creepy story: the kid who lived next door to my grandma's house

This was over 20 years ago now.

When I was in elementary school, my whole family would go to my grandma's place every weekend. Catch fish, hike the mountain, just kind of decompress from the week. Her house had a really low wall around it, like even as a little kid it didn't feel that tall to me. And on the other side of that wall was a small house.

There was always a kid my age sitting on the wooden porch, just... muttering to himself. Every single time.

One day me and my little sibling were wandering around trying to catch cicadas up on the mountain and we ran into him. Something felt off about him. I'm pretty shy so I tried to just walk past, but he started talking to me. How old are you, where are you from, what are you doing. Just rapid-firing questions. But I kind of warmed up and answered, and after that we'd hang out whenever I came to grandma's.

Except he never seemed happy about it. Like at all.

One day I brought homework and was doing it on the porch and he came over. I was completely stuck on a math problem. He just. Solved it. No hesitation. So I finally asked how old he was.

He said 10. I was 9.

Then he said he was starting high school next year.

I genuinely thought maybe rural schools just moved kids up faster or something. I didn't know what to make of it.

His dad lived with him. No mom as far as I could tell, and I felt weird asking. The dad gave off this really dark, heavy energy. And whenever the kid saw his dad, he'd just. Freeze. Like a completely different person.

One day we'd been playing and he walked me out and said "my dad says you can't come over anymore."

Why?

"just... because."

I figured it was about studying. I said okay. And after that we both just. Pretended the other didn't exist. Even when we made eye contact we'd look away. No wave, nothing.

Then one holiday, grandma brought him up in front of the whole family.

"that kid next door is a genius, you know. Always number one in school, so far ahead they said school was boring for him so he stopped going. But the thing is... he's got a spirit in him." she clicked her tongue. "poor thing."

She genuinely believed the reason he was so smart was because something had possessed him. And honestly? I kind of believed her. The vibe he had. The way he acted nothing like a kid his age.

A few days later I went out at night to get Cheetos from the store. And suddenly the door to his house FLEW open.

"MY THROAT. MY THROAT."

He was strangling himself. With his own hands. Rolling around the yard.

I ran. I sprinted back to grandma's house and I didn't look back. Grandma told me to pretend I hadn't seen anything.

After that, he was just gone.

The whole village started searching for him. For days.

They found him a few days later, hanging from a tree on the mountain behind the house. And his body... his tongue was hanging out, and the organs that had come out from below had been eaten. By animals.

The really disturbing part? He'd only been missing for one day when they found him. But the body had already decomposed at an insane speed. Way faster than it should have.

The dad packed up and left after that. The house just sat there empty.

I still visit grandma sometimes. And every time, I look at that abandoned house and get this feeling like he's going to come crawling out, hands around his own throat.