I’m terrified of playgrounds.
Not the mild discomfort most people experience when they’re too old for the swings, but a bone-chilling, skin-crawling terror that roots me to the spot whenever I see one. This fear isn’t irrational, nor did it appear out of nowhere. It’s the product of a series of harrowing experiences during my childhood.
It’s a strange fear, I know. Playgrounds, with their slides and swings, are usually synonymous with joy, laughter, and childhood innocence. But for me, they evoke memories of a time when a sinister threat was hiding in plain sight. They remind me of the day my best friend, Philip, vanished without a trace.
We grew up in a small, rural town - a quaint place isolated from the bustle and dangers of the city. It was a time before the internet when everything seemed simpler, and our playground was our haven, our escape from the grown-up world.
But, our idyllic childhood was marred by the rumors of a white van, said to snatch children away as dusk fell. Parents, in their fear, enforced an unyielding curfew. We were to be home before 8:00 p.m. - no exceptions.
This warning echoed in my mind on the day Philip didn’t show up for school. His usual spot in the classroom was empty. Confusion turned into worry when I got home to find that Philip’s parents had called. He hadn’t returned home the previous night.
I had seen him last at the playground. We had left around 7:30 p.m., half an hour earlier than usual, laughing nervously at the rumors of the white van. But now, Philip was missing, and the playground didn’t seem so innocent anymore.
For a week, I steered clear of it. Its once inviting structures now seemed foreboding. The swings swayed ominously, the slide stood cold and vacant, and the once vibrant atmosphere was replaced by a silence that chilled me to the bone.
Little did I know then that the true horror was just beginning, a reality so sinister that I would never look at a playground the same way again…
I spent the days that followed Philip’s disappearance in a haze of fear and confusion. The echoes of laughter and chatter that once filled our school hallways were replaced by whispers and heavy silence. Everyone was on edge, expecting the worst but hoping for the best.
The unease was so palpable that I did the unthinkable. Against all reason, I returned to the playground. I needed to know if I’d missed something, a sign of what had happened to Philip. It was just me there, alone with the setting sun casting long, eerie shadows across the playground.
There was something off about the place. The air was thick with an unseen tension. It felt like looking at one of those optical illusion pictures, where an image within the image only reveals itself once you see it. And then, once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.
It was around 7:30 p.m., the same time when Philip and I had last been there. For a moment, I considered staying till 8 p.m., testing the rumor of the white van. But the very thought made me shiver. It was a chilling prospect, imagining myself disappearing like Philip. My heart pounded against my chest as a cold wave of fear washed over me.
I bolted. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, all the way home. The sight of the empty playground, once filled with joy, now felt like a cruel mockery of our childhood innocence. When I reached home, my mother asked if something had happened. I shook my head, unable to voice my fears, and retreated to the comfort of my room and my video games, anything to distract myself from the grim reality.
Soon, our little town was swarming with police. The investigation, which had begun almost immediately after Philip’s disappearance, ramped up. Officers interviewed us at school, their serious expressions a stark contrast to our usually carefree surroundings.
We all understood the grim reality - the chances of finding Philip were getting slimmer by the day. Each passing moment felt like an icy hand tightening around my heart. Little did I know, the worst was yet to come…
After my interview with the police, I hoped that was the end of my involvement with the whole incident. I had shared what little I knew, that we were at the playground till 7:30 on the day Philip disappeared. But soon, the school corridors were buzzing with whispers again, this time with a chilling specificity.
The rumor wasn’t just about being out after 8 p.m. anymore, it was specifically about the playground, exactly at 8 p.m., and only on Thursdays. This was when the white van would supposedly show up to claim its next victim. This eerie specificity fueled a morbid curiosity among us, as twisted as it sounds. It was like the early, analog version of TikTok challenges, only, the stakes were deadly real.
Some even dared each other to be at the playground at the said time, to prove there was nothing to fear. I found it baffling, but then I wondered, maybe the police had already combed through the playground and found nothing because they weren’t looking at the right time? Or maybe, they weren’t seeing what only children could see.
As the weeks wore on, the police investigation eventually wrapped up, presumably without any substantial leads. The fate of my best friend remained a mystery, but our town was irrevocably changed. What once felt like a safe, rural haven now seemed like a prison, its residents held captive by a creeping dread.
Then, the unthinkable happened. One Thursday evening, four more children vanished, all at once. They were the ones who had dared to challenge the rumors. The town was thrown into fresh chaos. The police were back, and another round of investigations started. The rumors, it seemed, were far from baseless.
I felt a sickening sense of dread and guilt. I knew those kids were at the playground that night. But like everyone else, I had dismissed it as a foolish dare. The enormity of the situation was too much to bear, and my mind began to spin…
I made the decision. I had to go to the playground. I had to see it for myself, to understand what was happening at 8 p.m. every Thursday. I resolved to remain hidden though, hidden in the nearby bushes, armed with a pair of binoculars, watching, observing. The fear, the anticipation was unbearable; nightmares invaded my sleep every night, scenes of the white van and the empty playground replayed endlessly in my mind.
