The Mysterious Girl

“Thomas! Thomas!” Thomas’ mommy yelled at him. “Stop running right now, young man. You will get hurt.”

“Fine, mommy,” Thomas stopped running and went to sit on their sofa.

He was swinging his little legs, as he was very excited to be visiting his grandparents’ home after a long time. His grandparents live in the countryside. He gets to visit them once or twice a year, for his school is a very strict one.

But as her got a vacation, so he decided to visit the countryside. He loves the countryside and prefers it more than the city. He hates the crowd and loud honking noise of the cars.

Moreover, there are a lot of kids of his age in the neighborhood in which his grandparents live. All of them are extremely friendly, and he loves to play with them.

The last time that he visited, they even had a sleepover at one of his friends’ houses. They ate a lot of delicious food, watched horror movies, and stayed awake throughout the whole night thinking someone will come and haunt them.

As he was invested in his own thoughts regarding his friends in the countryside, his parents called him as they were about to leave for the countryside. He ran outside the house immediately and got in the car.

They went through a long highway, lots of green fields, and saw tons of vibrant birds. Throughout the whole car ride, they played a lot of games, sang songs together, and ate a lot of mouth-watering munchies.

Thomas loves to play games when he goes on a car ride with his parents. Out of all of the games that they play in the car, his favorite one was would you rather.

After a long car ride, they reached their grandparents' countryside home. It was looking prettier than the last time he visited, and his grandparents got more chickens, sheep, and there were three more dogs.

The dogs ran towards them and started to jump in excitement. Their grandparents also came forward and greeted them with the biggest smile on their faces; and Thomas gave them the tightest hug ever. Then all of them went inside to the house to have some fresh cookies as well as to take some rest after the long journey.

After taking some rest, Thomas’ parents started on their way back home, leaving Thomas with his grandparents in the countryside.

His grandma and grandpa told him all about the new animals that they got, they even had a chit chat about the thief that was caught stealing from a nearby house. Then they proceeded to cook some wholesome meal, and grandma also made her famous blueberry cheesecake for Thomas.

Thomas was having a great time with his grandparents and the countryside kids.

After a few days, after having his waffle with strawberries for brunch, in the afternoon he went to play in the nearby new playground. He never visited this playground, nor did he ever hear of it from any of his other friends.

But the day before, while he was coming back from his friends’ house all alone, he met a small kid.

“Hello, big brother,” the small kid greeted with a smile on his face. “Where are you coming from? Did you go to the nearby new playground?”

Thomas greeted him and then shook his head explaining to him that he never heard of that place.

“What! You don't know about the new nearby playground?” the small kid asked with a shocked expression. “You should go there. There are big sandbox and a lot of playing equipment! It’s beautiful!”

Thomas got very excited and decided to visit the playground, so that's why he was heading towards there. But after that he reached the playground, he at first, saw that there was no one in there.

But when he entered, he saw that there was only one kid swinging on the swing which was on the farthest corner of the playground.

Even though he never saw her before, he went towards her and greeted her with a gentle smile.

“What’s your name?” Thomas asked the girl. “And do you know where the other kids are? Why is this playground so empty?”

The girl looked at him for a few seconds and then gave him a sweet smile.

“My name is Luna,” the girl replied. “I don’t know why there is no one in the playground. But do you want to go to my house to play with me?”

Hearing her words, Thomas got extremely confused.

“But I don’t know you,” Thomas replied. “How can I go to your place to play?”

“Please? Please come to play with me?” Luna started to plead with a soft, innocent voice. "I don't have any friends. Please be my friend, and play with me."

"We can play in this playground if you want to," Thomas replied to her words.

“No, I want to play with you in my mansion,” Luna proceeded to say in a strong voice. “I want to show you my garden room; I love to play in there.”

But Thomas rejected the offer of her. After that, Luna started to ask him, again and again, to come to her place in order to play with her. Even though Thomas was refusing her, she didn't want to listen to anything.

Thomas eventually started to feel uncomfortable, and he was creeped out, so he decided to leave the park.

But when he tried to leave the park, he felt an invisible block in front of the entrance. It was blocking him from exiting the playground.

He pushed the invisible block, tried to force his way out of the playground. But still, he was unable to leave the place.

Suddenly, the girl came behind him and asked him one more time to come with her. Seeing that there was no other option, he agreed to her. 

As Luna started to leave the playground, he saw that there was no invisible block anymore.

Thomas started to think whether everything was in his head or there was actually an invisible block.

After walking for quite a while, the two of them reached the mansion, and Luna introduced him to all of her family members. Every one of her family treated Thomas extremely nicely, and they served him a lot of scrumptious, fancy food in a big table.

Later, Luna took Thomas to a tour of her beautiful mansion. It was so big and luxurious. It had tons of giant chandeliers and lots of royal portraits of her family. 

“You know, Thomas, these people are my grandparents,” Luna said with tears on her eyes. “They used to be extremely rich, and used to roam around the whole world in their cruise ship.”

“Where are they now?” Thomas asked.

“Under the sea,” Luna mumbled under her breath. “One day, as they were in their ship, a big storm hit them, and all of them drowned. None of them returned back till this date.”

Both Luna and Thomas went silent.

“I’m sorry, Luna,” Thomas said in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you by asking.”

“No, no,” Luna said while wiping her tears off her face. “I was extremely young when I last met them, so I don’t even remember them properly. Let's go and play for a while.”

Then the two of them ran off to play in the garden room. They played for a long time, and when the sun was about to set, Thomas bid Luna and his family goodbye and started his way back to his grandparents’ home. 

After returning to his grandparents’ home, he helped his grandparents to make dinner. His grandma made delicious mashed potatoes, roasted duck, and a luscious tray full of green beans and carrots.

While having dinner, he told his grandparents about his day, Luna, and the mansion.

His grandparents looked confused.

“Who is Luna?” grandma asked with concern. “I have never seen a mansion in our neighborhood before.”

After that, even though Thomas told his grandparents that he was not dreaming, his grandparents still told him the same thing over and over again, that there was no mansion, and no such family in their neighborhood.

Thomas got tremendously scared, and his friends used to come to his house to pick him up for the afternoon play for the rest of his stay in his grandparents’ house.

Till now, Thomas doesn’t know who he saw back then, and neither had he wanted to investigate it.