I was six the first time I saw her.
She was crouched between two bookshelves in the hallway with strings of knotted-up black hair covering her face. And through the curtain of tangles I could hear whimpers. I remember thinking it was strange that another child was in my house, but mainly I wondered why she was so sad. The more I stared at her, the more I noticed how strange she looked.
Her nightgown was tattered and covered in splatters of red. My first thought was spilled paint during an arts and crafts session. Soon, I realized it was blood. I wondered how she had gotten hurt. Her skin was a sickly shade of white. For a moment, I thought she was translucent.
I leaned down closer to the mysterious girl and asked, “Are you okay?”
She looked up at me, tilting her head slightly to the right. Her hair fell from her face revealing what was almost a normal girl—almost. But then she smiled and I knew she wasn’t anything like me.
Her smile started to grow slowly, stretching wider and wider until it couldn’t anymore. And her eyes were devoid of any color. Before I had time to process what I saw, she disappeared leaving no trace that she was there at all. After a while, I began to think I imagined the whole thing.
But then, four years later I saw her again.
I woke to my shoulders being shook. I thought something was wrong—maybe my mom was sick. But when I opened my eyes, no one was there.
Soon, I began to drift back to sleep only to be woken again by the same shaking. This time, I felt something tickling my face. When I opened my eyes, all I could see was her. She was leaning over my bed, her face inches from mine with the same smile from before. It felt as if she was taunting me. I am now 21 and she still comes to visit. Sometimes, she visits my friends and family too.