My son, Jake, loves playing with imaginary friends. No matter how much I try to get him to hang out with the other kids in the neighborhood, he’s always preferred to stay at home and play games with all his made-up friends. He’s had a lot through the years, all of them being pretty standard childish ideas like “Timmy” and “Mikey”. But recently he’s only been playing with one. He always tells me about this sort of creature-like friend he has, called the “malawaki”. My dog also seems to love playing along with the whole malawaki thing. Whenever Jake starts doing something with the malawaki, my dog gets all excited, barking and wagging his tail. Jake says that the malawaki can give him gifts, anything he can dream of. I like his creativity, so I suggest him things to wish for, like a cool car. He said he would wish for a Porsche.
Anyways, the day after, my brother Frank called me. He told me that he wanted a new car, something that was super expensive and looked good. He said that I could take his old Porsche, which was still working well and relatively new. Since I was not nearly as wealthy as him, I immediately took the offer, and after signing a bunch of documents and going through the legal process, the car was mine. When I came home with the new car, Jake immediately noticed and became excited. He told me that the malawaki told him that the car was coming today. It was a pretty funny coincidence, but he probably made that part up. Still, it felt a little eerie, since it’s not everyday your rich brother just gives you a car like that, especially not the exact kind your son wanted.
I gave Jake a fun ride in the car and then came back home to see our dog playing in our backyard. He was running around and barking, probably chasing a squirrel or something. Jake got upset though, saying that our dog was having fun with the malawaki without him. I comforted him, but was obviously very confused, because I had never seen a kid, even Jake, get worked up over an imaginary friend.
After the incident, life continued without much mention of the malawaki from Jake. He seemed upset over the fact that the malawaki was having fun without him, and seemed to be done with the whole thing. I was happy, because the malawaki sort of made me uneasy, but it would only get worse from there.
Almost week later, I came home from work to find my dog completely missing from the house. This was unusual, because my dog would to go more than 20 feet away from the house unless I was with him. It didn’t take me long to find him though, since Jake said that the malawaki knew where he was.
I got frustrated that Jake was talking about the malawaki again, but I followed him to the spot anyways. And right there, where the malwaki said the dog would be, we found him. Or what was left of him. I don’t want to describe what I saw in detail, because I almost vomited at the sight. The dog’s corpse was lying there, scratched all over and had chunks of it’s flesh missing. It looked like it was done by an animal, but I didn’t know what kind of animal would, or could, do that much damage. Jake was confused at first, because he didn’t realize what he was looking at, but instantly started crying when he realized it was our dog.
Through his tears, Jake muttered “It’s my fault. Im sorry.” He immediately began sobbing harder.
Trying to console him, I asked “What do you mean it’s your fault?”
“I did it. I told the malawaki to stop playing without me, or I would be upset.”
I had no clue what to do. I just found a fucking corpse and he was talking about make believe. I started yelling at him to quit the whole malawaki thing, and that it wasn’t real and never would be. I know I shouldn’t have, because he was just a kid, scared by what he saw and trying to rationalize it in his own way. But I couldn’t think normally in the moment.
Later during the night, I woke up to him walking across the hall. I got out of bed and called out to him.
“Jake, what are you doing? It’s the middle of the night.”
He responded with “The closet, Dad. Something’s in there.”
I walked to him, and sure enough, I was hearing something in the closet.
“Probably a rat just knocking things over in there. Nothing to worry about. Now come on, back to bed.”
I put him back in bed, but neither of us could sleep. The banging in the closet just got louder and louder.
I went back into the hall, and Jake heard me and came running out too. This time, he had a wide grin on his face.
“Dad! Dad! I know what it is! It’s the malawaki!”
I started to smile, because I thought it was just some prank that he was pulling.
“It’s the malawaki Dad! You said it wasn’t real, so I asked it to show you that it is real! It’s finally showing you!”
I stopped smiling. It started as a cute prank, but this was starting to feel uncomfortable. The banging just kept getting louder by the minute, and Jake was starting to feel like he really believed all of this.
“Dad, you have to open it! It told me it can only show itself to people who let it in!”
I wanted to play along, to admire his little prank, because I needed something a little fun and cheerful after finding my dog attacked. But there was a voice in my head, telling me not to open that fucking closet no matter what.
I told him “Jake, this is nice, but I really don’t feel like meeting the malawaki right now. And I can’t really sleep with the banging. Do you want to spend the night at Uncle Frank’s house instead?”
He was reluctant at first, but eventually I convinced him, making it seem like a fun trip. I even told him that the malawaki could come to Frank’s house with us, and that I would ‘meet’ him later if it was so important. In reality, I just wanted to get out of the house as soon as possible. Frank was confused about why the heck we showed up at his house in the middle of the night, but I told him that I suspected we had bedbugs and I didn’t want to sleep at my house tonight. It was a stupid excuse, but Frank was too tired to care and just let us in. After that, I fell asleep quickly.
In the morning, Frank approached me while I was eating breakfast. “Hey, you know its cool with me if you need to stay here for a bit, but can you please keep it down at night? I couldn’t sleep with all that noise you were making.”
I was confused, so I told him “I slept all night. What do you mean?”
He replied with “I don’t know man. I heard you banging on a wall or some shit. You also left the closet door open.”