The Grassy Playground

One night, Karin and her friends were walking home.

It was late, nearly midnight, but Riana and Sophia had been hamming it up at the club all night. They were both so drunk you could smell it on them. Karin sometimes wondered if she was the only sane one in the group.

"Did you zee thizz one?" Sophia slurred behind Karin. The too-bright glow of her phone lit up the street.

"Noididn't, thatzilariouz!" Riana replied, nearly tipping over. Karin rolled her eyes. ''Could they even see the road nearby? ''They were walking on Riverside Boulevard, the road that ran past the graveyard.

That's when she saw him.

The kid.

He was maybe five years old, too young to be wandering around at 11:50 p.m. He had an aura of eerie calm about him, as if he knew exactly where he was going, as if it was perfectly normal to be walking alongside Riverside Boulevard in the middle of the night.

"Hello...?" Karin called out nervously, thinking What's going on? and Is he okay? and Why is he out here? and Stranger danger, will he listen to me?

"Oh, hello!" the boy responded. His voice was almost ethereal, high-pitched and soft. "What's your name?"

"I'm Karin," she replied, bending down to his height. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm just going to the playground."

"The where?" Karin asked, checking her phone. "There's no playground within three miles, according to Google Maps."

"I'm going to the playground," he repeated. "The grassy playground."

"There's no playground within a 45-minute walk," Karin said, looking at the boy strangely.

"But you don't understand. My playground is close." He looked at Karin, and she felt as if her soul had just been turned inside out and displayed there on the pavement. "You'll play there too, someday." This creeped Karin out, and she wondered if she might have had one too many shots after all.

Speaking of which...She turned around. Riana and Sophia were still drunk-giggling about whatever they were reading on Riana's phone. (if they could read at all right now.) They didn't appear to have noticed the boy.

"Do you know your parent's phone number?" Karin asked the boy, opening her calling app. "I can call them and see if they're nearby."

"No," he said. "I'm going to the playground."

"What's your name?" Karin asked, getting slightly exasperated.

"That's not necessary," he replied.

"How about we walk you home?" Karin said-asked.

"Walk me to my playground," the boy commanded, setting off. Karin followed, Riana and Sophia trailing behind.

It was strange. Karin felt pulled to follow. At no time in her right mind would she follow a five-year-old along the street at night. She should force him to tell her his parents' phone numbers, not follow his whimsy plans to go to a nonexistent playground.

They passed the old graveyard. He stopped.

"Why are we stopping?" Karin asked, turning around nervously on the spot. "This is the graveyard."

"No it isn't," the boy said. His voice was echoing now, coming from every corner and yet nowhere. Karin spun in shock.

All the colors had faded from the boy. He was in greyscale, every bit of him changing and fading.

His eyes glowed like cat eyes in headlights, white and burning.

"This is my playground," he said, and he began to dissipate, his body sliding sideways and vanishing into the still air. Only his eyes, burning, glowing eyes, remained. "It's my grassy playground."

Summary
This is a ghost story based off a quote from my brother. We used to go to a graveyard near my house and run around in it, my mom and I looking at gravestones and my sister, dad, and brother playing around. One day, we drove past the graveyard and my brother said: "That's my grassy playground."

Later that night, we nearly ran over a cat. Its eyes were retroreflectors, reflecting all the light back at us. I combined these two things and got this story.