The Stone That Should Have Killed Me
A late-night walk home after basketball turns terrifying when falling stones nearly kill him—and a ghostly figure waits at the end of the road.
It happened on the third night of the New Year. A group of us had been playing basketball at the court behind the old community center, and after the game broke up, we all headed home. It was around ten o'clock. My house was the farthest from the court, so by the time we reached the residential area, I was alone.
The roads and the basketball court had both been fitted with streetlights a few months earlier—bright, harsh LEDs that made the darkness feel even darker beyond their reach. As I passed the abandoned farmhouse at the edge of the village, something struck me on the head.
A small stone. Just a pebble. I stopped and looked up at the old structure—two stories of weathered wood and faded red brick, long since cleared out, the windows boarded shut. Nobody. Nothing. I rubbed my head, shrugged it off. Just some loose gravel shaken loose by the cold, I told myself.
I kept walking.
Then a large rock plummeted down from above—thud—it hit the ground exactly where I'd been standing seconds before. If I hadn't moved, it would have crushed my skull.
My blood went cold. I broke into a fast walk, then a jog, then a sprint as something primal took over. The streetlight immediately ahead flickered once, twice—and beneath it stood a figure. Silhouetted. Still. A person, or something shaped like one, just standing there under the pool of weak yellow light like it was waiting.
I ran. I ran harder than I ever had.
I reached my front door and hammered on it until my knuckles hurt. The moment I stepped inside, the tension in my chest released. I stood in the doorway catching my breath, my heart slamming against my ribs.
The next morning, I heard the news.
An elderly man from the village had passed away sometime the night before. He lived alone, or mostly alone—the kind of old-timer whose children had moved to the city and whose wife had been gone for years. I hadn't known him well, but I knew of him. Everyone did.
The timing hit me like a second stone.
The pebbles. The boulder. The figure standing under the streetlight.
The old man died that night. And I had walked past his house—past the place where he had lived, and possibly where he had died—right around the same hour.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. The way the first stone had tapped me on the head, almost as if to get my attention. The way the second came down like a warning—or a test. And the shape at the end of the road, standing perfectly still beneath that sputtering light...
Was it coincidental? Or had something—someone—tried to stop me from walking past that house at exactly the wrong moment?
Some locals say the old man died alone in his bed, sometime after midnight. They say the last thing he might have seen, looking out his window, was a young man passing by on the road below. A stranger to him. But not to whatever comes next.
I still take a different route home now. Even when it's longer. Even when it means cutting through the dark behind the old grain storage, where there are no streetlights at all.
I don't know what was standing under that light. I don't know if it was protecting me or warning me or something else entirely.
But I know the stones didn't miss.
And I know I'm still here.
---
*This is a translated and culturally adapted account. The original Chinese story has been reimagined for Western readers.*
The roads and the basketball court had both been fitted with streetlights a few months earlier—bright, harsh LEDs that made the darkness feel even darker beyond their reach. As I passed the abandoned farmhouse at the edge of the village, something struck me on the head.
A small stone. Just a pebble. I stopped and looked up at the old structure—two stories of weathered wood and faded red brick, long since cleared out, the windows boarded shut. Nobody. Nothing. I rubbed my head, shrugged it off. Just some loose gravel shaken loose by the cold, I told myself.
I kept walking.
Then a large rock plummeted down from above—thud—it hit the ground exactly where I'd been standing seconds before. If I hadn't moved, it would have crushed my skull.
My blood went cold. I broke into a fast walk, then a jog, then a sprint as something primal took over. The streetlight immediately ahead flickered once, twice—and beneath it stood a figure. Silhouetted. Still. A person, or something shaped like one, just standing there under the pool of weak yellow light like it was waiting.
I ran. I ran harder than I ever had.
I reached my front door and hammered on it until my knuckles hurt. The moment I stepped inside, the tension in my chest released. I stood in the doorway catching my breath, my heart slamming against my ribs.
The next morning, I heard the news.
An elderly man from the village had passed away sometime the night before. He lived alone, or mostly alone—the kind of old-timer whose children had moved to the city and whose wife had been gone for years. I hadn't known him well, but I knew of him. Everyone did.
The timing hit me like a second stone.
The pebbles. The boulder. The figure standing under the streetlight.
The old man died that night. And I had walked past his house—past the place where he had lived, and possibly where he had died—right around the same hour.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. The way the first stone had tapped me on the head, almost as if to get my attention. The way the second came down like a warning—or a test. And the shape at the end of the road, standing perfectly still beneath that sputtering light...
Was it coincidental? Or had something—someone—tried to stop me from walking past that house at exactly the wrong moment?
Some locals say the old man died alone in his bed, sometime after midnight. They say the last thing he might have seen, looking out his window, was a young man passing by on the road below. A stranger to him. But not to whatever comes next.
I still take a different route home now. Even when it's longer. Even when it means cutting through the dark behind the old grain storage, where there are no streetlights at all.
I don't know what was standing under that light. I don't know if it was protecting me or warning me or something else entirely.
But I know the stones didn't miss.
And I know I'm still here.
---
*This is a translated and culturally adapted account. The original Chinese story has been reimagined for Western readers.*