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Alex
I'm quite an awkward person and I can struggle to make friends due to my shyness. So in late 2019 to early 2020 I decided to join my sixth form's DND club. I was hooked and the fact that I had met a very lovely girl there who I'll refer to as May, well it made it all the more enjoyable. It was the new type of friendship where all you want to do is spend time with your new best friend. And so when May asked me to join their DND party, I was overjoyed. I really did like her. She started off a little awkward, as was I, but she was really sweet and understanding and we ended up having a lot of our more nerdy interests in common. The first time we hung out on our own was a lot more uncomfortable than I was expecting. Of course as we had only been friends for a couple of weeks so I knew it would be a little awkward, but I wasn't expecting how terribly unpleasant it turned out to be. We didn't seem to click for some reason. Everything was fine when we were in a group chat, but one on one Mae was strange. She would completely ignore me for no reason, all of a sudden, make very odd jokes but in a serious manner, leaving to pause a little too long and would then laugh at as well as other strange mannerisms. That was just before I left sixth form early due to personal reasons. It wasn't super off putting. I wanted to get closer to her believing once she got used to me, maybe she'd mellow out a little. Boy was I wrong. Once I did officially leave school, May became intense. It started out with her asking to meet up with me every to every other day. Keep in mind, I had started working full time by this point and had very little time to see people. Which was fine because she'd understand that I was busy, right? Wrong. She started getting annoyed and upset to an inappropriate level. For example, she would make me send a picture of my calendar to prove that I was too busy to see her. And even when she could see it was chockablock, she would start to try and manipulate me and make me feel bad for not being able to see her messaging me things like I love you but you're so difficult to meet up with, calling me her best friend and telling me she was crying because she couldn't see me. These conversations would happen around two, three times a week and honestly, I had started getting creeped out by this point. We had only known each other for around 23 months. We had met up alone around 5, 6 times and had seen each other almost every day at school before my departure. My creep o meter had really started to rise, but it wasn't at a point where I wanted to end the friendship yet. Sure it was annoying how possessive she was, but it's not like she was stalking me yet. I distanced myself from her a little just for my own sanity as her neediness had progressively gotten more and more intense and it became taxing on my mental health. But I still wanted to be friends with her. Underneath everything, Mae was really lovely, but that was until they came to my house for the very first time back when I was living with my parents. May turned up a lot later than we agreed, which peeved me out a little as they knew I had to work the next day. But it wasn't a biggie and that's when the really uncomfortable comments had started. Now my parents house is very nice. It's big, they have a gym and a hot tub, lovely garden, etc. By this point I was used to my friends making a couple of comments like wow your house is so nice or damn, I really love your house. My favorite was probably when my cousin compared the house's size to a horse. Ding a ling. Now that was funny. But May wouldn't stop. She would drop how large or nice she thought that my house was in every other sentence which later developed to her slating the house and my parents jobs, constantly telling me that I was shoving my parents wealth in her face or that my parents got their money because they take advantage of vulnerable children. Please keep in mind that I had not spoken about my parents money or the family home once in this conversation because talking about private things like that is just very uncomfortable to me. Then she started to get even stranger asking me to cuddle and spoon and telling me that I couldn't escape going on and asking if I was really happy with my boyfriend, then making jokes that didn't really feel like jokes at my expense. I was very uneasy and my parents could see it too. So after that day I told Mae that I was way too busy to meet up so the police stop asking me. She didn't. She started making jokes that because I wouldn't see her she would just show up on my house and catch me off guard. She even changed her jog route so she ran past my parents house every day and then she had started messaging my boyfriend. It was completely out of the blue. I hadn't even given her social media or name. I hadn't even really discussed my relationship with her at all. It was very uncomfortable for everyone involved and my boyfriend was obviously not interested in being her friend due to how uncomfortable she made me. She told him things like, you need my permission to date because I'm her best friend and you have to be friends with me and like me because I'm her best friend. We were not even close to being best friends. She would spam my phone with messages and I would reply back around twice a month. I was completely smothered by her. It was so strange. But when I received a screenshot of their conversation from my boyfriend because he was so creeped