u/Flashy-Experience181

I recently went through a nasty breakup, and a group of my friends, including my brother, decided that I needed some cheering up. Despite my very loud and very clear protests, I was outvoted.

The plan was simple. We were going camping near the local beach. I went there a day early because there wouldn’t have been enough room in the car anyway, and having some peace and quiet before being surrounded by a bunch of people would do me good. At the campsite, I set up my tent, got everything ready, and went out to explore the area. I put on some music and headed out.

Meanwhile, I was thinking about what I had done wrong to get dumped. I came across a sign that said “NO TRESPASSING,” but it looked like it had been painted by children. I wanted to take a closer look when someone suddenly touched my shoulder.

I screamed in fright and took my headphones out of my ears. It was some elderly couple. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were two hundred years old combined.

“Son, turn around and go back. You have no business being here.”

“Jesus, you scared me half to death. Why can’t I go in there? What’s there?”

“It’s a dangerous area. You’re in danger there,” the old man said, and then immediately asked me where I had come from.

I honestly told him I was staying at the campsite and just wanted to clear my head. He introduced himself as Carl, and the woman as his wife, Nora. They apparently lived not far from the campsite. I talked with them for a while. They were a nice couple.

When we said goodbye, I pretended to be heading back to the campsite, but as soon as I saw them disappear from sight, I turned around and went back to the sign.

I know it wasn’t exactly the smartest decision. But when someone is at rock bottom and has nothing to lose, they tend to keep pushing their boundaries further and further.

I walked past the sign and continued for a while. I eventually reached a cliff. It was probably the most beautiful place I had ever seen. It wasn’t very high, but the view of the ocean was incredible. If I wanted to, I could have jumped straight into the sea and gone for a swim. If those two old people meant this place when they talked about danger, then I was glad I hadn’t listened to them.

Then a figure emerged from the sea.

“Could you help me up?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, leaning down.

It was a girl. She had light blue eyes like the sea with the sun shining on it and medium-length blonde hair. She was beautiful. But when she smiled, she suddenly seemed completely different.

When I pulled her up, she introduced herself as Eleanor.

“I’m Matt,” I said.

She walked a few steps away and pulled some clothes out from behind a rock.

“Could you turn around, please?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, quickly turning around.

She needed to take off her wet swimsuit and change into the hoodie and shorts she had hidden there. She told me that she had also come from the campsite and, to my surprise, that she was recovering from a bad breakup too.

I laughed.

“Well, I guess it must be fate, because so am I.”

She laughed too.

“Did you meet those two old people?” I asked.

Her face seemed to pale.

“Yeah, I did. You did too?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did they tell you?” she asked sharply.

“Nothing special. Just that I shouldn’t come here because I was supposedly in danger. They probably meant this little cliff. You know how old people are, they’re always afraid of something. And besides, I’m glad I didn’t listen to them.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t have met you.”

We talked for what felt like several hours. She was amazing. Apparently, she was studying medicine and spent her free time going with her friends to cheer up sick children. I had never met anyone like her. She joked the entire time, and I laughed so much, probably more than I ever had before. I even completely forgot about my breakup.

“Do you want to go swimming?” she suddenly asked.

“I don’t know. It’s getting dark. It’s not exactly warm anymore, and I don’t even have a swimsuit.”

“Can’t swim, or are you scared?” she teased me and started taking her clothes off until she was standing completely naked in front of me.

I was shocked and couldn’t say anything. I just stared at her. Then she turned around and jumped into the water.

“Come on, Matt. This is the best thing that could have happened to you,” I encouraged myself silently.

My brave side won.

I took off my clothes and jumped in after her. She swam farther and farther away, and I swam after her.

Then she suddenly stopped, wrapped herself around me, and kissed me. Then she pulled away, and I saw it.

The worst thing I had ever seen.

A mouth full of teeth.

And then I felt the pain. An insane pain that completely clouded my mind. I started screaming like crazy. Before I lost consciousness, I heard my brother’s voice calling my name and saw flashlights shining toward the water.

I woke up in the hospital. My brother was on one side of the bed and my parents were on the other. They were all looking at me worriedly. My mom was holding my hand. I wanted to touch her with my other hand, but I couldn’t move it.

When I looked toward my hand, I screamed.

It was gone.

Apparently, I had gone swimming and been attacked by a shark. I was lucky my brother found me in time, otherwise I would have bled to death. Apparently, I had been on that cliff for two days. My brother searched everywhere for me until he came across the elderly couple, who told him they had seen me moving around near the sign, but strongly advised him to stay away from it, which luckily he didn’t do.

When I was discharged from the hospital, I decided that I had to visit the married couple.

I stood outside their door and rang the doorbell. After what felt like an eternity, the door opened and Carl was standing there. He looked at me, and his eyes stopped on my missing arm. Then he invited me inside.

Nora made me some tea and put a slice of cake in front of me. We were all silent for a while before I broke the silence.

“You knew about this, didn’t you?”

They nodded.

“We told you not to go there. We didn’t just tell you. When we told them the truth, they thought we were crazy. When we tried other ways, they still didn’t listen to us.”

They put an album in front of me. I started flipping through it. There were newspaper clippings about people who had gone missing.

Suddenly, I saw her.

“That’s Eleanor!”

The couple looked at each other and shook their heads.

“No. That’s not Eleanor. That’s our granddaughter, Emma. Whatever you saw there, it wasn’t her.”

A chill ran down my spine. Apparently, I could consider myself lucky that I had ended up “only” losing an arm.

Four men sat on a boat in the middle of the open sea.

“Bro, thanks for getting me out of there.”

“Yeah. It’s mostly thanks to Billy and Larry.”

They smiled.

“For the money you gave us, Chuck, we’d do it again. Especially after you told us your brother was The Smiling Psychopath. We watched you on TV. You were always smiling. You don’t regret anything you did? I mean, they say you literally chopped those women into pieces.”

The man who had just gotten out of prison frowned.

“Fuck, why are there flies everywhere?”

“Well, it’s probably because of the fruit we have on the table,” Billy replied.

“You know, guys, I’d rather you just called me by my name. I’m Dean. And do I regret it? I regret getting caught. There’s nothing wrong with killing. It’s like being a farmer and slaughtering livestock. After a while, it just feels completely normal.”

Everyone laughed.

The night went on. They sat around, drinking and laughing.

Billy got up and went to the bathroom.

When he came back, he grabbed Larry by the hair. He was holding a knife and cut his entire head off.

Chuck started screaming like a madman.

Dean immediately stood up and grabbed a chair, the first thing that caught his eye. He shouted at Billy, asking if he had lost his mind.

Billy was already holding Larry’s head in his hand, laughing. Then he bit into it and started chewing for a while before speaking.

“I’ve lost my mind? You’re The Smiling Psychopath. So smile, huh?”

And he started laughing.

Then he pulled out a gun.

“Chuck!” Dean shouted. “We need to get the fuck out of here!”

He grabbed his brother and dragged him away.

Several shots rang out before the two of them disappeared and hid inside the cabin.

Dean locked the door and pushed the chair he had been holding the whole time against it.

He looked at his brother and froze.

“Fuck, he shot you.”

He crouched down to see how bad it was.

“I don’t want to die, Dean.”

Those were his last words before he took his final breath.

“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch,” Dean said. “But it’ll be worse than what I did to those women. I swear.”

He started searching the cabin, trying to find anything he could use to defend himself.

The key in the lock slowly began to turn.

“What the fuck is that?”

The door cracked open, and one fly after another began flying through the gap into the room.

The handle moved, but the door was blocked by the chair. After a moment, the chair was suddenly thrown across the room and smashed against the wall, breaking apart.

Larry walked inside.

He was covered in blood, and his eyes were bloodshot. Flies crawled out of his mouth, ears, and eyes.

“It’s your time, Dean.”

Dean stood up and tried to charge at him, but an entire swarm of flies flew straight at him. He waved his arms, trying to drive them away, when suddenly they began flying away on their own, heading toward Larry.

Dean noticed something on the floor.

Blood.

A lot of blood.

Pieces of bodies.

The women he had killed.

Pieces of their bodies stretched toward him. They gurgled and whispered his name.

“What the fuck is this?! What the fuck are you?!”

Larry laughed.

“You can call me the Lord of the Flies.”

Dean stared at him in terror.

“So you’re Satan?”

The smile disappeared from Larry’s lips.

“Don’t speak about my master.”

“Why did you choose me?” Dean cried desperately.

“Why? Because for people like you, we don’t send ordinary pawns. And I’ve been watching you for a long time. I find you very interesting, Dean. The way you talked about murder as if it meant nothing. Beautiful. Your soul will look magnificent with me.”

