As a kid hide and seek was my favorite game. In my neighborhood all the kids would come and play it. Hide and seek was always very fun and innocent, that’s probably because my life was never on the line. Not like this. The thing had ripped the life from my mother in front of my very eyes, then asked if I wanted to play a game. It was classic horror movie stuff, but it was still terrifying when happening in real life. It’s voice was rough and reminded me of tree bark. The thing told me we were playing hide and seek. The rules were simple, I could hide anywhere, no telling anyone what’s happening, don’t let the thing catch me. The thing gave me an hour head start and I grabbed my bike and rode as fast as I could away. Maybe I could get to another town or at least far away. Sooner than I thought I heard a voice in my boom “your times up, better run!” My breathe came out in pants as I panicked for what to do, I couldn’t escape this! This thing was supernatural therefore it could probably find me a lot faster than I could run. Defeat washed over me as I slowly walked into an alleyway to hide. At least when I die I’ll be with my mother again.

She was perfect in every way. She was smart and funny and beautiful. But she was also very shy and rarely ever spoke to people. Unlike me who was very outgoing but wasn’t intelligent, has messed up humor, and wasn’t at all attractive. She hung around in the back while I jumped into the middle of the chaos. She was kind while I was considered evil. She was very innocent and sweet and I was dirty minded and violent.

After years of being friends I realized she was nothing like when I first met her. Maybe I corrupted her or maybe I just know her better now. She can be vicious, threatens and scares people for fun, and drags me around to create trouble with her. She tells jokes about death and religion. Everyone still thinks she’s sweet and innocent and then it’s my job to tell them she could literally kill them with her pinky. I’d do anything for her though, beat someone up, help her hide a body, kill someone, even sell my soul for her happiness.

This was bad, horrible, horrendous, terrifying. The body of my best friend was propped against the wall blood splattered everywhere. Without thinking I called the police and they arrived in minutes. Me and my two other friends were both taken into interrogation. I was sweating profusely as o waited for my turn. Praying that I don’t look suspicious.

Here I was, sitting in a uncomfortable metal chair across from a large burly police officer. He asked me questions about where I was and what I was doing. Teddy was dead. To be honest I never liked the dude I just hung out with him because he was friends with Lila. Teddy never seemed like the type to kill himself so he had to have been one of us. It couldn’t have been Rufus though he’s just so innocent. The police officer looked grim and disappointed as he told me to leave the room.

Teddy is gone. He’s gone, as in dead, as in never coming back. Rufus had been panicking but I was just trying not to cry. They were asking me questions. Yes I was asleep, no I didn’t hear any weird noises. Was I ready to admit that I think I know who did it, no I’m not. Ty never liked Teddy, he can also be a psycho sometimes. I’ve seen him beat a kid until bloody and on the verge of death then two minutes later forget what happened entirely. Rufus couldn’t have done it, but Ty could have. My best friend was gone because of his crush. The police closed the case a week later deeming it not as important as others.

Hearing thoughts isn’t all it’s cracked up to be I learned. One morning I just woke up with the ability I haven’t looked at people the same since. I’ve heard so many things I wish I didn’t, from confessions to fantasies.

The first day of this power gave me a new best friend. His name is Jacob everyone always considered him weird. He always just sat in the corner in school never participating, never talking to anyone. Jacobs thoughts used to scare me. He would make very detailed plans to kill all our classmates right down to the socks he would wear. But Jacob is misunderstood I didn’t realize it until weeks later when he was thinking about being beaten. Jacob seemed to have a rough childhood beaten by people from children to what looked like his parents. He seemed to have been bullied from school to school until he arrived here. He sometimes would think about how no one would miss him if he died.

“Can I help you” I asked, his head snapped up to look at me. “No, I don’t need any help” he said turning back to his book. “My names Kade, we share some classes” I say “yeah” he replies “you’re Jacob right” I ask he nods. Then I gave him my number I didn’t know if he would text me but I wanted him to know someone tried. The “weird” kids are usually always misunderstood or at least that was the case for my friend Jacob. We do everything together now and he doesn’t ask me how I knew he needed help. We both have our secrets that we need to hide from the world.