out, I was livid. The screenshot showed them having a very one sided conversation on her behalf where all of a sudden she told him she loved him. I didn't know what to say and neither did he. So I confronted her. May tried to turn it around on me and said, and I quote, I was talking to your boyfriend and he knew about me. Impossible. I figured out you talked about me without my consent. Heartbroken. She really said it. Just like that. It was surreal. I told her that I had mentioned that we met up and that she was a friend from school, which was true. Of course. I had told him that she made me uncomfortable, but she didn't know that and the conversation ended there. Then she went to uni and we didn't really speak for a while. It was relaxing. All of the anxiety around the situation faded. Mae had made new friends and I was free. But when she came home for Christmas, everything started up again and all the anxiety came back. I was going through a really tough time, so me and my mom went away for a few days. But when I didn't respond to Mae for three days because I was busy, she went crazy. She spammed me on every social media I have, daily Instagram, Snapchat, discord, text messages, and more. The messages started off normally with her asking if we could meet up and that she was home from university. But they gradually became angry and I won't lie, it was scary. I believed her when she said she would just show up at my house. And I was terrified that she'd asked my friends for my new address under the pretense that I had forgotten to give it to her, as they'd threatened to do this in joking form before. It felt obsessive and I didn't know what to do. She wouldn't stop messaging me and it became a constant stream of creepy messages. So I exploded at her. I told her that this behavior was really creepy, that I have never been made to feel this uncomfortable by someone before, that she didn't have boundaries and I was scared about the joke disguised threat she made. I ended it off with the fact that I didn't want to see her again and could she please stop messaging me. I could have definitely been nicer about it, but that never seemed to work. In our prior conversations, when I tried to defend why I was busy and couldn't see her, she became incredibly apologetic, then got angry, then started to try and manipulate me into meeting up, apologizing and putting herself down, and then telling me that she loved me. I was just so over all of her nonsense and weird behaviors. I felt bad for her. I had wanted to be her friend so much, but she was so obsessive and overbearing and even though I tried for so long to make it work, she had ended up pushing me away because of her behavior. I do wish her well and I hope she gets help for whatever's going on with her. But creepy stalker friend, you're definitely not my cup of tea. Please stay the hell away from me. My encounters with this individual, who I'll call Ben, began in November 2024 at school. He was a friend of one of my friends named Tom, and eventually we became part of the same friend group. I have always found Ben to be a bit creepy, which seemed to be the school population's general view toward him. However, once we began regularly socializing, I had started to feel bad for my presumptions. That was until we were added to a WhatsApp group chat. And that's when things started to take a turn. First it was the mindless, constant images of gore that he would send, involving very graphic details of horrible things. I don't know if these images were even real or not, but they made me very uncomfortable to the point that I had to ask him to stop, to which I was then told to just take a joke and stop being a pussy. This was followed by messages where he stated that he had harmed animals along with other sick fantasies involving people I knew. I wasn't sure if Ben was just your average edgelord or what, but something just didn't seem right. Then one Saturday I was alone Christmas shopping in my town when I had noticed Ben standing down the road from me, just staring directly at me. I waved at him awkwardly, to which he just stared before walking casually down a side street for the rest of the trip. Every time I turned, Ben was just standing, just staring at me from a distance. I eventually gave up shopping and went home pissed off. I texted him about it, to which he just stated that he didn't know what I was talking about. Then in school and lunch, Ben and another friend Jack convinced me to come with them to the forest behind our school with another friend named Zach. It was stupid, I know, but. But I was bored and I went along anyway. We had started getting deeper into the forest and Ben was becoming weird. He was laughing and he just kept repeating closer, let's get closer. Eventually both Zach and I agreed that it was creepy and off putting, so we turned back. Ben seemed pissed when he and Jack returned. However, when we asked why they wanted us to go further, he responded that he had wanted to set a fire and show us. After this I really distanced myself and I left the group chat, though I was eventually re added While on my hiatus from that group, Ben had actually attacked Tom with a homemade blade. He did this in school and it resulted in a wound near his wrist. This resulted in Ben being expelled from school, though no legal action was taken. It's now been a month and I was re added to the group chat only to find that Ben has been sending graphic self harm photos and talking about his hatred for