Dean stepped back.

“No. Please.”

Larry pulled the same knife he had used to kill Billy from his pants.

“It’s time, Dean!”

Suddenly, there was a scratching sound.

Larry’s face twisted with anger.

“Who dares disturb me?!”

Then Chuck slowly began to rise from the floor.

Hope flashed across Dean’s face.

“Bro, you’re alive?”

But Chuck stood up.

His bones suddenly began to break. His arms and legs twisted into unnatural angles. Blood began pouring from his eyes.

His head slowly turned toward Dean.

He smiled, and some kind of black liquid began pouring from his mouth.

Dean shit himself at the sight.

“Oh God,” he whispered.

He looked toward Larry and saw fear in his face.

Larry fell to his knees and lowered his head.

Dean looked back at Chuck.

“You’re not my brother.”

Chuck’s head slowly turned from side to side in a gesture of denial.

Then he moved.

Every movement was accompanied by a crack from his already broken limbs.

Slowly, step by step, he moved toward Dean.

Dean was completely pale, terrified, and crying.

“God, please forgive me. Please help me. God, please.”

Then Chuck spoke.

A voice. Inhuman. Raspy. Every word was spoken slowly and clearly.

“He... will... forgive... you... he... always... forgives... but... I... won’t.”

Once a week, I go to my grandma’s attic to hang up the laundry. She lives literally just a few houses away from us. It might sound strange, but I loved that attic. First, you open a wooden door, then there are stone stairs, followed by wooden stairs, and then you’re upstairs. There was still some hay left over from when my grandma used to have animals, and clotheslines were hanging everywhere. Whenever I finished hanging the laundry, I would smoke a cigarette by a little alcove with no window that overlooked the yard. Sometimes I would sit there with my feet almost touching the little roof below. It was only a short distance from the ground, so it wasn’t very high. Other times, I would just stand there and look outside. I had to be careful. If anyone found out I smoked up there, I’d be in big trouble. The support beams in the attic were made of wood, after all, and there was hay everywhere.

Susan often came to visit me. That’s what my grandma called every single one of her cats. She was the most affectionate cat I knew, but this time she started hissing and her fur stood on end.

“Kitty, what’s wrong?”

I wanted to pick her up, but she scratched me and ran away. I shook my head in confusion and lit a cigarette. I was looking outside when suddenly I heard someone behind me, humming a melody.

“Hmmm hmmm hmmm.”

And then something hit me.

I flew from the alcove onto the little roof and from there straight down to the ground. A dull pain shot through my ankle. I grabbed my phone and immediately called my parents. They were there within minutes and took me to the hospital.

At the hospital, they found that I had broken my ankle and put it in a cast.

My mom started going to my grandma’s to hang the laundry instead. I was on crutches and there was no way I could climb those stairs, let alone carry a laundry basket. When I asked her if she had noticed anything strange in the attic, she said no. Maybe I had imagined it and simply lost my balance? I hadn’t been sleeping much lately and had been studying for exams, so maybe I had confused reality with a dream.

Two weeks later, my grandma called and asked if I wanted to spend the night at her house. I sometimes stayed over there. We would watch Jeopardy! When it ended, my grandma got up and said she was going to heat up her famous chicken soup for us. I heard a cat meowing outside the door. Susan had come over to cuddle. I brought her inside, and she purred in my lap.

When Grandma walked toward us to get a dish towel from the dresser next to the couch, Susan suddenly started hissing like crazy. Her fur stood on end, and she immediately ran to the door and started scratching at it. Grandma went to open the door for her, and the cat let out a frantic meow before running away.

“She’s probably sick,” Grandma said. “She’s been acting like this for several days.”

“Yeah,” I said. “She did the same thing in the attic.”

Grandma simply nodded and went back to the soup. She stirred it in the pot and then started humming.

“Hmmm hmmm hmmm…”

I swear, my heart started pounding so hard at that moment that I prayed she wouldn’t hear it. I could feel cold sweat running down my back. I tried to calm myself down.

I don’t know how I managed it, but I looked at Grandma and tried to sound as casual as possible.

“Grandma? Could I go outside and have a cigarette before dinner?”

She sighed and gave me the same disapproving look she always did.

“Go ahead, but you know very well I don’t like you smoking. And hurry up, dinner will be ready soon.”

I grabbed my crutches and went into the yard, then immediately headed toward home. I think if there’s a record for the fastest person ever to walk on crutches, I probably broke it that evening.

I kept looking over my shoulder, but within moments I was standing in front of our door. I quickly unlocked it and rushed inside.

When my parents asked why I was home when I was supposed to spend the night at Grandma’s, I told them I had changed my mind. They didn’t question it. I watched TV with them in the living room, and eventually they went to bed. I stayed there a little longer.

Then I heard knocking on the window.

The small ventilation window was open.

Knock, knock, knock.

I pulled up the blinds, and there stood my grandma. She was covered in blood and scratches.

“Let me in. You don’t just leave in the middle of the night.”

I tried to close the window, but she stuck her hand through it.

“Let me in.”

“No,” I said, trembling.

She started laughing and then began humming that same melody again.

I slowly backed out of the living room and went into my bedroom, where I locked the door. I didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, my mom woke me up and told me to come to the living room.

My grandma was sitting there.

She looked exactly the same as before. The scratches on her body were gone. She apologized for falling asleep so early the night before, saying she hadn’t been feeling well.

I asked her:

“How early?”

“Well, right after we finished watching Jeopardy!”

This summer, I decided to get a summer job and earn some money before college. I didn't want my parents to pay for everything. I found a job at a restaurant in a town not far from ours. I left first thing in the morning, but halfway there, my car stopped and wouldn't start again.

Oh, come on.

I got out and found the problem. My tire was completely ruined. There was some kind of shard of glass stuck in it.

“Hey, do you need some help?”

I turned around, and standing in front of me was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. I know that sounds like a cliché, but it really was true. She had copper-colored, slightly wavy hair, a small nose, and dark green eyes.

“Hello? Are you okay?”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“You've been staring at me for what feels like forever. Did something happen?”

I could feel myself starting to blush.

“No, I mean… the tire and the restaurant… yeah.”

She burst out laughing.

“Are you sure you didn't hit your head or something?”

I covered my face with my hands.

“Sorry. This probably isn't the best first impression.”

She laughed and introduced herself as Christina. I barely managed to tell her, “I'm Justin,” before she nodded and continued talking. She told me that her family had a circus nearby and that her uncle could probably help me.

Before I could say anything, she was gone.

A few minutes later, she came back with a guy who had to be around six and a half feet tall. He was bald, and his face looked like he wanted to kill me. His hand was about the size of both of my legs put together. My expression must have said it all.

“I heard you're having trouble with your car. I can help you. My name's Bobby. And you?”

“I'm Justin.”

He shook my hand, and I had the feeling my entire arm had just died. He noticed and apologized. Apparently, he sometimes forgot how strong he was.

He helped me change the tire, but I never made it to the restaurant.

Bobby offered me a job with them instead. It paid a little less, but I didn't mind.

Christina was there.

I met everyone in the family. Christina's mother, Suzan, who looked like an older version of Christina. Her father, Vincent, who had a similar build to Bobby, but a softer expression and long hair tied back in a ponytail. Her aunt Diana, who was the only one who was a little chubby, but probably looked the nicest out of all of them. And their two adult sons, twins named Dustin and Roger.

I was surprised that, unlike their father and uncle, the boys were smaller and skinny rather than big and muscular. But I got along with all of them.

I started dating Christina. I never expected a girl like her to want someone like me, but as they say, sometimes even an idiot gets lucky.

About halfway through the summer, I decided to go into town. I wanted to buy some supplies and surprise Christina with a gift. I got up while everyone was still asleep, got into my car, and drove off.

When I arrived, I noticed there was a market in town. I got out of the car and walked past the different stalls. I noticed one where a woman who looked about a hundred years old was selling handmade jewelry.

“I'd like a necklace, please,” I told her.

“Of course, young man. And who is it for? That way we can choose the best one.”

I told her it was for my girlfriend, Christina. I said she worked at a circus nearby.

The woman went pale.

“Who told you to come to me with this?”

I stared at her in confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

She raised her voice until everyone around us started turning to look.

“You know exactly what I'm talking about. Those killers from the circus! Get out of here.”

I backed away and bumped into a guy standing behind me. He looked at me like I was the worst person in the world.

“You know what she's talking about?”

