When I was eight, my cousin and I were best friends. I would go to his house every week and play Nintendo 64 with him for hours. About twenty-three years ago, I did this for the last time.
After school, my mom picked me up and drove me to my cousin’s house. Our parents had organized a sleepover for us, so I was extremely excited. After a five-minute drive there, my cousin and I greeted each other. We immediately started talking about Mario while playing WWF War Zone and drinking Mountain Dew. After a few hours of this, we both got bored. I was pouring a bowl of Goldfish when my cousin said, “Wanna play hide and seek?”
I said yes and my cousin started counting down from twenty. I glanced around and found a great hiding spot right next to a window. I was silently chuckling to myself when I saw something outside. It was a tall and shadowy figure. I looked at it in confusion and it looked back at me. It started waving. It had no eyes, mouth, or nose and it had grey skin. I was staring at it in terror when I heard something from behind me. My cousin yelled, “I found you!” I replied, “Dude, you scared me!” I looked at my cousin and quickly looked back at the window, but the creature was gone.
Throughout the rest of the night, I was supposed to be having fun, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t forget what I had just seen. While we were eating dinner, my cousin noticed that I seemed a bit down. He said, “What’s wrong?” I told him, “Nothing. I’m fine.” When I said this, I looked up at him and saw the monster from earlier looming behind him. I screamed, “Behind you!” He quickly turned around and saw nothing. The thing had just disappeared. “You tricked me!” is what he said. He thought I was joking. I replied in a shaky voice, “No, there was something behind you. I’m not kidding, I swear.” His happy expression turned into a confused one. In a weirded-out tone, he said, “Ok?”
We watched some TV for a while when my cousin said, “Truth or dare?” I replied, “Dare.” He told me, “Go outside without a coat for one minute.” It was in the middle of January, so the ground was covered in snow. I didn’t want to be a wuss, so I agreed to this. I stepped into the freezing snow and my cousin started counting down. To my horror, the thing was out there with me. It stomped toward me and looked me in the eyes. For about thirty seconds, it stared at me. I tried making words, but I couldn’t. I was frozen. In a deep and gravelly voice, it said, “Do not worry. You are safe for now.” I could hear my cousin say, “Fifty-eight! Fifty-nine! Sixty! You’re done!” He opened the door and said, “Come in!” The monster had disappeared again. I slowly walked to the house and came inside. I plopped down on a chair and didn’t say a word.
I was scared. I thought, “What if that thing hurts somebody?” I sat down for about a half hour before finally deciding that I needed to tell my cousin about what I had just seen. I came up to him and told him everything, but he thought I was lying to him. He angrily said, “Why are you lying? You don’t have to come up with a fake story to impress me.” I kept trying to convince him that I was telling the truth, but he ignored me. After a few minutes, he lashed out at me and said, “I’ll prove that you’re lying.” He proceeded to go outside. I told him, “Don’t go outside!” He said, “See? There’s no monster. Now stop l-“
He randomly stopped talking. I went outside and looked for him, but he was gone. I told his parents that he was gone, and they looked for him for hours. Hours turned into days and days turned into months. Months turned into years and years turned into decades. If anybody thinks that they’ve seen an adult version of Jeremy Bianco, please tell his family. They miss him very much.