¿ɪꜱ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴀʟʟ ʀᴇᴀʟ? ✰𝔸𝕝𝕖𝕩 𝕋𝕦𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕣 𝟙-𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕥𝕤

✰. 26

Upside down

✰

From time to time, you didn't mind taking care of your cousin. He was a good child to take care of... sometimes. Him being five brought some problems for you. He was a very energetic kid and had a knack for climbing things. Under your supervision, you constantly had to drag him down a tree in your backyard so he would hurt himself. Unfortunately for you, during one of these moments, you fell very awkwardly on your arm and broke your bone. Your cousin, on the other hand, had no damage done to his small body. You hated him after that. The way he acted all innocent and constantly dragged you to the same tree, but you only led a crying boy back inside. You didn't care. It's what he deserves.

Taking him out to the park was one of the worst ideas that your aunt has told you. The worst thing is, you'd be doing it alone... with a broken arm. You held his tiny hand with your left, the one that wasn't in a cast and sling, and gave him a fair warning, "Now listen here Jack, if you climb up any tree, I'm leaving you there. I ain't climbing up to get you."

"Just climb!" His innocent mind thought of the best idea since the beginning of time.

"Climb with one arm? I don't think so," You brought him to the play place and sat down on the bench. "Go on. Stay in a distance where I can see you, okay?"

He ignored you like always and scattered off to the slide. There were a couple of other families in the park with their young children. You slumped on the bench and fought the tiredness that was starting to appear. Ever since that day of falling off the tree, you would always be woken up from your sleep because your mind was making it seem like you were actually falling. Sleeping in general was just uncomfortable, so you'd spend the nights reading and getting ahead of school work, if possible. Taking your eyes back to the happy child, you find he has made a small group of friends. By the looks of it, they were playing pirates or something. At least his mind would be preoccupied with that instead of wanting to climb a tree.

You dug into your pocket and pulled out a bunch of candies. You picked a watermelon lollipop, took off the stubborn wrapper, and plopped it into your mouth. You watched as seconds ticked by on your watch and occasionally looked up to see how Jack was doing. You couldn't really tell where he was since the kids were all scattered around, but they were calling his name, so you shrugged it off and figured he was somewhere in the group.

You were honestly dying of boredom. You couldn't play in the playground without being called old by the kids, and you couldn't call your friends because you didn't feel like carrying the brick of a phone you owned. You settled to lie down on the bench and pulled your hood up. You got weird looks from the people who walked past you, muttering something about 'troubled youth.' Your youth was perfectly fine. Just some little rascal called Jack indirectly caused you to break an arm. You let one foot swing from the long seat and started to hum a small tune while breaking the hard sugar of the lollipop to reach the gum center. Slowly starting to doze off, you didn't notice how all of the kids on the playground started to disperse with their families. After what seemed like an hour, you peeled your eyes open and checked your watch.

2:43 P.M.

I was out for an hour... where's Jack? You looked at the now-empty playground and suspiciously looked around the green fields of cut grass. It was very quiet. No kids or families were present, nor were there cars in the parking lot. This park isn't closed... right? No, I would have been woken up if it did. You didn't want to start panicking, but you felt dread start to form in your stomach.

"Jack?" You called out soft a first and stepped into the mulch of the playground. You first investigated anything he could have hidden underneath, the slide, benches, this weird tic-tac-toe board, and under every set of stairs on the playground. You were starting to get more panicked as you went up the metal stairs to the main part of the play set. You looked up into the umbrella-built cover to see if he went to climb up there. He wasn't there, so you moved to the slide, "Jack? Are you in there?" Your voice echoed back to you.