“Of course I do. Everyone here does. There used to be a family of killers here who owned a circus. They killed people. And for Agnes, it's even more painful because they killed her daughter. She was only twenty when she disappeared.”

It was obvious to me that they were messing with me, but I still needed to be sure.

I went to the local library, turned on a computer, and searched for Christina and her family. Several articles and black-and-white photographs came up.

One of them showed all of them. Christina, Bobby, and the rest of the family.

I opened the first article.

The family had killed dozens of people. A crowd of locals had risen up against them and burned the circus down. The entire family had burned to death.

Another article.

According to the available information, the family had eaten their victims.

I remembered having dinner with Christina's family on my first day there and wondering what the hell I was eating. I'd never tasted anything like it before.

“It's an old family secret recipe. I'll tell you once you officially become part of the family,” she had whispered.

My stomach turned. I tried to make it to the bathroom, but I didn't make it and threw up into a trash can instead.

The librarian shot me an angry look. I apologized and quickly left.

I got into my car and just sat there for a while, trying to calm my breathing. I wasn't doing a very good job, but I knew I couldn't sit there forever.

I drove home to my parents.

When they asked me what was wrong and how the job had gone, I didn't know what to say. They could see that something was wrong, but they left me alone.

That evening, though, my mom came into my room with a mug of hot chocolate and told me that if I wanted to talk, I could.

I didn't.

I just wanted to forget what had happened to me. I couldn't tell anyone. What was I supposed to say? I'd spent a month living with people who had been dead for decades and, by the way, they were murderers and cannibals? That would get me committed.

For a few days, I barely left my room. Then Mom handed me a shopping list and asked if I'd go to the store for her because she was tired and didn't feel like carrying everything herself. I had a feeling she mostly wanted me to get out of the house for a while.

I drove to the store, completely lost in my thoughts. Then suddenly, I felt the urge to turn my head and look out the window.

There was a circus tent.

And standing in front of it were Christina, Bobby, and the rest of the family. The longer I stared at them, the more they began to change. Their clothes became charred, and their faces grew more and more burned.

They just stood there, waving at me.

A car horn right in front of me snapped me out of my shock, followed by a violent crash.

I woke up in a hospital.

I tried to convince myself that it had all been a hallucination, but then I noticed a piece of paper on my bedside table.

It said:

Whether you like it or not, you'll be part of the family soon.

When I was a child, I lived with my grandmother in a cabin in the middle of the forest. She told me that my parents had abandoned me. I never thought there was anything strange about the fact that it was just the two of us and that I was completely isolated from everyone else. I didn't know anything different, and I never really felt like I was missing anything.

One day, when I was five years old, I went for a walk and met a man. He was the first person I could remember seeing. He was wearing green clothes and had something strapped to his back that I didn't recognize.

He asked me where I had come from. I told him that I lived with my grandmother in a cabin not far from there. He looked at me strangely and said that was impossible because nobody lived there. He would know, he told me, because he was a hunter and looked after that forest.

He took me by the hand and said he would take me somewhere where they could help me. I had no idea what he meant. I didn't want to go anywhere, but he pulled me along.

We were almost at the edge of the forest when I heard heavy breathing and rustling behind us. I turned around, and there was something horrible standing behind us.

The whole time, I had been trying to pull my hand free from the man's grip, but now I held onto him as tightly as I could and started screaming.

The thing behind us had several clumps of something that looked like hair growing from its head. Its eyes were red, and several teeth protruded from its mouth, but they looked more like needles than teeth.

It was hunched over.

Then I realized what it was wearing.

Clothes I recognized.

My grandmother's clothes.

It tried to smile and reached toward me with a hand that had long claws instead of fingers.

“Stellooo,” it rasped.

That voice…

It was my grandmother's voice, but it sounded different.

Evil.

When I looked at the man, he was completely pale. He started running with me, and the monster chased after us on all fours.

It was incredibly fast.

It was already upon us.

It knocked me away from the man and threw him against a rock. His head hit it, and he collapsed to the ground.

I tried to get away from it. Its claws dug into me everywhere—my arms, my back. It felt like knives were slicing through my skin. Drops of my blood covered my clothes.

I had no chance against it.

It dragged me away when suddenly I heard a terrible bang and felt its grip loosen.

I looked ahead and saw the man holding something in his hand. I later learned that it was a gun. Until then, I had never seen one before.

He quickly ran back to me and took me to the police.

I found out that when I was two years old, someone had killed my parents. They never found the killer.

I did have a grandmother, but she wasn't the one who had been living with me all those years.

My real grandmother was incredibly happy that I was back, and I slowly learned what it was like to live a normal life.

Now I'm an adult, and for years I told myself that maybe it really had been a bear, even though that wouldn't explain a lot of things.

I wanted to believe that.

But today, I was driving my daughter, Esme, to kindergarten.

Something made me look to the left.

There is a forest not far from the kindergarten.

And there it was.

Just as horrible as I remembered it.

It had the same terrifying smile, and it was pointing at my daughter.

I immediately got her back into the car and drove home as fast as I could.

Now I don't know what to do.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know how far it can go.

All I know is that it is capable of hurting someone.

Or even killing them.

“Hey, Caleb, this was the fucking dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Miles said angrily.

Josh just grunted in agreement, Hailey laughed, and I tried to lighten the mood.

“Come on. We’d just be sitting at our computers playing games otherwise. At least this way we’re out in the woods getting some fresh air. We’re doing something healthy, right?”

“Yeah, sure, Lily. You and Hailey have smoked almost a whole pack between you since we got here, so somehow the whole ‘we’re doing this for our health’ thing doesn’t really add up,” Miles muttered.

Caleb looked at us, his eyes shining.

“I’m telling you, we’re going to be the first ones to find her cabin and put it online.”

Hailey gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Caleb, I know you’re excited about this, but witches simply don’t exist. They never did. The fact that people who went looking for her disappeared in these woods is just bullshit. It has nothing to do with a witch.”

“Then what happened to them?” Caleb asked, clearly offended. “Can you tell me? Jessica, Carl, Petr, Ema, Jack…”

“Hey, man, just because those people disappeared doesn’t mean a witch took them. Something could have happened to them, or maybe they just wanted to disappear and blamed it on this whole story. We’ve been walking through these woods for hours. We’re not some fucking Blair Witch heroes,” Miles snapped.

“We should go home. This is fucking stupid,” Josh added.

“Absolutely not,” Caleb objected.

“Fine. Let’s vote,” Miles said. “Who wants to go home?”

Josh immediately raised his hand, and Miles followed. Hailey hesitated for a moment before raising hers too. I felt bad for Caleb, so I kept my hand down. It wouldn’t change the result anyway.

Caleb looked at me gratefully, then reluctantly raised his hand.

“Okay. Let’s pack it up.”

We turned on the navigation and headed back toward the car. After a few minutes of walking, we came across a little girl sitting on the ground and crying.

She had curly red hair, big green eyes, and a few freckles around her tiny nose. She looked about five years old. She was wearing a Frozen T-shirt and light blue jeans. There was a hole in one knee, surrounded by blood. She had no shoes on.

“What happened to you, sweetheart?” I asked gently as I knelt beside her.

Between sobs, she explained that she had seen a little bird on the slope and wanted to catch it, but she had slipped. She managed to climb back up, but tore her jeans, and her shoes had fallen down the slope.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Vivian,” she answered immediately.

“Okay, Vivian. I’m Lily. This is Caleb, Hailey, Miles, and Josh. We’ll help you. Where’s your mom?”

“Home,” she said.

“We live near the woods. But I can’t go home because Mommy will be angry. I lost my shoes and ruined my pants,” she sobbed again.

“Don’t worry. We’ll explain it to her.” I gently stroked her hair.

Caleb came over and offered to carry her so she wouldn’t have to walk barefoot, but Vivian pressed herself against me in fear.

“It’s okay. I’ll carry her. Do you want to ride on my back?”

She smiled and clapped her little hands. I lifted her onto my back, and we followed wherever the girl led us.

We kept walking deeper into the woods. After about half an hour, Miles turned around and asked her,

“Are you sure we’re going the right way? You said you lived near the woods, but it feels like we’re going deeper and deeper.”

“I’m sure,” Vivian said, sounding offended. “We’ll be there soon.”

A few minutes later, we found ourselves standing in front of some kind of cabin.

“Wait,” Josh said in surprise. “You live here? It looks like nobody’s been here for years.”

“Definitely,” Miles agreed. “And it’s not even near the woods. We’re literally in the middle of them.”

Hailey picked up her phone.

“I’ll check how far we are from the car.”

“Shit, guys. Problem. My phone died.”

