I wasn’t going to post this because my mom believes me, but I decided to share anyway.

When I was a kid I was staying at my friends house (probably like 10 years old) and was supposed to sleep over. I don’t remember what we were doing, but me, him and his slightly older sister were just hanging around when his dad comes home and tells everyone to get ready because they were going ice skating (I wasn’t aware of this before I decided to stay over). I didn’t know how to ice skate and felt weird so I told them that my mom was expecting me home (it was a terrible excuse, but we were kids and weren’t logical). It’s like 8 or 9 pm, but it’s really dark and I don’t know how to get home. I left the house though and tried to find a street I noticed even though I could barely see and I didn’t have a phone or anything on me. Like 15 minutes pass and I finally see a house with lights on and it’s their house again, I went in a circle. I see them coming out of the house ready to leave and I’m too embarrassed to ask for help (since I left 15 minutes ago). So I turn around and run so they don’t see me.

At this point it’s late and I’m a 10 year old kid scared as fuck and I’m basically crying. I’m so scared that I’m frantically begging God to help me. This goes on for another 20 minutes. I finally get to a spot that I kind of notice, I remember this being near a hill (not a grass hill, a street hill) that we used to scooter/bike/skateboard down, and I know to get to the beach from the hill and I know how to get home from the beach. So I walk up to it and I just stand there for a second contemplating. This looks like the hill, but if it isn’t then I’m gonna get even more lost because I’m going downhill somewhere. When I finally decide that this was the way to go I see a man at the bottom, just standing there. No cars were coming by and he wasn’t on the side walk, just at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the street.

I am even more scared than I was before so I decide to turn around and I hear him yell my name. Looking back he probably wasn’t yelling my name. The shortened version of my name is Lou, so he was probably yelling “You”. It’s a small town so I assume it’s either a family member or a friend of my parents (i was convincing myself that it was my oldest brother since he would go on late night walks and it’s really late at this point). So I see him start to walk up the hill as I turn around. There is a lot of distance between us. The hill is high and long, like he is really far away. He was slowly walking but then he looked like he was getting faster and I ran away. I didn’t know what clicked in my head at that moment but I no longer felt safe with this person that I could barely see. All I remember at this point is running and taking turns and then I remember being in a less scary place. I was on a street with streetlights and there were cars going by (brighter and less creepy). I don’t remember how I got home though, but I remember going home that night and telling my mom what happened.

When my mom was calming me down I realized why I felt off about the man that I thought was my brother. She said “it’s all going to be fine Louie” and I felt so safe and I realized that the man couldn’t have known me even if he was yelling my name; because no one in my family or that knows me has called me Lou before. I’ve had some people call me that, but not people I know, only people I met once or twice. Like the public safety guy at school who called me Lou when I told him my name or the Janitor who I helped after lunch one day.

My mom is the only one who believes me and no one else does (then or now). I will never know who that guy was. He could have been a kind stranger who saw a lost kid or he could have been a kidnapper. In my memories I just see a black shadowy man at the bottom of the kill.