his own family, blaming them for his misfortune. I'm worried that he genuinely gives off serial killer vibes, but perhaps I'm just being paranoid. I often wonder about that time in the forest and in the town plaza. Anyways, thanks for listening everyone. I guess I'm just wondering if I should really be concerned or maybe I'm just overreacting. I sometimes worry that Ben knows where I live and isn't far away. I'm a 23 year old female and from the UK. From the ages of 9 to 11 I was best friends with this girl who we'll call Sarah. She and I formed a little group at primary school with two other girls who we'll call Lauren and Ellen. But we were each other's best friend first as we lived so close. Sarah lived one street over from me so I would always sleep over at her house but she never came over to my house as we were very very poor and I was really embarrassed about the state of my house. The sleepovers became a weekly thing and it was just her and her mom who worked every weekend so we spent a lot of time in the house alone. It started off odd. She would show me her mom's pornos from like the 80s that all included vampires and as a 9 year old kid I had no idea what was going on and I'd just sit there blankly. She'd always say, doesn't it just make you want to do it? And things like that. She would also get out her mom's sex toys and show them to me and then make me hold them, which never really seemed odd to me until I was older. But even at the time I felt uncomfortable. I was a pretty nervous child and I had really struggled to make friends, so I'd often go along with whatever she said just because I felt lucky to have a friend outside of school. She would often make up scary stories or do mildly creepy things at night, like sing patty cake in a babyish voice close to my ear while I was sleeping, or pretend her dolls were alive and wanted to punish me for taking her attention away from them, which creeped me out but never outright concerned me. Though my mom was worried that I was having constant nightmares, none of this affected me too much and so I stayed friends with her. Later that year, I got mauled by a dog, a Japanese Akita, and had reconstructive surgery on my face. Due to this, I had to take medication at certain times and would be escorted to and from the school office every day by my other friend, Lauren. Because of this, we became best friends and I had started sleeping over at hers instead of Sarah's. Sarah didn't like that I was getting a lot of attention due to my fresh scar or that I had replaced her with another friend. So she said that she was pregnant at 10, complete with tears and plans and everything, including Ellen telling her mom at the end. This went on for months and as kids we didn't even question the validity of her claim. At some point she had dropped this and next she pretended she had cancer. I called her out on that one as I knew a lot about cancer because my auntie had it at the time, which she really didn't like. After that, she had started calling me names, stealing my school stuff, made up lies about me and more, making our other two friends pick between me or her. It really fluctuated a lot, so sometimes they'd be my friends and other times they'd be hers. During this time, I'd slept over at Lauren's house a lot and a lot of my stuff went missing. A pink flip phone that I just got as my first phone ever and my DS Lite, which was my prized possession. This was like 2010, by the way. My mom had gotten involved at this point and demanded that they find it as she knew I'd taken it to the sleepover. In the end, Lauren supposedly found them both smashed up on a road far from where either of us lived and then returned them to me, completely broken weeks later. Later on, both Sarah and I got invited to the swimming baths for Lauren's birthday and for once we got along. It was like really having my best friend back. Us kids were basically left alone in the pool to just mess around for a few hours. An important note here is that I couldn't swim. I still can to this day. I had chickenpox during school swimming lessons and I'm really terrified of water now, so. So I haven't learned since. Anyway, at one point I was so sick of being stuck in the shallow end like a baby. At the age of 11, when all of my friends were swimming at the deep end, Sarah had noticed this and came over to me. She offered to piggyback me and swim to the deep end so I could play with everyone else. I was so happy to be included. I didn't even think about the fact that she didn't regularly like me or that if she left me, I couldn't swim back. I just hopped right on and she swum us out. She started mock tipping sideways like she was going to drop me and I cried and begged her to take me back. I was terrified of getting water in my face or going underwater. I still can't go underwater to this day. She just laughed at me and dropped me, ducking me under the water and holding my head there where I struggled and couldn't breathe. I remember struggling and being unable to breathe but the next thing I knew was a lifeguard had pulled me to the side of the pool and I was choking on air and shaking. I also have horrible reactions to the smell of chlorine and it makes me sneeze and my eyes swell so I had to be picked up. But everyone told me it was an accident and just kids messing around. She later told me that it was a joke. I should learn to swim and stop being a baby. Which I guess is true. But still after that day, I didn't want to be around her