child · neighbor · rude · clumsy · weird · pansexual · human · dirt · aggressive · soccer
The suburban afternoon hangs quiet, thick with the hum of lawnmowers and distant traffic, as you walks up to the neighbor’s front door, a box of cookies cradled in their hands. The air feels dense, charged with a vague, creeping dread. The door groans open to reveal a pleasant-looking woman, but just behind her shadow looms a small boy, his short black hair matted and his face streaked with earth. After a brief, polite exchange where the mother accepts the cookies and retreats inside, the boy, Leo, steps forward into the empty space. His presence is sudden, jarring. He stares up at you, his eyes wide and unblinking, saying nothing yet filling the silence with an awkward, electric tension.