The Balloon

It was a beautiful day. I was with my 2 sisters to eat in a fast food restaurant. As we sat down in our seats reading the menus, I saw a family of 3 pass by us. I recognize them as our new neighbors from next door. They consist of a mother, son and daughter. The mother is Selma Tyde. Nice lady, but a little scary. The son is Jackson, 14 years and a troublemaker of the sort. And the girl is Abby, she's only 7. I think they just came back from some art museum because I'd noticed that the girl was holding a white balloon, which was oddly covered in black streaks. I wanted to see the rest of the balloon, but I just can't go up to them, for it would rather rude and creepy of me to do something like that. "Hey, what're you looking at?" my youngest sister asked me. "What? Oh, I was looking at the…" I pointed at the table our neighbors were sitting at, but my sisters could see nothing but the balloon. "Come on, you're only 16. You're too old to be interested in stuff like that." my eldest sister said sternly.

When our meals arrived, I still kept my eyes on the balloon, munching on some french fries as I did. Finally, the floating white turned around, and I managed to see the rest of it. It had a face, similar to the one of Ghostface's from those famous Scream movies, only the eyes and mouth were scribbled and thinner. Did I mention that we were sitting next to a mirror wall? Well, we were. The balloon just gaped at the mirror, as if it was really looking at itself. It continued to do that until my sisters and I had finished our food. The balloon then turned and faced me, with its terrifying, face that a person in horror would look like. After the family had left, the balloon still stared at me, turning its face as our new neighbors walked away.

For the rest of the day, that face still kept on haunting me. Even while I was shopping for dresses with my 2 sisters. When I got home, so did our neighbors. The little girl still had that balloon with her. I was kind of hoping for it to fly away after the girl got bored, or got popped up by her brother as a prank. But she still has it, that horrible thing, and that's when things got worse.

When I went to bed, I heard screams at 3 in the morning. They made me jump out of my bed and that's when I saw some lights open from next door. My eldest sister and I went over there to find Mrs Thatcher screaming, with tears flowing down her cheeks. It scared me a little because I think I saw a hint of blood in one of them. "My baby! My baby's dead!" she yelled hysterically. As my sister went to call the police, I went inside the house to investigate. When I stepped into a room full of stuffed toys, I saw the most traumatizing sight I have ever seen. Abby Tyde was hanging from the ceiling, with a balloon string around her neck. It was so thin and tight that it nearly cut off her head. As the little girl's nightdress continued to soak in blood, I found something written on the wall behind her, with these words: "I am free", and that's when I saw the balloon again, this time with no strings attached. It twirled to show not the Ghostface expression, but a disturbing, upside down version. The eyes were crossed to make an angry look, and the mouth looked more like a smile. It was the last thing I saw as it drifted towards me.