Just Another Creepypasya Fanfiction

6. Adoption

        It's been two days since Clockwork sent me that warning. I only hear from her and Liu through Ben, who comes often to check on us. He watches Alisper for me so I can patrol the area and make sure we're safe. So far, I haven't found anything that suggests Slender or his proxies have found us yet. As far as I can tell, it doesn't even seem like they're close to finding us. I keep my guard up though. They're too crafty for me to believe that we'll be safe forever. So I choose to patrol three times a day. It helps my anxiety.
I return to the house. When I walk through the door, I find Ben and Alisper sitting on the couch together. When he came over earlier, he brought a small stack of books with him. He's reading Peter Rabbit to her now. He must have remembered that she said its her favourite story. I smile to myself and walk to the kitchen. I get a glass of water before sitting at the bar and getting out my phone. Alisper told me yesterday that she's decided she wants to try 'real school' and I promised to look into it for her. I've found a few elementary schools nearby, no more than an hour away from us. Two are public schools while the other two are private, religious-based schools. I asked her if she had a preference between the school type and she said she didn't care. So since last night, I've been trying to narrow it down to the one I think is best. I also need to try to find a business with little to no qualifications so I can start working. Being unemployed for ten years is a pretty bad look, and all of the businesses hiring currently want at least two years of experience. I've been sending in applications despite this, but it's hard to be optimistic. I can't send her to any school, let alone a private one, without a job.
The closest of the schools is right in town. It's pretty small and they don't have a lot of funding, but I can't find anything suggesting it's a bad one. The curriculum sounds good, the class sizes sound reasonable, and they seem to have a decent amount of space. The only downside I can gather from the website is the fact that the school is located next to the woods. That's great for keeping the kids in and adults out, but supernatural beings? Serial killers? Determined adults? It's hopeful at best. Still, it may be the best option. The only other schools have the same means of protection and fewer details on how they teach. Besides, it'd be easier to take her into town than to take her almost an hour away. Now I just need Ben to fake those records for me so I can enroll her. And again, get a job so I can enroll her without being investigated.
After a while, Ben stops reading to Alisper and asks her if she wants to watch cartoons. He puts something on for her, then joins me in the kitchen. "Everything okay?" He asks as he places his arm around my shoulder.
"Yeah. I'm just thinking about how I'm going to get her into school. I need records, probably a doctor's appointment, a job. All I have is a house."
"And a car," He says optimistically.
"Yes, and a car."
"And a truck!"
"And a truck."
"See, you're doing great!" He takes his arm off of me and reaches up to playfully ruffle my hair, "We'll get it taken care of, don't worry. All I need is some information and I can get her papers set up for you. Pick a date and time, and I'll have E.J. come over with me."
"That'd be great. I'll need actual forms for that - immunisation records, you know? Do you think that he can do that?" He nods, "Perfect. As for her records, what do you need for that?"
"Her birth certificate, unless you want me to have her 'reborn' to the country's eyes. We can fake death records and recreate her BC."
I grimace, "No, that sounds like way too much work."
"Then just her birth certificate. I'm pretty sure that for adoption papers, you need some of the same information. Anything I can't pull from that, we can fake."
I immediately get up and walk to my bedroom. After I unpacked, I decided to store her papers in the drawer next to my bed. It seemed like the only safe place. I don't think it'd be good to lose them, and putting them anywhere else would be a risk of that. I get into the drawer and take out the folder with all of her stuff in it. I consider taking the birth certificate out specifically, but I don't know what else is in here. It all might be important.
After I return to the kitchen, I hand Ben the folder. He already has his laptop out and is typing away wildly, He pulls the certificate out, then starts copying her information onto the file he has pulled up. I wait patiently through the process and listen to the tapping of the keys. It's boring, but I don't want to bother him by talking. Finally, he seems to be finished.
"Okay, I just have a few questions for you," He says, "When did you get her?"
I count back, "October third."
He types it in, "Okay, and do you want there to be a second guardian?"
"Clockwork," I respond instantly. She loves kids, and Alisper in particular. I know she'll take care of her if anything happens and help me out whenever she can.
He puts it in, "Do you want to keep the kid's name or change it?"
"Change it. Hodek."
"What about her first name?"
I shrug. He calls out to get her attention. She jumps off of the couch and runs over to us. He asks her if she wants to change her first name. She looks at him confused, but doesn't ask him why he's asking. She just tells him no. He asks her if she wants to have a middle name. She gets really excited and says yes instantly. He asks her what she wants it to be, to which she responds with 'I don't know'. The three of us talk about it for a while, trying to come up with something. She finally makes the suggestion of having a type of flower as her middle name. We let her go back to watching cartoons while we work it out ourselves.
"A flower?" Ben thinks aloud, "That's hard. There are, like, millions of flowers. Lily? Rose? Orchid? Heart? Sun? Peony? Chrycircumcisium?"
