After you failed to convince your daughter that you killed the monster of the closet years ago . One day you return from work to find her room in mess and the closet door riped off with her slipper coming out of the closet wall with a few words engraved on the walls `` I 'M BACK '' [ wp ]

I'll always remember the days when little Karen would spend the nights cuddled up next to me, too afraid to go back in her own room, whispering about the darkness and how it talked to her. I would put my hand through my daughter's hair and tell her she was dreaming, that soldier dad would solve it all for her. In a few years I even gave her a pair of cheap headphones, some of my own from the early days, to help her sleep. But it never stopped. 
 
 When she was afraid, I always thought it was connected to losing her mother all those years ago, and, as her teenage years came on strong, I even thought it was the constant music, tv, gaming, etc. in her room with those headphones belting out the maximum they could of that god awful music. 
 
 At worst, I thought it was anxiety, depression even. I looked for answers, but I tried to give her space. I did n't want to expose her to shrinks or counselors, or an inquisition at home. God knows she had gone through enough as a child, and a single father trying to help out his teenage daughter was not a recipe for success. I knew it was n't drugs, but when it did come up, she would hide behind the embarrassment. I knew my daughter was anti-social, and I left it at that. 
 
 As she grew older she did n't talk much about the `` shadow'' in her room, but she still spent her nights awake, lights on. Then there was the claustrophobia, the fear of the dark. It caused her problems at school, and I can admit that it frustrated me not being able to find an answer. 
 
 When I left her alone with the house and the same pre-packaged line, `` I'll be back in a month,'' I can remember her trembling, even looking up to her window from the front porch, crossing her arms and, looking down, saying `` I'll be fine.'' I coaxed a last smile out of her with a kiss on her cheek and got on the truck. It reminded me of the times with her mother, when I went off to fight a war we did n't know or did n't care anything about, and I had to leave her on that same porch. 
 
 
 Three months this time. Three months of insatiable fighting. This was n't the first time I was in a god forsaken battleground, but it was one of the worst. The nature of fighting now meant I was always away from a phone, and that every minute was something life or death. I emailed when I could, but I only managed one phone call. She did n't mention anything, only asked when I'd be home and told me to be safe. I told her I loved her a hung up. 
 
 But coming into the house, now, I wished I had said more. I knew something was wrong when I walked up the drive to a dark house, with those old, dark familiar woods behind. There were always lights on, at least in Karen's room on the upper floors. But not a spark could be seen. It was also so quiet. The girl played that music loud when I was out in the yard, it was the only time she could get away with it, yet, there was n't even wind now. 
 
 The truck drove away without a goodbye and I made my way up. The night was cold but the glass on the front door was frosted, and when I dragged my finger across the window, I noticed it was on the inside. The door was closed, unlocked ( typical Karen ), but the knob felt frozen. I opened it and walked in. I called out for my daughter, knowing something was wrong and the sudden silence feeling so oppressive, like every breath was gunshot. I waited for an answer, standing and bathed in nothing, hoping and desperate this was just poorly timed strangeness, but not moving. 
 
 As the silence set, my heart was pounding. I reasoned my way out. `` Okay, she's upstairs, maybe asleep with the headphones on and the lights off.'' `` Maybe she went out, she is 18 now.'' `` Sure it's cold, but it gets cold out in the sticks here.'' Looking around I did n't see anything out of place. There was the couch, the table, the fireplace. It was all as I remember it from twenty five years of this house, but damn it was cold. The darkness too, seemed so pervasive. It's like I could feel it moving around me. Like water. I took one step at a time going up the stairs, then down the hall to her room. 
 
 The door was shut, which was n't uncommon, but there was no light coming out from underneath. None of the racket that seeped out through the walls was there, either. With the silence, it was almost like no one had been here in ages; like some abandoned wing of a house. The slow breaths from my nose were frosting in front of me, and the silence was uninterrupted as I reached out for her door knob. When I grasped it, it was like the warmth had gone out of my whole arm. I was taken aback, and for the first time, I was visibly worried. I looked left and right, and I nudged open the door. 
 
 It's impossible to call the girl's room clean, but this was something else. I knew instantly something had happened. Clothes normally piled were all over one side of the room, hanging off of the pair of lamps and all over her dresser table. The four poster bed and the vanity I made her were sitting askew, like they were moved towards the window by one almighty push but never put back. Posters, pictures, trash, and all sort of things had been blown across the room, but in front of the closet it was down to bare floor, and the closet doors were wide open. 
 
 Years before she had sealed over that closet. She emptied it out and closed the doors, before putting her desk in front of. I found her hammering planks across it one day when she was barely 15. I asked with a wry smile, covering up the insatiable, burning questions I had, if she was preparing for the zombie apocalypse, but she looked at me in that `` I do n't want to talk about it way'' and that was that. I even helped her drive the nails. 
 
 What was left of those boards, I ca n't say, nor of the desk she spent hours at. The only clue was a single item on the floor in front of the closet: her headphones. Inside of the closet was literally nothing, a blackness that swallowed the light. 
 
 When her mother had just passed I sat on the end of her bed, Karen in my room, too afraid to sleep alone again. The sadness and stress finally caught up to me. I spoke into the closet, then filled with stuffed animals, clothes and toys and told the darkness to leave her alone, that by god I would burn this house to the ground to keep her from fear. Tears rolled down my cheeks remembering her mother and knowing the life she'd now lead without her and swore I'd stop this. 
 
 I stood staring at the open doors, a whole life's worth of stuff dashed across the room, remembering how eventually, that night years ago, I began to laugh as I realized how stupid I was. What the hell was I talking to? What was a I even doing? I laughed, I even spoke, `` Ca n't you see me laughing? Ca n't you see how foolish this all is? You're nothing.'' 
 
 Now standing in front of those doors, I regretted it. Scrawled there, scratched really, on the inside of the door in huge letters it said: `` Who's foolish now?'' 
 
 Below it, another message: `` Follow me if you dare.'' 
 
 
 I do n't know what I'm doing now, or where I'm about to go. At any moment she could step out of the darkness and see me here, flashlight in one hand, rifle in the other, ready to go, and I would just laugh. `` Can you believe it,'' I would say, `` I was convinced something happened to you. I knew this could n't be real. This sort of stuff does n't happen.'' But it is happening. Sitting alone on that same bed staring in, I have no more laughter, no more words. All I know is my daughter is gone and for the first time, as I step into the darkness, I'm starting to believe in monsters.
