“The Third Parent” When my son, Caleb, turned six, he told me he had a third parent. At first, I thought he meant a step parent or imaginary friend, but my husband and I have never divorced, and Caleb has never been around anyone long enough to mistake them for a parent. Still, he said it so seriously over dinner that night, spaghetti hanging from his fork like a red thread: “He watches me sleep.” I tried to stay calm. “Who does, honey?” He looked up at me with a strange, vacant expression. “The one with the backwards face.” Week 1 Caleb began having night terrors. Screaming fits. I’d find him cowering in the closet, claw marks on the walls, and he'd beg me not to let the third parent in. He described him again: tall, long arms, neck too thin, with a face that looks normal—until it opens. “He talks with the back of his head, Mommy. The front just smiles.” I scheduled a therapist. Week 2 We put up cameras in his room. He said they wouldn’t help. Reviewing the first night’s footage, I watched Caleb sleep peacefully until exactly 3:13 a.m., when he suddenly sat up, rigid and wide-eyed. He whispered something. I rewound and turned up the volume. “Yes, I’ll be quiet now. I won’t tell them anymore.” He lay back down. I didn’t. Week 3 The therapist said Caleb might be suffering from shared delusional disorder. I asked, “Shared with who?” She hesitated. “Sometimes children invent an external presence when there’s a trauma they can’t process.” But there hadn’t been any trauma. That night, I awoke to the baby monitor—static, then whispering. It wasn’t Caleb’s voice. “You shouldn’t have watched.” Week 4 My husband stopped sleeping. He claimed he saw someone standing at the foot of our bed. Not Caleb. Someone too tall. He got up one night and never came back to bed. In the morning, I found him in Caleb’s room, standing over him, whispering. His eyes were bloodshot. His mouth was stretched into a smile he couldn’t seem to stop. I shook him. “What are you doing?” He turned to me and whispered: “He’s teaching me how to wear my face.” Week 5 My husband went missing. No sign of forced entry. Just an open window and deep gouges in the wood beneath it—gouges that went up, as if something with claws had climbed in. That night, I heard whispering again. But it was coming from inside the walls. Week 6 Caleb no longer eats. He just stares. When I ask what’s wrong, he says, “I only need what he gives me now.” I caught a glimpse of something in the hallway mirror. It looked like me—but the smile was too wide. And the eyes… they blinked sideways. Final Entry I’ve locked every door and window. The power’s out. My phone only plays back static when I call for help. I’m writing this from inside Caleb’s closet, where he used to hide from the thing. Now, he’s with it. They walk the halls together at night—my son and the third parent. And just now… Just now, I heard a voice behind me, one I used to recognize: “You can stop hiding. We only need one more face.”
