A boy and his follower

In the early morning, the sun shined brightly through the young boy’s window. He didn’t want to get up at first; last night he had worked late last night to do his homework, all so that he could enjoy his weekend.

However, he knew he had to get up sometime.

So, rubbing his eyes though, he got up. 

He looked forward to a day of playing around and visiting his treehouse.

He stood up and walked to his closet. After moving aside his rugged backpack, he grabbed his clothes and dressed. However, just as he was about to leave his room, he saw something on his wall.

It was a mysterious person, his shape and size. He tried to touch it but he couldn't. It was if it wasn’t there. 

This baffled the boy, who moved and found that the thing moved with him. Curious, the boy raised his right hand, and his follower copied him.

Then he tried raising his right hand, and it happened again. Whenever and however he moved, it also moved. The young boy couldn't figure out what it was. 

So, he decided to go over to his sister in the kitchen and ask her what it was. When he got her attention, she asked what was wrong, but when he tried to find his follower, he found that it was gone.

As he looked all over, his sister told him that he was being silly and that when he was ready, to go have breakfast.

However the boy was still disquieted, and after breakfast, he went outside to experiment. He found that the thing still followed him wherever he went and as he passed through the trees surrounding the farm, sometimes it would flicker in and out of existence.

The boy tried going to his father, working in the barn shoveling hay. However, once inside the barn, he noticed that he had stopped being followed. His father noticed him and said, "Good morning, nice of you to come help."

The boy said, "Dad, I had this dark person following me, but..." Looking around, he couldn't find it. "He disappeared."

"Well, maybe it was your imagination. Want to come help me with this?"

"No thanks, dad." He left his dad behind in the barn.

Determined, the boy decided to head into town and try to ask people what was happening and who his follower was.

He went to old Beatrice's store, and when he went there he found that the shop was open so he went inside, a bell ringing as he did. Beatrice was at the counter sorting through jelly beans and she looked up as the boy walked through the door. “Why,” said Beatrice, “Hello Peter. What brings you here today?”

“Ms., there’s a person following me, and he keeps copying whatever I do.” He looked around, but he had not been followed into the dark shop. “He was right here…”

Beatrice looked fondly at Peter “Peter are you talking to an imaginary friend” she asked 

“No, Miss, he was right here” 

“Well introduce me when you do find him again, alright?”

As he went, Peter took a few jellybeans and walked back outside. When he did, his follower appeared again on the floor. It was very frustrating, and his follower never followed into darkness.

He walked through town, his hands in his pockets, and kicking a rock as he went. He was followed on the ground, and occasionally, on the wall.

 as Peter walked on, he decided to go to the forest and visit his treehouse.

On the way there he saw a dog who also had a follower; the dog didn't notice or even care about the follower. It just went on walking.

Then again, didn't everyone have a follower? Why didn't they notice? and now that Peter was looking closer, he noticed that everything has something following it. some sort of... shape of some sort that always was there for them.

As Peter went to the outskirts of town, and he looked closer at the plants around him as he entered the forest he saw that everything there had its own follower. The leaves, the trees, he wasn't the only one who was being followed.

As sunlight moved brightly through the trees, Peter experimented, he moved his hands and the thing moved its hands with him. As the boy wandered, his curiosity increased more and more.

Now frustrated, he tried chasing his follower through the trees. 

It didn't matter.

No matter how fast he went, or how he tried, the young boy just could not catch the follower.

Tired, Peter decided to go to his Treehouse to read. He had gone off course while chasing his follower, away from the sun. However, he knew his way around, and expertly managed to make it to the treehouse. He climbed the ladder and found that once again it followed him, a dark follower climbing a dark ladder just like him, only, on the ground.

Peter pushed open the trapdoor, and he climbed in, his hands supporting themselves on the wood. He grabbed a book from his shelf and went over to his pile of pillows to read. He settled into the pillows, his follower also reading a book next to him.

However, after a few minutes, he looked up and saw that his follower had gone. Surprised, and a little frightened, Peter looked, frightened, around him at the treehouse but he couldn't find his follower.

He wasn't on the ground, he wasn't on the wall, he was nowhere to be seen. At first, Peter fought that the follower had been all his imagination. But as a cloud moved away from the sun, his follower came back.

Peter was... Surprised. Peter couldn't explain why, but when he had fought that his follower had left him, maybe forever, he had panicked.

He may not have understood why he panicked, and he may not have understood who is follower was, but he was still relieved to find him back all the same.

Peter step back down in his pile of pillows next to the window, and he saw that his follower also did the same. 

“Oh,” said Peter, “you like reading too? Well, so do I"