"She vanished just as the year ended."

The last day of the year had a strange, heavy feel to it. The air was thick with the weight of endings and beginnings, of hopes tucked away in the folds of a new calendar, but also the bitter tang of loss. I walked through the dimly lit streets of the small town, the pavement wet from the evening’s rain, trying to shake the nagging thought that something was about to change — that this year, somehow, something would be different.

She had been my friend for years, though it always felt as if I had known her for a lifetime. We weren’t inseparable, but we shared something deeper than friendship—something that felt like an unspoken promise between us. Her name was Tyche, and she was one of those rare souls who seemed to float just slightly above the mundane realities of life. She had a way of making you feel that everything would be okay, no matter how chaotic the world around you seemed. The kind of person whose laughter felt like a warm embrace, whose words calmed like a quiet melody.

But tonight, Tyche wasn’t laughing. I hadn’t seen her for days, and the silence between us had grown too thick for me to ignore. It was as if the space she once filled was now vacant, and with each passing day, I felt her absence more acutely. I dialed her number again, only for the voicemail to greet me with that same impersonal message. I was beginning to feel the first stirrings of panic in my chest.

Something wasn’t right.

It all began months ago, during the quiet autumn evenings when the world still seemed to be moving in rhythm. Tyche had told me, one evening over coffee, that she felt like she was on the edge of something important. "I just feel like something is about to shift," she said, her voice tinged with a mix of excitement and unease. At the time, I thought it was just another one of those whimsical thoughts she often shared — a brief moment of introspection followed by her usual carefree smile.

But looking back now, I can see that there had been a subtle change in her that no one noticed — not even me. She stopped coming to our usual spots, the places where we had shared so many memories, laughing over drinks and watching sunsets from the old bridge. She stopped answering my texts with her usual enthusiasm. And worst of all, she stopped telling me what was on her mind.

That evening, the wind had picked up, and I pulled my coat tighter around myself as I approached her apartment. I was determined to find out what was going on. As I stood at her door, my hand hovering over the brass knocker, I felt a sense of dread settle in my stomach. Something about this moment felt final, like the last time I would ever stand on this threshold.

I knocked softly, then louder. No answer. I tried the door, half-expecting it to be locked, but it creaked open, as though it had been waiting for me.

“Tyche?” I called, stepping inside. The apartment was eerily quiet. The soft glow of the lamps cast long shadows on the walls, but everything was still. Too still. The air felt stagnant, as though it hadn’t been disturbed in days.

I moved through the rooms, calling her name, but there was no reply. Her things were still scattered around — a book on the coffee table, a mug left on the kitchen counter. I walked to her bedroom, hoping to find some clue, something to explain why she had disappeared.

It was then that I saw it.

Her journal was open on the nightstand, pages filled with her neat handwriting. It wasn’t unusual for her to write down her thoughts, but this... this was different. The words were filled with a sense of finality. As I read, my heart clenched in my chest.

"I don’t know how much longer I can stay in this place. The walls are closing in. There’s a pull, a feeling that I have to follow. Something beyond me. I have to go."

I sat down, the words echoing in my head. I didn’t understand it. What did she mean by “I have to go”? Where was she going?

I stayed in her apartment for hours, hoping she would come back, but she never did. By the time I left, the sun was beginning to rise on the first day of the new year. I felt empty, like a part of me had gone with her.

Days turned into weeks, and still, there was no sign of Tyche. I spoke to her family, her friends — no one knew where she had gone. The authorities were alerted, but they too were at a loss. There was no trace of her, no sign of foul play, no indication of why she had vanished so completely.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stop thinking about that last entry in her journal. The pull, the feeling that she had to go somewhere. It wasn’t like her to just disappear without warning. But in that moment, sitting in her apartment, I realised that Tyche had always been someone who felt deeply — about life, about people, about the world. She had a way of seeing things others couldn’t, of feeling things that were invisible to most. And maybe, just maybe, she had reached a point where she could no longer stay in the life she had known.

Maybe she had followed that pull.

The year turned, and the world moved on. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I kept thinking of Tyche — of what she might have discovered, of where she might have gone. And slowly, I began to understand something profound: sometimes, people leave because they need to. Not because they don’t love you or because they’ve abandoned you, but because they need to follow a path that only they can see. Tyche had vanished, not to hurt me, but to find something she couldn’t yet explain.

We all have our moments when we feel called to leave, to change, to go somewhere we can’t articulate, but we feel in our bones that we must. And maybe that’s the lesson she left me with: that it’s okay to listen to the pull of your heart, even if it means walking away from everything you know.

As I stood on the edge of the old bridge one night, watching the moonlight dance on the water, I could almost hear her laughter in the wind. And I knew, in that moment, that Tyche had found what she was searching for.

She vanished as the year ended, but in doing so, she left me with a piece of wisdom I would carry with me for the rest of my life: that sometimes, the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the freedom to leave, to grow, to follow the path that calls to us — even if it means vanishing for a while.

And though I may never see her again, I hope she’s out there, somewhere, finding what she needed to find.

Because, in the end, we all must disappear in order to truly be found.

Vicky Thiel

@Venus

Napier, Hawkes Bay - New Zealand

"She vanished just as the year ended"

Venus