The Spirit Inside My Room

As the Headache Worsens - Days Left: 4

The girl's back that night, but she bangs longer against the wooden doors. She even keeps knocking at them while she whispers. I also think I hear her crying "mommy, mommy" and "help me, please" every now and then. She sounds more upset and she doesn't talk to me specifically again. When she's finally done, I feel myself drowning in a sea of unsettling dreams. The next day, I would still remember the soft words of a child's voice:

'Didn't you promise me to free me?'

I wake up by the sirens of an ambulance. I jump out of my bed, because they sound close. From up the stairs, I see my father sitting on the floor next to limp body of my mother that lies face down. I rush down the stairs, almost tripping, but I grab the banister just in time and avoid landing on the floor next to my mother. She seems unconscious.

'Dad? What happened?' I yell.

'She... she just came downstairs and fell to the floor,' my dad stutters as I see goosebumps all over his arms.

The doorbell rings and my father gets up immediately and lets the guests in. Two ambulance nurses lift my mom up and put her on a stretcher. I want to come along, but my father reassures me that she'll be fine. Well... I don't feel fine, though.

'It's best if you just go to school,' he tries to convince me. 'I bet she's home again when school's over.'

I struggle, but soon realize it doesn't work and my father sticks to his decision to send me to school.

'Goodbye,' I mumble a bit angered.

I wanted to stay at home with mom. Making sure she'll be fine. Does my dad not understand that?

Right before I make my way to the door, my father stops me. I turn around and see an even worried look at his face now.

'You know about your mom's nightmares, right?'

Of course I knew. I've always known. My mom suffers from nightmares ever since I was born and before that. She has always used sleeping pills and she went to the therapist every week. Last year, she told me things got better and since then, she only visited the therapist one time a month. I asked her once why she had those nightmares.

'I don't know why I still have them actually, but don't worry. I'm know that I will stop having them one day,' she answered with a warm smile.

I was confused. Not because of what she thought, though. She said "still" and I wouldn't know why she would have got them in the first place. I never asked about it after that. At one point, I even assumed she had gotten rid of those nightmares, but apparently... she didn't.

'Your mom told me yesterday, her nightmares got worse. More horrible. Then suddenly, she fainted today. I don't mean to scare you, but for some reason... I got the feeling I had to tell you this,' my dad says.

Without responding, I walk through the front door now for real, step on my bicycle and go to school. It's a regular day. Luckily, there's nothing special on my schedule today, because I'm not really paying attention. I don't encounter Sarah that day and that's a huge relieve. I've decided to talk to her about her pushing behavior and to tell her that we won't be having a sleep over at my house. Ever. But since I don't feel great, I don't feel like talking to her as well. The time slowly passes as I make little drawings in my notebook, pretend to be paying attention, look out window to think about how strange it is that a leaves sticks to it, even though the wind blows and stare at the clock as if I expect to start time traveling any moment now.

As I arrive at the parking slots, I notice that my dad's car isn't there, which means he must have gone to the hospital as well. I put my bike in the shed and pull out my keys to unlock the front door. I walk in and read my dad's left message sticked to the wall while I take off my jacket and kick off my shoes.

"Call me when you're home. – Dad" is what's written on the note.

First, I wash my hands and my sweating face. Then I take out my phone and call my father.

'Hallo? Dad?' I say.

'Oh, hi. Yeah. I told you to call. Thanks for doing so. I wanted to tell you something,' he says in a strange tone.

'What is it?' I ask, a little worried about what he's about to say.

'Your mother appears to be... sick. She has the symptoms of a fever, but the doctor thinks... it might be more,' he announces to my horror.

I can't say anything and just wait until he continues.

'She might not... I'm afraid she won't... That she has to... stay in the hospital for the coming week,' my father says in a kind of apologizing way. 'She's... in a...'

He pauses.

'Mom's in a... what?' I whisper.

'She's in a... coma,' he sighed sadly.

I put the phone aside, not knowing what I just heard. She seemed so strong lately. Especially after last evening, when she got the amazing news. I hear my father saying stuff through the phone. He might try to comfort me that everything will be alright and that mom will be better soon, but I wouldn't know. My mind went blank.

'I think I should leave you alone a moment...' he says.

I don't respond.

'Are you still on the line?' he asks.

I don't reply.

'I'll be back in two hours, okay?' he says and without waiting for an answer or anything, he hangs up.

The phone goes "beep, beep, beep", but all I do, is stare in front of me. I don't hear the phone or the cars on the street that pass the house. I also don't process what happens outside. Not even when my neighbor walks by and waves at me, his friendly face changing to a confused one when I just keep staring forward.

Suddenly, I hear a something from upstairs. I flinch at the sound and when it gets followed by a loud crash, I almost fall off the chair I'm sitting on. I hold still, because it could be an intruder. However, when it remains silent after that, I decide to take a look.

What I'm confronted with at the top of stairs, makes me stumble back, which result to me grasp at the banister the second time today, in order to not lose my balance.

From out of my parent's bedroom, all kinds of stuff has fallen on the floor and is now spread across the hallway floor. I didn't make this mess, but if my father comes home, he'll think I did it, so I start cleaning up. I pick up some scattered around pens and pencils and lay them on the desk in the room. Next, I reach for the papers laying on the floor and stack them up.

I'm nearly finished, when I find a piece of crumpled paper. It's a letter from someone who hasn't written down their name anywhere, nor the name of the person to whom it was written. I begin reading the letter's content:

"Hello! I wanted to play outside today and so I did. You told me to be careful and I was very careful, but I still lost the ball in the woods. You warned me not to go in there, but I could see the ball from where I stood, so I went to get it. Please don't be mad when you come look for me. I'll be back in a minute! I promise nothing will go wrong."

I feel a knot forms in my stomach. Not because of the letter, though, but because of the bloodstains that cover the piece of paper in several places. They have the shape of handprints. It's clear that the paper has been wet by something else too. It dried up a long time ago, but the paper feels different at those spots. I doubt that it was just water. Maybe they were... tears?

There's a paper underneath the letter. This one's a ripped out news article.

The title reads: "Missing girl in Sky-Blue Valley's Woods" and the date, which is still readable, says the newspaper was from 2000. That's twenty years ago.

Right then, I hear the sound of keys being put in the lock and I quickly throw the papers in a drawer I suppose they could belong into. I'm lucky that my father moves isn't in a hurry to come and see what I'm up to.

I disappear into my room, mostly because I don't want to look suspicious. I don't know how good I'm at faking that I wasn't doing anything special.