anymore. Our friends still flip flopped between us, some days being her friend and others being mine. But that was fine. I didn't care anymore. I was sick of her. I avoided her like the plague. Primary school was almost over and I never had to see her again. Eventually we all went to secondary school. This was between the ages of 11, 16 and we all went through the same one. But my school was categorized into classes, the top being the smartest and I, Lauren and Ellen were all in the top class and Sarah wasn't It was a nice little buffer and I got my best friends back as well as making even more friends. For the first time ever, I really completely forgot all about her, in all honesty. Then one day as I walked home from school, I passed the corner shop on my way home and she was there blocking the path, waiting for me. Her skull tie was tied around her head like a headband and she was crying. I had to go around her and she literally growled at me and launched herself at me. I was like 4, 7, 8, 0 if that. And she was much larger than me and I'd never been in a fight ever. I had no idea what to do to get her off me. While she clawed on my neck and alternated kneeing me and elbowing me. I just wanted her off me. I grabbed the tie wrapped around her head and pulled as hard as I could until she fell to the ground. And with that, she just ran away crying. I remember walking the rest of the way home just so confused. What had I even done to her to deserve that? I hadn't even spoken to her in like eight months at that point. And she and our other friends were in the same tutor group and they hadn't mentioned anything to me. Eventually I forgot about that. I turned 12 a couple of months later and the day after my birthday I walked into school having spent all my birthday money on new pins. And I was so excited to show them off. I was a weird kid. I know. First lesson of the day begins and Ellen runs up to me and says, Sarah's brought a knife to school. She showed me in tutoring. She said that she brought it for you. I kind of just laughed out loud at that, assuming it was a joke of some kind, since any sort of weapon brought to our school was grounds for immediate expulsion. And nobody was stupid enough to try that, especially at 12 years old. I think I even made a joke about it probably being a butter knife. She repeated that she was serious, that she'd told the teachers about it and that they called the police again. I didn't believe her. To me it just seemed crazy that they would call the police over a 12 year old bringing a knife to school. But they did. The police arrived minutes later and that was that. I never saw the knife, but she was immediately expelled. I don't know for sure why me or what she had planned to do, but she must have told multiple people that she was going to do something to me because it was an ongoing joke for the rest of the time that I was at school. She ended up going to the school that my little sister had just started at. And she had apparently also told my sister it had been for me, but it was just a joke. Side note, my little sister is a year younger and she's a fighter. Even at this age now, I've still never been in a real fight and my sister's always fought anyone who badmouthed me. She's a real one. My sister punched her for that and that was the last I heard from her until I was 18 years old. I turned 18 and was at university and then out of the blue I was tagged in an old primary school photo by Sarah. It had the whole class in it, but for some reason she had only tagged me. I found this odd but didn't do anything about it and it was my old Facebook account anyways, so I ignored it. A couple of months later it was Sarah's birthday and she had sent me a message asking if I would come to her birthday party. Mind you, I hadn't spoken to her in like six years and the last time I had, she fought me and then brought in a knife. I simply just ignored the message and moved on with my life. Later on I saw that she and Lauren had reconnected and were best friends again. What's always concerned me is Lauren and I stayed friends for years and she knew everything about how Sarah treated me. But I've never really put much thought into it other than it's highly likely that they were still friends the whole time and that Lauren had stolen my DS and phone because of Sarah and they broke them together. The last time I saw her I was 19. I was on a date with my boyfriend walking down the street and I saw her standing at the bus stop. I wasn't really bothered since I'd neither seen or heard anything from her for years until our eyes met and she grinned and pulled out her phone and it started filming me until I was out of sight. I have no idea why she did any of the things she did and I mostly just feel sorry for her based on the way her life has turned out so far. But I still hope that I never have to see her again. When I was seven years old, my mom and father got a divorce. This event prompted her to move and follow her career in a different small town, which would pay much better as she was a single parent now. On our long 12 hour drive to the new location, we stopped on the way in this little town which was very hippie, sort of had lots of art, little shops, etc. My mom said we Were here to meet up with our friend Paulette. I guess they went way back in her college days and just recently got in touch after a decade. We ended up going to this East Indian restaurant where we would meet for dinner. This slender, somewhat fragile