Penpal

When I was six years old, I thought the biggest mystery in my life was why my balloon never came back.

My elementary school had a project where every student attached a letter to a balloon and released it into the sky, hoping that someone somewhere would find it and become their penpal. Most of the kids eventually received responses from people in nearby towns. Some even made friends with the strangers who found their messages.

Mine never arrived.

At least, that's what I believed.

Years later, while looking back through old memories, I started noticing things that didn't make sense. Small details I had ignored as a child suddenly felt disturbing. There were strange moments from my childhood that I had never been able to explain, like the feeling of being watched or the footsteps I would hear outside my bedroom at night.

I always assumed it was my imagination.

Then came the night I woke up in the middle of the woods.

I had no idea how I got there. I was miles away from home, freezing, confused, and completely alone. The only thing near me was a strange, deflated shark pool float lying in the dirt, a random object that made no sense being there.

After I was found and returned home, everyone treated it like a strange childhood accident. But as I grew older, more pieces started appearing.

I found Polaroid photographs hidden away that showed me sleeping in my own bedroom. Pictures taken from inside my house.

Someone had been there.

Someone had been watching me.

The worst part was realizing that the person connected to my childhood "penpal" was never a stranger who lived somewhere far away. He had been close the entire time.

He had followed me.

He had studied my life.

He had been inside my home.

When my childhood friend Josh disappeared, the truth finally came out. The person who had been watching me had taken him and kept him hidden away for years. The same person who had been leaving signs throughout my childhood had been hiding closer than anyone could have imagined.

The terrifying part wasn't discovering that a monster existed.

It was realizing the monster had been there the entire time, and nobody noticed.