The Balloon from Nowhere

A Story by Kaden L.

A man experiences the most unusually terrifying moment of his life. This is a short story I wrote originally on Wattpad. It is the first short story in "Tales of Cursed Realities."

Last night, while sitting comfortably on my couch, I experienced the most unusual and scariest event in my life. And all it was was a balloon floating in a straight path.

It was like every Saturday night; I lounged on my living room couch with a cold can of beer in my right hand. With no warning, a "colored" balloon emerged from my office left of where I was. The reason why I say it was "colored" was because it had no distinct color. Every time I blinked or slightly lost focus, the balloon would change its color to yellow, red, blue, or white. Sometimes, it would change its color whenever it felt like it. The changing of its color is not the weirdest thing about it, but I'll get into that later.

It floated slowly in a straight path across my living room. I felt a cold, goose bumpy feeling go down my spine. For some reason, it had a chilling, almost intimidating presence. It gave off a strangely ominous feeling which gave me goosebumps. The fact that no sound emitted from it and that it came out of nowhere didn't sit right with me. In fact, many things were off-putting about it.

You know how regular balloons move, right? They slightly bob up and down while the string attached to the bottom moves forward and backward. Well, the balloon I saw didn't do any of that. Instead, it was solid.; Like a still rock on a flat piece of land, but moving. I know that makes no sense, but it's not easy to describe a balloon that's not affected as it travels.

I nervously got up to observe it more, and I noticed another thing that struck me as odd and terrifying. It made my eyes widen and left me frozen.

This is gonna sound really stupid, but no part of it looked real. No, really, it resembled a terrible 3D rendering of a balloon. I squinted my eyes and saw some of its pixels. I promptly concluded that it did not belong where it was (obviously, but my brain was so scattered that I couldn't think straight). It was as if it came from a 3D art program or something along those lines. No part of it belonged there or anywhere, in fact. Like, it's supposed to be somewhere else, or maybe something happened to it. I can't explain it well without sounding like an obnoxious, insane homeless guy with a tinfoil hat on his head, sorry.

Slowly, it drifted out of the living room and made its way into the hallway. I apprehensively followed it with caution and made sure to not get too close. My gut told me that getting close to it would be dangerous.

As I was strolling behind the balloon, I went against my instincts and reached out my hand and attempted to touch it with my index finger. I was very wary and expected it to feel weird, but instead, my finger went through it like it was a hologram. I swiftly jolted back in shock while my body trembled.

I watched in disbelief as the balloon gradually made its way through the hallway. My bedroom was at the end of the hallway, and it seemed that it was going in there since there was no other place it could go (well, it could've gone into the bathroom, but it had already passed that).

I stood in the middle of the hallway as it entered my room. I wanted to move my body, but I couldn't. My brain was too busy trying to comprehend everything. Everything that was happening was very mind-boggling, and I could not keep up. Why didn't it look real? Why did my finger pass through it? Where did it come from? All these questions with answers I didn't want to know the answer to. I think if I knew the answers, I wouldn't be able to comprehend them anyway.

When it entered my room, the door slammed itself shut instantly, but no sound was emitted. I tiptoed gently towards the room, anticipating that something dangerous will happen; nothing happened. I reached my hand out and put it on the doorknob but whipped it away. Alarms were blaring in my head, telling me to run away. Far away, in fact.

I listened to my instincts and backed away from the door, still anticipating something to happen. I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard a noise coming from inside the bedroom. A squeaky, sharp noise emitted from what I assumed was the balloon. I also heard some rustling and light footsteps. That made my stomach drop because that meant that there was someone or something else in the room with the balloon.

I ran to my door, ready to disobey my instincts, and burst into my room. I didn't know where I got that sudden urge of confident energy, but it was useless. No matter how many times or how hard I tried to break down my door, I couldn't get in. The fear I had turned into rage and confusion as I continued to fail at breaking into my room. Then, I stopped suddenly and was like a statue. A powerful, ringing noise boomed from the room. It took me a couple seconds to recoup myself, but when I did, I realized something.

The balloon popped.

Just before it popped, it sounded like something grabbed the balloon and squeezed it.

Anyway, I don't remember what happened after that; I just woke up the next day in my bed, and the day played out as usual. In fact, it seemed nothing bad came from it. The only thing that came from it is a strange, empty feeling that has followed me ever since. I don't know how to get rid of it, but it hasn't been much of an obstacle, so I don't care. It just came from nowhere.