woman walks in and she was very tall, well over 6ft. She had big frizzy curly brown hair with blonde streaks in it. She was Caucasian, wearing a colorful shawl with feather earrings with very pale blue eyes. She looked like a mosaic tapestry or something. She walks over to the table and gives my mom a greeting and a big hug. Then she makes her way to my older brother and shakes his hand. After coming around to my side of the table, I lent my hand out to her and she just stood there expressionless, with her mouth partly open with a blank gaze, just staring at me. It briefly made me uncomfortable and then a flick of a switch, this spark ignited in her face. She made this huge Cheshire cat smile, kneels over and then hugs me tightly. She goes back to sit with my mom and they catch up over the years while we eat dinner. My mom gets the bill and says to her in the parking lot, you can just follow us to Paulette. We get in her car and my mom explains to us that Paulette is actually coming over to live with us for a while. She followed us for the next several hours. We got to the new place and unpack our necessities as we had a moving truck hired with the rest of our stuff arriving in the morning. There was a bunk bed already set up at this place for me and my brother. It was fairly late into the night, roughly 11pm when we arrived. My brother and I set up our sleeping bags and I took the top bunk. My mom says good night and I fell asleep pretty quickly. I woke up around 1:30am I guess the patio deck light got turned on somehow which was right beside our room. I gazed out through the blinders and I saw the back of Paulette's curly hair. She was sitting on the deck cross legged, smoking a cigarette. I didn't think much of it and just laid back down until I noticed the light from the window gets partly blocked out. I looked behind me with my head still on the pillow and I see the unmistakable outline of Paulette's shadow facing my window. She was there for a few minutes but I didn't want to lean up so I just pretended to sleep. Her shadow moves and I hear the front door close. The patio light turns off after a few minutes. I reposition myself facing the wall to go back to Sleep. As I begin to drift off, the door to our room opened slowly and I quickly turned my head around and it wasn't my mom. It was Paulette wearing a nightgown. I turn back facing the wall and close my eyes. She quietly makes her way to my bunk. I feel her fingers in a claw formation start to comb the back of my hair, running her nails on the back of my scalp. I kept my eyes closed tightly, nearly holding my breath, trying to give no signs that I'm awake. I smell some essential oils like lavender and she starts rubbing oil into the back of my neck and also pinching the back of my neck muscle, sometimes holding it and releasing. I began to kinda accept whatever's happening because it didn't feel all that bad. After a while, I actually ended up falling asleep to it. After my initial confusion, I wake up in the morning and my mom is off at work and Paulette is waiting at the table with cereal for me and my brother. She had put chocolate chips on my bowl, but not my brother's. My brother and I made small talk with her. She was very giggly and seemed to be trying to make us comfortable with the new situation. My brother heads back to his room to set up his gamecube after he had his cereal. I was a much slower eater than my older brother, so I was always the last at the table. As I slowly ate, she was just sitting there watching my every move. Once I finished, I told her thank you and then grabbed my bowl to bring it to the sink. She places her hand on mine and then says, I gave you a neck massage so that you wouldn't pee in your bed. I know that lots of young ones pee beds when they sleep in unfamiliar surroundings. I just looked up at her and said, um, I've never paid my bed before, but thank you. She continued to massage the back of my neck for the next few nights. I ended up telling her that I'm comfortable here now, that she didn't need to do this anymore. She reacted to that with a sigh, but acknowledged it. I had started elementary school the following week, which meant getting earlier night sleeps around 8pm her and my mom would stay up much later than me and my brother and they would drink wine together. I always waited for them to go to bed before. I used the washroom at night to go pee because my mom would kind of scold me for being up late on weeknights. Once things got quiet at around 11 in the house, I would sneak out and tippy toe to go use the washroom. This was my ritual for the next few weeks. That is, until Paulette started doing the exact same thing at the same time every time. Every night when I needed to use the washroom. It just so happened Paulette needed it too. And she would blaze down the hallway across from my room when I opened the door. I'd just go back to my room and wait for her. It started happening so frequently that I would just go outside to pee from the back mudroom door. This had started to piss me off. I'd open my door as quietly as I could and then sprint to the washroom. This seemed effective for a while. One night, I got up slightly later than usual around 12. I was a little more careless with noise because I was half asleep and groggy. I opened the door and Paulette's door just slammed open. Instantly, she barges out in the dimly moonlit hallway, completely naked, and just starts quickly walking down the hallway. I was already so down the