I fell asleep.For illustrative purposes only
When I woke up, something felt wrong.
The house was too quiet.
No bouncing ball. No humming.
“Grandma?” I called.
She rushed into the room, her hair disheveled, her face tight with something I didn’t understand at the time.
“Where’s Ella?” I asked.
“She’s probably outside,” Grandma said quickly. “You stay in bed, all right?”
Her voice trembled.
I heard the back door open.
“Ella!” Grandma called out.
No answer.
“Ella, you get in here right now!”
Her voice grew sharper, rising with panic. Then I heard hurried footsteps—fast, uneven.
I couldn’t stay in bed anymore.
I got up, the hallway cold under my feet. By the time I reached the front room, neighbors had already gathered at the door. Mr. Frank knelt down in front of me.
“Have you seen your sister, sweetheart?” he asked gently.
I shook my head.
Then the police arrived.
Blue jackets. Wet boots. Radios crackling with static. Questions I didn’t know how to answer.
“What was she wearing?”
“Where did she like to play?”
“Did she talk to strangers?”
Behind our house stretched a strip of woods along the property. People called it “the forest,” as if it were endless—but really, it was just trees and shadows.
That night, flashlights flickered between the trunks. Men called her name into the rain.
They found her ball.
That’s the only clear fact anyone ever gave me.
The search went on for days… then weeks. Time blurred together. People whispered. No one explained anything.
I remember Grandma standing at the sink, crying quietly, repeating, “I’m so sorry,” over and over.
Once, I asked my mother, “When is Ella coming home?”
She was drying dishes. Her hands stopped moving.
“She’s not,” she said.
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