“Clara, listen to mommy, okay?” I whisper, holding my palms out, approaching her like an animal, approaching my sweet, 7 year old daughter like an animal.

“Okay sweetheart you heard your mom,” My husband, Logan, adds, in a shaky voice. “Hand it over, now!”

“That was loud, loud isn’t good. Mommy does dada know I don’t like the loud?” It was my daughter, it was her voice, her face, but it wasn’t really her. She used to be normal, but slowly she became farther from it, her drawings of rainbows slowly changed to what she called ‘the people in the wall’, she still smiled but there was no light, it was a dry, dry, psychopathic smile. And she stopped skipping from here to there, no, now she just appeared, I never hear her coming and never hear her going. Sometimes she comes in and I don’t think the door even opens. This child is not my child.

“I don’t like that momma, I don’t like you saying things about me. They aren’t nice to me. I don’t like that at all momma.” Clara says, following by a trail of light giggles. Not the kind of giggles when you beat someone at a board game, the kind of giggle that makes the hairs on your arms stick up.

“Clara, mommy didn’t say anything.” Logan smiles, “I think you should-” BANG

“There you go, now there’s no more thinking for him.” The words came out of Clara’s mouth but this time it wasn’t my daughter’s voice, this voice was deep, raspy, terrifying. Her shoulders start to shake, she’s not crying, no, Claras laughing. A sob racks my throat, I take in a deep breath, eyes darting to my dead husband, there was still a way out of this nightmare, still a way back to my sweet daughter, my sweet, tiny, perfectly sane, little girl. “See momma, I want to be the old Clara, the Clara you still loved. But the people in the walls told me you don’t love me anymore. They told me daddy wasn’t good for us to be happy again. They told me you want to run away and leave me. Gone forever, never coming back, you want to leave me, your Clara Darling.”

“Oh baby, I would never leave you, you are my Clara Darling, forever and ever. I promise.”

“I already know that silly,” The voice from earlier laughs through my daughter, “You’re not going to leave me. Ever.” My vision starts to fade.

“Bye Clara Darling.” I whisper.