My sister Sarah, and I were at the park and it was a lovely day. Our town was a great place to grow up. Crime hardly ever happened there. Everyone knew everyone else and were friends. The park was crowded with families and I recognized everyone, well almost everyone.
There was a strange woman sitting on the bench on the other side of the park but she seemed harmless. Just sitting there reading a book, minding her own business, so I didn’t think twice about it. My sister and I loved to play a game called “don’t open”. What you do is one person closes their eyes and the other tries to trick you in to opening them. You usually try to scare them.
We sat under a tree. It was my turn to get my sister to open her eyes. I tried tickling her but it only made her laugh so I pretended to leave. I made the fake walking away sound with my feet and slowly lowering my voice to make it sound like I was farther away. She fell for it. Sarah opened her eyes and when she saw me she was relieved.
It was now her turn now. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Sarah laughed and I couldn’t help but laugh too. Suddenly her laughter stopped and so did the sounds all around me, as if everyone in the park had left. “Sarah, are you there?” I wanted to open my eyes so bad but something in my head said don’t.
“Becca help, please help me.” Now I really wanted to open my eyes but Sarah usually used this scare strategy to win. So I just sat there as she yelled. My stomach started to turn and I didn’t think I could take any more. The screaming stopped and a whisper said “don’t open your eyes”. I opened my eyes despite what I heard only to see every one gone but my sister hanging from a tree, squirming around.
I get her down and I called 911 and sat there stunned. I looked across to the bench were the lady was sitting and saw her book. I walked over to it. There was a note in the book. I pulled it out. It said written in dark red ink “don’t you wish you opened your eyes.”
