Four years ago, my mother and father went to the Atacama Desert. My mother, Helen, returned from the expedition not long after, but my father, David, refused to give up. He vanished into the desert, and for four years, we heard nothing. Then, just last week, the official word came from the authorities. My father, missing for four years, was confirmed dead. All that was left of him was a tattered backpack and a diary. The canvas of the pack was stained with blood and matted with hair. A DNA test confirmed our worst fears. It was his. My mother and I held a funeral with an empty casket, burying only the backpack and the diary in a memorial grave in our backyard. But on the third night after the funeral… my dead father came home. He stood there smiling a chilling smile, caked in dirt and dust, without a trace of human warmth, as if he’d just clawed his way out of the earth. “Lily,” he said, his voice a dry rasp. “Did you miss your daddy?” … A shiver traced its way down my spine. I squeezed a single word from my throat. “Yes…” His smile widened. He reached out with a rough, calloused hand and pinched my cheek. The coldness of his touch was alarming, sinking deep into my bones. It wasn't the temperature of a living person. I was terrified. My father was dead. His last known possessions were buried in the empty grave behind the house. So who—or what—was this thing standing in front of me? In a panic, I called for my mother. She was showering upstairs and yelled down, asking what was wrong. I hesitated, then told her everything in a rush. “Mom, Dad’s home!” “What?!” A minute later, she ran down the stairs, still damp, her robe hastily tied. She looked ready to scold me for talking nonsense, but then she saw him. Standing in our living room. My father smiled his weary, weathered smile and pulled a few rocks from his pocket. “Helen, I’m back. I know it’s been hard on you, running the house and taking care of Lily all these years.” “I brought you these stones from the Atacama. A souvenir.” He tried to press the stones into my mother's hand, but she flinched away. They fell to the floor with a heavy, dull thud. Mom stared at the rocks on the floor, her expression a mask of horror. Her lips pressed into a thin, white line. I couldn't tell if she was more afraid of my father, or of the stones themselves. But Dad just kept smiling. It seemed to be the only expression he had left. His idea of romance—bringing home rocks from his adventures—was just as tone-deaf as ever. Nothing had changed. My father was an adventurer at heart. Before they were married, both he and Mom were part of an amateur exploration club. After they married, Dad quit the official club but was still constantly away, forming small expedition teams with other enthusiasts. When I was born, he stayed home a little more, but you couldn't chain down his free spirit. He went on his trips all the same. In my memory, the only one who was ever trapped was my mother. When I was little and I cried, she would cry with me. I remember her cycles of breakdown and recovery, a long, slow grind until I was old enough for her to go back to her job as a nurse. My father never understood her sacrifices. He just complained that she had become boring. Every place he conquered, he brought back a rock for her. Her vanity wasn't filled with jewelry or makeup, but with a collection of stones from all over the country. And now, there was one more. Forget my mother; even I thought it was cruel. I wanted to throw it as far as I could. But Dad just smiled that chilling smile and asked, “What’s wrong, Helen? Don’t you like it?” “I love it,” Mom replied, her voice cold as ice. She told him to go upstairs, take a shower, and get some sleep. He agreed without argument, still smiling as he went upstairs. The moment we heard the shower start, Mom grabbed my arm and dragged me into a corner, her grip like a vice! “Lily! Listen to me very carefully! Remember every word!” her voice was a panicked whisper. “That man is not your father! Your father is dead in the Atacama!” “No matter what he says, no matter what he does, do not believe him! He is not your father!” A father returned from the dead should have been a miracle. For us, it was a curse. I was used to it being just Mom and me. Having this… father… in the house made my skin crawl. The next morning, Mom left early. She sent me a text saying she had to take care of something important and might be gone for a few days. She transferred a sum of money into my account and told me to take care of myself. Her last message was a stark reminder. “Don’t trust him, Lily. He is NOT your father!” My heart leaped into my throat. I had barely finished reading the text when I sensed a shadow behind me. I spun around to see my father’s face, his lips stretched into that unnatural smile. “Good morning, Lily. Texting your mom? Where is she? I didn’t see her this morning.” “She went to work,” I said quickly. “She has a business trip. She’ll be back in a few days.” Dad’s smile didn’t falter. He pushed his glasses up his nose, his eyes glinting as he easily dismantled my lie. “Your mother is just a nurse. She has business trips?” “Of course,” I improvised, my mind racing. “She’s up for the Head Nurse position. There’s a provincial competition. She’s been working so hard these past four years, Dad. Juggling her job and taking care of me.” I turned the question back on him. “What about you, Dad? Where have