“Shit, Hailey. We said we weren’t going to use our phones so we’d have full batteries,” Caleb said.

“We wanted to record in case we happened to find the witch’s ca—”

He stopped mid-sentence and slowly began to pale.

He looked toward the cabin Vivian had called her home.

From the look on everyone’s faces, I knew we had all realized it at the same time.

I slowly let Vivian climb off my back.

Then it hit me.

She was messing with us. She probably did this kind of thing with her friends. Maybe they were filming us somewhere, laughing at how stupid we were.

The others angrily looked at Vivian.

She burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that tears began running down her face.

“Well, great. Thanks, Caleb,” Miles said sarcastically. “Not only have we been out here all fucking day, now some local brats are making fun of us too.”

“I just wanted to find the witch,” Caleb said. “And besides, maybe Vivian was messing with us, but the cabin is here, and this has to be it!”

He pulled out his phone, and I saw his forehead wrinkle.

“I think my phone died.”

“Of course,” Hailey said sarcastically. “After all that lecturing me.”

Miles rolled his eyes, took out his own phone, and handed it to Caleb.

“Take mine. Record it, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Caleb took his phone, and the expression on his face changed. His anger slowly turned into fear.

“Yours won’t turn on either.”

Josh pulled out his phone, and then I checked mine.

It was the same for all of us.

“Then let’s at least take a look inside,” Caleb suggested.

“Have you lost your mind? None of our phones work. We should get the hell out of here,” Miles said, but Caleb was already inside.

Of course, whether we wanted to or not, we followed him.

Inside, lanterns hung everywhere. Crayons and drawings were scattered across the floor. Every picture showed the same little red-haired girl with someone else. Sometimes the person was lying on the ground surrounded by blood. Other times, they were missing a head or parts of their body.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Josh said. “We’re going home. Those kids are messing with us, and we’re falling for it.”

Caleb sadly looked at the drawings around us and nodded.

“Yeah. I guess you guys were right. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”

Then a voice came from the corner behind us.

Sharp and hoarse, as if it belonged to someone who had been alive for centuries.

We slowly turned around.

It was Vivian.

She was speaking in a voice that didn’t belong to her.

“You wanted to find me so badly. So why are you leaving?”

“What… what are you?” Caleb stammered.

Vivian smiled.

“But… you’re not a child,” Caleb whispered.

Her smile widened.

“No.”

“The one you wanted to find so badly,” Vivian said, then ran toward him.

She jumped on him, and Caleb started screaming. The boys tried to pull her away, but they couldn’t. After several endless seconds, they finally managed to grab her and throw her into the corner.

Caleb was screaming with his face in his hands. After a moment, he collapsed to the floor.

Miles immediately dropped to his knees beside him and started shouting. We stared at Caleb, and Hailey burst into tears.

He was missing his eyes.

Josh pushed Miles aside.

“He’s not breathing!” he shouted, and started performing CPR on Caleb.

After what felt like forever, I crouched beside him.

“We have to go, Josh. Caleb is gone.”

We got up and looked toward Vivian.

She was sitting on the floor. She was holding something in her bloody hands.

When I looked closer, I saw what it was.

Caleb’s eyes.

She smiled at us, then shoved them into her mouth and started chewing until she swallowed them.

I looked at Josh and saw an expression I had never seen on him before. His face was filled with anger and hatred.

He ran toward Vivian, but stopped just before reaching her. His feet lifted off the ground.

Vivian simply raised her hand.

Josh slowly began to rise.

Then she moved her hand to the left.

Josh shot in the same direction.

Then to the right.

Then back again.

For a while, she laughed, looking like a child who had just been given a new toy. Josh screamed and tried to grab onto something, but there was nothing around him.

“This is fun,” Vivian laughed.

After a while, she sighed.

Then she suddenly jerked her hand.

Josh slammed into the floor with such force that I heard a dull crack.

Vivian stared at him for a moment. Then she looked back at us, as if waiting to see who would be next.

When none of us moved, she shrugged and started walking toward Miles.

Miles grabbed Hailey and shoved her in front of Vivian.

“What are you doing?” I screamed and tried to help Hailey, but Vivian lunged at her throat and bit into her artery.

I immediately knelt beside Hailey and tried to hold the wound closed.

“It’s going to be okay,” I kept repeating. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get help.”

“I don’t want to die,” Hailey whispered.

A few minutes later, she died in my arms.

I sat there, stroking her hair and crying. I didn’t see what happened to Miles. I didn’t want to. All I heard in the distance was his desperate screaming.

I was shaking and crying.

Vivian came over to me and leaned down.

“I haven’t let anyone go in a long time. I couldn’t help myself. But I have to let you go.”

I slowly stood up and began backing toward the door.

“Wait,” she said. “It won’t be free. I want you to tell as many people about me as you can. If you don’t, I’ll come for you. You know, when people stop talking about us, we die. And I wouldn’t like that.”

She giggled.

“And one more little thing. I’m going to take something from you as a keepsake.”

I was almost at the door when I saw her clench her hand into a fist and squeeze it as hard as she could.

A horrible pain exploded through my ears and head. Blood began running from my ears.

Everything around me went silent.

I have never heard anything since that day.

I only saw her point toward the door.

I opened it and ran.

When the police searched the woods, they never found my friends.

And I’d like to say I was brave, but the only reason I’m writing this is because if I didn’t, she would come for me.

My nightmare began a few months ago.

I was sitting in a bar with my laptop open in front of me, and there were barely two sentences on the screen. I was sipping my drink when a strange voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Hey, Tim. Writing still isn’t going very well, huh?”

I frowned and looked up to see who was talking to me. A man who looked barely over twenty was standing in front of me. I looked him over from head to toe. He had short, curly blond hair, dark eyes, and an amused smile playing on his lips. He was wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and dress shoes. He was carrying a bag, which he placed on the table next to me.

“Do we know each other?” I asked, a little more rudely than I intended.

The guy smiled.

“I know you. And now you know me too. My name is Logan, and I have an offer for you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Not this,” I said desperately, rubbing my face. “I don’t want to buy anything.”

Logan burst out laughing.

“Okay. In that case, I’ll give you something for free.”

He sat down across from me.

I looked at him irritably and said, “Okay, let’s get this over with. What is it?”

He pulled his chair closer, glanced at my laptop, and began.

“I’ll make you one of the most famous horror writers in the world. You’ll write plenty of books. You’ll never run out of ideas. You’ll be swimming in money, just like you always wanted.”

I started laughing.

“So you’re basically going to give me what I want most? And you don’t want anything in return? My soul, perhaps?”

But Logan wasn’t laughing. He was completely serious.

“Not today. Sometimes I ask for a soul, sometimes for something else, but I promised you that yours would be free.”

“And you want me to seal the deal with blood, Faust?” I said between another fit of laughter.

He laughed too, but there was nothing funny about it. A chill ran down my spine, and my laughter immediately stopped.

“No. All I need is for us to shake hands. I’m just a merchant. There’s only one condition.”

“What condition?”

Logan stared into my eyes.

“You must never stop writing.”

“Whenever you have an idea and feel the urge to write, you can’t stop. Ever.”

I downed my shot and asked, “And what happens if I stop?”

Logan stood up from the table.

“You don’t want to find out.”

“You can still change your mind,” Logan said.

I thought about it for a moment and then told him I would take the deal. He held out his hand, and a strange feeling passed through me, one I couldn’t quite put into words. Now I know what it felt like. It felt as if something inside me had died.

After we shook hands, Logan turned around and walked away. Just before he stepped through the bar’s door, he called out to me.

“Don’t forget, Tim. Don’t stop writing.”

I sat there for a while longer and then went home. It started that very night. One idea after another. I finished a book within a few weeks. It was a huge success. Then came another one, and another.

My bank account was filled with more money than I had ever dreamed of. My dream had come true, but I started to feel exhausted. The urge to write and all those ideas… I barely had time for anything else.

So I decided to screw it and take a few days off.

The next day, I was walking down the stairs when I saw a woman in a white shirt walking through the hallway. Her face was horribly disfigured. She looked at me and started screaming.

I started screaming too and immediately ran back upstairs to my room. I shut the door and locked it. I heard a strange rasping sound behind me.

Slowly, I turned around. A few feet away from me, something horrible was standing in the corner. It had claws, a wide, grotesque mouth full of enormous teeth, and bulging eyes.

My heart was pounding, and I was shaking all over. I screamed like a madman until my voice gave out completely.

I knew what was standing there.

It was a character from my book.

So was the woman.

Logan’s voice echoed in my head.

