The door opened inwards with a creak as Olivia poked her head in, gazing around. Even if she had just left, she had to carefully survey the area—something she’d habitually acquired from her work in the medical field. Whether a surgical wing, a room filled with patents, or other situations, she always made sure to keep this detail in check.

  Within the dimly-lit space, Olivia immediately noted the obvious lump in the blankets on Isaac’s bed. Under the blankets, a small form was faintly outlined, revealing a youthful face, rough and messy hair, and loose clothing.

  “What do you want?” Damien pouted, his voice carrying a faint amount of tremble.

  Olivia immediately noted this tremble, mentally documenting possibilities on his emotional state. “It’s just me, Olivia.”

  Hearing the familiar voice, Damien slowly lifted the blankets and peeked out with his snow-white eyes. They bore their usual dark circles and almost ghastly look to them, but something within them etched a narrative with complexity beyond even Olivia’s scope of comprehension.

  After a second or two of tense silence between them, Damien raised his head and begrudgingly shrugged the blankets off. He was wearing a loose yet comfortable set of pajamas in a light color. His brows furrowed as he looked to the empty plate sitting on the nightstand beside Isaac’s bed, sighing.

  “Thanks for the lunch.”

  Olivia only smiled in response. She then slowly approached the bed and sat down beside Damien. Her hands habitually curled and uncurled around empty matter. Her bottom lip twitched, and she could only breathe using her nose.

  Upon noticing her peculiar state, Damien’s expression softened. “Are you alright, Ms. Olivia?”

  Instead of immediately answering the question, Olivia pursed her lips and said. “I was told you… can see and hear things, Isaac’s ghost in particular?”

  Damien nodded, wiping his eyes with his sleeves that were too big for his hands to entirely slip through.

  “I-I see his ghost; it looks different than how he looked the last time I saw him.”

  “He looks different?” Olivia looked towards Damien, eyes widening a little.

  “His hair is longer, tied into a ponytail that falls flat. He wears… different clothing, he talks differently… it’s like looking at a stranger, not Isaac.”

  Hearing these words, Olivia slowly extended a hand, placing it on top of Damien’s loose pajama sleeve. She clenched the fabric lightly as she spoke up once again, her voice soft and lacking any previous tremble.

  “How are you sure it’s Isaac? From your description, his hair, his clothes, and even his diction are different from the boy we know.”

  The white-haired boy remained silent for a moment before replying. “Because I just know he’s Isaac. He talks about us, he says he misses us, but…”

  Damien’s words trailed off, the boy falling into an abrupt silence. His small hands clenched into fists as his jaw tightened like a spring on the verge of uncoiling and shooting off the nearest wall.

  “H-he gets hurt for missing us. Someone, I just know it’s someone, they’d beat him up, slap him, burn him, for saying that he misses us. Isaac wants to go back, he always hopes to see us again… but the person I can’t see always says to forget about us, to forget our memories and throw us away like we’re trash.

  “He’s also being called Silas, this strange name that I guess he now calls himself.”

  “S-Silas?” Olivia repeated the name under her breath, feeling it on her tongue.

  Damien nodded his head. “Mhm. Isaac’s trapped somewhere and he’s scared he’ll never get free.”

  Both of them didn’t say a word for a few seconds; the only thing constant besides such silence was Olivia’s hand atop Damien's loose sleeve. Olivia had seen things like this before. As if on cue, she found her thoughts drifting back to a time when she had found someone with a similar experience.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  …

  “You see… what, now?” Olivia stifled an almost amused chuckle as she looked at the boy before her.

  He was a boy with curly red hair, freckles, and clad in a light-blue hospital gown. At first glance, he looked like a normal boy, but the only thing setting him apart from being ‘normal’ was the pair of crutches sitting on the nearest chair to his body—crutches that belonged to him.

  The boy clenched his fists, shaking them with excitement as he " in an almost giddy manner. “My daddy, my mommy, I see them both!”

  Hearing this response, Olivia initially didn’t know how to respond. Her hands clenched around her mug of hot coffee, bringing the dark-brown liquid to her lips and sipping as she listened to the young boys prattle.

  “When I wake up, they encourage me to walk and talk and keep going! They help me get breakfast, they help me get dressed by picking out my clothes!”