From a young age I was told to never go into the woods. The village said it’s where lost souls would roam. They also told of the woman in the mist, the woman of deception. She would lure people in with tricks or illusions, only to brutally murder them once they’re vulnerable. Like every child here I grew up with these stories and warnings but when my mother died I lost all of my sense.

Here I am now, age eight trekking through the old dead forest. If there were lost souls here my mom will be here, she was murdered after all. Fog started clouding up fast as I ventured deeper into the haunted woods and I began to shiver. ‘Just a little further’ I thought ‘then I’ll turn back’. Suddenly I heard a voice, it sounded just like mom! It was calling me, her voice sounded sad but just like when she would sing me to sleep. “Mom” I called running forward towards where I heard the voice. The voice gradually grew louder until I broke through the trees into a small clearing. Fog covered everything in front of me except for a woman. This woman had long black hair and was wearing a long white dress that looked like a too big tee shirt. The fog and mist seemed to halo her and I suddenly felt uneasy. Suddenly the woman started cackling and before I could even run away she flung herself towards me and stabbed a branch through my neck. Before my vision faded I heard my moms voice saying “what’s wrong, didn’t you want to see me again”.

It was freezing. That was how I woke up on the fourth of December. It wasn’t unusual to wake up cold during the winter so I got excited. Quickly I turned on my light and opened the curtains

Snow mountains of it. The large flakes billowed from the gray sky glittering in the faint sun. Frost covered every window in the house I ran out of my room. Before my mom could speak I was getting into a coat and snow pants. Then out the door I went trying desperately not to slip on the thick layer of ice that had formed over the door mat. Once out of the house the fun began. 

 The kids in the neighborhood were also already outside running, sledding, building, and throwing snowballs. It was cold but none of us even noticed as we ran all around doing everything we possibly could in this sparkling wonderland. But to soon the sun started to set and the hills of snow glowed orange and we were called inside. The clothes left a puddle in the doorway but I didn’t care just like how I didn’t care how cold I was. Now it was time to plan for tomorrow. 

Ask anyone they will tell you the first snow is always the best.

Legend says the thing in the mask is as old as time itself. Others argue differently saying he was the son of death themself.

The story goes that during a horrible disease millions of years ago a figure would appear in front of someone. It wasn’t tall and intimidating like people would imagine it was actually short and huddled into itself. It usually only wore a casual coat and held a black umbrella, people believe it’s to disguise itself. But the face is long and skull like with glass eyes. It seems to have a bandanna over it’s mouth but other than that it’s face is empty. Soon after the person would appear it would come back and that night the person would die. 

 People soon learned about this and if they saw the famous masked thing they would dress up in animal skins or some sort of costume. It was said that the masked person wouldn’t be able to recognize you if you were disguised and wouldn’t come back for you. 

 The people of the world soon made this a tradition and is now what people call Halloween. Whether you believe this tale or not is up to you. But always watch your back and remember. They’re always watching.

“I don’t know why I just couldn’t help myself” Kate said brightly twirling the knife in her hand. “You..I can’t believe you..” Cole stuttered he was concerned and confused. Him and Kate had been talking on the phone just a few hours ago and now here she was. In an alley blood spattered on her clothes a red knife and dead body in front of her. He had never thought her capable of murder just the empty threats. Sure there were times he had to drag her off of people who had bullied her friends but that was just school fights. Sirens blared in the distance “that excuse isn’t gonna hold up in court” Cole says “they can take me to jail, but I’ll just get out” she says. It was true Kate was very resourceful and a lot of people would probably try to help break her out. Maybe she was a little too resourceful. All Cole could do was look back and forth from the dead body of their class mate and to his best friend smiling and twirling a knife. No, not his best friend this wasn’t her. She would never do something like this, right?
The sirens got louder, who knows if they were coming here or not. Either way they would see the blood then would see Kate and then it was game over for her. “So are you gonna help me hide it or what” she asks “no I don’t want anything to do with this” Cole said starting to walk away. “but that makes you a witness” Kate said catching up to him. “So what” he asks, he was starting to get scared. This was nothing like her. His panic rose every second she continued to stare at him. She looked at him like she was plotting something. “so, the key to a good murder is no witnesses” she says in that cheerful bright voice and a smile that’s as bright as the sun. Then there’s a sudden sharp pain between his shoulder blades but he can’t scream Kate covered his mouth. He can feel the blood oozing from the wound in his back and he sees his vision start to go black. His last thought is that his best friend literally stabbed him in the back.

