Richie

Okay, so I was probably around 10/11 years old the first time I remember the boy turning up. It was the middle of summer and my friends and I were swimming in a lake in one of my parents' fields. I grew up in a small farmers town, with a population of no more than 200 and so everyone knew everyone. There were two schools in the town, one for boys and one for girls, I'm not sure why they split them by gender, and I'm pretty sure both have merged now, but that's what it was like when I lived there.

I'm going to tell it how I remember it happening, but my friend who was there at the time remembers it *slightly* differently than I do. 

So, as I was saying, my friends (I think it was about 4 of us in total) and I were swimming in the lake at the bottom of one of my parents' fields. It was about a 15 minute walk from my main house. 

We had been playing there for a while, when we heard someone calling to us. We looked over and saw the boy standing at the edge of the lake, completely naked. Once we noticed him he shouted if he could play with us. 

He looked to be around the same age as us, maybe a little older but not by much. He was super pale, like white pale. I remember being amazed and kind of jealous of his super bright green eyes. He also had shoulder length white blond hair, like Draco Malfoy blond. 

I looked to my friends and we said yeah and he came in the lake with us. None of us recognised him. Which as I said was weird because we had all lived in this tiny town for our whole lives and everyone basically knew everyone living there. 

He introduced himself as Richard but he said he prefers if we called him Richie, so we did.  I remember asking Richie where he was from, but he would go all awkward and would never give a straight answer. 

Anyway, after a while more of playing in the lake Richie seemed fun and I invited him to come back to my house for supper, he straight away said he would love to come and my friend was like "Don't you need to ask your mum?" to which Richie said something like "Oh she won't mind."

Remember how I said Richie was completely naked, well that wasn't so strange. In fact I'm pretty sure we all were. My friends and I were all boys and we would skinny dip in the lake normally so it didn't stick out to me when he first arrived like that. But what did stick out to me was when we got out of the lake dried and dressed ourselves, Richie had no clothes with him to get dressed into. Which I remember thinking was super weird but he said something like "Oh I must have forgot to bring them." Which again, I thought was very weird, like how do you forget your clothes. I wasn't sure how my parents would react to me bringing home a naked boy, so I gave him my briefs and my overshirt to put on.  But yeah, that stuck out as very odd. 

My friends went back home and Richie and I went to my house. My dad was like "where's his clothes?" I just made something up. I'm pretty sure I said something like his clothes got wet so we left them in the sun to dry. 

I got him some trousers to put on. We ate supper, which I remember him having 3 or 4 plates of. As I said, Richie is a super skinny boy, I was pretty small and skinny at the time. But he was definitely more skinny than I was, so I was confused how he ate so much lol

Richie was super polite and sweet to everyone while he was at my house. After supper I took him upstairs to my room and we played on my Nintendo 64 together. He had never seen one before and was super amazed by it. At the time I thought he had never seen one because they were so old, this was 2010. But my family was poor and that's all I had. It started to get dark and I asked him if he wanted to sleep over, he was really excited by that and said yeah. I checked with my parents but I knew they wouldn't mind because they were both super drunk. So we continued playing on N64 until it was super late. 

After a while, I said it was time that we went to bed as I was tired but I don't remember him seeming tired at all. Richie asked if he could shower before as we had been playing in my fields and he was really muddy. As he was showering I made my bed for us, and put a movie on the TV for us to watch as we went to sleep and I got into bed. Richie came in like 5 minutes later and was completely naked again. I was like "did you walk from the bathroom like that?" he was like yeah and didn't seem to care at all, so even though I thought it was strange I didn't say anything. He got into my bed, I asked him if he wanted any pyjamas and he said no it was too hot, which to be fair I do remember it being really hot that day. 

I had a Scooby Doo movie on and he was really excited by it, and didn't know anything about them, which I guess isn't too weird. But looking back, he didn't seem to know any pop culture stuff at all, I mean, we were pretty behind the times in my small town but we still knew most pop culture. 

I had slept in quite a lot the next day, but when I woke up Richie wasn't in my room. I went and asked my mum if she'd seen him and she said he left early that morning after his parents rang our house, how they knew he was with us or where to ring I'm still not sure. Richie had taken some shorts from my room because my mom said he couldn't leave without clothes on. 

I was a little disappointed he left without me, or at least without saying goodbye or without leaving any way of contacting him again. He turned up again a couple days later when my friends and I were swimming in the lake again. This time he brought clothes, but I'm pretty sure he only brought some briefs and a shirt with no pants. Which again, I thought was weird. 

Over the next year, him and I became super close. We were like brothers. Over the year, I asked if I could see his home or meet his family. But any time I asked anything personal about him, he would go awkward and not want to talk about it. Or he would just change the subject. But I could see it made him feel uncomfortable, so I didn't push him to tell me. He did tell me he was homeschooled, which I thought was cool. Because I'm my mind that meant no school.  

As I said, we became really close over the year. I felt like he was more than a friend to me. It's difficult to explain, it's almost like we clicked from the first time we met. We became close really quick, and I felt like I could tell him anything and he would always help and support me. He helped me through so many hard times, and he definitely encouraged me to be a better person. It was almost as if he could sense when I was going through anything. 

For example when my Grandma passed away, I went out into my fields to cry as I didn't want to do it in front of my family. But after sitting down in some random place Richie turned up and sat next to me, he said some things that I remember helping me a lot. When I asked him how he found me he said that we was just on a walk. 

Not too long after this, he just vanished. It had been a little over a year since the first time he appeared at the lake. It was around September the year after, so it had been around a year and 2/3 months. He never turned up again, never said goodbye, never left a trace. I was massively upset, I really really missed him. I would walk around the fields looking for him and I would hang out by the lake where we first met. Hoping that he would turn up, but he never did again. 

I still don't know what happened to him, I've tried searching social media for him but with no luck and since he would never tell me that much about his life I don't have that much to go on. I asked my parents what they remember of him. They said they remember him being odd, and that they were unsure about him at first, especially how he had a tendency to strip naked whenever he felt like it. But they also said that he and I were inseparable and wherever I was he was sure to be found there too. They said they remember me being heartbroken when he stopped appearing, and they weren't sure whether they should call the police about him being gone, but they never did. (I kind of wish they did)

I suppose this is a long shot, but if you're reading this Richie, reach out to me. I'd love to speak to you again and get some answers to all the weird things about you. 

It's completely possible that there isn't anything paranormal about Richie, but it is definitely strange.