My fears and concerns may have been for naught, or may have been well-founded. I saw her one night, sat and talked with her, expecting to see her the next night. The next night, she did not appear. Nor the night after that, nor any night since.

Was it business that called her away? Was it impatience with the way things were or were not? Was it her choice to leave, or did she feel she had no choice in the matter?

I do not know. I can only hope that she is alive, well, and happy. And for her, but also for me, I hope that if it was her will to leave, she finds whatever she seeks... and if it was not her will, that she finds her way back.

To date, few of those missing from my life seem to have found their way back. Where once their names might have been written in the Hall of the Dead, now even that reminder seems to have been forgotten by nearly all. Evidently, as death becomes more commonplace, each individual death becomes less remarkable in the public eye. Or where once death came at the hands of the outsider, now it comes from supposed allies.

Perhaps I should fashion a memorial, engraved with the names I still remember, before even those names, like the people that bore them, are forever lost.