"C'mon little girl, won't you even tell us your name?" The officer had been working since 8am and it was already nearing 10pm at night; he was supposed to be home hours ago, in bed with his wife and his baby boy and yet here he was, questioning this little girl after she was found alone in her house with the corpses of her parents. His patience was wearing thin as he rubbed his temples, a grimace forming on his face. She hadn't responded at all to him during the whole interrogation.
"I found her birth certificate while going through the house." Another officer walked into the room, a binder in his hand, his tongue occasionally darting out to wet his fingers as he flipped through the pages; "her name's Aileen."
The first officer let out a small sigh of relief, knowing that progress was being made on the case and that he was closer to going home now.
"So Aileen, will you please tell me what happened in the house? Was there an intruder?" The little girl only shook her head, her thumb hidden in her small mouth, lightly sucking on it. She looked oddly calm for a child who had presumably witnessed the murder of her parents but he wasn't surprised; some children often went into a state of shock and it sometimes took several weeks to get them to react to the pain they're feeling inside and finally cry.
"Sweetheart, we're all trying to help you here but you have to speak to us," he tried another approach, "see this man here?", he pointed towards the officer with the binder, "he said as soon as you finish answering these little questions, he's going to take out to buy some candy." Still no response from the little girl.
He turned towards his colleague, exhaling heavily from the nose and said, "I've tried everything, she just doesn't want to respond. She's been silent for more than an hour now. She just stares at m-"
"I did it." His head whipped back at the sound of her voice. These were the first words she had spoken since the beginning.
"W- what do you mean?" He found himself fumbling; he was caught off guard by her words.
"I did it." She repeated.
"You did what?" His brow furrowed in confusion.
"I killed them." Her voice was eerily calm when she spoke, not at all like a normal 6 year old's. The officer felt confused; he was torn between believing her words and pressing for more details. He had never had to deal with a case where children murdered their parents before but he did knew that children often lied to get out of uncomfortable situations.
"Why did you do it?" He decided to play along for a while, simply to see how many lies she could come up with before she stumbled upon her own words. She was still a child, she wouldn't remember all the details. He grapped a piece of paper and a pen and quickly started scribbling her answer so he could see where she goes wrong eventually.
"The voices told me to." He cocked an eyebrow up as he wrote, it wasn't unusual for children to come up with imaginary friends, especially if they had problems socializing.
"The voices? Do they have a name?"
"They didn't tell me. They just told me to kill mommy and daddy." This was starting to get serious but he decided to press on.
"Why did they tell you to kill mommy and daddy?"
"Because mommy and daddy fight too much. Daddy threatened to leave us. He said he would take me away from mommy and get me a new one. He said mommy wasn't good for me, that i needed a new one who would buy me new dolls and pretty dresses. I didn't want a new mommy; i wanted mommy and daddy to stay together forever. The voices told me to kill them so they would be together." His hand flew across the paper as he quickly jotted the main points down.
"Did the voices tell you how to do it?"
"They told me to look into the kitchen drawers, the highest one. They told me i would find a knife inside, the one that daddy uses when we eat beef for dinner. They said i could use it to kill them, they said they wouldn't feel any pain, that they would finally be together."
"How did you do it?" He was almost reluctant to carry on but he was having some doubts on the fact that she hadn't done anything.
"I waited for mommy and daddy to go to bed. Then i went into the kitchen. The voices helped me find it. Then i went back into their room and plunged it into their stomach." All the while, she remained neutral. It was becoming increasingly hard for the officer to make out whether she was lying or not but he was starting to doubt it. A small child like her couldn't invent all of that.
"Brad, check in her files and see if you can find any previous medical records for her." He turned towards the other man, his eyes frantic. His palms were becoming sweaty; this wasn't something he'd had to deal with ever before.
"Joe, check this." His colleague touched his shoulder, causing him to turn around, "she's visited a psychiatric faculty before to seek treatment for hallucinations."
"Do you think she's hallucinated all this and killed her parents because of that?"
"I have no idea, man." Brad shook his head, seemingly in a daze after having absorbed all that Aileen had said.
"What else did the voices say?" Officer Joe decided to press on for more details, at this rate, even he was intrigued by the things that sprouted from her mouth.
"They told me that big men in uniforms would come to get me. They would take me away from mommy and daddy. But that's okay, i don't mind as long as mommy and daddy get to stay together." She finished, quickly bringing her thumb between her lips afterwards to suck on it again.
"That's all they said about the big men in uniforms?" He pried.
"Oh, they also said something else."
"What did they say?"
"Kill them all."
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p.s: i know this is very short, sorry😞
