THE GIRL IN MY EYES. (Part III)

As the days went by my daughters began to complain about hearing strange noises at night, trying to keep them from realizing what was happening I always had a logical answer for every strange event that happened. However, they objected to my answers even though we were comfortable at home, they knew that what was happening was not ordinary.

One day as they were doing their homework and I was writing in my room we heard the noise from a door opening and closing so hard that it was hitting the wall. At first, I thought that one of them was making the noise, so I walked towards the living room and saw all three of them looking down the hallway and one of them said to me: “We are not doing that”. Then I headed down the hall towards the bedrooms, but there was no one in there and all the doors were closed. That day we agreed that we would leave a night lamp on in all rooms. I told them that we could not move to another house because I did not have the means to do so. They replied that they did not want to move to another house and that they would not be afraid as long as they were not left alone at night.

Our family life was full of love and fun times, but also as I’ve said before we lived only with the necessary things and the financial struggles that I had to face to pay all the bills were many. Sometimes I felt frustrated and depressed because the money wasn’t enough. During that time the country’s economy was not stable and suddenly I lost my job. The farm where I worked was not producing enough to continue paying my salary and the money I had saved up would only be enough to cover the most indispensable expenses, but not enough to pay the rent so that day I felt extremely sad. Then after my daughters went to sleep, I began to develop a plan to face the situation. First of all, I would talk to the owner of the house to ask him for more time to pay the rent that month. Second of all, I would call some of my friends and asked them to help me find a job. Third of all, I would look for some stores where I could sell piñatas that I’ve made. Unintentionally, my eyes filled up with tears because despite everything that had happened, we didn’t want to lose our magical, little world. So, I started doing what I’ve always done when I’ve found myself going through a difficult situation, motivated and encouraged myself in front of the mirror. So, there I was talking to myself when I heard someone call me, its voice was soft, almost inaudible. Then I ran my hand over my eyes to wipe away my tears and stop myself from crying and then I walked to the living room there I heard somebody clearly say; “-Dad, don’t cry” But there was no one there. Then I walked down the hall and checked on my daughter’s one by one; They were peacefully asleep and for a moment I thought: – “It must have been my imagination” Then I closed the doors and returned to my room, leaving the hall light on. I sat on the edge of the bed and suddenly the lamp light began to dim, losing intensity. A chill ran through my body as I felt something behind me, I could feel the weight of someone pushing on the mattress while walking towards me. As I started to overcome what I was feeling, I turned to see what was happening behind me and I heard the voice perfectly clear saying to me: “Dad, dad, don’t cry I’m going to help you”. The room was in darkness, and in the shadows a silhouette began to emerge standing on the bed and in front of me and there she was looking at me with her blank eyes, without light and without life. Her messy hair, her white dress with colorful flowers but dirty, without shoes, her opened mouth showed me only darkness and her lips was forming a twisted smirk that seemed to be smiling at me. As she extended her arms and raised them as a sign of affection wanting to hug me. I stood paralyzed with fear and I could feel my body starting to sweat. She took another step on the bed to approach me and called me “DAD.” In an almost involuntary movement, I extended my hand to touch her hair. Her incongruous and dirty face and not knowing why she pierced my heart! Even though my hand only touched the empty space as she began to disappear into the darkness without a logical explanation, big tears began to run down my cheeks I didn’t know if it was because of fear or the stupor or the disbelief of what I felt but a warmth feeling took over in my whole being transforming those feelings into tenderness and I stopped feeling fear I was sure that even though I didn’t know what happened, we were not in danger!

That night I could not sleep well, I heard her voice in my dreams calling me “DAD” and saw her face every time I closed my eyes, several weeks went by without me being able to sleep. During the day I felt disturbed and I easily lost focus on everything I was doing. At night my body’s temperature rose and I suffered from chills due to the strong fever that attacked my body. And when I finally managed to fall asleep, I kept dreaming of her. The opposite happened with my daughters, suddenly they lost all interest in the strange events that were taking place during the day and at night inside our house. It seemed that they did not care that the lights went on and off alone, that the doors opened and closed unexpectedly or that the echoes of people could be heard as a picture came off the wall by itself, without explanation; They looked happy to be living in this house and began to say that it was fun to live with a ghost. One night, while I felt that my body was burning up again, I took off my sandals and walked barefoot into the hallway as I turned off all the lights inside the house. When I reached the hallway, I sat facing the darkness and said out loud, “I feel sick, I need to sleep. Where are you?” if you know the answer Tell me! Why do I feel this way? A chilling breeze touched my knees as I felt a cool breath on my face and her voice uttering the words: “Dad, I love you” I could feel like a strange cold squeezed on my left hand as I laid down on the floor, a deep sleep began to take over me and I closed my eyes as I sighed slowly and began to dream.