I laugh at his last suggestion, "I think you mean 'chrysanthemum'," He grumbles confirmation and tells me to shut up. We think quietly. Suddenly, I get an idea. I smack his arm to get his attention, "Hey, on the way here, she couldn't stop looking at the Belladonnas. We could do something with that."
"Alisper Bella? Alisper Donna?" We both grimace.
"What about the common name?" I suggest.
He looks it up, "Alisper Nightshade? That sounds a little... cheesy, doesn't it?"
I look at the screen, "Or we could use the scientific name, 'Atropa'."
"Alisper Atropa? I think that's cheesier."
We stare at each other indecisively. I sigh, "Alisper, come back here for a second please," Again, she instantly listens and runs to me, "We think we have something, but we want your opinion. Do you like Nightshade or Atropa, or do you want something else entirely?"
None of the three of us say anything as she thinks about it. It starts to feel a little awkward when she gleefully announces, "Nightshade!" I look at Ben, and he shrugs while typing it in. Her choice.
Alisper walks away on her own after realising that we don't have any more questions for her. Ben turns his laptop to face me so I can check everything. I tell him that it looks good to me. Pleased, he takes his screen back before doing some more typing. He explains to me that he's adding in his lawyer's information, as requested, who will sign off on it. I listen while he explains this whole process to me, including how he managed to get a lawyer. I guess that stalking someone and threatening them is a great way to get the things you want.
"It shouldn't take longer than a few days for it to be official," Ben says, "Things go faster when you cheat the system."
"Last time," I say.
"Last time," He responds with a wink. I laugh while thanking him for all of his help. He assures me that it's not a problem. "Do you want me to see if I can do anything about your job problem? We can play around with your resume, give some fake names and numbers, so on, so forth."
"Maybe, but I do want to try doing all of this as legitimately as possible. Hard to go straight if-"
"If you're gay?" He cuts me off jokingly.
I laugh and roll my eyes. "Well, yes, but I was going to say that it's hard if you're still cheating the system."
"Your choice. Let me know if you change your mind. Favours are easy to come by when you're this cute." He bats his eyelashes at me in a flirtatious way as he says it.
I laugh again and we talk for a little more before he decides to leave. He gives Alisper a big hug and tells us both to be careful. After he's gone, I join Alisper on the couch to watch some TV with her. We don't say anything to each other for a while, but then she asks me why we were asking about her name. I explain to her that we were filling out the adoption papers for her. She's quiet for a moment.
"Does that mean you're my new daddy?" She asks.
"Legally, yes, so I can put you in school. But that doesn't mean you need to call me 'Dad'. I can just be Jeff if you want."
She moves on from the name thing and gets excited. "I'm going to school?"
"Yeah," I say with a smile. "You said you wanted to go, so I've been getting everything I need in order to be able to send you."
She jumps up and started jumping around, cheering. She tells me about how she's going to need a backpack, some notebooks, some pencils, and all sorts of little items she might need at school. I promise to get everything that she will need or want to take with her before it's time for her first day. She thanks me a bunch of times before running off to her bedroom to pretend she was already in class.
I put on a horror movie for myself to watch and open up my phone to start coming up with a school shopping list. Kids don't really need a lot for school, especially not when they're starting as late as she will be, so it doesn't take too long for the list to be complete. I can't quite afford to get the things just yet, but I save it all on an online wishlist so I can make sure to get it all after I start working. Once it looks like I have everything saved, I go back to searching for job openings. I send in applications to as many places as I reasonably can, crossing my fingers every time I push "apply". We found enough money in the bunker to be able to survive for at least six months without it being a problem, but I can't help worrying. You never know when you might need funds.
I sigh, feeling stressed out. So many things happening so quickly is causing me a lot of anxiety. I look at the television screen to see a woman being ripped into shreds and feel the need to shut it off. The screaming isn't doing anything good for me. I flip through a few different titles before running across a comedy that sounds pretty good. I'll save the horror movies for after I'm able to relax better.
A few minutes into the movie, I hear a crash come from Alisper's room. I get up and rush back there to see that she had knocked over her toolbox. When she notices me, she starts to profusely apologise while picking all of the tools up. She repeats over and over that it was an accident and she didn't mean to. I don't interrupt, but I do quickly assure her when she stops talking. I get down to help her pick the toys up while explaining that she didn't do anything wrong. It seems to help, but she's no longer interested in playing after everything is put away. I ask her if she wants to do something else, but she says no. I watch as she starts to pick at the carpet.
I think for a moment, then break the silence. "Do you want to try fishing today?"
She looks at me curiously and says, "Maybe."
"We can if you'd like to. I found some fishing poles in the living room closet. I'm sure that Liu wouldn't mind me teaching you as long as I let him be the one to take you camping."
