As The Raven Dreams Podcast - "Something Took My Daughter" By N. Murdock

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Starting point is 00:00:27 to pay money money to pay for responsibility Today's story is something took my daughter by N. Murdoch. I need help. My daughter, she's gone. Missing, at least I hope. I guess a bit of backstory first. My name is Ryan. I have a five-and-a-half-year-old daughter named Kayla. Her mother and I separated not long after Kayla was born. See, she struggled a lot with postpartum depression.

Starting point is 00:01:13 One day I came home from work and found her in the bathtub with the baby. She'd slashed her own wrist and was... She wanted to go, and she wanted to take our daughter with her. Luckily, Kayla was okay, if a little scared. She still has problems with the bathtub, but before I get too far off topic, my wife is not the one who took my little girl. She's being treated in a hospital down near Springfield, and in spite of everything, our divorce was mutual.

Starting point is 00:01:49 She knows that she's a danger to herself and to Kayla, and she made the choice to leave. Since then, my daughter and I have been living in a small but nice apartment here in Chicago. So, why am I posting here? Honestly, because nobody else will believe me. I mean, I doubt anybody reading this will either, but if you're a parent, you know, you do anything for your kids, no matter how crazy. Two weeks ago, it was Friday night. Kayla and I always get pizza on Friday nights, and I let her pick movie after movie until she falls asleep.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Does it bother me that I've seen frozen to more than any grown man in the United States? No, it makes my daughter happy. Anyways, after a medium pepperoni pizza, Kayla had fallen asleep about halfway through Happy Feet, so I gently cleaned the pizza grease from her face with a wet wipe and carried her off to bed. I was pretty wrecked myself. In fact, I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. My sleep was rough, fitful. I wouldn't say I was having nightmares necessarily,

Starting point is 00:03:09 but there was a sense of anxiousness that stung deep in my subconscious. Parents, you know what I mean. Like, like a sixth sense. A voice in the back of your mind nagging at you. There's something wrong. It's too quiet, check the children. As if, to emphasize the feeling, I snapped awake at the sound.

Starting point is 00:03:32 of a door swinging closed. The shock of my sudden awakening left me sitting bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily, heart pounding like a buddy rich solo. I looked at the clock, but we must have lost power at some point because it just flashed 12 o'clock over and over.

Starting point is 00:03:50 Cold sweat clung to my back as I listened and tried to gain a sense of my surroundings. Two things stood out to me. The first was the soft, breathy cadence of my daughter's nighttime breathing. It was completely absent from the air. The second was that from outside I could hear,

Starting point is 00:04:14 well, it sounded like an ice cream truck. You know, the jingle that plays out of the speaker. I think it's called the entertainer, only it didn't sound right. It was warped and skipping like an old, scratchy vinyl. The sound wasn't very loud. It was just barely audible above my own ragged breathing.

Starting point is 00:04:41 I was about to dismiss it when I heard something else. A sound I'd heard hundreds, if not thousands of times before. A sound I'd heard earlier that night, watching animated penguins dancing on the screen. A sound that, in the moment, made my heart and adrenaline explode into overdraft. I heard my daughter's laughter. Soft and distant, about as soft and distant as the discordant broken rendition of the entertainer.

Starting point is 00:05:12 Before I even had time to process, I was on my feet and sprinting to the living room window, following the sound as best I could trying to pinpoint its origin. That's when I saw it. From four stories up, I watched in horror as my daughter dressed in her pajamas and her pink coat, ran to a man standing in the middle of the street. The solitary streetlight casting awkward shadows and obscuring his features. He was tall, very tall, and from what I could tell, Gaunt, he extended a hand toward Kayla, stretching out his arm to seemingly impossible length.

Starting point is 00:05:51 There must have been six feet between the two, but the elastic limb covered the distance without any difficulty. I felt my heart sink when she took his hand. I wanted to scream. I wanted to race to her, but I couldn't move. Something about that man, how the tinny piano music seemed to emanate from him. It froze me in place, a helpless onlooker to my own personal hell. The man's tentacle-like arms shrunk back to a normal size,

Starting point is 00:06:23 and Kayla's bare feet brought her right to him. The music, it seemed to grow louder and faster-paced. It sounded fucking excited, eager. The man turned and began to lead my daughter out of the lone streetlight and down the road. I felt control returned to my body. I had to act fast. There was no way I could make it down the street in time. I had to warn Kayla.

Starting point is 00:06:49 Maybe somebody else would hear and call the police. I ripped the window open and screamed my daughter's name until I was blue in the face. In an instant, I mean, faster than a blink. The man, the thing, had snapped its head in my direction. My body froze again, and I could see its features more clearly now.

Starting point is 00:07:13 It had no eyes, just dark, empty sockets. Its mouth hung open wider than any humans. It looked like a python unhinging its jaw to devour its prey. The song grew louder. It rose to near death. deafening volumes. It vibrated my fucking windows. It was coming from the creature's caping maw.

Starting point is 00:07:38 I'm not ashamed to admit I pissed myself and fainted. When I finally came to, the sun was high in the sky. It felt like it was all a dream. But I checked Kayla's bedroom. She was gone. Her coat was gone. that thing had taken my daughter. I went to the police as soon as I got into a pair of clean pants. I filed a report, but they didn't seem to believe a word I said. And when they asked me for a current photo, I was confused to find that I had none. I had taken Kayla to an amusement park a few months back for her birthday, and we took a series of pictures in the photo booth.

Starting point is 00:08:24 my favorite, one where we were laughing, and she's reaching up to pick my nose, I kept it in my wallet. All the photos saved in my cell phone were gone. I even went back home, and there was nothing. In our entire photo album, it was like she never existed. All just blank, white squares.

Starting point is 00:08:47 And now, now here we are. My daughter is gone. Nobody I've talked to. Our neighbors, my parents, even my ex-wife will even acknowledge Kayla's existence. That thing somehow erased her. I'm the only one who remembers her. I don't know what else to do. I have exhausted all the rational options, so you people are the experts.

Starting point is 00:09:17 Tell me, what am I dealing with? And tell me how do I get my daughter back? Hey there, friends. I hope you enjoyed this short story. This was once again Something Took My Daughter by N. Murdoch. All links for N. Murdoch are down in the description below. Please check them out. Please give them some support and love as this was an amazing story. And honestly, he's a great author. So really deserves the support and the love that we can give him. So again, please do check him out. Follow him on Twitter. Check out the story on Reddit. Check out his other stuff because he posts quite a few stories. And they're all really

Starting point is 00:10:04 really good. So yeah. If you did enjoy it and would like more like this, please do consider joining the Nevermore to do so. All you got to do is hit that subscribe button, the bell icon next to it.

Starting point is 00:10:14 You can also follow me on social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, I guess, and go to the website as the ravendreams.com. You are also welcome to consider supporting the channel

Starting point is 00:10:26 through Patreon or coffee. All patrons get early access to videos. If you choose to do none of these things, that's absolutely fine because they're all optional, but just know they are all appreciated. So, all that said, I hope you have a lovely day,

Starting point is 00:10:40 and I hope you're having a great weekend. No vid tomorrow, because tomorrow's Sunday, I've been trying to take Sundays off for the podcast and just some personal time to kind of get caught up and stuff like that. So all that said, I love you guys. I'll see you in the next video, but until then, sleep well.

As The Raven Dreams Podcast - "Something Took My Daughter" By N. Murdock

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