Let's Not Meet~ Reddit Horror Stories

Playground Encounter

This happened a long time ago, when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I am 27 now. I didn't remember this until I was around 15, and after I did asked my mom if it was a real memory or just a dream. She confirmed it happened, or at least the parts she knew of.

I live in the Netherlands, always have. The conversations were in Dutch, which I will translate as much as possible. As a kid I lived in a quiet neighbourhood with around 100 houses. It was setup in sort of a big circle, with only one way for cars to enter, and only 2 other ways to enter by foot or bicycle. We lived on the part of the circle closest to the car entrance, which we called the "front street". The other side of the circle we called the "back street".

On the back street side there was a small playground, which could be seen easily from the houses there. It had two swings on this T-shaped blue swingset, a yellow climbing tool shaped like a snail and a small football field with two goals. I was allowed to play outside on my own, but wasn't allowed to go to the back street by myself. I did so anyway that day, and decided to go to the swings. There was nobody there when I arrived, probably as it was close to dinner time.

I was wearing a blue dress, jeans I think, and those white tights little girls often wore in those days. I was playing around when suddenly two guys which I now think were between 14 and 16 came up to me. I wasn't scared and figured they were just passing through, until one of them suddenly grabbed me from behind and held a pocket knife to my throat. I was of course very scared, and they started moving me further into the playgrounds, to a part filled with bushes and out of sight of the houses. The one holding me then said, roughly translated: "pull down your pants or I will slice your throat."

At this moment I was really scared, and even then the first thought that occurred to me was "but I'm not even wearing pants..." I was too scared to speak, and instead didn't move at all. Then seemingly out of nowhere his grip on me loosened, and looking around I saw why - a woman was walking down the street in front of the playground. I broke loose and ran to her, muttered out what just happened, and ran off again. When I got home a moment afterwards I didn't tell my mom, because I was still too scared. I also thought I would get in trouble for going to the back street while she told me not too, so not telling seemed better.

A few months later the doorbell rang. I opened the door to a women of about my mom's age and a boy - one of the two boys from that day. I didn't say anything to them, left the door open and ran to my mom. I said to her: "that's him!!" She had no clue what I was talking about, so I quickly explained. She confronted them, the boy and apparently his mother, but he of course denied. As my mom couldn't be fully sure either she didn't follow-up on it. All in all I think I am very lucky for having gotten off so easily, and not realising what kind of a situation I had been in until many years later.