Blogtober 2025, Day 14: Pet

Lucy's Path: Chapter Fourteen


They didn’t stop running until the woods thinned and the rusted swing set came into view again, glowing dull under the moonlight. The sight of it—ordinary, human—nearly broke them. Sarah collapsed onto the gravel, shaking. Tyler bent double, gasping, a cut bleeding down his cheek.

Mark stood at the fence line, staring back into the dark trees. “She’s still in there,” he said. “Emily.”

Sarah’s voice was raw. “We couldn’t save her. You saw what happened—she changed.”

Mark turned, jaw tight. “No. Something took her. We get people. We go back.”

“Who?” Tyler laughed hollowly. “You think anyone’s going to believe this? That the woods swallowed her?”

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the squeak of a single swing moving in the wind. Mark reached out to stop it, but it kept swaying, defying his hand.

Then he saw it—scratched faintly into the metal seat, just beneath his palm: WELCOME BACK.

Sarah’s stomach turned. “That wasn’t there before.”

Tyler looked up at the empty slide nearby, its shadows too deep. “She said we were being kept,” he murmured. “Like a… pet.”

Mark swallowed hard, scanning the playground. A ribbon dangled from the monkey bars, fluttering gently though the air was still.

“She’s not done with us,” he said. “And if we’re her pets now—”

Sarah rose, eyes wide. “Then she’s coming to feed.”


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