Creepypasta

Fernando is processing the rental slips from a glut of customers into the computer when one of his regulars pulls in. He enters the store along with a young boy two, three years old, the sort people might find cute and endearing with his tousled blond hair and little red coat. Fernando never knew this customer had a child.

The alluring pull of Open Office Base is just slightly less powerful than the force of gravity at a black hole's event horizon, so Fernando is sucked into his work and dead to the world for a few minutes. When he finishes up and whirls the chair about to see what else is happening in life, he sees the young boy standing in the office, behind the counter, staring at Fernando in absolute silence. The boy holds in his hands a small plastic pumpkin. The father is somewhere browsing, out of Fernando's line of sight.

Fernando blinks. “Um.” He's crappy with children, for he usually treats them like fun-sized adults and society does not approve of acting towards children in that way.

The boy looks on, motionless.

“I'm sorry, but you can't be back here.”

Still no response.

“Um...please go back to your dad?”

The boy takes a step forward and extends the hands clasping the orange pumpkin in Fernando's direction. Fernando at this point wonders if maybe he'd pissed off an Elder God who instigated this and was now watching the show.

“Oh. Um. Okay. Is that for me? Because, thanks, but you should keep it. You'd get more out of it than me.”

The boy continues staring, but his father, a glowing bastion of safety and sanity amidst chaos and despair, comes up to the counter just then with his tags. He sees his son on the other side. “Get up here!”

The boy lowers his hands like an automaton and joins his dad. The rental process completes as usual.

That boy ate Fernando's soul on that day, and he sleeps with a nightlight now.