I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I've been thinking about it for months and, frankly, I need to know if anyone has experienced something similar.
I have a five-year-old daughter. Since she was about four, she started talking about a boy named David. At first, we didn't think much of it. My wife said it was just a typical imaginary friend, and I thought the same.
David was always with her.
If we set the table, we had to leave a plate for him. If we were in the car, that seat "belonged to David." She would even get upset if someone sat where she said he was going.
Up to that point, everything seemed normal.
What was strange was how she described him.
She never said they played hide-and-seek or with dolls. She always talked about him as if he needed help.
One day, while I was drying her off after a bath, she said to me: Dad, David is always wet. He says he can never dry off.
I asked her why.
She answered:
—Because the water won't let him go.
I didn't think much of it. Kids say weird things all the time.
But a few weeks later, something happened that I still can't explain.
It was around three in the morning when I was woken up by my daughter's voice. I thought she was having a nightmare, so I went to her room.
She was sitting on the bed, staring at a completely dark corner.
She wasn't crying.
She was just talking.
I heard her say:
—No... I can't go with you today.
I walked in and asked her who she was talking to.
She replied as calmly as can be:
—To David. He says you still can't see him.
I didn't sleep very well that night.
As the days went by, she started drawing him.
Always the same.
A boy her age, with hair stuck to his forehead, clothes dripping with water, and a sad expression.
My wife started getting anxious, and we decided to stop engaging in conversations when she mentioned David.
We thought that would make her forget him.
It didn't work.
One afternoon, she came in very seriously and told us:
—David is angry.
I asked her why.
Her response was:
—Because they moved his house.
I asked her what she meant.
And she answered:
—Where he was buried.
My body went cold.
We had never talked about burials in front of her. I'm not even sure a four-year-old girl would understand that word.
That night, I called my mom to ask if, by any chance, someone in the family had told her any strange stories.
There was a really long silence.
Then she asked me:
—What did you say that boy's name was?
—David.
She didn't respond right away.
Finally, she said something I'd never heard her mention.
When I was about six years old, we lived in another neighborhood. Nearby, there was a boy named David who disappeared. They searched for him for days until they found his body in an irrigation canal a few kilometers away.
My mom swore she had never talked about that in front of my daughter.
Not even in front of me when I grew up.
I thought it was just a coincidence.
Until, days later, my mom showed up with a box full of old photographs.
In one of them, several neighbors were at a meal.
In the background, almost hidden, there was a boy.
He was wearing a blue striped shirt.
Exactly like the one my daughter had been drawing for weeks.
I didn't show her the photo.
I put it away in a drawer.
Two days later, I found my daughter rummaging through it while looking for coloring pages.
She pulled out the photograph.
She looked at it for just a few seconds.
She smiled.
And said something that still gives me chills to write.
—How strange to see him smiling...
I asked her:
—Who?
She pointed to the boy in the photo.
—David. That photo is from when he was still breathing.
I don't remember ever feeling that much fear in my life.
It's been almost two years now.
She never mentioned David again.
We thought it was all over.
But last weekend, while we were clearing out her room to paint the walls, I found one of those old drawings.
On the back, there was a phrase written in handwriting that wasn't my daughter's.
Not my wife's.
Not mine.
It just said:
"Thank you for listening to me. Now I don't have to wait anymore."
My daughter insists she never wrote that.
And, honestly... I'd rather believe her.