  At this moment, Olivia couldn’t help but half-listen. She found her own gaze drifting to the other end of the room, where an elderly woman with a cane could be seen in the doorway. Behind her pair of thin, round glasses, Olivia could clearly see the fear and uncertainty in his expression. The woman held her cane with twitching, bony hands.

  Olivia suddenly extended a hand, signalling the boy to stop. Instead of immediately standing up, she smiled and pushed a sheet of lined paper towards the boy.

  “Raiko, what you’ve told me is very interesting. Now, while I talk to your grandmother, would you mind writing down everything you’ve heard from your parents, alongside when you first began to see them?”

  The red-haired boy nodded, already beginning his frantic scribbling with a half-chewed yellow pencil that lacked an eraser. While the young boy wrote away in the corner, Olivia slowly stood up and walked to the elderly woman in the far corner of the room, her smile vanishing from her face.

  “I’m… worried about him.”

  Raiko’s grandmother nodded her head, coughing lightly. “Half of the time I find that he doesn’t even want to speak with me. He prefers to shut himself in his room, either drawing with crayons or… talking with his ‘parents’.”

  Olivia nodded, mentally noting the facts on her imaginary clipboard. She bit her lower lip and replied with a sigh.

  “I-I’m all for… imagination and all, but this isn’t healthy, nor is it a normal circumstance. I know that house fire traumatized him, but if he’s making mental images of people who’re dead, it’ll do more harm than good.”

  “What if it’s demons?” The grandmother asked, her voice trembling.

  “I’ve heard stories of demons who lurk on people's desires and fears—an Amanjaku—an awful, awful creature that could be snaring my grandson.”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m one to believe in the supernatural, but beliefs are beliefs. If it isn't Amanjaku-thingy, it’s neglected emotions and stress. When a kid is really stressed, they’ll make imaginary friends to give them that comfort that they’re lacking in the real world.”

  Olivia walked over to her desk, reaching into a drawer and taking out a pamphlet. She walked back to Raiko’s grandmother and handed her the pamphlet. On the cover was a cartoon of a child with a ghost beside it.

  IMAGINARY FRIENDS—WHERE DO THEY COME FROM? was written in bolded and colorful text.

  “I believe this will help you,” Olivia said with a smile.

  The grandmother looked past Olivia, landing her gaze on the red-haired child writing on the lined paper. Her lips twitched slightly.

  “That paper, isn’t it feeding his delusions?”

  Olivia shook her head with a smile. “No, it isn’t. It’s simply analysis—the best way to find the solution to any problem is to find its roots. I know the housefire’s date, and finding out when Rako here developed his imaginary parents would deeply impact my research on the medical field with children and psychology."

  “Ah.”

  “Ms. Olivia, I’m done!”

  Olivia turned back around and walked over to the table, sitting down across from Raiko as she took the piece of paper from him. She put on a pair of reading glasses, pushing them up the bridge of her nose as she began to read what Raiko had written down.

  At first, she could barely translate the barely legible scribbles and miscellaneous doodles decorating the border of the paper. But eventually with Raiko’s help—and occasional re-reads of certain excerpts—she was able to decrypt the entire psychological analysis.

  “So approximately three months ago, mommy and daddy came back into your life?”

  Raiko nodded with some excitement, rocking back and forth in his chair like a child who had too much sugar. “Yep! They tapped me awake and wished me good morning after my grandmother fell ill one night.”

  “And according to your little message… they help you with homework, sing you to sleep, and… lock you in the closet.”

  Olivia felt her heart drop to her toes as she read that phrase again. At first, she thought nothing of it, but now, she was all the more worried and terrified.

  Raiko bobbed his head. “When I’m too noisy or ‘mean’ in their words, they take me to the closet and lock me in there for twenty minutes. One time, they forgot where the key was, and I was trapped in there for five hours without food or… water.”

  “A-and…” Olivia tried to muster the courage to keep going. She took a deep breath, maintaining her professional and friendly persona with herculean effort.

  “What happened after you were set free from the closet?”

  Raiko’s expression wavered as he pulled up his sleeve, running his dirty, untrimmed nails along his pale skin. Each run up and down created pink-colored strips of puffy flesh.

  “T-they… told me to never be loud again in the house, as I’d wake up grandma while she slept…”

  Olivia looked up at the grandmother in the corner of the room, slowly shaking her head.