Four years ago me and my husband welcomed our baby girl into the world. Her name was Anne. Anne with an e, from one of my favorite shows. Because I am blonde and my husband has black hair, she had red hair. It must’ve been a sign. She was a lovely child. Not a a girl who cried a lot, always happy. Sometimes a bit cranky but I guess that’s how it is with babies.
One night my husband (Edward) and I went out and we left our daughter with his parents. 2 wonderful people who I trust everything with. I never had a dad because he died when I was very young and my mom never really looked out for me, so I guess you could say my mother and father in law are like a second family. Edward his mom, Kara, asked if Anne and her could get some ice cream. Kara is a very careful with first things of a baby because she missed a lot of Edward his first things due to work. We said she was allowed to try and after a small talk we went home and got ready for our date night. My husband and I don’t have date nights very often and it was refreshing, a night without any cares in the world. We went to a really fancy restaurant and after that we were watching stars in our local park. We don’t go there often since the playground is a bit scary and to dangerous for Anne. Honestly we had a great night. But of course we went to pick up our little angel the next day.
We arrived at the house of Edward his parents the next day. A day I will never forget. A day I still get nightmares because of. A day my whole life switched upside down. A day I would never want to relive again. My husband rang the doorbell of his parents house. His dad opened the door and welcomed us inside. I step inside their house and I only set 1 step and I immediately feel a weird aura. I looked at Robin and apparently he felt it too because he also looked weird at me.
We sat down at the dinner table and had some coffee while Kara was going to get Anne. Kara comes downstairs with Anne and my gut drops. That is not my little Anne. Her sweet smile wasn’t there, her warm vibe. It was so cold to see her. I hated to feel that as a mom. I shouldn’t be thinking that about my daughter. I shrugged it of like nothing because the moment my husband takes Anne she began to smile again and play with his hair. She did that often so it calmed me. We were talking about our night and we asked what Kara and John (Edward his father) did with Anne while we had our night out. They began telling, it all seemed normal until Kara said that she gave Anne some strawberries. That’s normal for some kids but Anne didn’t like strawberries, it could be because she was only 2 or something else but I knew for sure she didn’t like them. I wasn’t the only one who had a weird feeling about Anne eating strawberries because my husband also looked at me with a weird look on his face. After a while we left the house with Anne. It was a quiet ride home. Anne had fallen asleep and Edward and I were just a bit scared and confused.
We arrived at our home. Anne was still asleep so I put her to bed. I went downstairs after that and started talking to Edward. I asked him if he didn’t find it weird about the strawberry thing and he said he found it weird too but maybe Anne has changed her young mind and likes strawberries now. It didn’t feel right and my gut was just telling me that this was not right. I thought maybe some television would distract me.
I turned on the television and was skipping through some channels until 1 channel caught my eye. It was a news channel and I saw our village on the news. Edward was sitting next to me by now and it caught his eye too. We were watching it and saw the news reporter tell a story.
The story was about a little girl and her grandparents who went to the park yesterday and had died after some maniac was running loose. By now I was shaking. It couldn’t be… we were just at their house, Anne is even upstairs sleeping. We kept watching the channel. It was the park we were yesterday. The murder happened while we were at the restaurant. How did we not notice. I felt so weird, like I could throw up.
My husband rushed upstairs to look at Anne. She was still in her crib. He picked her up and took her downstairs. We both didn’t know what to do. We kept watching the news, they showed pictures of the victims. It was our worst nightmare. We saw 3 faces and 3 names. Anne, Kara and John Williams. I looked at the baby in the arms of my husband and began to scream. “THAT ISNT OUR BABY, GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME” I didn’t know what to do. We both didn’t know what to do. I decided to just go to bed and try to get some rest. Edward put Anne in the crib and went to sleep next to me.
I woke up 3 hours later. It was 7:34 pm. I woke Edward up and asked if we could go look in the room of Anne. We got up and walked slowly to the room. We opened the door and she was not there anymore. Confused we both thought we should go to Kara and John their house. We got into the car and went to their house. We arrived there and saw police standing around the house. We asked them what happened and the police asked if we knew the “old” residents of this house. We explained that they were the parents of Edward and the police men looked at us with a sad face and told us: “sorry for your lost”.
We asked the police for the whole story again and he told us exactly what happened yesterday. It was the same as on the television but the only difference was that Kara, John and Anne were taken to the hospital and declared dead. They couldn’t find a number so they didn’t know who to call. I was just crying by now. So many questions.
We had one big funeral for all of them. It was beautiful but we still had so many questions. Of course we were devastated about the death but we were also so confused about what happened that day and how.
We tried to continue living our life but it was just not the same. I thought that maybe I would be crazy but if jot only I but also Edward saw it, what happened. No one knows. Even we don’t know until this day.
4 months ago I gave birth to a healthy baby girl. We named her Max, after the stranger things character. She has again red hair. She looks almost exactly the same as Anne. I have been getting nightmares again. About that one day. We are both trying to forget it but we just can’t. I guess we have to live with it. I just can’t comprehend the fact that she looks almost exactly the same as Anne. Not almost. She looks exactly the same. I just never thought I would see her again.
(Sorry if I made some grammar or spelling mistakes, English isn’t my first language)