I've always kind of been a sceptic — y'know, scoffing at scary stories, doing my own research… wondering just how much I could know.
That lasted from around age 4 to when I saw my friend vanish.
12 August, 2007.
Me and Frankie were up waaaaaay past late — we really did know better, but we didn't much care for our safety — and were out in the abandoned park. The amount of rusty nails sticking out of that see-saw, the roundabout barely clinging to its axel, the swingset with its old basket swing now on the ground in a pathetic heap… they all came together to create a strange atmosphere. It was a children's place, but it had grown up. That place gave rise to me and Frankie's best alone time: iPod + speaker + dingy swingset..! Nostalgia just drips from it, even now 2 years on.
This day was a bit different, though. It was raining hard, but we couldn't care less. My personal motto at the time was 'the best umbrella is just getting wet.' Stupid.
Long story short, Frankie and I had a wonderful 11 o' clock gossip, we listened to a load of shitty pop music, we broke our speaker by getting it wet (water resistant my ass), and carried o just as normal. It was all normal, right up until she slipped out of the swingset,
and she didn't exist anymore.
What?
I looked back at where she'd been just seconds before. There was nothing there. I touched the ground there, and it was entirely solid. It was the sort of rough playground tiling that felt like gritty sandpaper, which felt really strange when it was wet. It seemed like nothing was wrong… so where was she?
13 August, 2007.