Don’t get caught be quiet I chanted in my head as I scaled the outer wall. I’d looked for the blind spots where there were no guards for awhile last night. After the meeting. Meeting, that’s a very formal word for what was going on. Really this whole thing was crazy the war, the secrets, the laws. But I suppose what could I expect, I’m a princess after all. I’m supposed to be with a prince or at least someone of high status. Princes are all pompous asses though, they think there better than everyone due to there upbringing and status. With great caution I look both ways making sure there’s no guards around then book it to the forest. If I’m caught I could be sentenced to life in prison for treachery or death for supposed spying. War is a terrible time, but sadly even if there was no war this would still be illegal. It’s just unfair my sister gets to be happy but I can’t. Hearing a twig snap I look behind me, probably just a squirrel but you can never be to careful. Then I’m at the spot we’d agreed on and I wait. Suddenly I find myself immobile, I’m a pinned to the tree behind me and I can’t move anything. Not my arms, not my legs, and I can’t yell or I might alert someone that I’d snuck off. “Were you followed” the person hisses I look close and see those beautiful emerald green eyes I love so much. “No, you scared me I didn’t recognize you” I say they scoff and slip there pointed witch hat off. There long curly hazel hair falls in waves down there back. “Well at least the hat did it’s job” she says “I love you, Eve” I say. She smiles “I love you too, I promise we’ll find a way out of this, we’ll fight for our rights” she says. We smile at each other and enjoy the limited time we have together.

My son has been telling me for days now he’s afraid of his room. It all started Halloween night he was happy and falling asleep. Then two hours later he woke me up saying he was scared. He hadn’t done this since he was really little but when I asked him why he wouldn’t tell me. Then he stopped getting clothes from his closet at first I just thought he was being lazy and dramatic. Then his stories started always vague descriptions of a man with no eyes just bloody open sockets. When I asked him what he was talking about he would smile and say “what do you mean mom”. He started acting different to, more angry and scared. He would lash out at people for the littlest thing then when we would talk to him about it later his eyes would go wide and he would start crying. He would curl up into a ball and say “I’m sorry” over and over again. Then I thought they were nightmares because he could describe these insane things so vividly. Like a man in a tuxedo running out of his closet with a machete seeming to be staring at him even though he had no eyes. But when I brought the stuff up he would lash out at me saying that “it doesn’t matter mom!” Last night I brought this up to my husband and asked if our son needed therapy he has told me that he’s at the age where his imagination is running wild and he’s fine. But as our son started getting more and more strange I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t the boy I knew and raised anymore. He was a complete stranger in my sons body. Today he was acting very normal…until his bedtime came around. “Thomas, time for bed” I had called and he looked at me with such fear in his eyes I felt scared. He looked at me his eyes welling with tears and said “but I don’t want to go to bed, the man with no eyes is waiting for me in the closet”. Was this really just his imagination, this seems worse than that. “Thomas there is no man in the closet, it’s just a nightmare” I had told him though I didn’t know which one of us I was trying to convince. “No it’s not” Thomas cries and I felt sad. “It is hon I promise there is no scary man trying to get you” that’s what I told him. But he was right all along. The next day I was at an interview with the police telling them everything my son had told me before his end. The officers told me the same thing my husband had told me days ago, it was just his imagination. The officer said that his imagination must have morphed the killer into something else and so we had no clue who had murdered my son. The funeral was a sad day and it seemed to have a physical weight on me. There weren’t many people there just family friends and some of Thomas’s friends from school. But I could have sworn in the shadows of my periphery I saw a man in a tuxedo with no eyes only bloody sockets with a machete “staring” at me.