She doesn't answer me immediately, but she's really enthusiastic about the idea when she does. I instruct her to get her shoes on while I gather all of the fishing gear from out of the closet. Once her shoes are on and successfully tied, we walk out to the lake together.
I haven't been fishing since I was a child myself, but I remember enough to be able to tell her what to do and what to expect. Once we're settled in, I show her how to hook the bait. She hates touching the worms but refuses to let me do it for her when I offer. I watch as she tries to force herself past her discomfort while also trying to be as careful as possible. It's a struggle for her, but she eventually gets it figured out. She asks me what we do now and I throw my line out into the water as a way to answer. She does her best to copy me but fails. I let her get a few practice throws in before I ask if she wants some help. She accepts it this time. Soon enough, she's watching her hook dip underneath the water.
After twenty minutes of standing there, I sit down. Alisper instantly does the same. We wait and watch the water patiently together. I expect her to ask me how long this will take or to say that she's bored, but she never does. When she does speak, it's to ask me if I think that we'll be able to catch anything, and how do you know if there's a fish, and do we have to use worms, and does this mean bedtime is going to be late tonight. I answer every single question she has until she eventually runs out. Despite her intense curiosity and all of the inquiries, I find it easy to be able to relax. It's rather peaceful to be able to sit like this and not have to think about anything I don't want to. I still tense up at every sound I hear in the trees, but I'm not worrying so much about what it is now. I just focus on my line, on Alisper, and on the knife in my pocket - just in case it becomes necessary.
Suddenly, Alisper's line starts moving. She immediately gets excited and asks me a bunch of times what she's supposed to do now. I set my pole on the ground and place my leg over it before placing my hands over Alisper's. I quickly help her reel the line in, then I check the hook. It's a very small fish, but I still show it to her with as much excitement as I can. She feeds off of my excited response and starts to seem really proud of herself. I smile, then ask her what she wants to do with it; if she wants to toss it back or place it in a bowl with some water to keep it - something one of my old school friends told me their father let them do. Not surprisingly, she wants to keep the baby fish. I carefully hold it in my hands under the water while she runs inside to grab the perfect bowl. When she returns with one, I have her scoop some water into it, then I gently put the fish in it. I promise to get a proper aquarium for it tomorrow so it has plenty of room to play and grow.
We spend a little more time outside before deciding that we should probably have dinner soon. Alisper helps me out by grabbing both of our poles while I take the fishbowl and our tackle box. I have her lean the poles against the house on the porch, that way we don't have to clean up any water drips on the floor. Once inside, she watches as I put the bowl on the counter, then she jumps onto a chair so she can watch it swim around. I return the tackle box to the closet before asking her what she wants to have for dinner. Neither of us is sure what we care to eat, so I grab a cookbook and we start flipping through the pages together. For everything that sounds good, we check that we have all the ingredients. Finally, we find a recipe for a good and simple soup. I let her grab all of the ingredients for me, then I start to cook while she starts to talk to her new friend - the fish.
I listen to Alisper speak to the fish, humoured. She introduces herself to it, then asks it if it wants a name of its own. She pauses like she can hear it speaking back to her, then she tells it to let her know if it changes its mind. While she continues to talk to the creature, I learn that the fish is, according to her, a boy fish. After a while of talking to him, she decides to start talking to me instead. She asks me if I know what fish like to eat. I tell her that I don't know, but that I'll be sure to do tons of research on it tonight. She clearly doesn't find this answer to be a good one, though, as she starts asking me about what we're going to do if it starves to death tonight. The more she wonders about the hypothetical, the more upset she gets. She even starts to cry a little bit.
"Okay, okay, calm down," I say, trying to help. "Calm down. He'll be okay. I'll make sure he doesn't die, don't worry. I'll do a bunch of research tonight and I'll get him all the food he'll need. It'll be okay."
Somehow, this works and she's able to return to a normal state. Then, she apologises to me for overreacting. I tell her that she doesn't need to apologise for worrying about her new pet and that I understand. She becomes pretty quiet after that, but I can't tell if it's because she feels bad or because she just doesn't feel like talking anymore.
It doesn't take long for the soup to finish cooking. I get a couple of bowls ready, grab some spoons, and set them down on the bar. We don't speak to each other as we eat, but it doesn't seem weird or awkward or anything. It's kind of pleasant to not always have something to say, or something to hear. The mansion was always loud. It was impossible to be anywhere near the property and be able to enjoy some silence. It's enjoyable to be able to have a life like this, to have quiet like this sometimes.
I do the dishes after we finish eating while she goes to her room to play a little more before bedtime. She still has a few hours to enjoy herself before she has to go to bed, but I don't tell her that. It seems like she thinks a lot. She might think that means she has to spend time with me instead of doing her own thing for a while.
Once everything is clean and put away, I decide to restart my horror film from earlier. I feel a lot more relaxed now.