Don't Lie to Them, Daddy

My daughter, Adrianna, started mentioning someone named “Elin” around the age of four. After her cousin, Michael’s birthday party as we were about to head home she grabbed me by my pants and asked my wife, Miranda and me if she could bring “Elin” along with her.

We asked her curiously, “Who’s Elin, darling?”

My daughter started looking around as if she is looking for someone and then said, “She’s my new friend! She probably went to get her coat now.”

We immediately figured out it was an imaginary person and the idea of our sweet little girl having her first imaginary friend thrilled Miranda and I. It is another stage in the child’s mental growth after all. We decided to let Adrianna bring her new friend home with her.

Soon enough Adrianna became so preoccupied with the imaginary friend she had stopped playing with her kinder garden mates; it did not worry us, however. We thought it was another phase in her growth. Believing she wanted to be on her own for the time being, believing this imaginary friend to be her way to express her inner world. Our lack of concern stemmed from the fact that she had not done anything uncommon in children her age and did not become distant from us or other people emotionally.

The one odd thing was that whenever I or Miranda was in proximity of my sweet child, she would claim that her imaginary friend had vanished, saying her new friend would give her different explanations for her disappearances in my or Miranda’s presence.

One time I had asked her if she knows why did this happen and she had no idea, sighting that her friend might be just shy. I decided to ask her to describe to me her friend, and she said Elin looked like a normal adult girl, according to Adrianna she had blue hair like the weird kids in our neighborhood, referring to the scene teens around here, my dear child further explained that Elin preferred to wear long skirts and had a monster's mouth. Much to my surprise, my girl gave me the description of a realistic normal human being for the most part. Adrianna even told me that something in Elin reminded her of me.

I’ve decided she just took inspiration from my person when she was making Elin up and did not think of that remark too much.

About a year after we first had heard about Elin, Adrianna began acting differently from the way she used to, she insisted that the window in her bedroom will always remain open for one, and she had a trouble getting up for the kinder garden. Even more so, she began acting strangely independent for a five-year-old girl. Adrianna even told me that something in Elin reminded her of me. I’ve decided she just took inspiration from my person when she was making Elin up and did not think of that remark too much. Miranda went to the park next to our house to see if Adrianna was still there, but she was not; my sweet little daughter was gone.

Panic set in.

We began questioning people, calling any end every person that might know Adrianna looking for her, but nobody had seen her that day…

It was terrible.

Losing my sweet little girl was the worst thing that could happen to me, I began losing it, and then at around 8:30 P.M. a knock was heard on our door. Miranda ran to the door and once she opened it she saw our sweet little Adrianna standing there, with a lollipop in her mouth. I immediately ran up to hug her. I could not even be mad at her for disappearing on us like this.

After a few moments, Adrianna had said, “I was out with Elin, she even bought me this candy.”

I was filled with horror.

How could an imaginary friend buy my sweet little girl a candy, morbid ideas began filling my mind, what if there was some child offender around her? I immediately ran up to hug her. I could not even be mad at her for disappearing on us like this. I began thinking that my girl might be suffering from some hallucinatory condition and decided to check on this by making her stop meeting with this Elin thing. Of course, our sweet little child was heartbroken at my request. What could I do otherwise? I had to know what was going on, and I had no other way to do so. Adrianna did not really have a choice and did as she was told.

The next morning Adrianna told us that she had spoken with Elin the night prior and that Elin had promised to stay away from her, she also said Elin left her a bag of gum worms as a parting gift. The sickening thought of a child offender around my daughter filled my mind once more, how could a little girl possibly get out of this house in the middle of the night and where would she get those candies? Just to be sure, I asked around if anyone had seen Adrianna acting oddly or if anyone saw her with some stranger. Much to my surprise, nobody had – every time someone told me they had seen Adrianna she was either behaving normally alone or with the other kids. Luckily, soon enough we had stopped hearing about Elin and Adrianna returned to being the way she was a year before that.

A month, exactly one month after Adrianna told Elin off my wife disappeared, just like that. As if the earth itself swallowed her whole. On a Thursday, in October, my wife did not come back home at the usual hour. At first, I thought she was doing overtime at work, but after three hours had passed without any sign from Miranda, I’ve decided to call her, that did not work, I couldn’t reach her. I started calling her colleagues, and they had told me the same thing, every single one of them, Miranda left for home at her usual hour. No one knew where she had been.

Panic set in.

Adrianna quickly realized something was not right with me once she noticed how stressed and tensed I am. When she asked me what is wrong, I told her the truth, that her mother was nowhere to be found. My sweet little child broke down into tears and did not stop crying until she passed out from exhaustion. Once the hours turned into a whole day, I went to the police to report that my wife had gone missing and the search for her had begun.

A week after my wife had disappeared, I broke down into tears, Adrianna; my sweet little angel caught me weeping and hugged me tightly saying, “Daddy, don’t you cry, Mommy’s going to come back! I know that for sure!”

Her sweet smile made me stop crying, I wiped the tears off my face and told her, “Sweetie, daddy is crying because something like this happened to him before once.”

Adrianna gave me a puzzled look and asked, “You lost mom once?”

