5-year-old Charlie was always such an easy child. He went to bed when asked to, ate all the meals his mom would make for him and was kind to everyone he met.
Everything seemed to be fine until one day, the voice in his room would not let him go to sleep.
On a Tuesday afternoon, Jessica waited for her husband and son to get back home. While preparing lunch, she got interrupted by a call from Charlie’s school. The concerned teacher tried to ask why Charlie has been so sleepy and tired lately throughout the entire day.
Distraught by the news she received, Jessica started setting up the table with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.
Jessica and her husband directly took initiative after they became aware of the issue at hand. While having lunch together, Jessica asked Charlie the same question that she was asked by the teacher, but was given an answer that would make her entire body crawl.
“The little boy doesn’t let me sleep at night,” Charlie said, munching on his meal nonchalantly.
Alarmed by their son’s words, Jessica and David set up a camera in Charlie’s room. They made sure they placed it at a time when their son was not home and, in a place, he could not reach. They did not want to frighten their son.
After a few days, they checked the tapes and what they found left them more confused than they were in the first place.
On Friday afternoon, Jessica and David played the recordings that they made of the past 2 nights. With furrowed eyebrows, they turned to each other trying to understand what was happening. They wanted to find something, anything, but they found nothing. Charlie slept soundly through the night.
David was planning on removing the camera at night but thanked himself the next day for not doing so.
Getting ready to remove the camera from Charlie’s room, David got a gut feeling that urged him to watch the tape one last time. When watching the tape of the night, his knees felt weak. He heard the voice of another kid in his son’s room.
Unable to process what he was watching, David frantically called Jessica over.
Both David and Jessica watched as this kid spoke, “I don’t want to sleep. I am not tired”, with Charlie answering “I am tired. So, can you please keep it down?”. The video sent chills down Jessica’s back.
“Where is he? Where is the kid?!” Jessica watched in disbelief.
They played the tape over and over again, in hopes of finding the other kid, but failed miserably. They ruled out all possible explanations. The door was closed, the window was shut and the voice was way too loud to be coming from anywhere but Charlie’s room.
Charlie’s parents knew that it was time to step into action as they plotted a fail-proof plan.
Charlie’s parents knew what they had to do. To catch the culprit, they’d have to be there to witness the crime. Each parent took a turn sleeping with Charlie in his bedroom, leaving the camera rolling.
Five days went by before Charlie’s parents almost gave up, as neither of them heard or witnessed anything. Until one night, when they least expected, the child spoke.
“It’s just you and me again, let’s play!” the child blurted out. Jessica sprung up in bed and yelled out to her husband “David! I can hear him!”. In a matter of seconds, David jumped out of bed and hurried to his son’s room. “Where is he?” David gasped.
Turning to each other, they heard the voice speak again, but this time they were able to locate him.
Turning to the side of the table, they saw the baby monitor light up as the child spoke. The parents stood there, puzzled and confused as to how that was possible. If their baby was silently sitting in his crib, who was the child?
David grabbed the monitor and switched it off. As the room went dead silent, they heard the child’s laugh from a distance.
Jessica took small but confident strides towards the window and pulled it wide open. They looked at each other, coming to the same realization that the sound was coming from the house next door.
Despite putting the puzzle pieces together, they were far from feeling content. They desperately needed answers.
Charlie’s parents waited till the morning came, and made the much-needed phone call to the company that sold these baby monitors. It turned out that their neighbors had purchased the same baby monitor model, as the frequencies got mixed up, making Charlie hear what the baby next-door would say.
After going back and forth, the company offered Charlie’s parents an offer they could not decline.
The company offered the family a full refund on their baby monitor, promised to look into it, and discontinue the model at hand once the malfunction is identified. The couple still felt like that was not enough.
They then took initiative and decided to take it to the public, but they did not anticipate the feedback that they got.
After their story gained popularity on social media platforms, so many other parents spoke up about facing similar issues with the same model. Their story did not only have an impact on other parents, for the company then acted on their statement and later produced an improved model.
It is up to people like David and Jessica to make a difference in the world. You never know who you’re saving when you speak up.