The Unbirth

The report

The Report
Date: 4/15/13
I had just finished doing some work as staff support at a psychiatric institute in my city, and was on a dinner break making light out of some of the day's struggles. I knew that I had a long night ahead of me, so I had packed some supplies for the night including a small book to read, a snack or two, and whatever games I had on my phone; I worked a double shift that day, and quite honestly I never got used to them. I got back to my desk and took up reading my book for a while, as most of the patients were asleep and did not need to be taken care of at the late hours.
It got to be around midnight when one of the little girls, who had suffered from an anxiety disorder (specifically post traumatic stress disorder) was dancing around in the hall laughing. I was on the fifth floor and she was supposed to be down on third; the third floor was for children with anxiety issues. I heard her laugh echo down the hall almost hauntingly, and so I got up from my desk and went over to where the laughter was coming from so she would not wake up the other patients. I walked down the long and dimly lit hallway; the silence of my footsteps clapped softly as I quickened my pace.
Seeing the girl dancing around as carelessly as she was, I would never assume that she had suffered from an anxiety disorder. She danced in front of the closed stairwell and suddenly stopped and looked around her aimlessly as if she had misplaced something. For confidentiality, her name will be the pseudonym "Claire." My conversation with Claire went somewhat like this:
Me: "Hey there. What are you doing up here this late?"
Claire: "Have you seen my friends?"
Me: "What were you doing with your friends?"
Claire: "We was playing, but I lost them." She continues to look around the hallway.
Me: "Can you tell me what they looked like?"
Claire: "White!" she exclaims while searching in the most remote places.
Me: "Is that all? How about their face?"
Claire: "Uhm.... Two big eyes and a small mouth. They all look the same. They got scared because they thought you were going to yell at them."
By this time I had about enough, and walked her down back to where her room was on the third floor. I said goodnight to her and she slept fairly well, but myself I sat anxious because I had seen too many movies with little girls being an evil spirit. I spoke with the worker at the desk on the third floor who had no idea Claire had snuck out. I thought I heard laughing from the stairwell again, but I thought it was just the other children that were awake. Someone else could handle it. That was around 1:30 AM and everything from there remained normal except for the tiny white footprints marking up the floor where the girl had been dancing. The footprints were tiny, chalky white, and disappeared at the slightest gust of wind like powder. I cleaned those prints up quickly and thought someone must have been using too much foot powder. Although, no had feet that tiny in my workplace. I often wondered why I never heard Claire and the other children playing before I walked over. I should have heard them scatter.