This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Mammoth-Spell386 on 2024-11-25 15:25:17+00:00.
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The first time I met Grace, she was sitting on the curb outside my house, cradling a stuffed animal with its seams coming apart. I thought she looked lonely. I was seven years old and naive enough to believe that everyone just wanted a friend.
She turned to me as I approached, her dark eyes locking onto mine like she already knew everything about me. “Want to play?” she asked, tilting her head with a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Sure,” I said, shrugging.
We played catch at first, but it didn’t take long before she started making up rules—rules that made no sense. “You have to throw with your left hand or you’re cheating,” she said. “If you miss the ball, you owe me something.”
“What would I owe you?” I asked, confused.
Her grin widened. “I’ll tell you later.”
Over the next few months, Grace became a regular presence in my life. She lived a few streets over, and her parents were always busy, so she’d show up unannounced, ready to play. At first, I didn’t mind, but the games started to get strange. One day, she brought over a leash with no dog attached.
“Let’s play vet,” she said.
When I told her I didn’t know how, she grabbed my arm and squeezed hard enough to leave marks. “Just do what I say,” she hissed.
I didn’t like Grace much after that, but avoiding her wasn’t easy. She had a way of showing up exactly when I wanted to be left alone. My mom thought she was sweet and told me I should be nice to her because she didn’t have many friends. “You’re her favorite person,” Mom would say, as if that was supposed to make me feel better.
Then came the day Grace accused me of stealing her puppy.
I didn’t even know she had a puppy. She marched up to me during recess, her face red with anger, and shouted, “You took him! I saw you!”
“What are you talking about?” I stammered, feeling every pair of eyes on the playground turn toward me.
“You took him from my yard! You’re a thief!” She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the teacher, shouting about how I’d broken into her house and stolen her dog.
The teacher separated us and sent us to the principal’s office, but no matter how much I denied it, Grace stuck to her story. “He even tried to hide the collar in his room,” she said, her voice trembling with fake tears.
The principal didn’t believe her, thankfully, but the damage was done. The other kids started calling me “Dog Thief” and avoiding me. My mom said I should “make peace” with Grace. When I told her I hadn’t done anything wrong, she just sighed and muttered something about me needing to learn how to get along with others.
I tried to stay away from Grace after that, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. One day, she cornered me in the alley behind our school. Her expression was cold, her hands hidden behind her back.
“You need to learn to listen,” she said before shoving me to the ground.
I didn’t see the knife until it was too late. The blade was small, more like a letter opener, but the pain was sharp and immediate. I screamed and tried to fight her off, but she was stronger than she looked. By the time she ran off, my shirt was soaked in blood, and I could barely move.
When I got home, my mom was furious—not at Grace, but at me. “What did you do to make her so angry?” she demanded as she cleaned the wound. “You’re always causing trouble.”
I wanted to tell her everything, but what was the point? No one ever believed me when it came to Grace.
Years passed, and I didn’t see Grace again until high school. By then, I had almost convinced myself that she was just a bad memory, something my mind had exaggerated to explain the scars on my arm and the pit in my stomach. But then she walked into my study hall like nothing had happened.
She smiled at me, that same unsettling grin, and sat down across the table. “Hey, remember me?”
My stomach dropped. “What do you want?”
“To be friends,” she said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I spent the rest of the semester avoiding her, but she seemed to be everywhere—at lunch, in the hallways, even at the convenience store where I worked weekends. It was like she was haunting me, reminding me that no matter how much time had passed, she still had control.
One day, she showed up at the register with a pack of gum and a sly smile. “You’ve gotten better at hiding,” she said, sliding the money across the counter. “But you can’t hide forever.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
That night, I dreamed of the attic in my childhood home. I hadn’t been up there since I was a kid, but in the dream, it was exactly as I remembered—cold, dark, and filled with shadows that seemed to move on their own. In the corner was a box, and when I opened it, there was the leash Grace had brought over all those years ago. Only this time, it wasn’t empty.
Inside was the collar of a puppy, its tag etched with a single word: Promise.
I woke up drenched in sweat, the sound of Grace’s laughter echoing in my ears.
She hasn’t shown up again, not yet. But sometimes, when I’m alone, I feel like someone’s watching me. And every now and then, I hear a faint tapping at my window.