There are three things that Joy Abara knew about herself.

First, Joy often fantasized about the idea of perfection.  A world where everything in her life was even, where all flowers in a garden were equal in height and contrast, where every shelf in the world was neatly organized, every room clean, every question answered, every equation solvable- every single thing in the universe systematically assembled for the better.  Sure, sometimes answers were cruel, sometimes closure for certain questions or equations was terrifying- but wasn’t it better to know?

Whenever Joy did not know the answer to a question, whether it was simply on an exam or whether it was directly related to a genuine mystery in her immediate life, she would continue to ponder the answer constantly, day and night.  Why was she not allowed to know?  Did she do something immoral for the Universe or some higher-lever being to not give her the answer?  Was her own brain not sufficient enough to determine the truth?  Was something wrong with her?

Second, Joy was a control-freak.  This was probably at least somewhat related to her obsession with perfection.  She tended to greatly enjoy planning events in advance, and when things didn’t go absolutely according to plan, she always seemed to blow up about it.  She did not enjoy this habit in herself.  Sure, it was nice being so good at maintaining schedules, but it did not get rid of the constant pressure building up inside of her.  Something she would frequently compare herself to was a large house.  All of her doors and windows were closed and locked, and there was not a single crack or opening to the outside.  She was very slowly filling up with water, which she did not mind or even largely notice, until, at some point, the water would fill up the entire house in such great volume that the entire house just blew up.

Third, Joy had migraines- a lot.  Not just once a week- every night.  She found it unbelievably difficult to sleep with the feeling of someone pounding on her head with a hammer all the time, yet she always eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion.  She had tried going to medical professionals around the country, but for some reason no medication or fancy procedure ever seemed to work for her.

It had started when she was twelve years old.  She had been waiting after school for her mom to pick her up, when Brock Dever came up to her and began making fun of her arm hair.  Previously she would just ignore him, yet on this day something in her just snapped.  She grabbed his arm angrily and kneed him in the groin, before quickly walking away.  

As she headed the other direction, she looked back at him nervously to see his reaction, only to see him not wincing in pain.  Rather, he was staring with a mix of confusion and utter horror at a large dark-green-blue mark on his arm that seemed to be glitching.  Joy stopped in her tracks as the mark began to gradually began to grow larger and larger each second.  Soon, his entire body seemed to be a terrifying glitching blue-green hue.  

Brock looked back at Joy, his eyes beginning to fill with tears, as each of his limbs began to grow limp, starting from his fingertips.  

As he began to apologize profusely to Joy, crying out loud in fear, his entire body soon grew limp as he collapsed to the ground.

Then, something happened to him that Joy could never possibly explain for the rest of her natural born life.

Brock disappeared.

His body was no longer on the ground.  There was no blood, no clothing, no hair, not even a single trace of him.

Joy tried to run back into the school, trying to tell the staff about what she saw happen to Brock, but none of them seemed to know who Brock Dever was.

The world had never heard the name of Brock Dever.

Joy tried to contact his parents through facebook and social media, but found that they suddenly had a completely different child, a ten-year-old girl named Faith.

Brock had never had any sisters.

Ever since that day, every night, Joy had pounding headaches.  She would sometimes hear, through the pounding, the voice of a young boy apologizing, asking for help, asking where he was.

She tried to ignore it.

When she finally went to sleep at night, Brock would show up in her dreams.

He would ask her to bring him back, or apologize, or ask how his dog was doing.  

She always responded the best that she could, or try to tell him that she didn’t know how it happened or how to fix it.

He still continued to ask the same thing every night.

After the incident, Joy tried her hardest to never be angry, to never antagonize anyone.  Sure, people’s words are mean- there were cruel, horrible people in the world that definitely deserved terrible things to happen to them.

But Joy could do far worse than anything they could even dream of doing.