Chapter 4

The week he was suspended from school was long for Mia and Ricky. They stayed home, waiting for Marty to return, yet he never came.

When the following Monday came, Ricky went to his new classroom.

No one talked to him. When he tried to engage in conversation, his new classmates either turned away or pretended not to see him.

Despite Ricky's isolation, he couldn't escape overhearing their gossip about him. He felt the urge to confront them and stop it, but he held himself back. His mother spent the previous week prepping him on how to adapt to the new classroom. Refusing to disappoint her, he steered clear of the potential conflict. Yet, despite his best efforts, his emotions were steadily spiraling downward.

At the end of the day, his emotions picked up a little at last. When it was time to go home, his classmates finally decided to approach him. They wanted to play. Ricky hesitated. However, not seeing his mother picking him up, he followed them to a nearby abandoned park.

"Mommy told me that this is not a good place. We should not be here." Ricky told the other boys.

The children didn't respond. They surrounded him and pushed him around.

"Freak! Freak! Freak!" They shouted at him over and over.

Ricky was gripped by fear as he attempted to escape. With each try, they forcefully threw him back in their midst.

The sound of a branch breaking brought all of them to a stop. Ricky fell on his knees. The children looked around for where the sound came from. None of them saw the long, thin, disproportionate shadow on the ground beside them.

"Let's get out of here," One of the children said, and the others followed him as he left.

Ricky was left alone with the shadow. His sobs echoed in the empty park. A line of blood came out of his forehead. His face paled. His body trembled. Tears blurred his vision.

Ricky wanted his parents to be with him and save him. His body hurt. He couldn't get up. He felt cold. So cold. He struggled to move, but tiredness weighed his limbs. After a moment, he stopped moving.

The shadow next to him extended an arm in his direction as if willing to help. However, the silence that stretched in this place discouraged it from trying. It was too late.

"Ricky!" Mia's voice pierced through the stillness of the park as she rushed to her son.

She had been late, the boss from the job she had just found a few days ago asked her to help move something. She didn't think much about it and agreed, thinking it would be fast.

However, she made a mistake. It took way longer than she thought. She rushed as fast as she could to the school. But having no car, she still arrived twenty minutes late.

She didn't see Oliver in front of the school, so she went inside looking for him. He wasn't there either. She yelled at the teacher and the principal for letting her son leave alone.

They didn't care. They told Mia they weren't responsible for children after the get-out-of-school bell, even more so when they weren't on school premises. She was mad but also scared.

She looked for him everywhere inside and outside the school. She tried the path he should take to go home, but he still wasn't there.

Before panic could overwhelm her, she remembered the old abandoned park near the school. And she was right. As soon as the park came into sight, she saw her son lying on the ground sobbing and holding his head like he was scared.

"Ricky baby. Mommy is here. Don't cry, don't be afraid. Mommy is here."

She took him in her arms, scanning the surroundings for any sign that might explain his fear, yet she found nothing. There was nothing around them apart from remnants of games long gone.

With difficulty, Mia held Ricky in her arms and walked out of the park. She didn't see the long shadow steadily following her as she left.

They returned home. Ricky refused to tell her what had happened. He refused to talk, and the mere mention of school triggered panic attacks. She tried to call his doctors to no avail. She called Marty; he didn't have any solution either.

The following day, Ricky resisted going to school. Mia notified her workplace. Her boss, exasperated with her ongoing issues, terminated her employment.

After all, she requested a week of sick leave after working for two days. Then, she returned for a single day and sought another leave. While her employer empathized with her, he could not tolerate her constant absenteeism.

Mia cried. She felt useless. Ricky looked at her silently as he sat at the kitchen table.

A noise made him look at his phone.

"Hello. I'm Patrick. Patrick is lonely. Do you want to be my friend?"

The young boy looked at the message without answering. He felt a little fear at the word friend. Yesterday, he believed his classmates wanted to be his friends. However, it was a lie. They hurt him.

"I am Patrick. I am lonely. Do you want to be my friend?" The message appeared again and again even though Ricky removed it each time.

Frustration grew as the message kept coming.

"No! No! No!" Ricky screamed as he tapped furiously on the screen.

Mia ran to her son, put the phone on the side, and took him in her arms.

"It's okay, son. I'm here. It's okay," she repeated as she comforted him.

The days that followed were harrowing for Mia. From time to time, Ricky would cry hysterically for no apparent reason. She talked to his doctors. They explained his condition.

Ricky had difficulty controlling his emotions. When happy, Ricky could laugh out loud for a long time. When sad, it was like the world had ended. And when angry, he would break everything he could see.

But all that had a prerequisite: an external stimulation.

They advised Mia to find the root cause of Ricky's recent outbursts and remove them from his presence.

It had been a week since Ricky refused to go to school. On this day, Mia was doing her laundry when she heard Ricky crying and getting angry once again.

"Ricky!" she cried as she held her son in her arms, "Calm down. If you don't tell me what's bothering you, how can I help you? Tell me. Please. I will help you. Tell me."

"P..Patrick. He w..won't leave me a..a..alone," Ricky stammered like he had to fight to get the words out.

"Who the hell is Patrick?"