The sun shone down between the clouds as Alex walked home from school. The area seemed silent and the entire street was empty. "Where on Earth as everyone gone?" Alex reached the gate of the park he crossed every day to get to school and to get home. The park would usually be full of small children playing on the swings and people's dogs playing fetch. Today it wasn't. The grass was still and the swings slightly moved with an eerie creak. He couldn't even hear the crickets or the annoying buzzing of the bees. The only noise Alex could heat was the beating of his heart. He could tell something was wrong, that something had happened. Or was going to happen.
It would take him an extra twenty minutes to walk around the park and he just really wanted to get home. Something inside him told Alex not to cross. "What's wrong with you?" Alex whispered to himself. "What could possibly happen?" Alex placed his right foot on the grass carefully, disturbing the soft green grass. After checking that he hadn't set off a booby trap or anything like that he proceeded to make his way across the park, checking his surroundings the entire time. Alex had just reached the creaking swings when a loud noise made him jump. Alex put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone, but before he could check who was calling it started to make a crackling, static noise. He slumped onto the swings and tried to turn the mobile off to no avail. The metal chains on the swing began to rattle and to Alex's surprise the swing was pulled backwards by something. Before Alex could jump off the swing he fell and was winded as he hit the floor. After regaining his breath Alex made his way to his feet and brushed himself off. "Right, who pulled back the swing?" Alex shouted. When he looked up to search for the prankster he was shocked to find that the swing hadn't swung back down and was suspended in mid air. A couple of feet behind the swing was what he could only describe as a 'twinkling thing of broken glass.' The seat of the swing had completely disappeared amongst the twinkling glass as if it was a door to another park. "I wonder," Alex mumbled as he slowly moved towards the twinkling glass and outstretched his hand. The glass tickled his hand as he put his hand amongst the twinkling thing. The other side of the twinkling thing felt warm and…wet? Alex brought his hand back out of the glass and examined it as his hand was covered with water. On the other side of the twinkling thing it was raining where as it was a warm summer's day in the park. Alex stood there awestruck. He had no idea what to do. Do I call the police, my Mum, Area 51? Alex's last idea made him laugh but he soon stopped when the swing swung back through. With a chunk missing from the seat. Alex crouched down to examine the seat and found a thick liquid coating it. He stood up so fast he tripped over the roundabout, his eyes fixated on the twinkling glass the entire time. The liquid was red, like blood. Alex picked himself up, grabbed his bag and continued to make his way across the park. "This never happened," Alex told himself after he remembered how to breathe.
After what felt like forever Alex finally reached the end of the park. He sat down on a log and breathed heavily as his heart continued to beat at 100 miles per hour. He looked back towards the swings and could still make out the twinkling glass. And he could also make out the large creature emerging from within it. From what he could see it was green and red and had what looked large a large backwards facing horn on its head. The green and red creature reared on its hind legs, raised its head and produced a trumpeting noise which caused the birds to flee from the trees. Alex took that as a sign not to stick around and ran the rest of the way home, never looking back once.