I was sitting in my car in an empty parking lot, finishing a task on my phone, when they knocked.
Two children. Maybe ten, maybe twelve. Dressed normally — jeans, hoodies, nothing remarkable. One was slightly taller. They knocked politely, the way children are taught to knock on doors, not windows.
I lowered the window partway. The taller one spoke first, asked if I could give them a ride home. Their voice was flat — not emotionless, exactly, but calibrated. Like the request had been rehearsed and the rehearsal had stripped the uncertainty out.
I started to say I didn't think that was a good idea. Then I noticed their eyes.
Entirely black. Not dark irises — no iris, no white, no visible structure. Just black. Both of them.
The feeling that hit me is the thing I've described most poorly in every retelling, because it wasn't fear exactly. It was more fundamental than fear. It was a recognition at the level of instinct that something was wrong with this interaction in a way that required immediate action. The feeling your body has before your mind catches up.
I started to raise the window. The taller one said: "We need to get inside your car." No longer asking. Stating. The inflection of someone identifying a requirement.
The smaller one said: "You have to let us in. We can't come in unless you let us in."
That second sentence is the thing I think about. We can't come in unless you let us in. Said plainly, without guile, as a factual limitation. As though the asking, the permission, the willingness of the person inside — these were not social conventions but operational requirements.
I drove away. I drove fast. I looked in the mirror.
They were standing in the parking lot, not moving, watching the car go.
I've since found dozens of accounts online. Different people, different cities, different years. Always children. Always asking to be let in — into cars, into homes, into anywhere interior. Always the black eyes. Always the same phrasing about needing permission.
I don't know what they are. I know they need to be invited.
I know I almost did it.