My earliest memory

Prompt: Write about your earliest childhood memory.

I think it was when I was around three years old. My parents had taken me outside into a forest, where we walked around, played with the leaves that had fallen from the trees and just had a good time.

I remember running in front of my parents, looking for sticks or especially beautiful leaves that I wanted to keep. Every time I had found something, I went back to my parents, showed them my treasure and stomped off again.

It turned to one of my childhood nightmares when I turned back to get to my parents. But they were not there. I looked, yelled their names, but there was nothing but the wind in the trees and me—alone. I stumbled, fell and started to cry.

At this point, they probably realized that this prank was not as funny for a child as it was for them. They came back from behind a large tree where they were hiding and tried to comfort me.

It haunted tiny-me for a long time and conjured a feeling of dread in me every time when we went for a walk in one of the many forests where we lived.