Page 8 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

Ezra finds another chair, and soon he and I sit facing each other in the observation room, a few feet away from the viewing panel that shows Dorian’s cell. The intercom is still lit, so if he’s there, he can hear everything.

The setup is strange, almost formal, like a job interview. Or an interrogation. My palms sweat where I’ve jammed them in my lap, and my leg jumps, tapping an anxious beat against the tile.

“There’s no need to be nervous,” Ezra says. “We’re just having a conversation. Maybe Dorian will react, or maybe he won’t. Either way, we’ll learn something. Yes?”

“I understand.” But that doesn’t stop my heart from thumping.

Ezra sets a tape recorder on the table next to us. “Is it all right for me to record this conversation? It’s for my personal notes only.”

“Okay.”

He hits the button.

“This is Ezra Bradford of the MRF, session one with Subject X-15 and visitor Daisy Dumont,” he says. “Today’s goal is to establish the basic history of X-15 and Dumont and see if the subject has any reaction to her presence and the memories she chooses to share.”

I glance at the recorder, the viewing panel, and then down at my clasped hands.

“How did you first become acquainted with X-15?” Ezra asks.

“It started with the scratching,” I say, barely a whisper. He leans forward, trying to hear better, and I raise my voice. “A scratching sound under my bed every night.”

“How old were you?” Ezra asks.

“Um…maybe eight,” I say. He nods for me to go on, and I clear my throat. “The scratching kept happening. Every night, like clockwork, at midnight.”

“Repetitive behavior,” Ezra mutters. “Probably—” He glances at me, catches himself. “Sorry. Continue. Were you scared of the sound?”

“At first, I hid under my covers. But when it kept happening, I thought maybe it was an animal. A mouse. Something I could keep as a pet. I tried to lure it out with cheese. When that didn’t work, one night I climbed to the edge of the bed and looked underneath.”

Even after years of trying to suppress it, I can remember that moment with striking clarity. The hummingbird thrum of my heartbeat, the way my hair fell around my head as I lowered it, upside-down, to look.

“It was hard to see…” The lights were off, and I had only the dim glow of moonlight coming through the window. “But there was…something. A silhouette hunched under the bed. Not an animal.” As I talk, it comes more into focus in my mind. I’m shocked at how clearly I remember it. My psychiatrist probably would’ve said it was because I’ve told myself the story so many times, I started to believe it. I falter at the thought, but Ezra gives me an encouraging nod that spurs me onward.

“I saw something humanoid. Just a little bigger than me. Hunched on his hands and knees, with a crooked head staring back at me.” My lips lift in a wry smile. “ThenI was scared. I recoiled back into bed and screamed so loud that my parents came running. But of course, when they turned on the lights and went to look, the figure was gone. Instead, they found letters carved into the wood under my bed: D-A-I-S-Y.”

“Interesting.” Ezra leans back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. “He was your size. So hewasa child. And with a physical manifestation… Anyway, continue. Did you try to tell your parents what you had seen?”

“Yes, but they didn’t believe me.” I fiddle with my hands, tracing the crooks in my pinky and ring fingers. “My parents tore the room apart trying to find whatever sharp object I had used to carve my name, but they found nothing.” I shrug. “They took away my books to punish me. They thought reading too close to bed was giving me an overactive imagination.” Or so they said. Really, I think, it was the cruelest thing they could think of. “But the scratching continued. I would just lie awake in the darkness, petrified, listening to that sound every night and imagining the figure I had seen. It frightened me so badly that it knew my name. It meant that it was there more often than I thought, listening…”

“Did he try to come out again? To interact with you at all?”

I shake my head. “He stayed under the bed. I think he realized that I was scared. Or maybe he was scared too. I don’t know.” I shrug. “We went on like that for about a week. Then one day I was lying in bed, listening to that scratching again, thinking about how he was stuck under there every night all alone. And I thought—” I swallow. “I thought he must be lonely.”

Loneliness was something I knew all too well, even as a child. I knew it so deeply and so horribly that I could not help but empathize, even with a monster.

So that night I crept out from beneath the covers. I put my socked feet on the floorboards, one at a time. Goose bumps rippled all over my skin as I anticipated a sudden grab, a flash of claws. But it didn’t come. Even the scratching had gone silent.

“I crept over to my closet, knelt down, and rummaged around until I found what I was looking for,” I murmur. “A toy. A rubber ball. I sat cross-legged on the floor with my back against the wall, far enough away that I couldn’t quite see the corner under the bed. Still, it was like I couldfeelsomething there, watching me.”

Ezra is silent now, watching me with the same intense attention I remember from that moment.

“Very carefully, I rolled the ball under the bed,” I say. “And then it rolled back, just as gently, and bumped against my foot. And I smiled. I said—” I pause, biting my lip. “I said, ‘Hello, my name is Daisy.’ Judging from the scratches, he already knew, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to be polite.” I swallow and raise my eyes to Ezra’s again. “And then a bloodied hand came out from the darkness.” Slowly, cautiously. “And he waved at me.”

Chapter Six

Iwake up in the middle of the night to the sound of music. A half-familiar melody drifts into my cracked door from the hallway. It seems to fill the emptiness of the house, creeping into every open space. It’s a cheerful song, and by the time it reaches the chorus, it’s easy to remember the name. “Run, Rabbit, Run!”

It’s jaunty and playful…and I’m paralyzed in bed, my heart thumping almost painfully hard. The terror is bone-deep and inexplicable, and I stay there, clutching my sheets to my chest, until the music fades and I drift into sleep again.

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