Oliver was only ten years old when he first saw the figure in the woods. It was late autumn, and the trees behind his house stood bare, their skeletal branches clawing at the darkening sky. He had been playing near the old swing set when the feeling hit him—an unnatural stillness, like the world had paused. Then, he saw it. A tall, impossibly thin man, standing motionless among the trees. No face. No eyes. Just a featureless white void where a face should be. Oliver blinked, and the figure was gone, but the unease never left him.
He ran inside to tell his mother, but she barely looked up from her book. "You and that imagination of yours," she sighed. His older sister, Emily, just smirked. "Maybe the boogeyman finally came for you."
That night, Oliver dreamed of the figure. In his dream, he stood in the same spot in the yard, staring at the shadowed treeline. But this time, the Tall Man moved. Its arms stretched unnaturally long, fingers twitching as if reaching for him. It glided forward soundlessly. He couldn't move. Couldn't scream. The faceless horror leaned down, closer and closer, until—
He woke up gasping, drenched in sweat. Outside his window, the wind howled, but for a brief moment, he thought he heard whispers.
Days passed, and the dreams worsened. He saw the Tall Man everywhere—glimpses in the reflections of windows, in the corners of his vision when he turned his head too fast. He started sketching it in his notebook, desperate to prove it was real, but the more he drew, the worse things got. The figures in his sketches seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking. Sometimes, he swore the Tall Man was getting closer.
One evening, Emily barged into his room, furious. "Quit the creepy pranks!" she snapped, holding up a page torn from his notebook. On it was a drawing of her room—with the Tall Man standing beside her bed. "This isn’t funny!"
Oliver swore he didn’t draw it. But she didn’t believe him. No one ever did.
Then, the disappearances started. First, a stray dog. Then a classmate. Then Jake, Oliver’s best friend. The school said Jake’s family moved suddenly, but Oliver knew better. The night before Jake vanished, he had called Oliver, whispering in a terrified voice. "I saw him. He was outside my window."
Nobody else remembered Jake. When Oliver asked about him at school, the other kids looked confused, as if Jake had never existed.
Oliver knew he had to do something. He grabbed a flashlight and his notebook and ventured into the woods, tracing his steps back to where he first saw the Tall Man. The deeper he went, the thicker the fog became. The trees seemed to shift, closing in on him. Then, the whispers began. Soft, insidious murmurs surrounded him, seeping into his mind. He turned, and there it was.
The Tall Man stood inches away. Its faceless head tilted, as if studying him. The whispers grew deafening. Oliver’s vision blurred. He tried to run, but his legs wouldn’t obey. Darkness swallowed him whole.
He woke up in his bed, the morning sun streaming through the window. Had it all been a nightmare? Heart pounding, he turned to his desk. His notebook lay open, flipped to a new page.
It was a drawing of his room.
And the Tall Man stood at his bedside.
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