The park gate loomed ahead like an unfinished thought, a rectangular outline where the night pooled thicker, and he stepped through it only because the darkness behind him felt like it had already begun to close the road he came from, each failed streetlight silently urging him forward, reminding him that staying still was just another version of surrender. The gravel under his shoes shifted softly, crunching just loud enough to make him wince at every sound he caused, because the clicking behind him had learned his rhythm, adjusting to him like a second heartbeat he couldn't control.
The playground looked abandoned in a way that felt intentional, the kind of emptiness that didn't come from late hours but from a collective decision that no one should be here anymore. The swings swayed without wind, slight and rhythmic, too synchronized to be random, and the slide reflected the streetlight's glow with a narrow strip of cold metal that looked sharp enough to cut through the night. He tightened his grip on the cola bottle until the plastic creaked, not because he needed the drink anymore but because the weight of it proved he still had something—anything—normal to hold onto.
He didn't turn around, not yet, because the air behind him had grown heavy, like the atmosphere was a thick curtain he wasn't ready to pull back. So he focused forward, studying every detail he could find, searching for a shape that didn't belong, a movement that wasn't the wind, a shadow that ignored the light. Each second stretched thinner as the clicking continued, but then—it stopped.
Silence spread across the park with a precision that felt rehearsed, and his pulse roared in the absence of any other sound. He waited for the next click like one waits for the next breath, and when it didn't come he realized the creature—whatever it was—had finally shifted into a different phase of the hunt. The fear didn't live in the sound anymore; it lived in the absence of it, hiding inside the space where he could imagine anything.
A light flickered above the playground's center bench, and he noticed a piece of paper stuck to the wooden slats, fluttering slightly as though teased by a breeze he couldn't feel. His feet moved before he gave permission, curiosity pulling him in because information meant survival, even if the knowledge threatened to break him. The closer he came, the more he recognized the paper's shape—ripped like someone tore it in haste, edges jagged—and written across it in thick marker were the words:
DON'T TURN AROUND.
The warning hit him like a physical shove, and his lungs locked tight while instinct screamed with two opposing voices—one ordering him to obey, the other begging him to see what stood behind. Every horror story he'd ever consumed told him the same thing: the moment you turn is the moment you die, and yet not turning left a worse terror behind his back, a danger undefined, able to become anything his imagination dared to fear.
The bench vibrated under his hand.
Not a tremor from the ground—something beneath the wood tapped a slow, measured beat, too close to the rhythm of those clicks he now wished he could still hear predictably. The tapping quickened, turning frantic for a moment as if impatient for him to react, then suddenly ceased again, leaving his fingertips tingling from the aftershocks.
His survival instinct finally screamed clear: move.
He backed away from the bench, steps light, breath held, forcing his eyes to remain locked on the message rather than the darkness behind him. The swings stopped moving. The park lights steadied. Even the leaves above stopped rustling. The entire world seemed to freeze, like time waited for him to make the wrong choice.
And then—
Click.
Right behind his ear.
The breath he'd been holding shattered out of him in a trembling gasp, and his legs finally accepted that running was no longer a bad idea. He bolted toward the streetlight deeper in the park where the walking path split toward a row of benches and an old maintenance shed, the bottle still clenched in his hand, cola sloshing violently inside. The path stretched ahead, too long and too empty, offering no safety except distance, and distance felt like the only advantage he had left.
But the clicks—they weren't behind him anymore.
They followed above.
Every beat drifted down from somewhere over his head, as if a predator climbed the trees or the lampposts, staying just out of sight, always one second away from dropping into reach. His steps grew faster, each stride a desperate attempt to outrun something that clearly didn't need to chase him on the ground.
He reached the maintenance shed, its door slightly ajar, and hesitated because shelter could become a trap in an instant, yet open space meant exposure and an overhead hunter with perfect aim. His breath shook again, and the clicking paused—long enough for him to feel seen, evaluated, and judged.
Then came a sound he feared even more:
A gentle drip, like saliva hitting metal.
It landed near his foot.
Slowly, terrified of the truth, he lifted his gaze to the roofline—but the creature was faster.
A shadow detached itself from the darkness above with a sharp, vertebrae-cracking twist.
Because now—
It wanted him to see, even if only a bit.