At first, I didn’t think much of my son’s drawings. They seemed normal, the kind of pictures a curious four-year-old might create.

 

But Mickey wasn’t like other kids. He never drew things from his imagination — he only sketched what he had actually seen.

 

So when the same unfamiliar man kept appearing in his pictures, my curiosity turned into concern.

 

That’s when I decided to set up a camera outside… and what I saw later chilled me to my core. I live alone with Mickey. It’s just the two of us, against the world. Some days, it felt like more than a saying — it felt like pure survival. I worked two jobs just to pay the bills, keep the lights on, and make sure there was food in the fridge.

 

 

Every morning, I was at the diner down the street, serving pancakes and coffee until my feet ached. At night, after Mickey went to bed, I logged on to do data entry work from home. It wasn’t glamorous, but it paid the rent, the groceries, and the one thing that mattered most to Mickey — his art classes. Mickey didn’t just like drawing. He lived and breathed it.

And for a boy his age, he was unbelievably talented. His art teacher told me he had something like a photographic memory. Every single stroke he put on paper was a reflection of something he’d truly seen. He never made up characters or invented imaginary scenes. Everything he drew was real, recognizable, unmistakable.

At first, his drawings were sweet and simple. Flowers from our garden, our rusty old mailbox, Mrs. Peterson’s orange cat snoozing on the porch. But then, one afternoon, Mickey burst into the kitchen holding a brand-new picture. “Look, Mommy! I drew my friend!” he said, beaming. I wiped my hands on a towel and bent down to look. It was a man — tall, wearing a hat pulled low over his face, standing by the backyard fence.

“Your friend?” I asked, confused. “Who is he, sweetheart?”

“My friend,” Mickey said simply, like that explained everything. “He’s nice.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine.

“Where did you see him?”

“Outside,” Mickey said cheerfully. “He waves at me.”

I laughed nervously. Kids have wild imaginations, right? Maybe he saw someone walking by, and made up a little story.

But then the next day, there was another drawing.

And another. And another.

A week later, while sorting through Mickey’s art folder, I noticed a pattern. Eighteen drawings — every one showing the same man, with the same hat and stance.

In some pictures, he stood near the apple tree. In others, by the garden shed, on the porch, or close to the front door.

And then, my heart nearly stopped.

The last drawing showed him inside our house — inside Mickey’s room, standing next to the toy chest, smiling.

I dropped the papers in shock. “No… no, that can’t be,” I whispered, trembling. “You don’t draw things that aren’t real…”

Mickey toddled in holding his juice box.

“Do you like my pictures?” he asked.

“Honey… when did you see this man in your room?” I asked quietly.

“Sometimes he peeks in,” Mickey said simply, taking a sip. “When I’m playing.”

I couldn’t breathe.

There was no new neighbor. No repairmen. No strangers hanging around. I knew everyone on our street. We’d lived here for years. So who was this man? And why was he in my son’s room? That night, I barely slept. Every creak in the house made me jump. I triple-checked the locks and peeked out the windows multiple times. By morning, I’d made up my mind. No matter what it cost, I was going to install cameras.

“Mommy, why are you putting that up?” Mickey asked as I mounted a small security camera above the back door.

“Because I want to know if your ‘friend’ ever comes back,” I said with a small smile, but inside, my heart was pounding. Deep down, I already knew the truth. Whatever Mickey was seeing wasn’t just imagination. And I was terrified to see what the footage would reveal. And I was right to be afraid.

For the first few nights, I sat like a guard, eyes glued to the live feed from the backyard camera. I drank cup after cup of cold coffee, fighting exhaustion until I finally dozed off on the couch. But there was nothing — no movement, no sign of anyone. After a week, I stopped staying up all night. Instead, I’d check the footage each morning while drinking my coffee. Still nothing. Strangely, Mickey’s drawings changed too. The mysterious man disappeared. His pictures were once again filled with flowers, trees, and the familiar faces of our cat and neighbors. But Mickey himself wasn’t the same. He dragged his crayons around instead of rushing to them. He sighed while coloring.

