You sat on the old bench beneath the fading afternoon sky, the hum of cicadas droning softly in the stillness. The park hadn’t changed—same rusted swings, same crooked slide—but it felt distant now, hollow with memory. You hadn’t been back since childhood. Not since that summer. The one no one in your family would speak of. You told yourself it wasn’t real. Just fear. Just a dream. Just a shadow too strange to follow you into adulthood.

Then you heard it.

Po… Po… Po… Po… Po… Po… Po… A deep, drawn-out sound, slow and hollow like a breath rolling through an empty hallway. Your body tensed. The blood in your veins turned to ice. You turned your head toward the playground—and there she was. Towering. Still. A woman draped in white, her long black hair spilling over her face, the brim of her hat casting a shadow you couldn’t see through. For a moment, she didn’t move. Then she began to walk—slow, deliberate steps down the gravel path.

Eight feet tall. Always eight feet. That strange, echoing voice followed each step. She hadn’t changed. Not at all. And as she moved closer, soundless and steady, you understood with a sickening certainty—she remembered you. She had come back, just like she said she would.