Under the moonlight of a waxing crescent, a little girl stood at a long abandoned train station, with a blue balloon in her hands. By all appearances, she was waiting for something or someone.
I came across her just standing there and approached her carefully.
"Hey," I said, "Where's your mom or dad?"
She turned to look at me briefly. Her hazel eyes were slightly too big for her small face. "They'll be here any minute."
I noticed that she had been looking at the tracks, as if she was expecting a train to come through any second. I sincerely hoped that that wasn't the case. The train hadn't run through this station in decades.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing at me.
It took me a second for me to realize she was pointing at the camera around my neck. I'd gotten so used to it being there that half the time I don't even realize I have it. "Oh. This is my camera."
"You like to take pictures?" she asked me.
"I do," I said. "In fact, is it all right if I take your picture right now?" I figured that it would be best to have picture of her just in case she ran off or something. Then I could give it to the police in case she was a missing or runaway child.
She nodded her head.
I lifted up the camera and snapped a picture. She barely blinked at the intense flashing of the camera. She didn't smile or even attempt to make a funny face. She kept her same stoic facial expression.
"Can I see it?" she asked.
"Sorry," I said. "This isn't a digital camera. It uses film. I won't know what the photos look like until I get the film developed."
I couldn't tell her if her next facial expression was one of disappointment or confusion, but it was one of those two. Regardless she pressed the matter no further.
I tried to find a way to make small talk so as for there to not be an awkward silence. And while I didn't feel right leaving this little girl all by herself, I also knew better than to ask her if I could stay with her until her parents arrived. So, I said, "You know, that's a really cute balloon."
The little girl looked up at it. "Yes, it is," was all she said.
"Where'd you get it?"
"The grocery store."
"You like balloons?"
She shrugged. "Not really. They're alright."
I tried not to let the bafflement show on my face. "Then why are you holding the balloon?"
"Because my parents told me that was how they would find me. They told me that as long as I was holding a blue balloon, that they would be able to find me so that I could go home with them."
I frowned. This was very strange. What kind of a parent would tell their kid to wait in an abandoned train station this late at night, and told them that they'd find her simply because she was holding a blue balloon? Something wasn't sitting right with me about this at all.
I surreptitiously reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I knew that this was probably the time to get the police involved, but I also didn't want to scare the girl. So, I turned my back ever so slightly to her, so that she couldn't see, and I was about to phone the police when I noticed that there was no signal. Which wasn't a surprise considering we were quite far outside the city limits.
I turned back towards her, planning on telling her that I would be right back and needed to make an important private call, but when I did, the little girl, and the balloon had vanished completely.
My first thought was panic, but then the realization fully hit me. I had only turned my back on her for two or three seconds. How on Earth had she managed to disappear so quickly without making a lick of noise? I rubbed my eyes vigorously, wondering if what I had just seen was some kind of vivid hallucination.
I fruitlessly searched the nearby area for about 10 minutes without finding a single, solitary trace that the girl had ever been there.
I immediately headed back and had the film developed that night. To my surprise, the one I had taken of the little girl had come out beautifully. I couldn't tell you if I was relieved at this, or if I was even more shaken up.
I took the photos down to the station and explained my story. There were skeptical, not surprisingly, but I did give them the photos they asked for. They told me thanks and that they'd contact me if there were any developments.
The only call I got from the police was them calling and asking a few days later if I wanted my photos back. I said that I did. When I asked them where they were in finding out what had happened, they simply said they were still looking. I haven't heard back from them since.
This incident happened several months ago. I periodically checked the Internet to see if there were any developments in the story, but none ever did. In fact, the story didn't seem to gain any significant traction at all. Nobody, at least not anyone credible, ever came forward with the little girl's identity, or claiming to be the girl's family, or even another sighting.
Eventually, I gave up looking. I had lost hope that I would ever find out who she was, what had happened to her parents, and what had happened to her.
It was only when I was flipping through those photos on a whim a few days ago that I noticed something different. On one photo that I had taken a few minutes before my encounter with the little girl, I realized that in the photo, you could see a section of the train track far in the distance. Only I just now noticed that there appeared to be a shadow of what looked like a train sitting atop the track.
I turned to the very next photo taken about 15 seconds later of the same angle. The shadowy outline of a train was not as easily distinguishable this time, due to the photo quality not being as great, but I could still make it out. Only this time, the train was not in the same spot as it had been in the previous photo.
The train had moved forward.
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