The girl on the bench

There is a park that looks different when the sky is gray.

Not rainy. Not stormy. Just gray.

The kind of afternoon where the clouds hang low over the trees, where the air feels damp even though no rain is falling, and where every sound seems farther away than it should be.

The birds don’t sing there.

The wind doesn’t blow there.

And if you walk far enough down the path, you may start to notice something strange.

You can’t remember how long you have been walking.

That's the kind of afternoon when people say you might see the girl on the bench.

Nobody knows when she first appeared. Some people say she was always there.

Some people say the bench was there first, and the girl came later.

But everyone agrees on one thing: If you see her, you should not, under any circumstances, get closer.

The first thing you will notice is her hair.

It floats around her shoulders, drifting slowly through the air like she is standing at the bottom of a lake.

At first, you might think there's a breeze.

But then you'll notice the trees are perfectly still.

The leaves aren’t moving. The grass isn’t moving.

Only her hair moves.

That's when most people turn around.

But sometimes curiosity is stronger than fear.

Sometimes people take one more step. Then another.

And when they get close enough, the girl on the bench turns to look at them.

Her eyes are completely black.

Not dark. Not shadowed. Black. Like looking into two deep holes where something is looking back.

And then she smiles.

People always talk about her eyes. They always talk about her hair.

But they never talk about her smile. They don't see it until it's too late.

Because the smile is the part that tells you she was never human.

It stretches wider than it should.

And behind it are rows of long, sharp teeth that belong to something from the deepest parts of the ocean, something that waits in the dark for something foolish enough to come close.

The worst part is that she never runs after you.

She doesn’t need to.

The moment she stands up from the bench, your body stops listening to you.

Your feet feel heavy.

Your arms won’t move.

Your voice disappears.

And you finally understand why nobody has ever warned you how fast she is.

Because she isn’t fast.

She doesn’t have to be.

She moves slowly.

Slowly enough for you to watch her gliding toward you.

Slowly enough for you to see her smile getting bigger.

Slowly enough for you to realize something terrible:

She isn’t trying to catch you.

She is coming to take you home.

Some people say the girl on the bench is only a nightmare.

But every year, there are people who wake up from that dream and swear they hear something outside their window.

A soft scratching sound.

A quiet tapping.

And when they look outside, they see their reflection in the glass.

Except the reflection is smiling.

And standing behind them…

Is a girl with long black hair floating around her face.

So if you ever find yourself walking through the park on a cloudy afternoon…

And you see a lonely bench sitting beneath the trees…

Keep walking.

Don’t stop.

Don’t wonder who is sitting there.

Because the girl on the bench is not waiting for someone to find her.

She is waiting for someone to remember her.