About three minutes before 2:10 a.m., Niah began crying. “Mommy! Mommy! My hand hurts!”
Harold and I saw it—her IV needle had slipped out. Her hand was swollen and bruised purple.
Although I quickly pulled the needle out, Harold still wanted to find a nurse.
But I stopped him. “I can press on it, that should be enough.”
I pressed the button on the bedside panel, but no nurse came.
Right at 2:10 a.m., Niah’s cries turned desperate, and she started to lose her breath.
Harold stood up in distress. “I’ll go find a nurse.”
I grabbed his arm. “Dad, it’s just a slipped needle. She’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
Before he could say more, our daughter’s lips turned purple. Suddenly, she vomited violently.
Harold’s face went pale. “This is a reaction to the medication! If we don’t act fast, she could die!”
With that, he pushed me aside and rushed out.
“Mommy…” My daughter’s little face was deathly pale as she looked at me. “It hurts so bad. I want… water.”
She was my flesh and blood. I couldn’t bear to see her suffer, so I turned to pour her a cup of warm water.
But when I turned back, the bed where she had been lying… was empty!
Only the vomit she’d left behind and my phone, still playing the cartoon, were there.
When Harold hurried back with a nurse, he asked, “Where’s Niah? Let’s get the nurse to check on her!”
My heart sank. “Dad, didn’t you see her leave just now?”
He stomped his foot in frustration. “I just came from the reception desk with the nurse, Sadie! No one else went by!”
The hospital’s reception desk faces two elevators—if anyone passed through, they would have been seen.
But neither Harold nor the nurse saw anyone, except for Priscilla, who had gone downstairs earlier.
We searched everywhere inside and outside the hospital but couldn’t find a trace of our daughter.
We checked the emergency stairwells up and down—still… no sign.
‘My six-year-old daughter just vanished without a trace!’
When Priscilla returned with a bag of food, she broke down crying in despair.
I forced myself to stay calm. ‘If we don’t find Niah soon, she might end up like in my past life—suffering and broken!’
With that thought, I immediately called the cops.
When the officers arrived, they reviewed all the hospital’s security footage but found no suspicious activity.
I pleaded with them to check the several cameras outside the hospital as well, but still, there was nothing.
At dawn, the officers comforted us and told us to wait patiently.
Just like that, they left the hospital.
My in-laws and I had other choice but to return home in a daze.
Priscilla was the one who called Tyson in tears to tell him our daughter was missing.
Tyson flew back that afternoon from Illinois.
Hearing that Niah was last with me before disappearing, he looked like he wanted to kill me on the spot.
“No wonder she told me yesterday that you’d have someone kidnap her! You’re really a monster!” he snapped. And then, he demanded, “Tell me—where did you take my daughter?”
When he couldn't get an answer from me, he grabbed a nearby vase and smashed it hard against my face.
I cried; the pain was sharp and immediate, and glass shards cut into my skin, spilling blood everywhere.
One officer urged him to calm down while Harold spoke up for me.
“I stayed with Sadie and Niah all night—only stepped out for two minutes. Besides, I was right by the elevator. It couldn’t have been her!”
“Then how did my daughter vanish into thin air?! How?!” Tyson shouted helplessly. “What the fuck happened?!”
His eyes were bloodshot with rage, staring at me like he wanted to tear me apart.
Before I could respond, the officers received a call—my baby had been found!
Just like last time, she was discovered on a remote country road outside the city…
Covered in blood, she was lying inside an almost-abandoned van, crying and coughing up blood nonstop!
It was only then that I realized—my baby’s legs had been broken again! God, they were at unnatural angles. And her tongue… They cut my baby’s tongue!
Tyson clutched her in his arms, crying as he carried her out.
When she saw me, Niah trembled. The next second, she dipped a finger into the blood smeared on the floor of the van and shakily wrote something.
[Mommy! She tried to kill me!]
I felt like my eyes were going to split open. “Niah! Why are you lying? Why would you accuse me of something like this?!”
Tears streamed down her face as she clung to me, frantically lowering her head in what looked like an apology over and over again, slamming her forehead into the floor.
She hit her head fifteen times before her small body suddenly went limp. Soon, she passed out.
Tyson lunged toward me in a fury, but the officers stepped in, holding him back.
In the chaos, I felt something crumpled in my hand. I looked down.
It was a small wad of paper—stained with blood.
My daughter slipped it to me!
With trembling fingers, I opened it.
A single word was scrawled in blood.
[Cellphone]
My heart pounded. I grabbed my phone, my hands shaking as I unlocked it.
The moment I opened my photo album, I froze. Every hair on my body stood on end.
‘The truth… has been right in front of me all along!’