“You must never stop writing.”

The creature pointed toward the laptop.

“Okay, okay,” I stammered.

I sat down and started writing. I thought they would disappear, but they didn’t. I encountered them everywhere in the house. At first, I would wake up terrified and screaming, but eventually, I got used to them. You can get used to anything.

But I was already so tired.

“Screw you!” I screamed one day. “I’m not writing anymore.”

There were more and more of them. They wandered around the house, but I didn’t care. The woman, the creature, the torso that crawled around my apartment… But the longer I refused to write, the more nervous they became.

It all came to a head the day they attacked me.

They threw themselves at me and started scratching and beating me. They bit off several of my fingers. I had no choice but to start writing again.

But I couldn’t keep it up for long.

“Fine. Then kill me,” I said resignedly.

For a few days, everything was quiet. I was lying on the couch watching TV when the doorbell rang. I went to the door, and my brother Mark was standing there.

He wanted to come inside, but I told him no, that we could meet somewhere else. He was already leaving when something grabbed me by the legs and dragged me back inside.

Mark ran after me, and then…

Some of them held me down so I couldn’t move, while the others lunged at Mark. He had absolutely no idea what was happening. He desperately screamed for help and called my name.

I broke down crying and begged them to leave him alone. I promised I would start writing again, just as long as they let him go, but they didn’t.

They started tearing him apart.

It took an eternity before Mark’s screams finally stopped, and then they ate him. They left nothing behind. Nothing at all.

I threw up and then just sat there, staring at the spot where Mark had been moments before.

The disfigured woman shuffled toward me. Mark’s blood was still dripping from her mouth. When she spoke, her voice sounded like a creaking door.

“Next tiiime, there will be others…”

I knew what she meant.

I have children, parents, friends. So many people I care about.

I’ve been writing ever since. Constantly.

The urge is getting stronger and stronger. But finally, I have a glimmer of hope.

I found an online discussion where a woman was talking about a merchant. Her description of him matches Logan. Apparently, he came to their town in a caravan and sold wishes, and hers came true.

I messaged her and asked if he was still there. She said he was.

I’m going there tomorrow.

For the first time in a long while, I felt fear again, twisting my stomach. What is he? What is he capable of? I don’t know, but I have to find out.

I hope he’ll still be there when I arrive. If he isn’t, I’ll never stop looking for him.

I need him to stop this.

I inherited a house from my grandmother. On the very first day, I threw a party for all my friends. We drank, listened to music, and enjoyed each other’s company.

When the last guest left, I took a bath and went straight to bed. I had the feeling I could hear footsteps, as if someone was walking up and down the stairs. I assumed I was just imagining it.

I couldn’t fall asleep at all, and when I finally did, I was woken by a terrible crash and the sound of breaking glass. I didn’t dare leave my room. There must be a burglar, I thought.

I lay completely still for several hours, and when the first rays of morning light reached my room, I went downstairs to see what had happened. I grabbed the candlestick my grandmother had kept in her bedroom for her entire life.

I walked down the stairs, but there was no sign that anyone had been inside. I entered the living room and saw that the door was broken.

Damn. I had forgotten to close the window. It must have been windy outside, which caused the door to slam shut and the glass to break. Although I didn’t remember there being any strong wind that night, I had been pretty drunk, so I might not have remembered it correctly.

The next day, more and more strange things started happening. I was watching TV in the living room when I heard a creaking sound. I turned around and saw my grandmother’s armchair slowly rocking back and forth on its own. I looked toward the window.

It was closed.

I turned on all the lights in the house and quickly went back to the bedroom. There were those footsteps on the stairs again. The chandelier above me started flickering and eventually went out completely. My heart was pounding, and I gripped the blanket so tightly that my knuckles turned white. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to fall asleep.

Eventually, I did.

In the morning, when I left the bedroom, there was no sign that anyone had been there.

I went to work that morning. I was glad I had at least managed to get some sleep, and I tried to look as normal as possible. I work at a preschool, and I didn’t want the children to notice anything was wrong.

While the children were playing, my phone rang. It was my friend Nela. I told her what had been happening and that I felt like I was going crazy. She tried to calm me down, saying that old houses sometimes made strange noises, and she tried to come up with a logical explanation for everything.

She actually managed to convince me.

What she was saying made sense.

I ended the call by saying, “You’re right. There’s nothing in my house.”

I noticed Clara standing in front of me.

She was the youngest girl in our class. She was holding a doll and staring directly at me with her big blue eyes.

“Do you need something, sweetheart?”

She looked at me and said, “It’s not true that there’s nothing in your house, Abigail.”

She shook her head as she spoke, making her blonde ponytail sway from side to side.

I blinked in surprise.

“What did you say, Clara?”

She smiled and said, “There’s a man at your house. He doesn’t like noise. When you make noise, he gets angry.”

Everything went dark for a moment, and I had to grab onto the table. My heart started pounding again, and the fear came rushing back.

I wanted to ask her how she knew that, but her mother came to pick her up and took her home.

I immediately started looking for somewhere else to live. That same day, I arranged a viewing of an apartment and scheduled my move for two days later. I also took a few days off work.

The house was quiet that evening, but I wasn’t going to risk staying there anymore.

Moving day finally came.

As I stood there holding my suitcase, a sudden wave of anger came over me. Anger that I had to leave after being so excited about finally having this place.

I started rummaging through my tool bag, grabbed a hammer, and smashed that damn armchair into pieces.

Then I turned up the music and started hitting anything I could hit.

When I finally calmed down, I went upstairs one last time to make sure all the windows were closed.

Everything was fine.

I was walking back down the stairs when I suddenly felt a hard impact against my back.

There was no way I could keep my balance, and I fell.

I lay still on the floor for a moment, slowly checking myself to make sure nothing was broken. It seemed like I was fine, but when I touched my forehead, I felt a bump that was already starting to hurt more and more.

I got back up, grabbed my suitcase, and got the hell out of there.

I didn’t calm down until I opened the door to my new apartment.

No more house. Just an apartment.

I’d be fine here.

I slept through the entire day and went to work the next morning. I was getting some crayons ready for the children when Clara came over to me.

“Is your new apartment nice?”

The crayons fell from my hands.

“Clara, how do you know about my new apartment?”

She came closer and told me it was a secret, but that she would tell me if I promised to keep it to myself.

“Of course. I promise,” I said far too quickly.

She motioned for me to come closer with her little hand.

I bent down until our faces were almost touching. She leaned toward my ear and whispered,

“He told me about it. He’s sitting in the corner right now, and he’s very angry.”

I swallowed.

“Why is he angry, Clara?”

She whispered,

“Because he doesn’t have his favorite chair.”

I had never had any friends, not at school and not even now that I was an adult and living on my own. That was why I was surprised when I received a message from an unknown number on my phone a few days ago.

“Hi, Annie.”

“Hi. Do we know each other?”

“I know you, but you don’t know me.”

I stared at the screen in confusion before typing:

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s complicated. I’ll tell you everything, and if you don’t want to talk to me afterward, I’ll understand. By the way, my name is Amanda.”

I smiled and told her okay. Her reply came immediately.

“I’m dead. I know that sounds crazy, but I’d like to be friends with someone. I never had any friends.”

I frowned. I was used to people making fun of me. I put my phone down and silently cursed myself for being so stupid, thinking that someone would actually want to talk to me.

My phone vibrated. Another message.

“I understand that you probably don’t believe me. Look at the TV.”

I turned toward the television, and it started turning itself on and off.

Another message.

“Now look at the table.”

I turned a little further and looked at the desk. Papers flew everywhere.

My phone vibrated, making me jump. With trembling hands, I opened the next message.

“I know you’re scared. I won’t hurt you, and I can’t hurt you anyway. I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me. I’ve just been alone for a very long time, and I thought maybe you wanted some company too.”

I know I should have been terrified. I should have told her to stop contacting me, but I did the exact opposite.

From that day on, Amanda and I texted every day. She was 23 when she died. Only one year younger than me. She wanted me to search her name on the internet. An article came up: Young Woman Murdered. Killer Unknown.

She had been a small, petite brunette with cheerful brown eyes and freckles around her nose. She used to live in the same apartment complex as me. With every passing day, I felt closer and closer to her. Like we had so much in common. She had died 20 years ago, and even though we had never had the chance to meet in person, I was glad that we could at least stay in contact like this.

Yesterday, my grandmother texted me that she needed me to come stay with her for the weekend and help her in the garden. I had always loved my grandmother, even though most of our family said she was crazy. She had spent her whole life involved in spiritual things. She read tarot cards, mixed different herbs, was extremely superstitious, and often said strange things. It had never bothered me, even though I had never been interested in any of that.

