Life settled into a new, quieter routine. School, home, homework. The frantic energy of the investigation was gone. Leo and I were still friends, but the shared, terrifying secret that had bound us together was now a closed book. We talked about normal things—video games, college applications—but there was always a shadow there, a shared understanding that we had lived through something most people wouldn't believe.
We were heroes, but we were also survivors of a trauma we could never fully explain.