--They told me that I'd had a psychotic break. And they nearly had me convinced, too.
One morning I woke up and my daughter was gone. Not like she was missing, like she didn't exist. I remember walking into what used to be her room to find it stacked with boxes. My confusion turned to panic after my wife was baffled by my question:
"What happened to Madeline's room?"
She had just stared at me blankly, all the while I grew more distressed asking her where our daughter was, until she finally said the thing that broke me:
"...We don't have a daughter."
And she proved it to me. There were no pictures of her, no items, no trace. I called my best friend and asked him about Madeline. The day before we had gone over, his son had played with Madeline all day. He was concerned. He insisted that I didn't have a child.
I couldn't find anyone who remembered Madeline, not our neighbors, not my parents, not her teachers. After I went to the police and demanded they search for her, I ended up in a psych ward. I had come unglued when they confirmed there were no records of Madeline's existence.
But I knew better. When I closed my eyes, I could see her face so clearly. I could remember her laugh, her favorite foods, the games she liked to play. And how could I forget? I'd seen her every single day for the nine years of her life. Now the only time I saw her was in dreams. They were so vivid, so real. She would always be just out of reach, just far enough away that I couldn't get to her before I awoke.
There wasn't much to do in the ward. My wife would visit me a few times per week, though there was less for us to talk about the longer I was there. Other than that, there were board games and books. I wasn't much for socializing even before my daughter disappeared, so I found myself reading constantly. I'd nearly finished all the books on the shelves when I found it. Inside an old book on astronomy there were scribbled lines between the printed words. As I read them, my heart sank.
"When I was a girl, I woke up to find myself in a new life with a new family in a different time. I have lived this life for so long that I have nearly forgotten my old one. But I still dream of it. I know it was real. And I can feel myself starting to slip away again. They don't believe me. They think I'm crazy, so they keep me here. Though it won't matter much longer. Someday soon I'll wake up in another life, in another time. And everyone here will forget all about me. Just like they did before. If you're reading this, my name is Madeline, and I don't exist..."
Story by Redditor u/psyopticnerve
Comments