My Daughter Talks to Someone Who Knows Her Future

She says he visits every night and tells her what will happen next

By Anees Ul Ameen

The first time my daughter mentioned him, I didn’t panic.

Children say strange things. They invent friends, worlds, rules that only make sense to them. When Sara looked up from her coloring book and said, “He says you’re going to drop that plate,” I smiled and told her not to tease me.

The plate slipped from my hands seconds later and shattered on the floor.

We both stared at it.

Sara didn’t laugh. She just watched the pieces like they were proof of something.

“Who said that?” I asked.

“The man who comes at night,” she replied, already turning back to her crayons.

That should have been the moment I paid attention. Instead, I cleaned up the mess and blamed coincidence.

At bedtime, I asked her about the man.

She said he didn’t have a name. She said he didn’t talk the way people do. He showed her things instead—moments, like pictures, except they moved.

“He stands near the chair,” she said, pointing to the old armchair in the corner of her room. The one we never used anymore.

I checked the room after she fell asleep. Nothing there. Just a sleeping child and an empty chair.

Still, I didn’t move it.

The predictions didn’t stop.

She told me the power would go out before dinner. It did.

She said Grandma would call and cry that night. She did.

She warned me that her father and I would argue the next morning—about money.

That fight hurt more than the others because we hadn’t spoken about our finances out loud. Not once.

When I asked Sara how she knew these things, she looked confused.

“He listens ahead,” she said. “Then he tells me what leaks backward.”

I didn’t like that answer.

I tried to shut it down.

I told her imaginary friends weren’t real. I told her not to talk to him anymore. I told her knowing the future wasn’t healthy.

She cried herself to sleep that night.

Later, as I stood in the hallway, I noticed the armchair was angled slightly away from the wall. Not much. Just enough that I couldn’t be sure it had always been that way.

I told myself houses settle. Wood shifts.

I didn’t sleep.

Three nights later, Sara climbed into our bed, shaking.

“He says something bad is coming,” she whispered. “For us.”

My chest tightened. “What kind of bad?”

She shook her head. “He won’t show me. He says you have to choose first.”

“Choose what?”

“Whether you let him help.”

I felt sick. “Help how?”

“He wants to come all the way inside the house,” she said. “Not just watch.”

I said no immediately. Too quickly. Every instinct in me screamed against it.

Sara started crying harder.

“He says if you don’t let him in, he won’t be able to stop it.”

That night I dreamed of our front door standing open, darkness breathing on the doorstep like it was waiting to be invited.

I woke to Sara screaming.

She was standing in her room, pointing at the armchair.

“It moved,” she cried. “He says it’s almost time.”

The chair had turned fully toward the bed.

I felt it then—not a presence, not a shape, but attention. Like something had been waiting very patiently for me to notice.

“What do you want?” I whispered.

Sara’s voice answered, but it wasn’t quite hers.

“He will die if you don’t let me in.”

I pulled her into my arms and backed out of the room. I didn’t respond. I didn’t agree. I just held my child and refused to listen.

My husband didn’t wake up the next morning.

The doctors called it sudden. Natural. Unavoidable.

Sara hasn’t mentioned the man since.

The armchair is gone. I moved it to the garage and locked the door. Still, sometimes at night, I hear something scrape softly against concrete.

Last night, Sara looked at me while I was tucking her in.

“You chose,” she said quietly.

I don’t know whether I saved her future or destroyed it.

I only know something is still listening.

— Written by Anees Ul Ameen

Author’s Note

This story was written with the assistance of AI and carefully edited, revised, and finalized by Anees Ul Ameen