A few days after Maddie disappeared, I went to the woods in City Park, to our favorite
old tree. Maddie and I hadn’t hung out there since we were kids, but I wanted to find a
place to feel her presence that was just mine.
Tucked into the trunk of the tree, there was a faded note in her handwriting. It said:
“Drown your sickness and hide the remains, do this and you’ll find Maddie again.”
It seemed like a random old scrap of poetry, just like a lot of things she would write.
I didn’t think much of it. But I’m thinking of it now.
Sept 25, 2026
I want to start this by saying that Maddie was my best friend. People thought of us as
opposites but that’s because they didn’t know us at all. They just saw us through their
tiny little slits of eyes and imagined they saw the whole universe.
Maddie could always see beyond appearances. When she trained her eyes on you (wide-open,
icy blue), it felt like she was seeing through you to some distant dimension. She was
warm and loving to people she cared about, and polite but firm to people she didn’t. She
knew what she wanted and she trusted her powers of perception absolutely.
That’s why when she went missing, I didn’t believe what anyone else said about it. I was
sure Maddie had gone somewhere she meant to go. If she didn’t care to tell us - if she
didn’t care to tell me - then she had a good reason.
That was in October 2016, before our sophomore year of college, almost 10 years ago.
Well yesterday, while walking around my neighborhood, I saw this:
sign #1
And then a little further down the street:
sign #2
Ok, no big deal, just some random graffiti. But there’s a part of me that’s hoping it’s
Maddie, planning some big dramatic reveal on the 10 year anniversary of her
disappearance. So I set up this website. If you’re reading this, and you’ve seen any of
these signs, please send a photo to
maddieimscared@gmail.com with a description
of where you found it, or anything else you’ve seen.
