My parents divorced when I was 6 years old. Fortunately, it wasn’t a messy breakup, and they agreed to share custody of me. I stayed with my mom during the week and my dad got me on Friday nights and weekends. My dad would take me to all kinds of different places when I spent the weekends with him. I’m an only child and my parents always treated me as the center of their universe. The divorce never changed that.
Even though it went as good as any divorce could go, it still took a toll on me as a kid since I was always moving around from house to house like a relay race baton. That kind of thing is never easy on any child of that age.
On a cold winter January afternoon, it was my dad’s turn on the custody carousel. He decided to take me to one of those indoor playgrounds since it was too cold to do anything outside. I had just turned 8 years old at the time. I never liked going to those places since I was a very shy kid with a bad stutter, which meant I had trouble making friends. Being around other kids my age would bring out my social anxiety. My dad knew this and would regularly take me to places with a lot of kids my age in an attempt to bring me out of my shell.
We arrived at the indoor playground. It wasn’t too busy at all. There were probably about 6 other kids there at the time of our arrival. We checked in with the front desk and entered the play area. My dad sat down with the rest of the parents and pulled out a book.
“go on buddy, have fun” he said as he gestured toward the large play structure.
I began walking nervously to the ladder leading up to the play structure and began climbing it. Once I reached the top, I saw a group of kids laughing and talking in front of the slide that led down to the large ball pit below. I mustered up the courage to ask if I could join them, but stuttered my way through the whole sentence.
They began laughing at me.
“N.. No Y.. Y.. You.. C.. Can’t” One of them mocked.
They all continued laughing as they went down the slide into the large ball pit below.
After that, I decided to sit at the top of the play structure alone, in front of one of the observation windows overlooking the adult seating area.
About half an hour passed and most of the kids had left. I was alone at that point. At least…. so I thought.
Out of nowhere, I heard a voice.
“Hey, over here!”
I was startled. I looked around but didn’t see anyone.
“Hello? Who’s there?” I asked.
I looked over at the slide entrance. I saw a girl around my age. I only saw her head as the rest of her body was further in the slide. She had long brown, almost greasy looking hair. She was very pale, with heavy black bags under her eyes.
“What’s your name?” she asked, still hiding in the slide.
“Hu.. Hunter” I replied. “What about you?”
She giggled, almost menacingly. “Nice to meet you Hunter, I’m Sarah”. She peaked out a bit more from the slide, revealing her yellow teeth as she smiled at me.
I looked through the observation glass down at the adult seating area. My dad was the only one there, still reading his book.
“Where are your mom and dad?” I asked.
“They’re far away. They’ll come back for me, though” she replied.
I was puzzled. “Th.. They left you here b.. by yourself?”
She stared at me for a bit and ignored the question. “Hey, I have an idea, Hunter! Do you wanna play hide and seek?”
I figured this was a good chance for me to make a new friend even though I found her a little weird. That’s what most other kids at the time thought of me anyway. I nodded.
“Okay.” she said, “catch me if you can!”
She disappeared down the slide, laughing on her way down. Her laughter faded as she slid further and further down the slide. Then, there was dead silence.
I crawled to the slide entrance. I became hesitant. The slide was very dark, and a sense of fear overcame me. Something didn’t feel right…
I was about to turn around and go back down the ladder, when I heard Sarah’s voice from the bottom.
“Come on Hunter! Don’t you wanna play?” She yelled.
I wanted to go back to my dad, but I felt a little sorry for her. I figured she had trouble making friends like I did. I decided to enter the slide. As I slid down, I could hear Sarah giggling at the bottom. The slide was very dark and I couldn’t see anything until I hit the end and was submerged into the ball pit. I emerged and began looking around.
“Sarah? I know you’re in here!” I called out, as I slowly began making my way through the pit. She was nowhere to be found. I dug around for about 5 minutes and figured she must have made it out before I came down. As I made my way to the exit I heard Sarah’s voice. She was whispering.
“Hunter… Hunter”.
I jumped. It felt like she whispered right into my ear, but when I turned around, no one was there.“S.. Sarah? Where are you?” I asked.
Her voice didn’t sound normal. It sounded a bit distorted. Now she sounded more like a grown woman than a child.
I saw her head slowly emerge from the ball pit, only her eyes were showing. They were now bloodshot red, and she had deep wrinkles all over her face.
My heart started racing. “I… I found you, I win” I said. She didn’t say anything, she just kept staring at me.
I desperately wanted to get out of there.“I need to go now, my dad is calling me”.
Right after I said this, she quickly sunk back into the ball pit and began crawling around at a speed I can only describe as inhuman. I was able to track her movement because the balls in the pit flung around violently wherever she moved.
“Sarah, stop! I don’t wanna play anymore, this isn’t fun!” I screamed in desperation as tears began streaming down my cheeks.
She began circling me over and over, faster and faster as I kept crying. I began sprinting as I gasped for air.
I was about to reach the exit when something grabbed my legs and violently pulled me deep into the pit. As I struggled, I saw Sarah. She was now an old woman. Her hair was a dirty yellowish white, her skin was pale and sagging. Her eyes were now completely white, littered with red veins. Her hands were wrapped tightly around my ankles as her dirty finger nails sunk into my skin. I began screaming for my dad.
“Daddy! Help! Help!”
I felt as though I was being pulled into the depths of hell. Everything was getting darker, my screams were becoming more muffled and it became more difficult to breath. I was paralyzed and couldn’t move. All I was able to hear was Sarah’s… or… this thing’s laughter as it dragged me deeper and deeper.
I was on the verge of unconsciousness, when I felt 2 hands grab me by the shoulders. I was yanked out of the pit, still gasping for air. I opened my eyes, and it was my dad. I wrapped my arms around him and sunk my face into his chest as I continued to cry.
I explained the situation to my dad and showed him my ankles, which had red scratch marks on them.
Naturally, he thought it was just another child who was bullying me. He took me to the front desk and began telling the staff what had happened. They treated my scratches and began searching the playground for Sarah. But… she was nowhere to be found. In fact, they informed us we were the only other guests there and there was no child named Sarah on the sign-in list. Sarah didn’t exist as far as they knew.
My parents took me to a pediatric psychiatrist about a month later. Once it was clear there was nothing wrong with me, she chalked it up to the stress of the divorce and sent us on our way.
I still don’t have a reasonable explanation as to what happened. I’ve never had a history of hallucinations, and nothing of the sort has happened to me since.
Yes, as I mentioned before, the divorce obviously wasn’t a fun experience, but it was still not stressful enough to the point where it would cause me to hallucinate, or harm myself. My parents gave me the best life they could under the circumstances and I was not under an immense amount of stress.
My father and I still discuss the incident from time to time. I feel like the more I tell him about it, the more he’s beginning to believe me.
Regardless… after that, I never went back to an indoor playground ever again. Even as time went on and I made friends, I never attended their birthday parties if they were being held at an indoor playground.
This event left a permanent scar on me to this day. It still gives me nightmares, even as an adult. Playgrounds in general send shivers down my spine and I definitely stay away from ball pits. When I tell people, they never believe me. They’ll usually chalk it up to a child’s wild imagination or a hazy memory of events. That’s why I decided to post it here. I needed to get it off my chest and let other people know what happened to me.