I was seeing a therapist during this time, someone to help me deal with the grief and anxiety that had taken over my life. The advice they gave me was to confront my fears. And so, in a twisted sense, that’s what I decided to do. But from a distance, hidden in the safety of the bushes. Nothing could happen to me there, right?
So there I was, Thursday evening, 8 p.m., not on the playground, but on its fringes, peering through my binoculars. The last of the children had left around 7:45 p.m., their lingering laughter still echoing in the deserted playground.
I watched the slide, the swings, the seesaw, the jungle gym, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Just the usual playground equipment standing in the eerie silence of the night. But then, I looked back at the slide. And suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
A flash of memory washed over me - an almost photographic projection of a moment from the past, a moment with Philip.
And then it hit me, the memory almost too clear, too bright in my mind. Philip and I playing on the playground, him sliding down the slide, his Mario cap proudly displayed on his head. He loved Super Mario Bros., especially after Super Mario Bros. 3 was released. We were both obsessed. He was always Mario and, by default, I ended up as Luigi. And that was fine by me.
I remember him complaining about the slide that day, his words echoing in my mind now. “This slide sucks, it’s like Luigi’s slide,” he’d said, referring to its green color. He’d claimed that Mario’s color, red, would make it much better. That was Philip, always seeing the world through a lens of video games.
Now, standing on the fringes of the playground, staring through the lenses of my binoculars, I saw it. The slide, it wasn’t green anymore. It was red, a familiar red. The exact same red as Philip’s Mario cap. And not just the color, the shape too had altered. It was steeper, almost menacing. It was as if the slide had transformed, mirroring the sinister events that had been unfolding in our town.
My mind raced back to other times at the playground, recalling eerie changes that we had dismissed as products of our vivid imaginations. The swings seemingly moving on their own, strange sounds at odd times. Now I realized, the playground had been changing, morphing, all along. And we had been too innocent, too naive to see it.
As the minutes ticked closer to 8 p.m., my heart pounded in my chest, my hands trembled, sweat making my grip on the binoculars slippery. A wave of fear washed over me, chilling me to my bones. The feeling was tangible, almost alive, a palpable presence in the air. It felt like a malevolent entity had taken residence in the playground, an entity that had consumed my best friend. The realisation sent a shiver down my spine. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I had no idea what was about to unfold before my eyes.
I stood there, frozen in fear, as two boys from my school entered the playground. They sauntered around, their voices echoing in the eerie silence, their words filling me with dread. “There’s nothing here, man,” one of them said. I could see them shrugging, dismissing the rumors, the fear that had gripped our town. They sat on the seesaw, swinging back and forth, arguing about something. Their words were muffled by the distance, but their casual demeanor gave me the impression that they were merely there on a dare.
I checked my watch – 8:01 p.m. Despite the primal urge to intervene, to warn them, I was paralyzed. My promise to myself held me in place, preventing me from stepping into the playground, from putting myself in danger.
Through the binoculars, I observed the seesaw and the boys. Suddenly, the air around them started to shimmer, like heat haze on a summer day. But this was different, unnatural. It was as if the air itself was twisting, spiraling, distorting the playground’s reality.
As I squinted to see better, my heart skipped a beat. The boys’ forms were changing, contorting. They appeared to be shrinking, their bodies becoming smaller and smaller. Then, as if following some twisted law of physics, they began to merge with the seesaw, their bodies and the metallic seats becoming one.
The sight was horrifying. Their bodies seemed to dematerialize, morphing into an alien substance that was neither human nor metal. Their panicked screams were piercing, distorted by the horrific transformation. As they shrank and merged, their screams grew muffled, suffocated by their closing mouths.
Fear gripped me, making me nauseous. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the grotesque spectacle. I stood there, horrified and mesmerized, as the boys disappeared, their existence swallowed by the demonic playground.
With that unbearable sight burned into my mind, I dropped my binoculars and bolted. I sprinted all the way home, my heart pounding in my chest, the images of the boys’ gruesome transformation haunting me. When I burst through the front door, my mom looked at me, her eyes wide with surprise and concern. She started asking questions, but I didn’t answer. I just dashed past her, up the stairs, and slammed my bedroom door behind me. I locked it, the click of the latch feeling like the only protection I had against the nightmare I had just witnessed.
I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I lay in my bed, wide awake, my mind racing. I was grappling with an insane, terrifying thought: what if the white van was a distraction, a false rumor? What if the playground was the real predator, consuming the children and turning them into parts of itself?
What if Philip had become the slide? His beloved Mario cap had been red, just like the slide. The thought of kids innocently playing on what was once my friend made my stomach churn. I know it sounds ludicrous, crazy even. But after witnessing the seesaw devour those two boys, I couldn’t shake the idea.
As I lay there, a horrifying realization dawned on me. The seats of the seesaw… they must have changed color. They must have taken on the color of the boys’ clothes. But I couldn’t confirm it. I couldn’t bring myself to go back and check, not after what I had seen.
The next day at school, the boys were absent. Their empty seats seemed to echo my suspicions. Their names were added to the growing list of missing children, and they were never seen again.