My new neighbour

This story was about my friend who told me about this incident which happened to him a few minutes ago from Christmas, and I'm sharing this story with my friend.

Hello, my name is John, I live in an apartment in Delhi with my family. We're living happily and so excited for Christmas but suddenly something happens in our life that changes our excitement of Christmas into shock and fear.

So, the story starts one week before Christmas when I was 13 years old, a weird man who is more than 40 years old comes to live in our neighborhood, he rented a house in front of our apartment. When me and my mother were going to the market for shopping we saw him, "he was moving his appliances to a new house at that time" My mother asked him if he needed any help because he was doing all the work alone but he ignored us and continued shifting. My mother thought he didn't hear us but I felt something strange, I didn't pay much attention to it and started thinking about Christmas gifts and decoration items.

The next day when I and my friends were playing in the garden which was on the left side of the house of that man I saw that he was stalking us it seemed like he didn't like us playing. So, I asked my friends to play at another park but one of my friends (Alex) declined to go because he was stubborn I tried to convince him that the man was angry but Alex was not ready to listen to anything instead of going he started shouting. After hearing him shouting the man came out of his house he became mad and yelled at us for disturbing him and he told us to go from there but Alex who was not ready to go started teasing him and asked him to lock himself inside the room if he had any problem with us. All my friends started laughing after hearing this but I could see anger in his eyes and a sense of disgrace on his face, he went back to his house muttering something in anger, and before entering the house he looked at us again and that look was terrifying. After this, he didn't say anything to us whenever we went to play in that garden he only stalked us weirdly until we went back home after playing.

It continued for six days but when one day was left for Christmas he came to us with a strange smile and invited us to his home for a Christmas party I felt something was not good but when all my friends became ready for the party I nodded my head. Then we all got permission from our parents and went to his house for the party, he decorated his home beautifully with balloons and lights he also bought a big cake for us which he kept on the table and there were lots of candies on the table. My mouth was watering after seeing all the candies and food, we wanted to eat it as soon as we could but we had to wait until the man permitted us so we sat on the sofa for a few minutes, we cut the cake, he greeted us for Christmas, told us to enjoy the party, and said to eat as much as we wanted without hesitation. We started eating without having any idea what was going to happen next, everyone was enjoying the party I also felt happy seeing everyone enjoying then I saw Alex he was a foodie he ate so much and the man was also offering him more food and Alex was enjoying the food happily everything was going good until my stomach starts aching I thought it was because of eating so much so I go to the washroom when I came back I saw everyone was vomiting, fainting and crying of pain I panicked then I remember that I bought phone with me I call my mother and asked her for help while talking I fell unconscious.

When I came to my senses I found myself in the hospital my mother told me that after I called her she informed the police and came to his house quickly with all my friend's parents and they all caught the man and handed him to the police then they admitted us to the hospital. I asked my mother why we became sick and she told me that the man mixed something poisonous into our food because of which we fell ill and started fainting. I asked my mother if all my friends were well or not, she said all were out of danger but Alex ate so much poisonous food which caused his death and when the police asked the man why he did this he said because he wanted revenge for his humiliation.

Because of this incident, I went into shock how could a man try to kill someone for such a small thing? we're just kids he could forgive us but no he decided to take revenge. My friend was dead and my other friends who were alive were depressed some were traumatized by that day, that one incident changed our lives completely. After this, I never went to someone's party and didn't trust strangers.