"I'm Genuinely Scared" — Woman's Toddler Channels 'The Ring' in Creepy Drawing

A question about why children are more connected to the spirit world was asked in the astral projection subreddit. There weren't a lot of responses but the ones that I read have something in common. They believe it's because children have yet to cultivate an ego and are still tied to some sort of spirit realm because they are significantly closer to birth than they are to death. That sounds as plausible as any.

Abbie Herbert, who appropriately goes by @abbieherbert on TikTok, might benefit from poking around the otherworldly corners of the internet because her daughter has been engaging in strange behavior. Without having ever seen the popular 2002 horror movie The Ring, Abbie's daughter is channeling images of it in her artwork. That's just spooky tip of the creepy iceberg. I'm not going to wait seven days to get into this, and besides, where would I even find a VCR?

If you're unfamiliar with The Ring, I'll do the quickest of spoiler-free breakdowns. The movie centers around a mysterious VHS tape that, when watched, will cause the watcher to die seven days later. What's on the tape? It shows a ring made of light that you soon realize is actually the view from the bottom of a well. There are other images spliced into this scene, but the ring of light is important to this TikTok.

A terrified Abbie begins her video by claiming she is "genuinely scared and kind of terrified." Behind Abbie, her daughter is playing while babbling in that half understandable language that kids always use.

Taking a deep breath, Abbie points to her daughter and explains that she loves to draw. This is a classic kid hobby. Most of the time, the drawings are nonsensical. This time, they are kind of creepy.

"She's been really into eyes and faces," says Abbie while holding up a piece of paper featuring several drawings of heads. "She's really into spooky things. She loves Halloween. She loves pumpkins." Next Abbie grabs a picture of a cat sitting next to a cauldron. It's clearly from a coloring book.

Initially, Abbie was impressed with her daughter's ability to color within the lines. To that I say, who cares about coloring in the lines? That's a pretty boring way to live.The subject matter doesn't give Abbie pause; it's her daughter's color palette.

She leans more toward maroon, and that includes when she colored in the cat's eyes. Again, this doesn't feel weird to me. Abbie's daughter was probably just grabbing crayon colors that seemed fun. Obviously maroon is a fun color, otherwise we wouldn't have Maroon 5.

We finally get into some eerie art choices when Abbie unveils her daughter's iPad artwork. It's mostly eyes. That's right, eyeballs floating in black space. "She's in her eyes era," says Abbie. I hope she never leaves. It's high art. Sorry, I mean eye art!

While dropping her daughter off at school, Abbie requested some art she can hang up on the fridge. Her daughter replied with an enthusiastic, "OK, Mommy!" Abbie thought this was going to be a "good art day" because the classroom was filled with all sorts of options. From Play-Doh to stickers, the sky was the limit. Well, the sky turned cloudy that day.

"Mommy mommy, look what I did!" yelled her daughter while standing in the doorway of her classroom at the end of the day. "This is going to be a masterpiece," Abbie said to herself. In the TikTok, Abbie picks up a piece of red construction paper that is a sea of black circles. They have been drawn so closely together that the center looks like a hole.

"What is this?" asks Abbie. "Ring," says her daughter. Maniacal laughter pours out of Abbie's daughter's mouth, then ends with a loud "Boo!" Far too many people in the comments took this seriously. It's just a bunch of nothing. It only appears to be sinister because the paper is red and the crayon is black. Plus, Abbie is manipulating our emotions by adding a scary music score to the video. I have no doubt that any mental health professional would describe this drawing as perfectly fine.