?”
“I need to go home.”
“It’ll take one minute.”
“I can’t.”
Her voice wasn’t angry — just empty.
He watched helplessly as she walked away without looking back.
Zariah came to stand beside him.
“That’s the tenth time she’s avoided you this week.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“Do you think she’s mad at you?”
“No… she’s hurting.”
Zariah nodded slowly. “Then why won’t she let us help?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
But Amani didn’t give him the chance.
---
Her Walls Grow Higher
Day after day, she walked home alone, ignoring the sound of his footsteps trying to catch up.
She didn’t sit with them at lunch.
Didn’t laugh.
Didn’t talk.
She drifted through school like a ghost.
Sometimes Elias would see her staring at a wall or a window for long moments, her eyes unfocused, her lips slightly parted as if her thoughts were somewhere unreachable.
Other times she would flinch when someone touched her shoulder or passed her too closely.
Her skin looked constantly cold.
Her hands shook even when she tried to hide it.
Once, he found her behind the library, hugging her knees, breathing quickly like she couldn’t catch her breath.
He approached softly.
“Amani…”
She stood immediately.
“I have to go.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s 29 degrees.”
She didn’t answer.
Just walked away again.
---
Elias Starts Connecting the Dots
The more she pulled away, the more Elias watched her carefully.
Something wasn’t just wrong — something was deeply, frighteningly broken.
Amani’s empty eyes.
Her trembling hands.
Her distance.
Her exhaustion.
Her quick departures after school.
The way she never let anyone walk home with her anymore.
Elias wasn’t stupid.
He had lived enough life to recognize trauma when he saw it.
But he didn’t know its source.
Not yet.
And the not knowing was eating him alive.
One evening, as he packed his bag after class, he found Zariah watching Amani leave the schoolyard from the window.
“You’re not imagining it,” Zariah said quietly.
“She’s getting worse.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t talk anymore. She doesn’t smile. She looks like she hasn’t slept for days.”
“I know.”
“Elias… she needs help.”
“I know that too.”
Zariah sighed. “Then do something.”
He swallowed hard.
“I’m trying,” he whispered.
But Amani wasn’t letting anyone in.
---
Amani’s Breaking Point Creeps Closer
Back in her small room, Amani stared at the laptop screen again.
Replay.
Her heart didn’t race anymore.
The pain had become familiar, almost normal.
She touched the screen lightly, tracing the outline of her younger self.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I didn’t protect you.”
Her voice cracked for the first time in hours.
Some small part of her knew this wasn’t healthy.
Knew she should stop watching.
Knew she should tell someone.
But the numbness felt safer than the pain of talking.
Safer than trusting.
Safer than hoping.
She pressed play again.
Replay.
Replay.
The faint sound of the video echoed through her room.
Her tears didn’t fall.
Her body didn’t tremble.
Her heart didn’t break.
She just… watched.
Over and over.
Until she felt nothing at all.
---
Elias Makes a Decision
The next morning, when Amani avoided him again, Elias felt something inside him snap.
He couldn’t sit back any longer.
He couldn’t watch her disappear piece by piece.
That afternoon, he followed her — quietly, from a distance — just enough to make sure she went home safely.
But when he reached her gate, he stopped.
He saw the faint light from her window.
Saw the silhouette of her head bowed over her laptop.
And his chest tightened painfully.
“She’s hurting herself,” he whispered.
“She’s falling apart.”
He clenched his fists.
“Amani… you’re not doing this alone. Not anymore.”
For the first time, Elias was truly afraid.
Afraid she was slipping away.
Afraid she was drowning in something she wouldn’t tell him about.
Afraid he was already too late.
And he made a silent promise:
He would not let her stay in that darkness.
He would not let her break alone.
He would find a way into her walls — gently, carefully, no matter how long it took.
He wasn’t giving up on her.
Not now.
Not ever.
Even if she was already fading.
- Writer
