My Roomate

So my roommate went missing...

I live in NY and last Friday, February 8, 2013 was the start of this giant snowstorm that's been all over the news. Let me back up. I'm a sophomore in college, living in Westchester with my roomate Alex. He's originally from Bermuda while I'm from Jersey, so whenever it snows here, he always gets really excited because he's never seen snow.

So me, Alex, and a group of our friends all headed outside at about 9, just to hang out in the snow, have a few beers, just celebrate the weekend. We walked over to our favorite spot in the woods nearby where we'd always set up a little canopy to keep us dry. Alex, as usual, was throwing snowballs at us and trying to make snow angels, just enjoying the snow while we built a little fire and talked about girls and stuff. Alex all of a sudden stopped building his snowman and ran over to us.

"Did you guys hear that?" He asked us.

I told him I didn't know what he was talking about. He shushed us until we were quiet so we could listen. Just silence. Nothing but the wind blowing. We all laughed.

"You're crazy," I told him, but then he told us to shut up. He heard it again. He turned and just stared into the darkness of the woods. "What are you hearing?"

"It...It just sounds like someone yelling. Yelling and whispering....together." He stood there for a moment, continuing to stare into the dark. Then he took off.

We looked at each other for a second and ran after him. The snow was up to our ankles at this point, making it really hard to run but we could still see him running in the distance even in the dark. There was no way we could keep up with him in the snow, especially with the wind blowing like it was. His hat flew off an landed in the snow, so I scooped it up only to see Alex standing motionless about 50 ft. ahead. We caught up to him, worn out and catching out breath.

"Dude, what the fuck was that about!?" Eric yelled at him.

The echo bounced throughout the trees, ringing out into silence. Alex kept standing there, looking up at the tree branches. We stood there searching with him, wondering what he was seeing. Not even a slight breeze at this point, absolute silence as we stared.

"I could hear it," he said as he startled us, "but then it stopped."

We looked at each other again, all confused, when suddenly a huge gust of wind pushed us back, forcing us to cover our eyes from the snow it was throwing at us. He was running again.

Still tired, we were slow to start and lost him very quickly. All we could do was follow his footprints, keeping our heads down from the wind, constantly slowing us. Ten minutes of pure adrenaline must've went by until we saw them. A second pair of footprints, smaller and shallower than Alex's, appeared inches in front of his. We came to a halt, only to bolt faster after him, yelling his name, trying to catch up. We followed their tracks to a slope where we found one of his gloves and a depression in the snow, like he'd slid down the slope. We called after him, knowing that if we went down, it would be too steep to climb back up. We tried his cell, but of course, no answer.

Eric: "Dude, we have to go back, its almost 4:30. Our curfew was 3 and a half hours ago."

Blake: "Yea but what if he's hurt! We can't just leave him out here!"

Eric: "If he was hurt he would yell back to us! Besides, I'm freezing and I'd rather not die out here in the cold!"

I had no choice but to leave. I wasn't going to look for him alone in the woods. We followed our tracks back the way we came and went home.

Saturday, February 9th, 2013
I woke up around 2 pm. Hoping to look over and see Alex sleeping in his bed. Empty.

I waited till 5 to call him again. Still no answer, so I had no choice to call the police and tell them everything. They told me to sit tight and keep trying to contact him while they kept their eyes out. We made plans to check the woods Sunday during the day. So I tried to clear my mind and convince myself that Alex was fine. I couldn't.

Sunday, February 10th
8 am. I prayed that when I opened my eyes I would see Alex in the next bed. I opened them to find myself alone again. I met the two police officers outside my dorm, where we drove to the edge of the woods and started to head in. The snow was at our knees, but at least it had stopped snowing. I took Officer Sullivan and Officer Dalton to our canopy, only to find it caved in from all the snow and our footprints erased from the past two days. No trace of our story. No trace that we were even there.

I pointed the officers in the direction of where Alex took off, but the police said the snow was too thick to conduct a proper investigation. They said they would continue to look into it and to call them again if anyone heard from Alex. I went home disappointed and worried.

Its 4:30 am, Monday morning. Its dark outside, cold as ever.....and still no sign of Alex.