I told Amanda that I was going to my grandmother’s, and she told me to enjoy myself and that she would look forward to hearing all about it. I told her it was a shame she couldn’t come with me so she could meet my grandmother. She replied that unfortunately, she was bound to this place and couldn’t leave it, but that she would wait for me there.

When I arrived at my grandmother’s, she was pale and looked terribly exhausted. She reassured me that everything was fine and that she had just been sleeping badly because there had been a full moon. Her answer didn’t surprise me at all.

We were sitting together in the kitchen eating cookies when she suddenly asked me if I could go to her bedroom and bring her the medicine from her nightstand.

I opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. The room was empty. There was no bed, no wardrobe, not even a nightstand. There were only candles everywhere and strange symbols on the floor. And directly in front of me stood a large mirror.

I wanted to turn around and ask my grandmother what this was, but I couldn’t move. She entered the room and positioned herself where I could see her. In one hand, she held a bundle of flowers that was smoldering, and in the other, some kind of bottle. She began mumbling something and splashing the liquid from the bottle all over me.

I didn’t understand what she was doing and begged her to stop. She was like she was in a trance.

Then she pointed at the mirror. I looked into it and saw a figure standing beside me.

A horrible figure. Its eyes were bulging. They looked as if they were halfway out of their sockets. Its skin looked as if it had been peeled off, and it had a smile stretching from ear to ear. I had never seen anything worse in my life.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Fear completely paralyzed me. Then my grandmother shouted something, and the mirror cracked.

After that, all I remember is darkness.

When I woke up, I was lying on the couch in my grandmother’s living room. I felt a stinging pain in my arm and face. I touched my face and felt a bandage there. I looked at my arm, and it was bandaged as well. My grandmother was sitting across from me in an armchair.

“Those are cuts from the glass. I treated them. Your arm got hurt worse than your face,” she said, then fell silent for a moment.

After a few minutes, she took a deep breath and began to explain. She said she had been reading the cards and they had shown that I was in danger. She had tried to investigate further through things I supposedly wouldn’t understand, trying to figure out what was happening. She had hoped she was wrong, but she had to be certain and prepare herself in case she wasn’t. When she saw me arriving, she knew her fears had been confirmed. She could feel what was beside me.

What my grandmother told me afterward is something I will never get out of my head.

Amanda had never been Amanda.

Whatever had been pretending to be her was something evil.

And according to my grandmother, if I had stayed in contact with it for just a few more days, it would have taken me, and she would no longer have been able to help me.

I met Chris a few weeks ago. Sometimes we spent time at his place, sometimes at mine, and sometimes we stayed at our own homes. Every time he left, he would leave me a note somewhere. I remember the first one. It said:

“ I LIKE WATCHING YOU WHEN YOU SLEEP.”

I thought it was incredibly romantic. I don't remember most of the other notes. I only started remembering them when things began to get worse. At first, I didn't see any connection at all.

Just like the first note, I remember the one that made everything start to feel strange.

“DANCE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIVING ROOM.”

I laughed and threw the piece of paper away. The next morning, I woke up to the strong smell of my broken perfume. I had no idea how it could have happened, but I soon forgot about it.

The next note, when Chris left, said:

“PLAY YOUR FAVORITE SONG.”

I didn't have time to think about it at all. I was in a hurry to get to work, so I threw the note away and left the house. When I woke up the next day, I had bruises on my arm. I had no idea where I could have hit myself, but even stranger was the fact that the bruises looked as if someone had made them with their fingers.

Chris was away on a business trip, so he didn't come to see me until several days later. We made up for the time apart that evening.

When he left the next morning, I found another note on my bed:

“PUT ON THE WHITE BLOUSE.”

I laughed, put it on, and sent him a photo. He immediately replied with several heart emojis.

Chris came over again the next evening and, as always, got up and left in the morning. When I closed the door behind him, I noticed another note:

“LIGHT CANDLES AROUND THE BED.”

I picked up my phone and texted him:

“Do you like candles?”

His reply came immediately.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Then maybe we can light some together sometime, okay?”

“Sure,” Chris replied with a heart. “Tomorrow evening?”

“Okay.”

The next morning, my face hurt. When I looked in the mirror, it looked as if parts of my skin had been burned. I searched the internet for different kinds of rashes, but nothing looked like what I had. I made an appointment with a dermatologist, but unfortunately, the first available appointment was two weeks away.

When Chris looked at my face, he said that it really looked like a burn, but that it was probably nothing and that he was glad I had made an appointment with a doctor. He left in the morning, and once again I found another note. This time, I didn't look at it with a smile, but with anger.

“CHANGE THE BEDDING TO THE SATIN ONE.”

I picked up my phone and texted Chris:

“Why do you keep leaving me these notes??? Can't you just tell me in person?!”

A moment later, the doorbell rang. I opened the door and Chris walked in.

“Hey, Emily, I'm not leaving you any notes.”

“No? Then what's this?”

When I showed him the piece of paper, he just stared at it in confusion.

“Em, this really isn't from me.”

I could feel a cold sweat starting to cover me. Then we heard something moving around upstairs in the attic. There were footsteps, as if someone was walking back and forth.

We immediately went outside and called the police. They searched the entire house, but found nothing.

As we were leaving the attic, I noticed a note lying on the floor.

“I CAN SEE YOU.”

That evening, I packed my things and Chris took me to his place. The police put a patrol outside our homes for a few days.

The next day, after waking up at Chris's place, I went to the fridge and found a note stuck to it:

“I LIKE IT MUCH BETTER HERE.”

My heart was pounding like crazy. When Chris came into the kitchen and saw the look on my face, he asked me what was wrong. I lied and told him that nothing was wrong, that I just wasn't feeling well, and left the crumpled piece of paper in my hand.

I'm afraid that if Chris knew it hadn't ended, our relationship wouldn't survive it. Sometimes he does wonder about things I do that he doesn't understand, like why I put those dark blue wallpapers in the bedroom or why I cut my hair overnight, but I can always come up with an excuse.

Today should be fine.

Today, I'll only be wearing more noticeable lipstick.

It was very early Saturday morning, and I was on my way home from work.

The sun hadn't even come up yet when my phone rang. Without even looking at the screen, I answered.

"Hey, bro. Listen, I've got a problem. I'm near the club right now, and I need you to come pick me up."

"Michael, again? I'm coming home from work and I'm seriously exhausted."

"Oh, come on. You can't just leave me here. I'll give you money for gas."

"Yeah, right. You say that every time," I said, annoyed, but of course I changed direction and went to pick him up. He was my younger brother, after all, and even though he was the complete opposite of me, I wouldn't trade him for anything.

I stopped near the club and waited for him. Just like I did almost every Saturday morning on my way home from work.

"Hey, Eric. Thanks for picking me up. I owe you one."

"And what about the gas?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll pay you next time."

He just grinned at me.

We were driving toward his apartment when I saw a woman hitchhiking by the side of the road.

Michael told me not to stop.

"Why not? She's alone, and it's morning. It would be better if we picked her up than if she ran into some creep."

When I looked at Michael, it seemed like he had gone pale.

"No. Seriously, don't stop. You know what they say about people who hitchhike in the dark like this."

I laughed.

"Come on. You need to stop watching so many horror movies."

Despite his constant protests, I turned the car around and stopped for her.

She was wearing a short, dark purple dress and had no shoes on. She was holding them in her hand. Her hair fell all the way down to the middle of her back. Her bright blue eyes looked at me gratefully.

She got in, and I asked her where she was going.

She said she'd only be staying for a little while and would tell me when she wanted to get out.

I thought it was strange, but I shrugged it off and started driving.

It only took a few seconds before the woman spoke directly to me.

I could see in the rearview mirror that she was staring at me.

"You're not safe here with him."

I laughed.

"You're right. I'm not. He usually gets me into some kind of trouble."

I looked at her through the mirror, but she wasn't smiling at all. Instead, she said in a more urgent tone:

"He has to come with me. You have to give him to me."

Then she looked at Michael.

"You know you aren't supposed to be here, and you know you have to come with me."

I looked at Michael in confusion.

"You know her?"

He just said fearfully that I shouldn't have picked her up. That he had told me so. And that I needed to get her out of the car immediately.

"Listen, bro. She's obviously on something and she's out of her mind. We can't just leave her somewhere out here."

Her voice was getting louder.

"I'm telling you to give him to me. I'll take him with me. The longer he stays here with you, the more danger you're in."

