"Not So Imaginary Friend" - 04/30/2009

"Not So Imaginary Friend"
04/30/2009

I was in an unfamiliar apartment complex at night. There was a little boy hanging around, who had this mysterious little 'girlfriend' around his own age. They were always playing together, and on this night, I caught up with them while they were playing in the grass in front of one of the stairwells. I was walking along the sidewalk, and I moved in a little closer to see what they were doing. There was a tree positioned between us, and as I walked around behind it, it blocked my view of the pair for just a moment. Continuing on, passing the tree, the little boy came back into view from the other side. Oddly enough, though, the little girl didn't. I wondered if she'd walked a little to one side, to where the tree was still blocking her, so I kept walking - taking two more steps, then three, then four. The little girl was nowhere to be seen. It was as if she'd simply vanished, and the little boy was sitting there, playing by himself.

Suddenly, I got the feeling of a presence behind me, and I quickly turned around. The little girl was standing right behind me, staring up at me. We'd only met eye to eye for a moment, before she unexpectedly opened her mouth. Eerily, it grew wider and wider, as did her eyes - all of the color rushing out of her face. Her mouth stretched even wider, until it was twice its normal size. Her face went ashen white, and she let out this ghoulish scream that assaulted all my senses and sent me into vertigo, disorienting me to the point where I lost all sight and felt that I blacked out.

The next thing I knew, it was daytime, and I was pulling up to the same complex with Tony. We spent a little while hanging out and went down to a bar that was attached to the complex, meeting up with a bunch of the people I work with (I usually go to the bar for lunch with them, which is attached to the building I work in). We had a few drinks, and walked back to the apartments once it got dark. After getting rid of everyone else, I was walking through a really dark hallway, a bit apprehensive about my surroundings, because I remembered the ghost girl that I'd seen the previous night. Coming to a room at the end of the hall, I walked inside and saw the little boy. I just had to find out more about this ghostly friend of his, but when I asked him about her, he acted as if I didn't know what I was talking about. He played completely unaware of her existence, and even got to telling me that I was just imagining things, and he didn't even have a little girlfriend that he'd been playing with. I actually argued with him about it for a little bit, but he was steadfast in his assertion that I was off my rocker.

Shortly afterward, the boy was called out with the rest of the kids in the complex. They were all going somewhere together. I don't remember any costumes, but it was as if they were all going trick-or-treating or something. I was still highly upset that he disavowed any knowledge of the little girl, and I watched the boy through an upper-story window as he went out to meet the rest of the kids in the distance. To my surprise, while he walked out toward the group, I saw the boy reach out to one side, walking with his hand out as if he was holding someone's hand, but there was no one there. What I did see, though - due to a street lamp shining in his direction - was a mysterious shadow. Two walking legs strolled beneath the figure of another small child, the shadow's arm stretched out and connecting to the arm of the boy's own shadow. Apparently, the boy had been lying, and he and his now invisible friend walked hand-in-hand, on their way to join the other kids.