you been for four years? Why didn’t you call, not even once?” He paused. For a second, the look behind his glasses turned sharp and cold. But the smile remained plastered on his face. He began to tell me about his time in the desert, the dangers he faced, the vast, empty beauty he witnessed. He spoke in great detail, as if he really had been there for four years, and he had all of Dad’s memories of Mom and me. As he spoke, my eyes kept darting to the empty grave in the yard. I thought of the diary. It had to contain the real story of what happened to him in the Atacama. Mom had forbidden me from reading it when the police returned it, saying it would be too traumatic, that I’d never recover from the loss. She buried it to protect me. But what if I dug it up now? Could it give me a clue? If I compared its contents to what this man was telling me, maybe the truth would come out. I tucked the idea away and continued to make noncommittal conversation with him. At noon, he offered to cook lunch. The day wasn’t particularly warm, but he cranked the air conditioning, setting it to a very low temperature, letting the cold air blast directly onto him. Amidst the recycled air, I caught a faint, strange, foul odor. But I didn't dare say anything. I just pretended not to notice and ate the meal he prepared. It tasted just as bad as I remembered his cooking. Nothing unusual there. After lunch, he said he was tired and went to his room to rest. He took another shower first, then went into his room and turned on the air conditioning, again setting it very low. As I walked past his door, a chilly draft seeped out from under it. The room inside was pitch black; he had drawn all the curtains. He had developed a sudden love for the dark. I noted all of this but kept silent, retreating to my own room. Once I was sure he was asleep, I grabbed a shovel and crept out to the backyard. I started digging. The memorial grave wasn’t deep. It only took me about fifteen minutes. I pulled out the backpack, retrieved the diary, and stuffed it inside my shirt. I quickly filled the hole back in and ran back to my room before he could wake up. I locked my door and windows, my heart pounding with anticipation as I opened the diary. It was definitely my father’s handwriting. The first twenty or so entries chronicled his journey into the Atacama. He wrote that he had entered the desert without issue and had met another expedition team, joining them on their journey. They decided to change their route to visit the ruins of Humberstone, a 19th-century ghost town in an undeveloped sector of the desert. Then, for a long time, the diary was blank. Pages and pages of empty paper. When the writing resumed, it was a single, terrifying sentence, written in what looked like blood. “Lily! If you’re reading this, run! Your mother is not your mother anymore…” “Run, do you understand?!” The chilling, blood-red words burned themselves into my mind. I gasped, and the diary fell from my trembling hands. As it hit the floor, a photograph slipped out. The photo was taken against a backdrop of a dusty, twilight-orange desert landscape. In the distance were the crumbling ruins of the Humberstone ghost town. And half-buried in the sand was the body of a woman. Her face had been gnawed away by scavengers, making her unrecognizable, but I knew the clothes she was wearing. And the bracelet on her wrist… I recognized it instantly. It was a bracelet I had made for my mother four years ago on a trip with my friends, with a small, laser-engraved message of love hidden on the clasp. But how did that bracelet end up in the Atacama? And who was this dead woman? My mind was a tangled mess of questions, my nerves stretched to their absolute limit. A knock on my door jolted me back to reality. “Lily? Are you sleeping? Why is the door locked?” It was my father. He jiggled the handle, his tone urgent, a stark contrast to his earlier gentleness. “Lily, open the door!” “Lily, what are you doing in there? Why are you locking the door in your own home? Hiding from your own father?” His voice grew more agitated, more accusatory. “What are you really doing? Do you have a boy in there? Is that it? You think you can sneak him in while I’m asleep? You have no respect for me at all!” He was shouting now, twisting the handle frantically, kicking at the door. I was frozen with fear. I tried calling my mother, but her phone went straight to a "not reachable" message. The next second, the door burst open, splintering from the frame! I had managed to hide the diary just in time. I watched, terrified, as my father stormed in, his face a mask of rage. He scanned my room, his eyes wild. “Where is he? Where is he!” “Lily, where did you hide that little bastard?!” I couldn't even breathe. I could only cry silently. “I… I don't know what you're talking about, Dad. There’s no one here. I was just taking a nap.” “You need to lock the door for a nap?” he sneered. His eyes were cold as stone. “Don’t you ever lock this door again. Do you hear me?!” I curled into a ball on my bed and nodded. Instantly, his expression changed. He smiled and reached out to pat my head. “Good girl. That’s my good Lily.” As he touched my head, I smelled it again. That foul, rotting odor. My father was not my father. And whether my mother was still my mother… I no longer knew. Everything had become a terrifying mystery.
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