"Look," I said, rubbing my face with my palm. "He's not going anywhere with you. I don't know if you two know each other or if there's something going on between you, but my brother obviously doesn't want to go anywhere with you, so he's not going anywhere with you. And this really isn't funny anymore. If you don't stop, you're going to have to get out."

Suddenly, the woman screamed.

"IDIOT! I told you he's coming with me, whether you like it or not!"

When I saw Michael shaking beside me with fear, I lost my patience.

I slammed on the brakes, got out, grabbed the woman by the arm, and pulled her out of the car.

She started freaking out and swinging at me. She scratched my face several times.

I pushed her away, quickly got back into the car, and drove off.

Once I saw that she was far enough behind us, I looked in the rearview mirror at my scratched-up face, blood running down it.

Angrily, I turned toward Michael.

"Are you kidding me? You could have told me you knew her and that she wasn't normal."

He smiled at me apologetically, and he clearly seemed relieved.

"I know. I'm sorry. Don't be mad at me. I promise nothing like this will happen again."

"Hm, I'd be..."

I didn't even get to finish the sentence.

I saw her standing several yards in front of us.

I heard Michael screaming.

"Run her over! Don't stop! Run her over!"

"Are you crazy?" I shouted and swerved the wheel.

Then all I remember is the impact.

After a while, I woke up. When I looked beside me, Michael was gone.

I tried to get out of the car, but I could barely stay on my feet.

When I finally stumbled outside, I saw the woman in the distance, dragging Michael away.

With the last of my strength, I screamed at her to let him go.

Then I blacked out.

I woke up in a hospital.

My mother was sitting beside me, holding my hand.

When I realized where I was and what had happened to me, I looked at my mother in horror.

"Mom, you need to call the police. That woman took Michael. She might hurt him. They have to find her."

She just squeezed my hand tighter.

"Eric, you were in a terrible accident and you have a severe concussion, so you're confused. Michael died two years ago."

Suddenly, I remembered.

And I couldn't understand how I could have forgotten that he was gone.

I thought the whole thing might have been a dream, but the scratches on my face clearly told me it wasn't.

I'm still in the hospital, and there are so many questions running through my head.

Who was that woman?

And if Michael is dead, then what the hell was sitting beside me, and how could it make me forget that Michael was already gone?

But the question that scares me the most is this:

What would have happened if that woman hadn't dragged him away from me?

Every six months, my friends and I get together for a weekend.

Sometimes we go to a wellness resort, sometimes we just stay over at one of our places and have a barbecue. Once, we even went camping on a beach. Whoever’s turn it is gets to choose where we go.

This time, it was Rachel’s turn. She sent all of us the coordinates and a link to some cabin in the mountains. Nobody objected. Those were the rules.

We were all sitting in the car when Ryan asked Rachel:

“Hey, how did you even find this place?”

She smiled and said:

“I’ve always wanted to go there.”

Dylan couldn’t let that go.

“Oh, come on. We’ve known you our whole lives, and you’ve never said anything like that.”

The guys were sitting in the front, so they didn’t see what I did, but I could have sworn I saw a flash of anger cross her face. Then she laughed and said:

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I just forgot to mention it.”

When we arrived at the cabin, we started choosing rooms. Rachel automatically went upstairs, turned right, and called back to us:

“I’m taking this one.”

Dylan and Ryan shrugged, looked around, and picked two rooms downstairs. That left me with the room upstairs next to Rachel’s.

“Great,” I said, looking at the steep staircase. “If I drink too much tonight, getting to my room is going to feel like my own personal Survivor.”

With a sigh, I headed upstairs and started unpacking.

Once we were all settled, we met downstairs in the living room. Dylan immediately started pulling out bottles.

I gave him a disapproving look.

“It’s warm. Shouldn’t we put it in the fridge and wait?”

“Well, we can’t do that. We’re in a cabin, not a hotel. You have to learn to adapt to your surroundings, Meg,” he said, already shoving a glass into my hand and pouring vodka into it.

Then he moved on to the others, until he got to Rachel.

She stopped him and said she wasn’t drinking yet.

Ryan raised an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, come on. You’re not going to be a party pooper.”

She smiled and stood her ground.

“I’ll join you later.”

After a few hours, we had finished the second bottle, and everyone except Rachel was pretty drunk when some kind of horrifying shriek came from outside.

“What was that?” I asked.

Ryan tried to imitate the sound, and we all burst out laughing.

Everyone except Rachel.

She simply said:

“You’re in the woods. There are birds here. There’s nothing strange about that.”

“You really know how to ruin every bit of fun,” Dylan said.

At that moment, there was a deafening crash. I dropped my glass in fright and looked at the others.

The sound had come from Ryan’s room.

The guys automatically went into the kitchen and pulled knives from the drawer. Nobody said a word. We just slowly made our way toward his room.

Ryan opened the door, turned on the light, and looked around. Then his hand slowly dropped, and he burst out laughing.

“It’s just a tree, guys. It fell and broke my window.”

“So, Dylan, I guess we’re sleeping together tonight.”

He went back to the living room as if nothing had happened.

I followed him and looked at the table.

My glass was sitting there.

Intact.

With my drink still inside.

“Hey,” I began. “I broke that glass a minute ago.”

The guys looked at me, and Dylan said:

“You probably connected it with that crash and got confused.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“I’m telling you, that glass was broken a minute ago.”

He put his hands on my shoulders.

“Sure, Meg. It’s okay.”

From that moment on, I couldn’t relax. Every unusual sound scared me. Then I looked around at everyone and whispered in fear:

“Where’s Rachel?”

The guys looked at me in confusion.

“She was just here a minute ago,” Ryan said.

We ran upstairs.

Her room was empty.

Not only was Rachel gone. So were all her things. Her suitcase, her clothes, her bag. Everything was gone.

“That’s impossible,” Dylan whispered.

We went back downstairs. None of us knew what to say anymore.

Then there was a knock on the window.

Soft at first.

Tap. Tap.

Then the tapping turned into pounding.

The guys weren’t laughing anymore.

“Someone’s probably messing with us.”

They grabbed the knives and went to look outside. But then the lights started flickering, and a moment later, the power went out completely.

We turned on our phones, and Dylan looked around. He spotted a candelabra sitting at the back of the living room.

He pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit the candles. Then he placed the candelabra in the middle of the table.

“Okay. We should get the hell out of here.”

Just then, our phones began to die.

One after another.

When I looked toward the candelabra, Rachel was standing there.

None of us had seen her come in.

She just stood there, smiling.

“It’s too late,” she said.

And at that exact moment, the candles went out.

I had finally finished work and could go home. I decided to walk instead of taking the usual route. A few minutes later, I finally found myself standing in front of our apartment building.

I held my key fob against the reader and went inside. As always, I decided to take the stairs. I lived all the way up on the seventh floor, but I had never minded getting some exercise. I actually considered it an advantage.

When I reached the first floor, I noticed that the lightbulb was flickering badly. I shrugged it off and continued up to the next floor.

When I reached the second floor, I was startled badly. An old woman I had never seen before was standing there, wearing a long, worn-out, yellowish nightgown.

I greeted her, but she said nothing. She just stood there and stared at me.

I continued upstairs, but I couldn't help turning around to look at her again. She was still staring at me, but this time she opened her toothless mouth and started laughing, making strange noises as she did.

My heart started pounding, and I quickened my pace so I could reach the next floor as soon as possible.

The third floor was covered in children's toys. I wasn't aware of anyone with children living on that floor. I knew most of my neighbors because we had a very friendly relationship in the building.

Suddenly, all the toys started playing some strange, short melody.

Something is wrong here. Very wrong, I thought.

I wasn't walking quickly anymore. I was running.

On the fourth floor, I noticed the peeling walls as I rushed past. Banging suddenly started coming from behind every door.

I had no intention of finding out what was happening. I just kept running, barely able to catch my breath.

On the fifth floor, there was some kind of liquid all over the floor and walls. When I looked more closely, I realized it was blood.

A strange, sweet smell filled the air, and the sound of a woman crying began echoing throughout the floor.

When I reached the sixth floor, everything seemed to return to normal. Everything looked exactly as it should.

Maybe I just had some kind of brief hallucination, I thought.

I started climbing toward my floor when I heard a noise behind me.

I turned around and saw my neighbor lying on the stairs.

I immediately crouched down to help her up, but when I looked at her properly, I saw that half of her body was missing.

I started screaming.

I turned around and ran upstairs, but she grabbed me and pulled me back down.

I fell down several steps. I hit my head and felt an excruciating pain in my ankle.

Even so, I forced myself back up and limped toward my apartment.

