Chapter 4: The World's Cruel Truth
Chapter 4: The World's Cruel Truth
Sleep offered no escape, only a different kind of prison. Samantha’s dreams were a chaotic replay of the last few days: a plate of perfectly aligned peas, the bone-deep chill of a tiny hand on her wrist, and the sound of a cold, flat voice speaking her deepest shame aloud in the dark. You loved the stars more than you loved the road. Each morning she awoke with the lie on her lips, the desperate mantra that this was all a product of trauma. It was the only explanation that allowed her to function, to put one foot in front of the other.
But the mantra was wearing thin. Sanity required an anchor, a piece of the solid, verifiable world to cling to. She needed a professional, an authority figure, to look at Sophia and see what she saw. She needed a diagnosis.
“We’re going to see Dr. Miller today, sweetie,” she announced to the silent child in the living room.
The thing that looked like Sophia was on the floor, surrounded by her old wooden blocks. She wasn't building a tower or a castle. She was arranging them by color, pushing them into severe, straight lines that radiated from her position like the spokes of a wheel. She didn’t look up, offering no reaction at all. Getting her dressed was like dressing a mannequin. Her limbs were pliant, her body moving only when Samantha guided it. There was no struggle, no childish impatience, just a passive, unnerving compliance.
The drive in the new sedan was a fresh torment. The “new car smell” still choked the air, and Samantha gripped the wheel, her eyes darting constantly to the rearview mirror. Sophia sat perfectly still in her booster seat, a silent passenger in the tin coffin that was supposed to have been their salvation. The memory of her last words in this car—I like this car better—played on a loop in Samantha’s mind.
The pediatrician’s office was a riot of cheerful chaos that felt like a personal attack. Cartoon animals smiled from posters on the walls, a television in the corner played a loud, bubbly cartoon, and the air was filled with the sounds of coughing children and fretful parents. It was a world of normal sickness, of fevers and scraped knees. Samantha felt like an alien, a carrier of some strange, incomprehensible disease.
She checked in at the front desk, her voice tight. Sophia stood beside her, a small island of profound stillness in the sea of noise. She didn’t wander, didn’t touch the toys in the waiting area. She simply existed.
“She’s so well-behaved,” the receptionist commented with a smile.
“She’s not herself,” Samantha countered, the words coming out sharper than she intended.
After a wait that stretched her nerves to the breaking point, a nurse called them back. Inside the small, sterile examination room, the pretense of normalcy shattered completely.
“So, what seems to be the trouble?” the nurse practitioner, a woman named Carol with a tired but patient face, asked as she opened a file.
Where could she even begin? “She won’t eat,” Samantha started, her voice trembling. “I mean, she’ll touch her food, she… she arranges it. Into patterns. But she won’t eat.”
Carol made a note. “A loss of appetite is common after a stressful event. Like the car accident you mentioned on the phone.”
“It’s more than that,” Samantha insisted, leaning forward. “She’s… cold. All the time. Her skin. And she’s quiet. Terribly quiet. And then sometimes… sometimes she gets this look in her eye. A rage. It’s not her.” She thought of the hissing sound, the icy grip on her wrist. How could she explain that without sounding insane? “And she says things. Things she shouldn’t know.”
Carol’s professional patience was beginning to look strained. She glanced at Sophia, who sat on the examination table, her legs dangling, the paper crinkling softly beneath her. She looked the picture of health—a little pale, perhaps, but calm and composed. “Children process trauma in different ways, Ms. Brown. Sometimes they can act out. It might be beneficial to look into some counseling. For both of you.”
The condescension was a slap in the face. “I don’t need counseling,” Samantha snapped. “My daughter is sick! There’s something wrong with her!” She turned to the child, her desperation boiling over. “Sophia, tell her! Tell Carol how you feel! Tell her about the stars, sweetie!”
Sophia blinked slowly. She looked from her mother’s frantic face to the nurse’s wary one. She said nothing.
“Please!” Samantha begged. “Just say something!”
Carol stood up, closing the folder. “I think perhaps you’re the one who’s upset, Ms. Brown. It’s understandable. But shouting isn’t going to help your daughter. I’m going to go get Dr. Miller.”
The moment the door clicked shut behind her, Samantha spun back to the table, ready to plead with her daughter one more time.
