It felt like he was swimming in darkness, he felt suffocated and alone. Mark tossed and turned throughout the night, unable to shake this feeling from him. His alarm went off, alerting him to the fact that it was now morning. He shrugged the blanket off of himself as he reached an arm out towards is alarm clock. He whacked at it a few times, unable to find the snooze button. Eventually he just knocked the alarm clock to the floor and that seemed to do the trick.

Mark sighed deeply, his eyes squeezed shut to try and keep out the sunlight that was already starting to filter into his room through the window blinds. He felt more tired now than he had when he initially went to bed. He hated nights like this, night when it was hard to sleep.

He sat up and rubbed a hand over his face just as his dad entered the room.

“You going to get up today? If you hurry I can drive you to school on my way to work.”

“No, it's okay. I'll just take the bus.”

His dad crossed his arms over his chest and with a quick glance over his son he said, “Is something the matter? Do you want to switch schools?”

“No. It's nothing like that. I just couldn't sleep last night.” Mark climbed out of bed and started for the door, but his dad seemed adamant about not moving until he was satisfied that his son was doing okay. “It's really nothing.”

“Have you made any friends yet?”

Mark looked away from his dad. He had been going to school there for a month now. The only person he ever interacted with was Suzy, but she was always running around with her tape recorder, so they didn't talk much. They just stood around listening to whatever strange sound she was able to come across. Just yesterday they had sat in the grass as she tried to record the sounds of various bugs with varying degrees of success. Turns out most bugs don't make a whole lot of noise. He wouldn't say they were friends though, they were both loners it seemed. Most the people in his class didn't really pay any attention to Suzy and because he was always at her side they seemed to have made a unanimous decision to ignore him as well. He didn't mind though, he didn't have to fake friendships just for the sake of fitting in.

“Yes, I have,” Mark replied after a moment, finally meeting his dad's concerned stare. “Now, if you don't mind, I need to get ready for school.” His dad stepped out of the way and Mark ventured out of his room.

Suzy smiled and waved as Mark approached the bus stop. He turned up one side of his mouth in a kind of smirk and nodded his head forward once in acknowledgment. At that moment his was finding the sunlight to be annoying and his body ached to be back in bed.

“Mark, after school do you want to go with me to the river?” Suzy asked. Mark glanced down at her hands. She was clutching to her tape recorder as always. It still bothered him that he had no real idea as to why she was so obsessed with that thing. To his knowledge no one in her family had died recently and she hadn't experienced anything traumatic. Perhaps she was just a weird girl – that would explain her lack of friends and why she was always alone. She seemed happy after all.

“Why?”

“Why else,” she said with a roll of her eyes and a wave of her tape recorder. “I don't want to go by myself, in case something happens. But if you don't want to that's okay.”

“No. I'll go with you. I don't have anything better to do anyways.”

Suzy smiled and looked at the ground, seemingly shy in that moment. Mark looked away from her and ran a hand over his hair. He squinted up at the sun and sighed. Today was going to be longer than he had originally planned; he had been hoping that he'd be able to take a nap after school, but that wasn't going to happen now. Normally he wouldn't have had a problem brushing her off, he had spent his life perfecting such methods and had never been bothered by it, but he actually liked spending time with Suzy. Maybe it was just curiosity, he wanted to know what she was up to and why she was so attached to her tape recorder. That had to be it – there was no other reason he would want to spend time with her. The bus approached, interrupting his tired thoughts. Suzy grabbed his sleeve and dragged him onto the bus.

“When did you start carrying that thing around,” Mark asked during lunch. Suzy set the tape recorder down for the first time since they had sat down to eat. She started opening her lunch and Mark was sure she was going to ignore his question.

Finally she looked up at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Two months ago.” Mark was surprised by her short answer. She still offered no explanation as to why she insisted on recording every little noise she heard. The expression on her face gave him some insight to how troubled she was feeling in that moment. She glanced between him and her food a few times, as if debating on whether to say more or not.

“I won't ask any more questions about it,” Mark said at last in an attempt to put her at ease. Suzy seemed to relax.

“I understand that you're curious, but we're not close enough for me to explain my situation.”

Situation? Mark titled his head to the side. Maybe something had happened to her – he hadn't thought she had experienced anything in particular to make her as weird as she seemed to be. If it had only been two months since she started this mission of hers, then it was probably a good guess that none of their classmates knew what was going on with her either.

“Suzy, have you always been alone like you are now?”

“What do you mean?” she asked through a mouthful of food, not seeming to be fazed by his question. “Like did I have friends before now?” Mark nodded and Suzy let out a small but sad laugh. “Yes. I had friends once upon a time. Just up to about three months ago actually.”

Did that have something to do with the tape recorder? Did something happen to her friends?

“Wh-”

“Yah! Don't you be telling lies about me to your new boyfriend,” a voice said suddenly. Mark and Suzy turned to look in the direction the voice had come from. Suzy dropped her silverware and gasped.