Someone+Watching+the+Lost

I was scared. I was tired. I was crying my small brown eyes out. I hoped my group would find me, but that hope was fading fast. There was a light, yet firm, slow tap on my shoulder. A boy with dusty blonde hair whom I’d never seen before was bending over me.

I’m a little fuzzy on what happened then, but I’m almost sure it wasn’t coincidence that boy helped me. I always feel like there’s someone looking out for me. I’m not the most spiritual person, I’ve never gone to church, I don’t even have a religion, but there have been some times where I’ve felt there’s something helping me. Or that there’s someone who doesn’t exist looking at me.

I think my obsession with ghosts and spirits goes all the way back to second grade, when I stayed in a hotel that was supposedly haunted. Ever since then I’ve loved ghost stories and legends about spirits walking around the Earth. One of my earliest supernatural experiences was in third grade. I was driving with my dad up to our cabin in June Lake and I saw a man biking the opposite direction of the way our car was going. He was wearing white clothes and had an extremely long white beard. “Look dad! That guy with the beard is funny-looking!” I said and tugged on his shirt.

He looked around and did not see the man. “Where?” he asked.

“Right there—” I didn’t finish because when I looked back behind our car, the man was gone. “He’s not there anymore!”

My dad then told me something I’ll never forget. “Must’ve been the spirit of the highway. You’re lucky to have seen him, Em. I doubt you’ll see him again.” I stared out of the window the rest of the drive trying to spot the “spirit of the highway” but never did.

Now, here’s where it gets really strange. It was just shy of being a year since I’d seen the “spirit of the highway.” I was at Disneyland in beautiful Anaheim, California for the fourth grade choir competition (we got second, by the way). My group was my mom, Evan Mehta, his mom, and Caroline Pinheiro. My curly, long, brown-blonde hair was tied back on the hot spring day and I was wearing a white Emerson Elementary Choir polo-style shirt. I had a broken arm at the time. Evan was in the same shirt as me, his tar black hair was slicked with sweat and his deep brown skin smelled like sunscreen. His mom, on the other hand, had bright red hair and some of the whitest skin I have ever seen. My mom had short brown hair and was tired from volunteering as usual. Caroline’s long ebony curls fell down her back and her braces reflected sunlight and there was a small ketchup stain on her choir shirt from the lunch we had just eaten.

We went into the Tom Sawyer cave-type place to settle our stomachs. The caves were dark, cold, and damp. It was wonderful. I remember staring at the treasures in the caves and arguing with Caroline on which way to go next. We were having a blast, until I took a wrong turn.

I went down a tunnel that was smaller than the others and took another turn. It took a moment before I noticed I was completely alone. “Guys? Guys?!” I yelled into the caves. My voice echoed back. I frantically looked for the tunnel I had come through but didn’t remember which one.

“Emma? Emma!” I heard a voice come from one of the tunnels. I sprinted down to find another “room” with it’s own of tunnels to choose from and I couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from.

“Mom?” I muttered in a cracked voice. I sat down in the middle of the cramped space and started crying. The dark brown walls loomed over me and the shadows hovered on my tear-stained face. I hugged my knees and put my head down on the scratchy blue and pink material of my cast. Salty droplets cascaded down my cheeks, into my open mouth and flowed over my dry tongue. Teardrops floated to the rough ground and created a soft echo. I was never going to make it out.. I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a slow, light tap, just barely able to be felt, from firm, fleshy fingers boldly outstretched and curling in perfect shape with my shoulder. “Caroline?” I asked while sniffling and raising my head. “Uh, no. I wanted to know if you were lost. I can help you get out,” a boy, not much older than me, said. I stared at his sea-green eyes. His voice seemed low for his apparent age, and he sounded slightly full of himself. I nodded. “Well don’t just sit there crying,” he began. “Follow me.” He led me through a series of tunnels that got smaller and smaller. I was surprised he didn’t get stuck. Eventually, we came out and were standing on top of the entire cave. The pupils of my eyes shrunk almost completely and the bright yellow light overwhelmed me. I couldn’t see for a second until my eyes adjusted. I could see almost the entire park from there. The river around the island with the cave sparkled as the Mark Twain paddleboat floated by. I turned around to thank the boy, but he was gone. I looked back into the cave and the three tunnels there were and he was in none of them. He just sort of… vanished. I was astounded. //Where could he be? No one can move that fast!// I thought. It occurred to me in the middle of my shock from the boy’s disappearance that this wasn’t all the way out—I was on the roof—and that I was not reunited with my group yet.

Being careful not to hurt my arm anymore than it already was, I climbed back into the tunnels. “Mom? Caroline? Michelle? Evan?” I called, my voice raspy from crying. Expecting to just hear an echo, I instead heard my mother.

She was in a panic. “Emma??? Emma, where are you?!”

I heard her voice coming directly from the first tunnel and I started crawling down it as fast as I could. My cast banged against the wall causing an echo. I couldn’t hear my mom’s voice over the noise so I hoped that was the right tunnel. It was possibly the smallest tunnel in the entire cave complex. “Mom! I’m right here! Hold on!” I burst out to see my mom in tears, Michelle the same, Caroline in shock, and Evan worried out of his mind. My mother hugged me and started blubbering.

“Oh my god… we thought you were gone, Emma! T-that someone took you and we’d never see you again… I’m so glad you’re safe.” I hugged her back. “But don’t ever do something like that again if you know what’s good for you. You scared me half to death!” After the big reuniting bit, I told everyone about the boy. Now that I think about it, I haven't been back to the tunnels since then. I still wonder what had happened, but I never forget that day. I think there’s someone watching out for all of us. Again, I’m not sure whom, but there’s someone.

I don’t know if he was //really// a spirit, but ever since then I’ve called him the ghost of Disneyland. I look back on this traumatizing experience and always think of the boy. If I get lost, something always brings me back to the group. It’s a little weird actually, but oh well. At least someone’s watching and looking out for me. I almost never get separated from the group now, though. I’ve developed a sort of minor separation anxiety where I can’t walk around by myself if I don’t know someone—I always have to walk with somebody around class. I just don’t want to be lost again.