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John Temple, a ten year old boy living on Dandy lane, runs across the street to grab his basketball. It's dark outside and he was playing by himself, his friends had all gone home and he'd stayed, mostly because of Betty the Evil Step-Mother from Hell. John has soft brown hair that comes over his eyes. He has pale white skin and blue eyes, the kind that stick out in the dark. As he races across the street, a car comes over. It's dark and the driver barely makes out John's shape. It stops and honks at him, but John continues towards the ball. If he'd stopped, maybe things would have been different. But that's the way things are, it seems. The small things can change the biggest.
John sprints down a hill, after his ball. The grass reaches his hips and there's a small thicket of trees ahead. But John doesn't care, his young mind only knows the ball and nothing else. As he runs, mosquitoes bomb his arms and legs, taking their drinks and fleeing before they could be swatted. If he'd stopped here to fight the bugs for even a second, everything would be different.
But instead, he ignores them, and swats the ones in front of his face. He runs on towards the ball that shouldn't even be rolling now. Now it's being pulled. It rolls on flat surfaces and sometimes right over small rocks, John doesn't notice. The ball pulls itself farther and farther into the forest and now, now, John starts thinking about going back. Here was the turning pike, here was the moment that could have changed his entire future and his entire fate now, this moment. He continues.
John starts to walk through the forest, he has the sleeves of his shirt rolled up past the elbow. He ducks under protruding branches that seemed to have broken off very recently. Around the trees are dead and curled leaves, it was mid summer and this was a strange sight, he was about to turn back and head home, when he sees his ball. The orange basketball sat in the middle of an opening in the forest, the curves on it make a smile. "Finaly!" He begins to walk towards his basketball, thinking that he had to get home now before Betty got pissed at him. He picks his ball up, spins it in his hands, and turns around.
The bushes rustle, the sound pierced his ears in the silence. John stops and freezes. There have been a few deaths in the news from bears lately, all of them were brutal and at least one of the victims was mauled beyond recognition. John takes himself and the ball behind a bush, where he hunkers down and waits for the rustling to stop. His heart is beating rapidly and he can hear it in his own ears. The rustling sound gets louder and louder, closing in on his position. Finally, John makes out a long black arm rip the leaves and branches of the bush away. No bear, something different. He backs away farther into the bush.
The figure, clad in black, emerges from the bush. It's wearing a long gas mask and a black hat. The eyes of the mask are blood red and are half moon shaped, they're turned with the corner closest to the nose upward, giving the eyes an almost sad look. It's wearing a black cloak, which seems to sway in wind that isn't there. The figure is wearing wearing black leather elbow gloves and boots that seem to blend in with the objects around them. John could make out the words coming from the figure. They're low at first.
Ring around the Rosie...
As it gets closer, John can make the words out.
Pockets full of posies...
John's eyes widen and his blood freezes in his veins. The dark figure gets closer and closer, the dark red eyes are on John now, seeing past the bush and into his very soul. The thing was whispering his favorite lullaby as a child. The one that had helped him fall asleep so easily coming from his mother's silken voice. Coming from this thing, it sounded twisted, broken, and hollow.
Ashes, Ashes....
John can hear the sound the gas mask make, a sort of lighter version Darth Vader's breathing noise. It stopped right in front of him and reaches a hand out towards him, the hand smells of pestilence and death mixed with an almost sweet smell of posy flowers. John doesn't know why but he knows that if he doesn't move, he'll die. He stays long enough to hear the final verse of the song that used to help him sleep at night.
"We all fall down," said the Figure. "You will too, Johnny." It came within an inch of his exposed flesh before Johnny fell backwards onto his bottom. The figure pulls itself closer and reaches out again. Johnny gets up and races out of the forest, turning around to throw the ball at the figure. It did nothing to slow it down, however, the dark figure caught the ball and it deflated. Johnny kept running, hearing the snap and shriveling of leaves as it got closer to him. He felt the gloved hand touch his shirt just before he emerged out of the forest and was blinded by oncoming headlights.

Jackson Field, lazy and recently fired, drove his car home from a long day at his ex-job. He used to work at a sporting goods store, but because he'd stolen a baseball bat for his son, he was fired. He didn't want to come home to early, so he spend his day at a bar. He drank until he fell over, then drank some more. The bartender refused to give him his keys, but after a lengthy argument (and fifty bucks.) Jackson finally got his keys back. Feeling he'd drowned his sorrows enough this night, he got into his car and drove home. He'd almost made it when he saw, just barely, a kid running across the street. Jack could swear he saw something else, something dark, but was too occupied with stopping his car. Even with his slow reflexes, Jackson did pretty well for a drunk.

The car stopped, the front just bumping John and giving him a small bruise, which he'd have for a week before it disappeared. John shrieked in terror, and fell to his knees sobbing, he turned behind him and saw only an empty forest with a trail of dead leaves and fallen branches leading to the opening in the forest. The drunk stepped out and told John to piss off before he ran him over. John listened and stood up, having had enough close calls for one day. He brushed his tears away with his sleeve and ran home. He wasn't sure what happened to the dark figure, but didn't dwell on it too much. He could remember hearing a high pitched, inhuman, scream though.

John.

I made it home that night, my heart was speeding even while I was in a warm bed. I tried to figure out what I had seen, but that's when I realized that there was no explanation about what I had seen. I thought about what could have brought it out and what I could have done to have attracted it... but nothing came to me. I wanted to believe that I had seen a normal person in a costume, wanted to so bad, but I couldn't. The only thing it could have been was death... in the form of a my childhood rhyme. My mother came home late, about twelve o' clock, and went to my room to see if I was sleeping. I wasn't, and lay awake in my bed staring at my ceiling, expecting that thing to come out of the ceiling and grab my throat. My mother sat down on the edge of my bed, brushing my hair out of my eyes and smiling at me. She managed to soothe me to sleep.
In my dreams, I saw a dark forest, crimson skies, and a lone rider. The rider was pitch black except for small black half moon dots where it's eyes would be. Its black cloak swayed in the wind and I knew who it was. The figure galloped toward me, the horse, I saw, was just as black as the rider it bore and twice as large. the figure held out it's hands and reached for me. I couldn't move and the hand found it's way around my neck. It pulled me towards it's face and I saw it was wearing the same gas mask I'd seen it wear in the forest.
A shudder went down my spine and my vision started worsening. I thought it was the hand cutting off my air supply, but I could breath easily, the hand was very loose. I felt my face grow heavy and form wrinkles. I wasn't being suffocated, I was being aged. I thought back to the murders in the woods, almost all of them had been elderly. I felt my fingernails and toenails get longer and my hair began to fall out in clumps. The being whispered in my aged ear: "Ring around the rosy, patches full of posy, ashes, ashes," I felt my heart slow down and I knew the next verse. I spoke with the figure. "We all fall down."