Ghosts
White Light
Two elementary school kids walking home late from a birthday party spot something white in the dark—and spend the rest of their lives not talking about it.
This happened when I was in second or third grade. A close friend of mine invited me to her birthday party, and since her place was close to home and our parents were familiar with the neighborhood, they let me go without worry.
Her house was in a small commercial district—kind of a hybrid area where most buildings had a storefront on the ground level and people lived upstairs. By around 7 or 8 PM, just about everything would shut down for the night. The district had these metal security gates at most of the cross streets, the kind that clang shut after hours. After dark it was almost completely dead—just a handful of dim streetlights casting weak orange pools on the pavement, barely enough to see by.
My friend came from a pretty well-off family. They had a computer back when almost none of my other friends did. A lot of kids showed up to the party, and since we all wanted to get more time on that computer, everyone stayed later than they probably should have. Me and my best friend Danny—we did everything together back then—were the last ones out. It was probably around 11 PM when we finally left.
We lived in roughly the same direction, so we walked together, still buzzing about the games we'd played, bragging to each other the whole way. I needed to pee, and since there wasn't a single person in sight, I just went behind a wall near one of the intersections. Danny waited for me.
That's when I looked up.
In the distance—just maybe fifty yards away—there was a white figure. It didn't walk toward us or away from us. It was just *there*, hovering in the middle of the path, pale as paper under the streetlight. Then, within a matter of seconds, it was gone. Like someone had switched it off.
I blinked hard. Told myself I was seeing things. But when I looked at Danny, his face had gone pale too. He was staring right at me with wide eyes, clearly shaken.
We didn't say a word to each other. We pulled ourselves together and ran—fast. All the way until we hit the main road, where there were actual cars passing and a handful of people on the sidewalk. We didn't stop until we got there.
A guy sitting on a stoop nearby noticed we looked terrified. Asked us if we were okay. We didn't tell him what we'd seen, but we asked to borrow his phone to call our parents. He let us.
I was too scared to ever bring it up with Danny after that. It became our secret—the thing we just didn't talk about. That fear was real, but talking about it felt like it would make it more real somehow.
We lost touch with each other a few years back. Life happens, people drift. Sometimes I wonder if he even remembers that night at all.
I do. Every time I pass through a dead-quiet commercial area after dark, I think about that white shape.
And I never look too closely at the shadows.
Her house was in a small commercial district—kind of a hybrid area where most buildings had a storefront on the ground level and people lived upstairs. By around 7 or 8 PM, just about everything would shut down for the night. The district had these metal security gates at most of the cross streets, the kind that clang shut after hours. After dark it was almost completely dead—just a handful of dim streetlights casting weak orange pools on the pavement, barely enough to see by.
My friend came from a pretty well-off family. They had a computer back when almost none of my other friends did. A lot of kids showed up to the party, and since we all wanted to get more time on that computer, everyone stayed later than they probably should have. Me and my best friend Danny—we did everything together back then—were the last ones out. It was probably around 11 PM when we finally left.
We lived in roughly the same direction, so we walked together, still buzzing about the games we'd played, bragging to each other the whole way. I needed to pee, and since there wasn't a single person in sight, I just went behind a wall near one of the intersections. Danny waited for me.
That's when I looked up.
In the distance—just maybe fifty yards away—there was a white figure. It didn't walk toward us or away from us. It was just *there*, hovering in the middle of the path, pale as paper under the streetlight. Then, within a matter of seconds, it was gone. Like someone had switched it off.
I blinked hard. Told myself I was seeing things. But when I looked at Danny, his face had gone pale too. He was staring right at me with wide eyes, clearly shaken.
We didn't say a word to each other. We pulled ourselves together and ran—fast. All the way until we hit the main road, where there were actual cars passing and a handful of people on the sidewalk. We didn't stop until we got there.
A guy sitting on a stoop nearby noticed we looked terrified. Asked us if we were okay. We didn't tell him what we'd seen, but we asked to borrow his phone to call our parents. He let us.
I was too scared to ever bring it up with Danny after that. It became our secret—the thing we just didn't talk about. That fear was real, but talking about it felt like it would make it more real somehow.
We lost touch with each other a few years back. Life happens, people drift. Sometimes I wonder if he even remembers that night at all.
I do. Every time I pass through a dead-quiet commercial area after dark, I think about that white shape.
And I never look too closely at the shadows.