stories

From bluethundersix:

"I was an imaginative kid & had several imaginary friends, but my first one was different then the rest. When I was two or three I had an imaginary friend named Karen. My whole family knew about her & I would insist she be treated like a real person, unlike my later fantasy folks. My mom would hear me carrying on whole conversations with her alone & was always a little curious where I had come up with the whole thing, it seemed more complex then toddler pretend. Like I genuinely thought she was a person & that people were being inconsiderate to her by not acknowledging her. Sometimes to humor me my parents would out of the blue be like 'Well, hello Karen!' & I'd glare replying 'She's not here right now.'

We ended up moving & once we did, Karen wasn't mentioned anymore. Since I was young, I don't remember too much, just a warm feeling like an old friend. My mom asked me about it when I got older, and told her I could confidently remember making up my other later imaginary friends (Howard the Duck & his girlfriend Chuck) but not Karen. She told me she always wondered if I was seeing something she wasn't, but no harm ever came of it so she didn't worry.

Well I'm in my 30's now and was reading an article about a case that changed how soon you could report a missing person. As I read I realized it was sort of near where I used to live and the girl was named Karen. I didn't think much of it, it was a city, crime happens. As I read further, I learned that Karen's murderer had buried her body in the town I had lived. At that point, not expecting much but rather curious, I texted my mom for the address of our old house. As it turns out, Karen was murdered then buried about a mile & a half from our old home.