The table was empty.
The paper was still faintly crinkled where she had been sitting. But Sophia was gone.
A raw, primal scream clawed its way up Samantha’s throat. “Sophia!” She threw open the door to the exam room and ran into the hallway. “Sophia! Where did you go?”
Heads popped out of other rooms. The receptionist stood up, her face alarmed. “Ma’am, what’s going on?”
“She’s gone! My daughter was just here and now she’s gone!” Panic, cold and absolute, seized her. She shoved past the stunned nurse and burst back into the waiting room, her eyes scanning wildly. No Sophia. She ran to the main door, her heart hammering a frantic, painful rhythm against her ribs.
Her frantic shouting turned the clinic into a scene of chaos. Someone, she wasn't sure who, said they were calling the police. The words barely registered. Her world had collapsed into a single, terrifying point: finding her daughter.
Two police officers arrived within minutes. Their calm, authoritative presence immediately framed her as the hysterical, unstable element in the situation. One officer, a tall man with a weary face, tried to get her to sit down while the other spoke into his radio.
“Ms. Brown, we need you to calm down. We’re going to find your daughter.”
“You don’t understand!” she sobbed, grabbing his arm. “She just vanished!”
The officer’s radio crackled. “Unit 7 to dispatch. We have the child. She’s in the mother’s vehicle in the parking lot. A blue sedan. She appears to be unharmed.”
The relief that washed over Samantha was instantly replaced by a disorienting wave of confusion. She stumbled out of the clinic, the officers following close behind. And there, in the parking lot, was the dark blue sedan. Through the window, she could see her. Sophia was sitting calmly in her booster seat, staring straight ahead as if she had been there the whole time.
Samantha wrenched the door open. “Sophia! What are you doing? You scared me to death!”
The little girl turned her head, her expression one of mild, childish confusion. “I got scared of the yelling, Mommy,” she said, her voice small and sweet, the perfect imitation of a frightened child. “So I came back to the car. It’s safe here.”
The officers exchanged a look. It was a look Samantha knew all too well—the one reserved for people who were drunk, or high, or dangerously unhinged.
“Ma’am,” the weary officer said, his voice now devoid of any sympathy. “I think it’s best if you and your daughter go home. Don’t cause any more of a disturbance.”
Humiliated, terrified, and utterly defeated, Samantha drove home in a fog of disbelief. The incident had destroyed her last hope. The system hadn’t helped her; it had branded her.
That night, as she sat numbly on the sofa in the dark, silent house, there was a sharp knock on the door. Her heart leaped into her throat. Peeking through the curtains, she saw the familiar police car at the curb. The same two officers were on her doorstep.
She opened the door, her hand trembling. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
The weary officer didn’t meet her eyes. He held out a folded document. “Ms. Brown, we’re here to serve you with an emergency restraining order. It was filed by a Mr. Connor Brown. You are to have no contact with him, effective immediately.”
Connor. The name was a physical blow. Her ex-husband. He had been her last resort, the one person left who might have believed her. Instead, he had turned the law against her. The tears she had been holding back all day finally came, hot and bitter.
“No… no, you don’t understand,” she choked out, the paper crinkling in her fist. “My daughter needs me. She’s sick! She’s right here!”
The officer sighed, a long, tired breath. He looked at his partner, then back at Samantha, his face set in grim resolve. He clearly thought the kindest thing he could do was to shatter her delusion once and for all.
“Ms. Brown,” he said, his voice flat and pitiless, a sterile instrument meant to excise a fiction. “We’ve been over your file. We’ve spoken with your ex-husband.” He paused, letting the weight of his next words gather.
“According to the state of California, your daughter, Sophia Grace Brown, passed away two years ago in a single-vehicle collision. The driver was found to be at fault.”
The words didn’t land. They hovered in the cold night air, unreal and monstrous. Samantha’s mind, her entire being, rejected them. It was a lie. A cruel, impossible lie. Her breath hitched. Her gaze slid past the officer’s impassive face, into the shadowed hallway of her house, where a small figure stood watching them from the darkness.
Her daughter was right there.
So if Sophia Brown was dead… what had she brought home from the hospital?
Characters

Connor Brown

Samantha Brown
