I had an imaginary friend when I was a child, one that lasted long into my teenage years. I learnt to stop talking about him when I was eight, when I was deemed to be too old. Now most people, or so I'm told, forget their imaginary friends and they fade away into memories.
Mine did not.
In fact, mine remained a permanent fixture in my childhood bedroom and continued to speak to me and guide me whenever I was there. Whether it was visiting my parents for the holidays or using their home as a pitstop between friends places, he was always there and always waiting to tell me another story.
They were mostly variants on classic fairy tales - little red riding hood's parents left her to die in the woods and the wolves raised her, sleeping beauty was left to rot by a kingdom that was scared of her fae-bestowed traits, a half-drowned prince fell in love with the siren that failed to kill him and sold his soul to become a fish-like abomination so that they could be together forever.
Occasionally though, on the same three days every year, he'd tell me a story about the children who used to call my bedroom their own. The one that ran away from strange shadows and into oncoming traffic, the one who mistook rat poison for sugar or the one who ran away into the city never to return.
As I grew older my imaginary friend seemed to grow more irritable with my very existence, like I should have been the fourth child in his morbid list but I was too stupid to die. I didn't think he'd actually try to kill me until I woke up to smoke burning my eyes and throat and my parents screaming for me outside while sirens drew closer and closer.
I thought I was surrounded by smoke at first until it stood up. Apparently it carried me outside before heading back into the blazing house for good. Among all the ruins and ash of our former home they found bones, hundreds of children's bones all tangled up like they'd been clawing at each other.
That was when I knew I'd found my imaginary friend and all the lost children at once.
And though the house has since been rebuilt, I haven't heard him once.
Mine did not.
In fact, mine remained a permanent fixture in my childhood bedroom and continued to speak to me and guide me whenever I was there. Whether it was visiting my parents for the holidays or using their home as a pitstop between friends places, he was always there and always waiting to tell me another story.
They were mostly variants on classic fairy tales - little red riding hood's parents left her to die in the woods and the wolves raised her, sleeping beauty was left to rot by a kingdom that was scared of her fae-bestowed traits, a half-drowned prince fell in love with the siren that failed to kill him and sold his soul to become a fish-like abomination so that they could be together forever.
Occasionally though, on the same three days every year, he'd tell me a story about the children who used to call my bedroom their own. The one that ran away from strange shadows and into oncoming traffic, the one who mistook rat poison for sugar or the one who ran away into the city never to return.
As I grew older my imaginary friend seemed to grow more irritable with my very existence, like I should have been the fourth child in his morbid list but I was too stupid to die. I didn't think he'd actually try to kill me until I woke up to smoke burning my eyes and throat and my parents screaming for me outside while sirens drew closer and closer.
I thought I was surrounded by smoke at first until it stood up. Apparently it carried me outside before heading back into the blazing house for good. Among all the ruins and ash of our former home they found bones, hundreds of children's bones all tangled up like they'd been clawing at each other.
That was when I knew I'd found my imaginary friend and all the lost children at once.
And though the house has since been rebuilt, I haven't heard him once.
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