The morning light filtered through the curtains, casting a pale wash over Jay's room. Her eyes fluttered open with a weight behind them, like she'd been dreaming deeply but couldn't remember a single image. And again something felt... off. And in panic she held her blanket tightly looking here and there she felt as if someone was there…
And then she suddenly remembered.
The button.
She sat up in bed suddenly, her heart kicking in her chest. Her hand flew to the side where she had held it the night before, her fingers brushing against the sheets as if expecting to find it still in her palm.
But there was nothing. Panic slowly crept in. "someone was here" she whispered to herself
She threw back the blanket and searched the mattress with frantic hands, flipping the pillows, then dropping to the floor to check under the bed. Still nothing. She rummaged through her shirt and trouser pockets, even though she knew she hadn't placed it there. She opened her wallet—empty. The little white-and-gold button had simply vanished.
No explanation. No trace. It was gone.
Jay's throat tightened. Her room was quiet, undisturbed. She opened her drawers, one after the other, running her hands through old papers and pens and tangled jewelry, but the button wasn't anywhere.
Her hands trembled as she got dressed. Her mind wasn't fully present as she brushed her hair or tied her laces. The weight of confusion—of knowing something had happened but not being able to prove it—pressed down on her. She didn't want to go to university, but she couldn't stay home either. She was too scared to stay at home…
The campus was its usual blur of voices, movement, and life, but Jay walked through it like a ghost, barely registering the faces around her. When she saw Venelope by the courtyard bench under the old tree, she headed straight for her.
"Hey, Jay," Venelope said, smiling as she scrolled through something on her phone. "You look like you've been up all night."
Jay hesitated before speaking. She didn't know why she felt so uncertain, but she had to say something. She sat beside her, clasping her hands tightly.
"I lost something," she began. "I found a button outside my room yesterday."
Venelope blinked. "A button?"
Jay nodded. "Yeah. It wasn't mine. I showed it to my parents—neither of them recognized it. And then… last night, I was holding it when I fell asleep. But this morning, it was gone."
Venelope arched a brow. "Gone?"
"I've looked everywhere. It just vanished."
Venelope stared at her for a long second, then let out a laugh. "Jay, come on. It's just a button. Why are you so bothered? It probably rolled off somewhere. Maybe it was part of one of your old shirts and you just forgot. Don't overthink."
Jay looked down, her lips tightening. "No, Venelope… you don't understand. That button wasn't just... lying there. It wasn't supposed to be there at all, it didn't belong to anyone in my house...."
Venelope scoffed. "Unless it magically grew legs and walked in and then walked away, Jay, it's not that serious. Look, maybe you're just stressed. You've been off lately."
Jay didn't say anything after that. She just nodded and looked away, though inside her, something was still stirring—still warning her.
Venelope saw that so she said, "have you lost anything in your house?"
No…" jay replied
Anything changed positions"
Positions? Jay questioned confusedly
Yeah like if you placed your mobile on rack and it wasn't there in the morning and was somewhere else… something like that?
Jay thought for a moment and then remembered the day her stomach had hurt… she had pulled her bag to her side on the bed but when she woke up that night everything was cleaned and at their usual place… but she hadn't told venelope anything about that… so she just replied with, "I … I don't think so…"
See… you are just thinking too much…sooo relax" venelope replied
Jay hadn't told Venelope about the presence she had felt. About the blurr boy she saw in her dream because she herself was not sure if he was even real—who had held her hand and told her to rest… And the button… it belonged to him. She knew it.
She was realizing that it was not a dream… someone was in her home… someone took her out of her house to the hospital, someone took her back to her house and into her room and cleaned up her mess and then she suspected that the same person was back to get his button back…
But she didn't tell it to anyone… because it was simply impossible for someone to enter a house and take a person away and bring it back without anyone knowing … also she thought that Venelope wouldn't believe her. No one would. She herself was not believing what she was thinking.
So Jay kept quiet. She let the conversation drift to something meaningless, and during the rest of the day's sessions, her mind refused to settle. Every sentence she heard from professors, every laugh from her classmates, was muffled under the hum of one pressing question:
Where was the button? Whats going on? Who was he?
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