Is there anything more terrifying than a kid with an imaginary friend? Think about it, we write it off as an overactive imagination, but what if this kid is actually seeing someone.
Recently a mom on Reddit asked what the scariest thing a parent has heard their child say about their imaginary friend.
Seriously, the answers were completely terrifying.
The Sign of the Cross
My daughter used to tell me about a man who came into her room every night and put the sign of the cross on her forehead. I thought it was just a dream. Then my mother-in-law sent over some family photos. My daughter looked right at the picture of my husband’s father (who has been dead for 16 years) and said ‘That’s the man who comes into my room at night!’ My husband later told me his father would always do the sign of the cross on his forehead when he was young.
Dodo and DeeDee
When my older daughter was two or three, she used to have a couple of imaginary friends, Dodo and DeeDee. They were typical imaginary friends. She would talk to them and play with them, and tell me about their lives.
Then one day, when she was about three, she was talking on her play phone when I walked into the room. She “hung up” her phone and said to me (with a completely flat voice and deadpan expression): “The Evil is coming.”
Icy
In high school one of my best friends had a little sister who was five or six years old. One day we stopped by his place, completely high, because he needed to get his Magic cards. While waiting for him to come downstairs his sister came up to me and said, “Icy told me to ask you if you know when you’re going to die.”
I laughed nervously: morbid question, right? But I knew all about Icy, her imaginary friend. I even helped her draw a picture of him once. So I played along and said, “No, of course not! No one knows that. Hopefully when I’m very old.”
The girl shook her head sadly and said, “No, Icy wants me to tell you it’ll be tonight.” And with that, she just walked away.
Shhh
I was seventeen and babysitting a friend of the family’s six year old. He’d been in bed a couple of hours and I just peeked in to check on him. He wasn’t in the bed and when I opened the door wider, I saw he was standing in the corner, facing the wall. Creepiest fucking thing ever. I asked him what he was doing and all he did was turn around, smile, and put his finger to his lips as if to say “shhh”. I asked him again what he was doing and all he says is, “leave us. It is the punishment.”
Roger
My little brother’s imaginary friend, Roger, lived under our coffee table. Roger had a wife and 9 kids. Roger and his family lived peacefully alongside us for three years. One day, my little brother announced that Roger wouldn’t be around anymore, since he shot and killed him and his whole family. I don’t know if he remembers any of this, but his genuine lack of remorse was very disturbing.
The Babysitter
Kid I used to babysit had imaginary friends. They were dead. One had no head. One was an old lady. They were both bloody. The one with no head had insides sticking out of his neck.
I didn’t ask him questions about them because fuck that.
The Captain
A parent of one of my students told us in a meeting that she was concerned because her son (7 years old) talked about an invisible ghost who would talk to him and play with him in his room. He said the ghost was called The Captain and was an old white guy with a beard. The kid would tell his mom that The Captain told him when he grows up his job will be to kill people, and The Captain would tell him who needed to be killed. The kid would cry and say he doesn’t want to kill when he grows up, but The Captain tells him he doesn’t have a choice and he’ll get used to killing after a while.
Mary
My wife and I overheard my 2year daughter on the baby monitor wake up on Saturday morning and say “what? OK I’ll tell her” then get up and come into our bedroom and told my wife “Mary says you’re doing a good job.” Mary was her grandmother that she was extremely close too that passed away.
Angels
When my brother was little he acted like he had angels talking to him every second. One day my mom overheard him say, “I can’t kill him! He’s my only dad!”
Creeper Man
My son from the age of three always tells me about the “creeper man” who lives in my mom and dads bedroom. He brings it up after he visits them. I made the mistake once of asking what he looks like. My son said, “Oh, he doesn’t have a face.”
The Underwater Girl
My grandfather had a camp on Lake Dering in NH when I was a kid. One day when I was 6 or so, I fell off of the dock and into the water. I couldn’t swim. While under, I distinctly remember seeing a little girl down there who told me to look up towards the sun and just keep kicking and I’d be fine. I swam to the surface just in time for my grandfather to swoop me up and pull me back on the dock.
The Easter Bunny
When I was 16, I babysat twins who were in the third grade at the time. They always spoke of a man in an Easter Bunny costume, and they were terrified of him. One day I was babysitting, and one twin was in the shower. His brother and I were sitting downstairs watching television when all of the sudden, he said, “you need to go check on Matt.” Seconds later, Matt yelled, “He’s in here!!! He’s in here!!!” I ran upstairs, and I had to check every room before he would calm down. I’m not sure which part of the experience freaked me out the most.
Amityville
When my daughter was three she had an imaginary friend named Kelly who lived in her closet. Kelly sat in a little rocking chair while she slept, played with her, etc. Typical imaginary friend shit. Anyway, fast forward two years later, the wife and I are watching the new Amityville (the one with Ryan Renolds) and our daughter walks out right when dead girl goes all black eyed. Far from being disturbed she said, “That looks like Kelly.” “Kelly who?” we say, “You know the dead girl that lived in my closet.”
The Prettiest Girl
When my younger brother was around 4, he had an imaginary friend named Victoria Meadowbrooke. He told us that she was the prettiest girl ever and she floated above his bed a night.
Spooky Guy
As a kid, I said that my imaginary friend was a ghost. I called him Spooky Guy and said he died in the garage of the house on the hill behind ours. I even came up with his death. He was a 16 year old who got in a car crash and walked to that house to ask to use their phone (died in the 70′s). The person lived there grabbed him and sexually abused him there and killed him. He was my imaginary friend as far back as I can remember. This scared my mom so much that she tried to look up records to see if that happened and got me a therapist.