Chapter Text
When she was little, should would always talk about the voices. Her parents assumed it was normal. She had imaginary friends, like every other normal child.
It was only when they would start to tell her things that they got worried. Her father was a police officer, a detective, who would get the difficult cases, the ones no one else could figure out. Sometimes, even Henry himself would get stuck. How did they do it?
"Dad," she would cry, lifting up her arms to be picked up. "Dad, he said it was the manager."
"Who said that?" Henry did not bring his eyes up from the case file. Shawn could wait, he had a killer to catch.
"The voices." Little Shawn replied simply, lowering her arms and looking up at her father.
Henry paused. He slowly scanned through the information once more, for what seemed like the millionth time.
And there it was. The proof. It was the manager.
"Tell me more about the voices, Shawn." Henry turned to the girl, closing the file and looking down at her.
Shawn grinned. The girl was more than happy to have her dad's attention for longer than two minutes. So if she had to talk about the voices, she would.
They scared her sometimes. They would whisper little things in her ears, always something dark and scary. The kind of stuff her dad worked with. Killers and arsonists and felons of all kinds.
She met Gus in 3rd grade. They were best friends. He knew about he voices, and didn't leave her or think she was crazy.
In the 10th grade, her sophomore year, she had her first incident. She went to bed, in her cozy pajamas and under her heavy covers and was warm and happy and full from dinner. She woke up in the park.
Shawn panicked. She sobbed openly and loudly, trying her hardest to dial her father's number with her vision warped with tears.
"Shawn, it's 2:30 in the morning," Henry's sleep-heavy voice floated angrily through the reciever. "Go to sleep. If you need something from the kitchen, get it yourself."
"Dad I need help." She said simply, words full of emotion. She let a sob slip free from her lips, one of fear and anguish. She didn't know how she got here.
Henry fell silent, but Shawn could hear the russling of a jacket and the clink of keys on the other end. "Where are you?"
"I don't know," she cried. "I don't know how I got here. I went to bed last night, and when I opened my eyes I was outside and I-"
"Shawn, I'm going to need you to can down. Deep breaths." Henry said slowly, buckling his seatbelt and startin up the car. "Tell me your surroundings."
"Trees, I guess." Shawn said quietly. "A playground. I think I'm in a park."
Throught the dark, she could make out the outline of a sign. "I'm in Elings Park."
"I'll be there soon. Keep taking deep breaths. It's gonna be okay, Shawn."
The next day, Henry Spencer went to the nearest psychiatrist and booked Shawn an appointment.
Shawn was more than pissed. She wasn't crazy. She was the same as everyone else, her father was a police officer and she could see details in things and remember things perfectly and she could hear voices in her head.
On second thought, maybe she was crazy.
When she ranted to Gus, he had only said "Maybe it's for the best, Shawn. If you get put on medication, maybe you won't wake up in the park again. Meds can word wonders, especially-"
After that, Shawn tuned him out. Medication. Gus was just like everyone else. He thought she was crazy.
For now, she would do what they said. But she would show them. Someday.