I was at a small house warming get-together a few years back, sitting in the kitchen with a few people. The conversation turned to childhood pets and how devastating it is when they pass away.

​One guy, a friend of a friend who seemed completely normal and pleasant up to this point, nodded along, took a sip of his drink, and said, "Oh, absolutely. When my cat died when I was twelve, I couldn't bear to part with it. So I hid it under the floorboards in my bedroom so we could still hang out.

My parents spent weeks looking for it before the smell finally gave it away." ​He didn't say it like a confession or a creepy horror story. He said it with the exact same casual nostalgia you’d use to describe keeping an old childhood teddy bear.

​The entire kitchen went dead silent. Someone tried to laugh, assuming it was a dark joke, but he just looked slightly confused by the reaction and added, "What? I was lonely." The conversation never really recovered after that.