A Child’s Imaginary Friend Is Not Imaginary

Rain lashed against the windows of the old countryside cottage, its rhythm echoing through the empty halls like a warning. Eliza wrapped a blanket tighter around herself as she watched her daughter, Lily, seated cross-legged in the center of her bedroom, giggling softly at nothing.

Again.

It had been weeks since they’d moved into the cottage—an inheritance from Eliza’s late aunt. Quiet, remote, surrounded by woods. Peaceful. Or so she'd thought.

Lily had always been imaginative, but ever since they arrived, her “imaginary friend” had taken over every waking hour.

“His name is Thomas,” Lily had said one morning, spooning cereal into her mouth without meeting her mother’s eyes.

Eliza smiled. “That’s a lovely name. How old is Thomas?”

“Older than you.”

She laughed awkwardly. “Oh, really?”

“He was here before us. He doesn’t like the forest.”

That last part lingered.

At first, Eliza dismissed it. Children invented companions all the time. But soon the drawings began. Scratchy sketches of a tall, pale boy with dark, empty eyes. Always standing in the corner of a room. Always watching Lily.

When Eliza asked about them, Lily only said:

> “He doesn’t like when I talk about him. He says you wouldn’t understand.”




---

One night, Eliza woke to whispering. The house was cold, too cold. She crept down the hallway, drawn by the low murmur coming from Lily’s room.

She opened the door.

Lily sat upright in bed, eyes wide open, whispering to the dark corner of the room.

There was no one there.

“Lily?” Eliza’s voice cracked.

The little girl turned her head slowly, eyes glassy.

> “Thomas said you shouldn’t be here right now.”



The room’s light flickered.

Eliza felt something pass behind her. Cold and invisible. She grabbed her daughter and fled into her own bedroom, locking the door behind her.

The next morning, Lily had no memory of the night. She played as if nothing had happened. But Eliza could no longer pretend.


---

She contacted a local historian, desperate for answers.

“There was a boy named Thomas,” the woman told her over the phone. “Lived in that cottage in 1894. Disappeared in the woods. They never found the body. But his mother claimed he came back to visit her… even after death.”

The line crackled.
“She said he warned her about the forest. Said something else lived out there. Something worse.”


---

That night, Lily refused to sleep.

She stood by the window, whispering: “He’s scared. He says something’s coming. It wants me.”

Eliza kneeled beside her. “Who, baby? Who’s coming?”

Lily didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on the treeline outside.

Suddenly, the night seemed to bend. The woods stirred, not with wind—but with presence.
A tall shadow stepped out from between the trees. It didn’t walk. It hovered. No eyes. No face. Just a hunger.

And standing in the room beside Eliza and her daughter—was Thomas.

A pale figure, eyes dark and hollow, but not evil. He didn’t speak. He only pointed toward the door and shook his head slowly.

Eliza understood.

She turned, grabbed Lily, and they fled from the house without looking back.


---

They never returned.

In the months that followed, Eliza read everything she could. About it. About the thing in the forest. About others who had vanished without a trace in those same woods. The shadow had no name. But Thomas—he was real. A ghost, maybe. But not a malevolent one.

He had tried to warn them.

To protect her daughter.

He wasn’t imaginary.
He never was.

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