The Terror Inside

Prologue

It began as a rumor.  A young girl, who up until recently, was a bright and ordinary child of a small town just outside New York City, suddenly began exhibiting strange symptoms and behaviors commonly seen in mentally disabled persons.  The symptoms worsened, and worsened still; they became frightening even.  It came to the point that doctors began to suspect the family of abuse and reported them to Child Protective Services.  When the police came with a CPS investigator days later, it became clear to them that there was something beyond their understanding was going on... even their belief in reality itself.

They rang the doorbell and knocked as they loudly announced their presence.  Without waiting, they tried using the doorknob.  It was unlocked.  They entered the house with their warrant in hand.  There was no one there, but they could hear people talking in a nearby room and began walking towards it while continuing to announce their presence.  They entered what was clearly a child's bedroom and found the mother and grandmother were nursing their seemingly and gravely ill family member.  They stood up immediately from the young girl's bedside and tried to barricade the officers' path to the bed where the girl laid.  The room was dimly lit and smelled of sweat, body odor, and incense.  To the police and the investigator, up to this point, everything seemed to justify their duties today in exercising this warrant for the welfare of the child.  The child wasn't just sick, she looked as if she had been imprisoned under the harshest of conditions.  There were restraints at the four corners of her bed, but they were not being used - at least not at this time.  But the ligature marks on the girl's wrists and ankles made it clear to the officers and investigator that they had been; both recently and regularly.

The police forcefully restrained the tired mother and grandmother nearly having to carry them out of the bedroom leaving the investigator, a 41 year old woman and 15 year veteran of the CPS, alone with the young girl.  She slowly approached the girl who laid still in her bed.  The child all the while seemed unphased by this stranger's presence and the abrupt, forced exit of her mother and grandmother.  She softly called to the child by name, Olivia, as she slowly approached closer, but there was still no reaction.  The child stared straight up in to the ceiling.  Her eyes were red and teary, her mouth stayed slightly opened with lips so dry they had large flakes of skin growing outward.  She was clearly dehydrated and the investigator assumed it was her poor physical condition that prevented the child from being aware and reacting to her surroundings.

The agent kneeled beside the child's bed and could smell the urine that undoubtedly was coming from this sick girl.  She pulled the girl's sheets down to reveal drenched pajama-like clothes.  The smell rushed towards her nose and nearly made her gag.  At first she was ashamed of her lack of professionalism and brief loss of composure.  This was hardly her first time encountering an abused and neglected child, but this was by far the worst scene she had ever come across.  The child once again was unphased and gave no reaction to the investigator's presence allowing the her to recompose herself.  She then reached out to gently put her hands on the young girl's arms in an attempt to provoke a response -- nothing.  She tried again, this time increasing her force -- still nothing.

One of the police officers returned to the bedroom to check on the investigator while the other officer was speaking Spanish to the mother and grandmother.  She wasn't fluent in Spanish, but knew enough to make out one word the two women kept repeating, 'peligroso'. Dangerous.

  

Dangerous?! I'm not here to hurt anyone... unlike what the two of YOU have been doing to this poor girl. 

She had already blamed the girl's family for this situation in her mind.  Although they may not have had mal-intent, like many other families she had encountered in her career, the end-result was almost always the same -- naïve and ignorant beliefs such as religion, or misplaced fears, were often the cause of a well-meaning family to act appropriately... but it wasn't the investigator or the police officers that the two now-hysterical women were calling 'peligroso'.

The officer who re-entered the bedroom began to talk to the investigator who was still kneeling at the young girl's bedside, but was only able to manage a few words before his face turned from normal to curious-confusion.  Then after a short moment... absolute terror.  His eyes quickly widened and his body stood still with a slight shakiness as if he were trying to move it, but was unable.  The investigator, now curious herself, began turning her head back towards the child from the officer.  Her eyes returned to the child, only now, it was no longer a child.  Her curiosity instantly changed to the same look of absolute terror as the officer.  She was frozen.   Her eyes began to water and her breathing staggered.  The horrifying being that lay on the bed in front of her had turned its head to face her before she turned back around.  It laid still for a moment staring straight through her eyes piercing her soul.  

Oh how wrong I was... how arrogant and utterly wrong I was!

Then... slowly... the being's eyes moved closer towards her.  No!  They weren't moving closer...  She was moving closer!  

But how?!  WHY?!  

These were her final thoughts.