hallway I couldn't turn my back to my room. I jumped behind my mom's jade plant and squished my knees to my chest and tug my head down. She whizzed straight by me so fast that I felt wind push my hair. She stays in the washroom for almost an hour with the door open to crack the lights off and in silence. I stayed there beside the washroom, tucked in the corner behind the plant pot, not making a single sound. I hear the washroom door open completely and she starts pacing up and down the hallway. I kept it small and insignificant behind the plant until she went back to her room. I brushed this off as just a complete accident. That it was just unfortunate timing. But now, every night going forward, she would literally sprint down the hallway naked. If I'd ever made a single noise, creak the floorboard, open my door, etc. About two months into this, my brother and I were sword fighting with tree branches outside. He ends up clipping my forehead, causing it to bleed pretty badly. Paulette sees this happen and she walks up to my brother. I thought she was gonna scold him, but no. She stompkicks him in the head with her boot, causing him to fall on his back. He gets up off the ground crying and runs into the house. She grabs me and starts cradling me, rocking me back and forward. She's shaking so much that she was actually vibrating repeatedly, asking, are you hurt? In a shaky voice. Anyway, my mom finds out through my brother what had happened and decides that she had to leave. On her final day, she had made a point to see Me one on one in the driveway before entering her car. She then knelt down and said to me, I hope I can see you in a different life. You remind me so much of my husband. Goodbye. And she actually starts bawling her eyes out, hugging me. I asked my mom who her husband was. I guess he was a marine that died in Afghanistan a few months prior to her moving in with us. My mom said that she would frequently say how much I reminded her of him on a daily basis. My mom hasn't spoken to her since. I've never told my mom about the massages or anything to this day as she was already exiled and I felt it would just cause even more drama. Out of respect for everyone's privacy, names in this story will be changed. The important people to know are my cousin and I, who we'll call Drew. Some of the prominent neighborhood kids we'll call Josh, Kylie and Evan, and of course Gabe to set the story. This was around the time that my mom and dad divorced. It wasn't a clean divorce either, and there was a lot going on around this time. My mom had to move out of the school district and into a small home quickly and my dad kept the house in our neighborhood. I bring this up to explain that although my two brothers decided to stay with my dad, me and my cousin, who lived with us most of his life, decided to move in with my mom. The issue was that my mom's new place wasn't within the school district, which meant no buses. So the setup was that she'd bring us to school before work and then after school we would catch the bus to my dad's house and stay there for a couple of hours until she got off work. Now that everything's explained, let's get into what you're really here for. There were quite a few kids in our neighborhood and I guess you could say we all got along and hung out quite a bit. We would all ride the bus together, hang out after school, and hell, even try to build forts in the vine. The vine was a spot in the woods you could access through a small opening at the end of a cul de sac. This is important. Later. It was an everyday thing for us really until one day a new family had moved into the neighborhood and with them their son Gabe. He had semi long brown hair and he was skinny. We first met Gabe on the school bus and us being curious about a new kid in our neighborhood, we were all eager to talk to him. You probably think we got some off vibe from him or maybe something about him was creepy, but honestly, he just seemed like a regular kid. He seemed to fit in with the other kids in the neighborhood. It became normal to see me, Josh, Kylie, Drew, and Evan and Gabe all hanging out. Rather all of us or a combination of the few. After getting to know him, we learned that Gabe actually used to go to our school, but that he got expelled after he threw a desk at a teacher and only just that school year let him back into our school. Back then, we had brushed it off as just something edgy that he did. But knowing the events now, it should have been the first red flag. You see, Gabe, Drew and I really became close. I'd argue closer than the other kids. I would have considered him a friend instead of just another neighborhood kid to hang out with. Which is why we didn't immediately drop him after the following events. I wasn't there for this, but heard about it after the fact. Drew and I got on the bus one day and immediately I noticed that Gabe wasn't there. We sat next to each other every day on the bus. I just assumed he was absent and Drew decided to sit by me. Kylie and Evan, who sat near us, had started talking about something that happened and we joined into their conversation. Apparently not long after Drew and I left to go to my mom's, Gabe had invited Kylie, Evan, and Josh to his house. Now, I don't remember what set this in motion or what really happened, but the hangout ended with Gabe chasing Josh home with a machete in his hands. Josh lived on the other side of the neighborhood, and once he got home, his mother came out to see what was