Connor Sabre
29/03/2026
Content warning: Content concerns self-harm/suicide.
We talk through screens and the tapping of keyboards. We talk across the distance of the entire world.
Soba: Enough! Kennedy, for the last time, we’ve already gone over this. I’m not interested.
Choc: I know, I know, but it’s better!
Soba: Please. Literally anything else.
Choco Kennedy has been a close friend for years, despite our friendship being entirely digital. We became friends over our shared love of writing stories. However, our tastes tend to differ and, like those who know each other well, clash.
Choc: …fine
Soba: Look, how about the other one with the monsters? We can work on that. I like that one. I just don’t want to talk about this one right now. I need to help my sister. I’ve got work and my own writing. I also need to sleep.
Choc: See you then
Soba: See you
*
Frantically scrolling through my phone, my eyes dart from one line to another. My shoulders lock stiff, my hands suddenly cold and numb. I’d taken a brief moment away from helping my sister brainstorm ideas for her article, choosing to check the chat of friends and acquaintances I had across the internet. People I’ve known for years, even decades. It had taken only seconds to turn a pleasant day into a nightmare.
Choc: Today’s the day
Choc: I have to go somewhere. Mom has called the cops on me. I barricaded the door
Choc: I told them that someone is picking me up, if not…I won’t go down without a fight
My teeth grind together.
Choc: I am ready to go
Ascalon: Just talk to them, idiot!
Epsi: Choc, just talk to them!
I had been away for just a single night’s sleep. A world away.
Ascalon: If you pull a gun on a cop, you’ll be in for decades!
I wasn’t there. I couldn’t do or say anything. These messages were from hours ago, which may as well be years now. A lifetime ago.
Wormtongue: Lol, you guys taking him seriously? He’s just a Drama Queen
Choc: I don’t want to go to the mental place. I don’t want to go to prison
Zeph: Choc. Listen to me. Calm down. Address the police, follow them, don’t resist. Answer any questions they have. The odds of you being blamed for a violent incident you didn’t partake in are very low.
Zeph, all the way from Europe and the most level-headed of my friends, was the last to try to help.
Choc: I’d rather just die.
But it wasn’t enough. That was Choco Kennedy’s last message.
Scrolling down further, I see questions, and theories, and panic. Even mockery by a few who thought it was just a stunt. I stop at a string of distressed messages from Choc’s girlfriend, Zeebeet. She could not get an answer from Choc’s phone. It had become real. It wasn’t a joke.
‘Is something wrong?’
I don’t know how, but my sister notices immediately. My answer is silence. I stare at her, or rather through her, even as her look of mild concern turns to genuine worry.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘…’
‘…’
‘My friend just committed suicide.’
Then she is silent too.
The reality of what had happened is slow. Time passed both too quickly and not at all. One moment, I was arguing with him about something petty and stupid, and the next, wishing, desperately, that I had said something – anything – else.
‘I…’
I am unable to finish. I do not wish to say it. To even think about it. Instead, to cope with what had happened, with my last words to my friend, I do the one thing I can. I try to get answers.
Choco Kennedy is American. I’ve known this for ages. He lives in Georgia with only his mother, who, from what I know, is abusive to him despite his disabilities. He has only ever met his girlfriend online, through the phone and FaceTime chats.
He also owns a shotgun.
My friends helped at first. Zeph searched for news but accomplished nothing. I try to think of any way to find Choco Kennedy. He had once told me his real name years ago. I scour my chat history. I know his surname is real. It really is Kennedy. A good start.
I only remember his name because of a coincidence that caused him to tell me – he shares the same name as an old university lecturer I once had.
Jack.
His name is Jack Kennedy. For two weeks, nothing else matters but this name. I searched the entire state of Georgia for Jack Kennedy through every part of the internet I could. Facebook, Instagram. News articles and police reports. The inmate records. The schools. Hospitals.
The Morgue.
I find numerous Jack Kennedys. One even had the same disabilities and living conditions, except with a mother organising a failed GoFundMe for him rather than beating him. I was elated to find him, only to discover it was a cruel coincidence – an almost identical stranger living the next town over.
Until finally, two weeks after his silent absence, we find his address. I compare the street-view photos to my recollection of a phone recording Kennedy once showed me of the forest next to his house. A match.
We call the nearest police station. The police refused to answer…except to admit that the incident had happened. There are no answers, no closure…but also no proof that it is over. That he is gone.
I did not want it to end that way. For our friendship that had spanned years to be left as something I deeply regretted. That I would take back in an instant if I could.
In desperation, we turn to calling mental care centres. For a month, I checked every day. Insisting.
Insisting the last words said between us were not ‘See you’. Instead, I made sure it ended with a different word.
…
…
Choc: Hi
***
Honourable mention: Connor Sabre
Originally interested in writing as an outlet for my passion for worldbuilding, I started years ago to help incorporate my high school and university education in economics into something I would better remember. With my sister’s support, I have since branched out into other genres, including satire, comedy and short stories. I particularly enjoy writing tense, deep, but heartfelt scenes that should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
Paper Road Magazine 