Liam was a 9 year old boy who lived in a small town in Ireland. He lived with his mother and his older sister Ciara in a small house. The town had a school and a small college where all the children of the town studied. Liam did not have many friends and would often spend his time indoors reading novels or playing video games, whereas his sister was very popular among her peers. She had represented the school in swimming competitions several times and was very well-liked by everyone in the school.
In the early winter season, especially in October, that town would experience extremely dense fog during the night. Keeping in mind the safety of the people who would drive back home from work, all offices and workplaces would close before 7 pm. The town would practically shut down after twilight in October except on the 31st, the day of Halloween. Halloween was one of the biggest holidays in that town. People would start preparing for Halloween by the end of September and the ‘Halloween Season’ would start from the second week of October. Although Liam was not very social, he enjoyed ‘trick or treating’ a lot, he would go out around town in his costumes to collect sweets and spend time with his 2 best friends. His sister, who was too old to go ‘trick or treating’, would dress up and attend Halloween parties at her friends’ houses.
The previous Halloween celebration was affected by the pandemic. So to make this Halloween special, the town mayor decided to throw a big party for all the town members and to invite a very popular band to play there. Everyone was very excited about this party, especially Liam, who was a big fan of the band. As the day came close, Liam started preparing for his Darth Vader costume and the preparations for the party also began. The day finally came. On his way to school, Liam picked up a rumour about how there were going to be real ghosts who would visit the houses in town at night, but Liam did not believe in ghosts, and hence did not believe in the rumours. In school, he got together with his two best friends Harry and Connor and mapped out the rich neighbourhoods in the towns where they could get more expensive and fancy candy. While returning home from school, Liam noticed that the fog had started to arise in the afternoon itself, but he did not think much about it.
When Liam got home, he saw his mother and sister fighting. Ciara wanted to spend the night with her friends while her mother wanted her to return home at night and spend time with the family. Looking at this, Liam decided not to intervene and just went to his room. He started playing video games, hoping that the fight would be sorted out on its own. The quarrel ended with Ciara running out of the house and her mother letting her run, knowing that she would eventually come back and learn her lesson. The fog had abnormally gotten worse and the visibility had drastically dropped. As the evening came, the fog got so bad that the town party had to be cancelled and parents together decided to not allow their children to go trick or treating as a safety concern.
This news caused Liam to start crying. His mother tried to cheer him up by renting the new Star Wars movie for him to watch. He was still sad, but he stopped crying and sat down with his mother to watch the movie. As he was watching the movie, The doorbell rang. When the mother opened the door, she saw nothing but fog. She was aware that many people play such pranks on Halloween, so she closed the door and went back. The doorbell rang again several times and this time there was pounding on the door as well. But again no one stood outside. This repeated once again and now The mother was greatly agitated, “I am calling the police '', she shouted to scare them away, but the banging continued. She tried to look at the culprits through the window, but she couldn't see anything. She decided to actually call the police. The police told her that they had been receiving a number of calls about the same type of pranksters and that because of the fog, they were not able to do much. When she kept the phone down, she heard Liam shouting. Someone had entered their backyard and was just standing there. He had bright yellow reflective eyes that seemed to be emitting light on their own. Liam's mother got furious and rushed down to the backyard to get rid of the prankster on her own, but as she approached him, she stopped in her tracks and just stood there. Without saying anything, the figure limped away towards the woods without saying a word.
The mother then entered the house and burst into tears. “How can someone do that?”, she yelled as she fell into Liam's arms. She explained how the prankster outside had gone to the extent of pretending to be her dead father, who had passed away recently. “How can someone think that is funny? '' she yelled as she sobbed. Liam’s mother was very close to her father and was still recovering from his death. Liam called Ciara on her phone and told her what had happened. She rushed back home, hugged her mother, apologized for her behaviour and tried to comfort her.
The next day, the group of pranksters were caught. They were all Ciara’s classmates. Some of them were even Ciara’s friends. On that day, Liam took a day off from school and went to visit his grandfather's grave with his mother, while Ciara, who was supposed to go to college, went to confront the pranksters who had emotionally scarred her mother. When Ciara asked them about why they did what they did, they told her that they had left her house after her mother had called the police and that they had nothing to do with the man in the backyard, while at the cemetery, Liam and his mother found his grandfather's grave with loose soil in front of it, as if the grave had been filled again just a few hours ago.
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