Eloise

Something to live for.

2.

There was commotion everywhere. It’s been two days since Magdalene was declared missing, that’s three days since that horrifying morning.

I woke up hoping to see my newest friend, Maggie. Yes, my newest friend. I stretched my hand out hoping to touch her smooth soft skin and be the first to tell her good morning, to ask her how her broken arm was. I felt nothing. I rubbed my hand all over the bed and I didn’t feel her. When I opened my eyes I realized that the bed was properly made, though I was still lying on it. I expected the bed to be a little bit rumpled at least considering how much Maggie was tossing and turning on the bed. I got up and decided to check the toilet.

“Maggie?”

I checked the living room

“Maggie?”

I checked outside, the backyard too.

“Maggie?”

Maggie’s father and grandmother were awake now. It was 6:40 am.

“Good morning sir, I can’t seem to find Maggie.”

“Huh?” he grunted, still a little bit sleepy.

“I can’t find Maggie”

This time he quickly got up and began to call out to her and open all the doors in the house. we went out and began to ask neighbours if they had seen her. They said no. We walked for almost an hour and we still couldn’t find Magdalene. It didn’t take two extra seconds for us to realize that she had been taken. Her father collapsed to the ground and began to wail, “They have taken my daughter! They have taken my child!” I tried to calm him down but he was beyond my physical capability. Mr. Gregory was a well-built man. Tall, thick and muscular. It was really hard trying to lift a fully grown man with obviously big bones off the ground. I pleaded with him to get a hold of himself. His mother suggested that we go to the police station to report the case.

When we got there we explained the whole thing to the police officers who attended to us.

“How long did you say she has been missing?” asked one of the police officers.

“Since this morning, when I woke up” I replied.

“What time did you wake?” he asked again.

“A little after 6 am”

The three officers that were with us burst into laughter. What the hell was funny? A child was missing!

“Look, Ma, it’s just 8:13 am. The girl probably went to see her friend. She will come back. It’s too soon to report her missing.”

“The girl is 8 years old!” I yelled.

“Come back tomorrow, then we’ll know it’s serious.”

Tch. These people didn’t even take their jobs seriously.

We left and continued our search for Magdalene until later in the afternoon. Maggie’s dad was really traumatized. He kept on murmuring about all the possible ordeals his little girl would be going through at the moment. He prayed it was a kidnapper and that they’d ask for ransom. But no one that was taken the way Maggie was ever returned. Not even their dead bodies.

I left for my house by 6:30 pm. I hadn’t showered or had anything to eat since morning. I lay on my bed and let my thoughts wonder. Why Magdalene? Why do I like her? Why did she have to be taken? Why am I worried? Why do I care? I let my thoughts beat me up until I fell asleep. In my sleep I had the strangest dream ever.

Everywhere was dark, cold and lonely. A casual night in my city. But there was something quite peculiar about this particular night. Was it the thickness of the atmosphere, the whispers of Magdalene’s voice in my head or the blood stains on every door? I kept walking noticing how strange and scary the night was getting but it felt… normal. Like it happened every day. Like it was something I should be used to. I tried to understand it but I just couldn’t. The strangest part was that I couldn’t stop walking. I didn’t even try to stop. I kept walking along the straight road till the road ended and I was walking on…nothing. I didn’t even realise this until I looked down. When I looked down I began to fall, I fell into a big, wide and smelly pit. It smelled like dead bodies. Then it dawned on me that the pit was actually full of dead bodies. I freaked out and I began to scream. I tried to climb out of the pit but random body parts kept falling on me. A head landed right in my palms. It was a familiar head.

“Help me” the head managed to say through a split tongue.

It was Magdalene!

I woke up.

“What the hell was that about?” I wondered as I tried to clear my head. It was morning. We all agreed to be at the police station again the next day if Magdalene had not yet returned. Well she hadn’t because I didn’t get any call except the text from Mr. Gregory saying “Please pray for my daughter”. Such a religious man. I made a warm cup of tea and took it with a few slices of left over bread. I quickly put on a Tee-shirt over a pair of leather shorts.

“No time for bras and today will be a hell of a day” I said trying to convince myself not to wear a bra or any discomforting clothing. I really wasn’t feeling high today.

When I got to the police station Maggie’s dad was already there. He said his mother wasn’t feeling too well and so she would rather stay home than obstruct our search. Okay. We walked up to the arrogant officers who attended to us the previous day and told them it was 24 hours and Maggie wasn’t home yet.

“Where was she last seen?” one of them asked with a book in one hand and a pen in the other.

“We all had dinner the night before and we went to bed. When we woke up she was gone, with no trace” Mr. Gregory replied.

“No trace?”

“Well according to her teacher here who slept on the same bed with her, when she woke up the bed was well dressed than it was the night before even though she was on it.”

The three officers stood shocked, no, frightened, lips apart.

One of them finally summoned the courage to ask again “You woke up and your child was missing but the bed was properly dressed?”

I confirmed with a nod.

“Sorry Ma’am. We can’t help you. We’ve had several cases like this and we were never able to find the children. We’ve been ordered to ignore all cases of missing children relating to dressed beds. Seek help from any other authority but please, not us”

At that statement Mr. Gregory broke down again and began to sob. I was so angry I cursed at the police and stormed out. If the police had no hope of finding Magdalene what could we possibly do? Nothing? For the first time I finally had a goal. For the first time I actually wanted to do something. For the first time another person mattered to me.

“Mr. Gregory? I will find Magdalene!”