The Girl behind the Bush

Overprotective by nature and anxious by personality, I was the mother of twin daughters, for what I had known, thirty minutes and after that, it was one daughter. The healthier, fairer one. The other one wasn't affordable to cure. 

One fine day,  I sat in the kids' area looking after my daughter as she made sand-castles and broke them down to rebuild and kept doing so for a while.

I sat a couple of feet apart scanning my phone for emails and after I was done, the sight of her gone made me want to faint, however, I kept myself together. But couldn't help staring at the bucket full of sand and a broken castle, where a couple of seconds ago my daughter was. 

I tried to call out her name but the sand made me cough. Sudden strong winds blew sand into my eyes making them water. Tears started spilling with a rapid, inevitable flow carrying physical pain and enormous anxiety. I shouted out her name on top of my lungs and ran all over the park scanning every corner of it. I didn't know what to do and where to go, all I was doing was praying...to whom and what, I hadn't known. It was the time when I wished from the bottom of my heart for the existence of God to be real. After a while, I heard my daughter call and I made haste towards the source of the sound.

As I reached her, she was making her way out of a wildly grown bush. I  hugged her tight, thanking God with endless gratitude. She pulled away from me and I noticed she looked a shade darker and all the colour on her face had faded. She looked pale and tense. 

"What's the matter, darling?" I had asked, still between sobs.

"I saw a girl in the bushes, I didn't like her" her eyes turned red as she spoke.

"What was she like?"

"Like me, except fairer and was alive"