“Mom,” he murmured one afternoon, eyes fixed on the page, “my friend doesn’t come anymore. It’s because of your camera.”

I knelt down and brushed a strand of hair from his forehead.

“Sweetheart, we don’t play with strangers. It can be dangerous.”

He didn’t argue. Just pressed his lips together, quietly stood up, and went to his room. My chest tightened as I watched him walk away. It felt cruel, like I had taken something precious from him. But I knew I was doing the right thing. That man was gone. Finally. Or so I thought. The next morning, I opened the camera app as usual, expecting to see the same empty yard.

Instead, my blood ran cold.

Just after midnight, right after I kissed Mickey goodnight and turned off my own light, the porch lamp flickered on.

Then… a shadow appeared, climbing over the fence.

My hands shook as I zoomed in.

“Come on… step into the light. I need to see your face.”

The figure wore a hood, moving low and fast like they’d done this a hundred times before. Then, without hesitation, they leapt toward Mickey’s window.

“What!? No. No, no, no.”

My heart pounded wildly. That window was heavy and old. I had barely managed to slide the lock myself. Mickey couldn’t have opened it. But the figure pushed it up with ease.

I held my breath and scrubbed through the footage. One minute. Two. Five. Ten.

Nothing. Just darkness.

Then—

“There!” I gasped.

The shadow slipped back out the same way it had come.

My pulse roared in my ears as I watched.

Then, the figure turned. Just for a second. But it was enough.

The porch light caught their face.

“Yes! Finally. Evidence. I can call the police now.”

My hand reached for my phone — then froze.

“Oh God. No. No, no…”

The phone slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor.

Because in that one fleeting frame, I recognized the face.

That familiar face I had hoped to never see again.

Everything I thought I knew about this nightmare shattered in that instant.

I couldn’t make that call. Not yet.

Not after what I’d seen.

That morning, I didn’t even finish my coffee. The mug sat cold and forgotten on the counter while I stared at the frozen image on my laptop.

That face — I knew exactly where I needed to go.

There was no hesitation. No fear left in me. Only anger. And something deeper beneath it, something I’d buried for five years, clawing its way back to the surface.

I slipped on my coat, glanced at Mickey still asleep, and whispered,

“I’ll fix this. I promise.”

A few minutes later, Mrs. Riley next door knocked softly on the door.

She’d agreed to stay with Mickey while I went out.

“Don’t worry,” she smiled, stepping inside with a book and a thermos of tea. “I’ll keep an eye on the little guy. Go do what you need to do.”

“Thank you. I won’t be long.”

With that, I stepped out into the cold morning, heart pounding.

I knew where he’d be.

My best friend had mentioned a few weeks ago that she saw him working at the bus depot on the edge of town.

I’d brushed it off then.

A ghost from the past didn’t scare me.

But that ghost had climbed through my child’s window.

The bus depot was nearly empty except for one man in a faded gray hoodie, pushing a mop across the tiled floor.

He looked older, like life had chewed on him for years.

“Ethan,” I said.

He stopped mid-swipe. The mop clattered to the ground.

Slowly, Ethan turned.

His face was exactly as I remembered — tired brown eyes, the same small scar beneath his lip.

He didn’t look surprised. Just… broken.

“Hi, Claire,” he whispered.

“You have some nerve,” I said, stepping closer. “Breaking into my yard. My home. Into Mickey’s room.”

His lips trembled. “I didn’t break in. I never touched him. I just… I wanted to see him.”

“You saw him. Through his window. Like some kind of stalker.”

“I know how it looks. But I swear, I only watched from a distance. He was drawing in the yard one day, and… he looked so happy. I just stood there. Then he saw me, and he waved. I waved back. That’s all.”

“And then you came back,” I hissed. “Because he waved again. He wanted me there. He’d smile every time.