A man approached me and asked if I was lost.

I have told this story a million times, on a ton of different forums and to all of my friends and family. I just about have it memorized at this point.<br><br>One sunny summer afternoon, when I was about 12 years old, my mom and dad took me to the mall to get some dinner and hang out for the evening. On our way in, I very clearly remember seeing a guy standing outside of the mall. He was standing next to his car in the parking lot, just leaning against it and watching the people walk in. He had on a grease or dirt smudge on his face, and was wearing a black shirt and white pants. I remember glancing over at my dad and pointing out the man, and asking, “Who’s that?”<br><br>My dad kind of stopped mid stride for a second, then looked over his shoulder and saw the man, then turned back to me and said, “Don’t worry about it, sweetie, just keep moving.”<br><br>There was something about the man that automatically put me on edge, and I remember feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I didn’t say anything else to my parents, and we kept going into the mall.<br><br>There was a food court in the mall, so we walked around and checked out some of the fast food places that were there. Then we decided on getting some Chinese food. I was brought to the table with some fortune cookies while my parents went to pay for our food.<br><br>I remember starting to feel very uneasy and scared while I was sitting at the table waiting. I didn’t see the man from outside anywhere, but for some reason I just couldn’t shake the fear that I had. It felt like I was being watched very closely, and I couldn’t focus on my fortune cookie at all. I kept glancing around the food court, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at all.<br><br>Then all of a sudden, I smelled cigarettes. It was a very strong smell, and I remember wrinkling up my face at it. I looked up from my fortune cookie, and the man from the parking lot was standing right next to me.<br><br>“Hi,” He said. “Are you lost or something? You look scared.”<br><br>It felt like my heart stopped. I couldn’t say a word. I just froze and stared at him, unsure of what to do. I know it makes me sound like a dumb kid, but I was genuinely so terrified that I couldn’t do anything.<br><br>He sat down across from me in my mom’s seat. “You ok? You look like you saw a ghost.”<br><br>That’s when I finally snapped out of my terrified daze. I knew that if I didn’t get away from this man, he was going to do something very very bad to me. So I did the only thing that I could think of. I threw up all over the table.<br><br>It wasn’t fake. It was involuntary. When I got scared, my body reacted and I threw up. It was all over my fortune cookie, the table, and a little bit got onto the man’s clothes. He yelled and got up out of his seat.<br><br>I didn’t waste any time. I got up and ran as fast as I possibly could towards the nearest hallway. I didn’t look back. I knew that if I did, I would stop moving.<br><br>It felt like I ran for what could have been 10 minutes (in reality it was probably closer to 30 seconds) before I saw a store. I ran inside of it, still at full sprint. An employee saw me and came running over. “Sweetie, what’s wrong? Are you ok?”<br><br>I couldn’t talk. I was still frozen in fear. So I pointed back towards the food court.<br><br>The employee looked confused but brought me into the stock room. My parents were looking all over the mall for me, and finally they found me crying in the stock room of the store.<br><br>The employee explained to them that I had come running in about 10 minutes ago, and that she thought something had happened to me in the food court. My parents described the man from the parking lot to her, and she said that he had followed me into the store.<br><br>The Mall security came and asked me some questions, and I never saw the man again. After that, I never went to that mall again, and to this day I avoid food courts.<br><br>I’ve told this story a million times since it happened. It’s not like I have PTSD from it or anything, it just really stuck with me as a memorable moment from my childhood.<br><br>The man with the black shirt and white pants, you better hope you never run into me or my family again. Let’s never meet.