missed

Xander point of view

The stale scent of bleach and disinfectant hit me as I stepped into the hotel lobby. It was the same scent that used to linger in the air of our classroom when we were in high school. a faint, almost comforting reminder of her. Five years. Five years since she was gone, and yet, here I was, drawn back to the same smell, the same feeling of a ghost haunting my senses.

It wasn't the smell that had brought me here, though. It was her. Or, rather, the girl who looked exactly like her. The same black rounded eyes, the same mischievous smile that could light up a room, the same cascade of auburn hair that tumbled down her back. Even her name was the same – Alfa.

I'd seen her in the street a few hours ago, and the shock had been so profound, so visceral, that I'd stumbled back, my heart hammering in my chest. It was like a cruel joke, a phantom limb of a love lost, resurrected in the form of a stranger. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow connected t