I chuckled and said, “No… you see, when I was younger,

before I met mommy, I was in love with the girl and she was in love with me, so we had a baby girl and then we decided to get married… We went to pick up this girl’s wedding dress, but on our way back home, my car got involved in a terrible accident. Both of my girls, they died.”

I began sobbing softly again, and Adrianna hugged me tightly again telling me,“ Daddy, stop it… Now you have mommy and me I am sure she will be back… okay… I promise you…” I could feel her voice shaking and her tears falling down on my shoulder.

My little girl’s response made me feel proud; to me, it was obvious she understood almost the way adults do what is the meaning of loss.

A sweet little five years old understood the meaning of death.

It was not the right to fill my angel’s mind with such dark and complicated things, so I forced myself to behave as normal as possible for the rest of the evening around her.

I decided I would not make her go to the kinder garden the day after our very mature conversation, she had a rough week and deserved to get some rest as much as I did, so I let her sleep as much as she’d like to. Once it was midday and Adrianna hadn’t gotten up yet I began worrying, thinking she might be ill or too depressed to come down, so I went up to her room and opened the door gently. I was not expecting to find what I did in my little sweet daughter’s room. I swear the images in front of me in my little angel’s room were one of the most terror-inducing things I have experienced in my life.

As I shoved the door open slowly, I saw her legs, her small, pale legs.

they were a meter above the floor…

Swinging softly,

With the rest of her body…

Swinging softly,

Was my sweet little girl’s body…

As a noose was tied around her gentle neck, while the other side of the rope that was suspending her lifeless angelic shell above ground was tied to the lamp on the ceiling.

Her head tilted slightly to the side, her dark blonde hair covering her face, however her eyes, her dead… lifeless… ice-cold eyes, I still could see their stare…

My sweet little girl’s eyes they were not angelic anymore, the small green orbs in my angel's sockets they were judging, mocking, as if Death itself was staring at me whilst telling me some dark joke.

The sight of my sweet little daughter’s little-broken body hanging there made me break down. I fell down to my knees and began screaming and hitting the floor with my fists. I could not be happening to me again! It could not be! It simply could not be true! I tried to convince myself that it is just a nightmare, simply a dream. I tried making myself believe I’m going to wake up next to my wife in a few minutes but that did not happen, It all felt too real. The tears, the sensation of pain in my fists, the cold sensation, the floor gave away… the stench… It was all too bloody real. My life turned into my worst nightmare.

Again.

I had called the cops to report I had found my daughter hung in her room; they arrived shortly after and took her body. Since there were, no signs of intrusion or struggle and my five-year-old sweet angel could not possibly know how to commit suicide. Even though one of my neighbors said he had seen a small figure enter my house in the middle of the night and leave it shortly after, he also confessed to being intoxicated that night so his account was not taken seriously, it was originally decided I murdered my own sweet little child. The policemen explained this conclusion by saying that I had probably experienced some acute mental breakdown in the aftermath of my wife going missing and ended up murdering my daughter while I was not in my right mind. All charges against me were dropped shortly after as there was zero evidence against me. After once again losing the two girls I cared about I began drinking, heavily, I could not keep a steady job and found out I am suffering from Alcoholism. I was way too deep in that disease to be able to lead a normal life, I wanted to take my own life, but never managed to do so in a direct way. I planned to drink myself to death.

On a cold February night, at 3 A.M., I had received a call; on the other side of the line, there was a policeman who had said my wife had been found, her body to be exact. Five months after she had disappeared, they had finally found her. I had been told to arrive at the local police station, so I dragged myself from my bed, got myself dressed and drowsily drove to the police station. Once I arrived at the station they had me see the corpse of my wife, I would spare most of the details as she was in a progressive state of decay. One thing about her body made me puke my guts contents right onto the floor beneath me; her scalp and brain were missing, and I was told that there were spoon scraping marks on the inside of her cranial cavity. I was notified that my wife’s corpse was found in a civilian's garden, few blocks from where I live, her body was found beside some woman who was simply sitting in that garden.

I was asked to see if I could identify the woman, they walked me through a hallway to a room with a thick glass wall, on the other side of that fall set someone I never expected to see the woman on the other side of the glass wall was a mirror image of Adrianna’s imaginary friend. A middle height woman wearing a long white skirt, her long hair had been dyed in blue and she had a monstrous jaw mask hanging around her neck. I was petrified at the sight of her; she could not be a real person… She was an imaginary person…

If she were, she would not get lost when my daughter told her to; it does not work like that… Does it?

My insides were turning but I had to keep my cool next to the cop and so I did.

He told me her name is Elina Shamounia and

asked me if I had any idea who she was, I replied negatively. Even though I had no clue who she was she seemed so familiar, something about her deep blue eyes and devious smile was way too familiar, something was really not right with this woman and it made me visibly feel awkward.

She must have had noticed my discomfort and once I and cop turned our backs to her, she stood up and went to the glass wall, once she reached the glass wall she said something that still resonates in my mind to this day, so long after our encounter. Her words completely shattered my inside, my surroundings, my everything.

I never knew a sweet voice like hers could break someone like it did me.

She said, “Don’t lie to them, Daddy, of course, you know me!”