going on as she had heard him yelling for her from the front yard. Once she stepped out, Gabe had chased both of them inside. The scariest part, they heard from Josh that he was laughing and he had a smile on his face as he did it, like he enjoyed terrorizing them. The cops were called and honestly, I don't know what came out other than Gabe was gone from school for a few days after that. When he came back, he acted like it never even happened. The kids in our neighborhood had started growing apart from Gabe after that. Especially Josh, who I actually never saw talk to him again. I mean, who would blame him? I guess I felt bad for Gabe a little bit. My stupid brain must have decided it was just a bad prank that went too far or something like that. Oh, how dumb was I? I truly believe Gabe had changed after that. Like something had clicked in his brain. Not long after that, we were on the bus and I was Talking to him as we had sat in the same seats. All of a sudden, he just pulled a pencil out and tried to stab me with it. Not only tried, but he actually did stab me right in the neck. Luckily, it only broke the skin, but it shocked me. He laughed about it like he was joking. And I decided to move seats. When I got off, I had felt the need to explain what happened to the bus driver. I never should have done that. I believe to this day that one choice caused what happened next. He was kicked off the bus for a couple of days. When he returned, they made him sit at the front of the bus. He knew it was me who snitched on him. When I'd walk past him to get off the bus, he would glare at me and it felt evil. He called me names and a snitch, and I was scared of him. Fast forward a week later, and all the kids in our neighborhood just decided that they wouldn't hang out with Gabe anymore at all. And I wish I could say the same. Even after everything I had just spilled to you all, I was naive and dumb. Eventually, he messaged me, apologizing, and he messaged me to ask if Drew and I wanted to hang out. I don't know why, but we agreed. I think I remember him saying that he and some of the other kids were gonna go hang out at the vine and build some forts. And I think that's why we agreed, you know, because the other kids would be there, too. So we set off to meet him at his house, which was just down the street from ours. We knocked on his door, and he answered it holding a knife. Screwed the red flag. I was ignoring a whole red alarm at this point. It was a kitchen knife with some sort of orange handle. He had a smile on his face. He held his arm up and just. Well, he started cutting himself. We should have just left right there. Why didn't we just leave? After a couple of cuts, he laughed all like it was some sort of joke. It wasn't until now that I realized that this kid was truly psychotic. Like something was really wrong with him. He had a couple of tools with him, and he told us to follow him to the vine. And for some dumb reason, we did. I was really holding out hope that he would be normal when all the other kids would be there. We got to the small opening to the vine and walked in. To get to the small pond in the vine, you had to go down a slightly steep hill and through the brush, and you'd be there. I bet you could Feel my surprise when I realized that nobody else was there. I looked at Gabe, who just chuckled. They must be late. Let's just get started, he said to me. Both Drew and I were on edge. I bet Gabe could feel it. Hey, go find some sticks and logs to build the fort, he told me. He pointed over towards the pond. I obeyed and made my way over to the area. About 10 or 15 seconds after I'd started walking, I just got the feeling telling me to turn around and I'll never ever stop thanking God for doing just that. Gabe was there, creeping up to my cousin, who was picking up a large rock. Gabe had a hoe looking tool in his hand. Raising it slowly, I then shouted at him. My cousin jolted up and Gabe quickly lowered the hoe and then looked at me in confusion. I ran up to them, telling them my mom messaged me and that it was time to go. That was a lie of course. My phone only worked on wifi at the time. I felt that Gabe knew that I saw him. So I grabbed my cousin, who didn't for a second question me, and we quickly started leaving. And at that very moment, he chased us. We booked it through the woods for a solid half of a minute and got to the steep part, quickly climbing it, I looked back and saw Gabe, with the face that I could only describe as a psychopath, chasing us. I prayed that we wouldn't slip or fall, and thank God we didn't. Luckily, Gabe had struggled a bit, giving us time to bolt out of the entrance. We ran halfway up the street and turned around. Gabe wasn't there. In fact, we never even saw him leave. We went home and the next day we told some of the other kids what had happened. The weirdest part is though, we never saw Gabe again. Not on the bus or at school. Very shortly after, his parents moved from that house and my dad moved out of that neighborhood. A year later, my mom also found a new warehouse in our school district. This was years ago. I recently looked Gabe up to see whatever happened to him, but nothing came up. No Facebook page, no Instagram, nothing. It's like he just vanished. Like he never even existed in the first place. But I know he did. I don't live anywhere near there anymore, and thank God for that. Gabe, I don't know where you are or what happened to you, but as long as I don't ever see you again, I'm fine.