Searching For- Alycia Starr In-all Categoriesmo... -

Jenna clicked Images first. Alycia at a protest in Portland, 2017. Alycia behind a counter at a record store that closed four years ago. Alycia in a faded green sweatshirt, arm around someone whose face was blurred for privacy. Jenna zoomed in on the sweatshirt. She’d bought that for Alycia at a flea market. She remembered the vendor saying, “This’ll outlive you.”

The cursor blinked on the dark screen, patient and indifferent.

No results found.

Jenna closed the laptop.

Videos showed a low-quality clip of Alycia playing an open mic. The sound was terrible, the guitar slightly out of tune. Jenna watched it three times. Alycia’s fingers moved like water over the strings.

Maps showed nothing. No recent location. No check-ins. Just an old pin at an apartment they’d shared on North Sycamore. The street view showed a different couch on the porch now.

how to stop searching for someone who disappeared Searching for- alycia starr in-All CategoriesMo...

She sat in the dark for a long time, listening to the refrigerator hum. Then she opened the search again. Not for Alycia this time. She typed:

The cursor blinked.

The results loaded in less than half a second. Jenna clicked Images first

Here’s a short story inspired by that fragmented search query:

She moved to News . Nothing recent. A profile of Alycia’s band from a college radio station. A brief mention in a missing persons database— last seen March 14, 2019 . Jenna had filed that report. She knew the date better than her own birthday.

Jenna typed it again, slower this time, as if the name might dissolve if she pressed too hard. Alycia Starr. Then she selected All Categories —images, news, videos, shopping, maps. Everything. As if Alycia might have hidden herself inside a product listing or a forgotten blog from 2009. Alycia in a faded green sweatshirt, arm around

Shopping was cruel. A vintage jacket listed as “Alycia Starr style.” A pair of boots “similar to those worn by musician Alycia Starr.” Jenna stared at a listing for a silver ring—the same one Alycia had lost in a lake when they were twenty-two. The seller had no idea. They just wanted $18.99 plus shipping.

Jenna’s chest tightened. Not because there were none—but because there were thousands . A face that wasn’t hers smiled back from thumbnail after thumbnail. Same sharp jawline. Same gap between her front teeth. But the eyes were wrong. Alycia’s eyes had always looked like they were about to laugh at something you didn’t understand.