Replaced

The night swept across the room, burying itself in even the tiniest crevices. The crickets outside her room chirped loudly, filling the room with their steady sounds. A young girl lay on her bed, seemingly unaware of the dangers that lurked around her at all times. Her parents did their best to shelter her as much as possible, but nothing could have ever prepared her for the monsters hidden under her bed; the unseen creatures only the imagination could fathom. Where were her parents when the creatures grabbed her ankle swinging off the side of the bed? Where were her parents when they dragged her under the bed and into the shadows? Where were her parents when they set a replica of her on her bed? The night took up the entire room as a young girl locked in the depths of the shadows desperately searched for her way home. The emptiness surrounded her, echoing her cries back to her. The loneliness of each wail pierced through her as she trekked on and on, further into the abyss.

She wept for her mother and father, but they were waking up their new child. Their new child with the young girl’s memories and a familiar looking face. She was there, but she was gone. The lost and homesick child wandered for years, searching for anyone, anything. She began to lose the memories of her family, forgetting the sound of her mother’s soft voice singing her to sleep and her father’s familiar smell of Camel cigarettes. One day, she came across someone, their back facing her.

“Hello,” the small girl called out, glee in her voice for finding the first person she had seen in such a long time. The person turned around, and at first the small girl thought she was looking at a mirror. The shock she felt ran through her, raising the hair on the back of her neck.

“You took me from my home,” the lookalike said, sorrow seeping into her eyes.

The young girl hadn’t been taken from her home. She had just been replaced once more as the endless cycle continued.