Day 196: Do You Believe Me?

Should be Day 211.

I have no friends in this world.  All of my family has abandoned me.  Strangers won't even look at my face.  I am alone.

I am not hideous.  I do not have any deformities.  I don't have any weird quirks, like stuttering or ticks or wanting to itch my nose 24/7.  No, I'm perfectly normal, which is why I don't understand why people hate me so much.  Maybe it's my hair.  It's awfully orange looking, for a girl, and it's very curly, making it hard to maintain.  Put overalls on me and stick a gun in my hands, and I'd probably look like a wild mountain girl.  A person doesn't deserve to be hated for what she looks like, or what she believes in. 

It all started when I was twelve.  I didn't like telling anyone about it at first.  I knew people would start treating me differently, and I was right.  Footprints had been everywhere, all shapes and sizes.  Once, I thought I saw a bear's footprint too.  It turned out to be only a guy dressed in a costume hired for a birthday party.  But the rest of the footprints were real.  There must have been at least six different sets of prints, one smaller set belong to a child or midget.  I didn't think too much about them.  I used to see them every day outside my cabin window.  When I did try to show them to my dad a week later, they were gone.  No visible traces.

Then I started seeing evidence in the house.  At first I thought I was imagining it all.  My closet door was open when I thought I closed it.  A t-shirt was on the opposite side of my drawer.  Part of my coloring page that I had on my desk was colored in.  My toothbrush was moved.  The more these things happened, the more I was sure the Gang had invaded my room.  It was only my room they touched, never the kitchen or the living room or any of the other bedrooms.

Whenever I tried to tell my mother about it, she shrugged her shoulders and said I had a vivid imagination.  Who would dream up something like that, I'd like to know.  I started being afraid to go to sleep at night.  My shades would flap violently in the night breeze.  My door would creak, gently but loudly.  My skin crawled at the thought of a Gang invading my room to try on my clothes and snoop through my treasures box while I slept.  I had nightmares they would take me to their secret lab and do experiments on me with the DNA they would collect.  The Gang must have known I caught on to them because one day all of it stopped.  No more objects misplaced or disturbed.  Total quiet.  I should have known it was simply their tactic to put me off guard.

For the next seven years, they sporadically came and went from my life.  Sometimes they stayed two months, sometimes nine, and sometimes it was only for a few days.  They always came though.  Eventually I saw signs of them at school.  Shadows lingered on the walls and then disappeared as I rounded the corner, and my locker was never in the same condition I left it. 

Even when we moved to Nebraska and then Washington, the Gang was somehow able to find me.  I know it was the same people because the same six (sometimes) seven sets of footprints were there.  When a Gang was been following you for seven years, you get to know them.  Besides the child midget, there was a large set which I assumed belonged to the dad or the ring leader.  There was always a slender set, could be from a mom or little old lady.  One of them liked eating strawberry Starbursts because I often found wrappers on my bedroom floor.  I never ate chewy candy.  Another one of them liked vanilla scented perfume.  The wind often carried it to me at night, or I smelled it in my locker.  I'm afraid of strangers now because I never know if the person I meet is a part of the Gang.  

The thing I couldn't figure out was why?  Why follow me?  What's so special about me?  I was average.  I didn't do anything interesting.  After I hadn't been kidnapped for three years, I assumed they never wanted to take me.  What did they want from me?  These questions often haunt my thoughts.

People don't ask me anymore why I always look behind my shoulder or keep my head down when they talk to them.  My parents stopped paying for my bi-monthly appointments at Dr. Katz's office.  I have given up on deviating away from my normal routine.  I welcome the Gang when they come, for they are always with me now.  My true friends in this world.  I stick by them, even if no one believes me.