New Urban Legend: The Pale Child

Another urban legend for your perusal:

A tale told between parents and children alike, the myth of the pale child is commonly found anywhere both groups gather – while many variations exist, the most common began spreading sometime in the late 1960s.

It’s said that, should a young son or daughter be left to play untended upon a deserted playground, they may encounter an ashen lad, whose age has been reported as between eight and twelve. Accounts often state that the boy appears suddenly, as if he’d remained hidden within a covered “tube slide” while awaiting a companion’s arrival.

His approach is always friendly, and he seems pleased to have encountered a new friend. If he finds himself rebuked in this phase, by a shy or otherwise disinterested child, the intruder retreats by clambering up the structure from which he first emerged.

When welcomed, though, mischief soon follows.

Little ones are found, alone, panicked, and weeping, on swings that have somehow been wrapped about their supporting bar to such an extent as the rider can no longer dismount without risking a broken limb, or bound by hand and foot to equipment, with their own shoelaces, so that they may not return home without assistance in unknotting their constraints.

Some parents have gone so far as to assert that the stripling has embedded their offspring up to their neck – in the sands frequently found in such areas – only to have the process interrupted by an adult discovering the scene.

The story goes, however, that not all incidents end so harmlessly: In those cases where the pale child is invoked in a disappearance, (regularly believed, by authorities, to be a mundane runaway or kidnapping,) it’s usually alleged that the missing remains at the site, buried beneath the playground’s soft turf.

– source