I closed and locked the door behind me. I quickly pulled out my phone, and a message from my best friend popped up on the screen.

"Hey, do you know what happened yet? Your neighbor was in a terrible accident. Apparently, her car was completely wrecked. It's all over the news."

I wanted to reply and tell her what kind of mess I was in and that I needed help, but my phone suddenly shut off.

It wouldn't turn back on. It wouldn't charge.

I touched my head and felt a familiar, sticky liquid. When I pulled my hand away, it was covered in blood.

I looked at my ankle. It was starting to turn purple.

That's when I realized I had to get out of there.

I don't know how long I stood there trying to work up the courage, but eventually I unlocked the door, opened it, and limped toward the elevator.

There was no way anyone was going to get me back down those stairs.

It felt like an eternity before the elevator finally arrived. I quickly stepped inside and pressed 0.

The elevator started moving, and I felt an enormous sense of relief.

It didn't last long.

Halfway down, the elevator stopped.

The lights went out.

Everything was dark and completely silent.

Then, in that silence, I began to hear banging and scratching somewhere in the distance.

Suddenly, my phone lit up.

I immediately called for help.

They said they were on their way.

The banging and scratching was getting closer and closer, and that's when I finally realized it.

It wasn't coming from outside the elevator.

It was coming from the elevator shaft above me.

And it was getting louder.

God, please let them get here already.

I work as a maintenance man at a casino. Yesterday, like every day after closing, I went to check the machines. When I had checked everything and was heading out, I caught a jukebox blinking out of the corner of my eye. I didn't understand how that was possible because I had checked all the machines. One by one.

I walked closer to it and looked at the screen. For a brief moment, my breath caught. Instead of the usual music artists and songs, there were titles that I knew very well. The list was endless.

The first one was First Day at School.

Year: 1962.

Price: a lock of hair.

I looked around to see if it was some stupid joke from management, but I was completely alone. I pressed play.

Instead of music starting, I heard my mother's voice in my head.

“Don't be afraid, Joshy. You'll see, you'll like it there.”

I could feel how nervous I was and how my hands were sweating. I could feel my mother hugging me, and I breathed in the scent of her jasmine perfume.

Nervously, I walked into the building, climbed the stairs, and opened the door. My future best friend Peter was sitting at a desk.

“If you want, you can sit with me.”

I accepted his offer with a smile. Then the sound of a bell filled the room. The teacher came into the classroom. I had a feeling that, before she closed the door, I saw something in the hallway. She introduced herself to us with a smile, and then the vision disappeared.

I looked around and found myself back in the casino. I just felt a pain in part of my head. When I touched it, a piece of my hair was missing.

Confused, I looked at the machine and noticed a framed piece of paper next to it. It read:

“Every memory has a price.”

I scrolled through the other things the machine offered. There was almost everything. My grandmother's death, my first day of high school, my first kiss. That's where I stopped and looked closer.

First Kiss

Year: 1972.

Price: a fingernail.

I hesitated for a moment and then pressed play. I found myself with Clare. She was wearing that beautiful pink dress. I could smell the lilacs we were standing beside. She smiled at me, and I leaned toward her. I remember how her lips smelled of strawberries.

I pulled away from her and watched the look in her eyes while my heart was pounding. Just before the vision disappeared, I saw a figure on the other side of the street, walking toward us.

Then I was back, and a stronger, burning pain shot through my thumb. My entire nail was gone. It scared the hell out of me.

I wanted to leave, but somehow I couldn't. I had to see what was next.

Marriage to Clare

Year: 1980.

Price: a finger.

“No,” I whispered.

I wanted to leave. I should have left. I know that. But I missed her so much. I wanted to see her again so badly. I couldn't help it. I pressed play.

I could feel my whole body shaking as I stood at the altar. I saw Peter standing to my right, patting me on the shoulders.

“Relax, buddy. You got this.”

I looked around and saw the figure sitting in the second row of witnesses. I wanted to lean toward Peter and ask him if he could see it too. But then the doors opened, and I saw her walking toward me.

That beautiful white dress. I knew it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. She slowly walked up to me and smiled. I couldn't take my eyes off her.

I could barely make out what the officiant was saying, so he had to repeat the question. I stammered out a yes.

When he asked Clare, I felt fear wash over me as I waited for her answer, followed by a wave of relief when she said yes.

“You may kiss the bride.”

Then I was back again. I screamed in pain and looked at my hand. My little finger was gone. In its place was a bloody wound.

It wasn't as painful as I had expected. It was like getting your hand caught in a door. I stared at it for a moment, and instead of turning around and leaving, I moved back toward the screen.

This time will be the last, I promised myself. I scrolled through the screen, and my heart stopped.

The Day I Saw Clare for the Last Time

Year: 1988.

Price: an eye.

I pressed play.

It was a normal summer morning. The sun was beginning to warm everything outside, and we were standing in front of the house. She smiled at me just like she had on the first day we met. I felt her embrace, her kiss, and heard her tell me that she loved me and that we'd see each other that evening.

I wanted to stop her, but that's not how memories work. She got into the car and waved at me. I waved back, and when she disappeared from sight, I turned around and headed back into the house.

When I turned around, the figure was standing a few steps behind me.

I can't describe it. Only the feeling I had when I looked at it.

Emptiness. Sadness. Fear.

I found myself back in the casino again, and a terrible pain tore through me. Pain unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It felt like the entire left side of my face was on fire. And where my left eye had once been, there was only darkness.

“It was worth it,” I whispered. “It was worth seeing her, but not anymore. Now I'll leave.”

I just wanted to see what was at the end. Now there wasn't just a year. There was a full date.

September 6, 2026.

Price: life.

I stared at it in confusion. I started backing away, wanting to run, but I bumped into something. I didn't need to turn around to know what it was. I could feel it.

The sadness. The fear. The emptiness.

It grabbed my hand and pressed play.

I found myself at home, sitting on my couch. The TV host was saying:

“Good morning, viewers. This time, we're going to begin with today's hero, Henry.”

The TV kept playing, and I couldn't do anything except sit there. I saw the light in the living room flicker slightly and a fly buzzing around the television.

When the host announced that the broadcast was over for the day, I saw the front door slowly open, and it walked inside.

I woke up back in the casino. This time, I didn't wait for anything. I immediately ran outside and headed home.

The first thing I did was open the fridge and pour myself a shot. One after another.

I didn't wake up until morning.

For a moment, I thought it had all been a dream, but then I looked at my hand and touched the left side of my face, where my eye used to be.

Now I'm sitting on my couch, listening to the TV host say:

“Good morning, viewers. This time, we're going to begin with today's hero, Henry.”

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has someone in their life who has spent years trying to ruin it. For me, that person has been Silas ever since I was a kid.

I don't know how he did it, but even back in kindergarten, all the other children seemed to gather around him like he was some kind of idol. The same thing happened at school. Unfortunately for me, that's where his attention shifted entirely to me.

Silas bullied me for years. I never knew why. I'd never done anything to him. I went through the worst hell you can imagine.

They threw me into trash cans almost every day. Every day, I lost my lunch and whatever money I had on me. They beat me, but never hard enough to leave marks on my face.

Silas told me that if I ever said anything to anyone, there would be consequences.

One day, I couldn't take it anymore and went to the principal. I showed him all my bruises.

It had happened right after PE.

The principal was horrified and immediately started investigating.

But of course, nothing could be proven against Silas because everyone was on his side. It was as if they'd been hypnotized.

Even the PE teacher claimed that I'd gotten the bruises from falling off the horizontal bar.

I don't understand how Silas did it, but somehow I ended up being the one in the wrong, and I had to apologize to him in front of the entire class.

Thank God, one day my parents came home with the news that we had to move.

I'd never been happier.

I actually cried tears of joy.

It had been years, but some things stay with you for the rest of your life. Even when you think you've finally gotten away from them, all it takes is one thing to tear that wound open again, as if it had never healed.

After finishing school, I found a job and moved out of my parents' house. I liked my job, got along well with my coworkers, and we even went out together once a week after work.

Everything was great until our new boss came to introduce himself.

It was Silas.

You can't imagine what it felt like to see him again. He noticed me almost immediately, and I saw that cruel smile on his face.

I knew it was starting all over again.

Silas made a perfect impression on everyone. They were all thrilled with him.

And my hell started all over again.

Just a little different this time.

There was an endless amount of work. He started badmouthing me to my coworkers, who slowly began pushing me out of the group until I wasn't even invited to the things we'd used to do together all the time.

I wanted to quit, but I couldn't. I wouldn't have been able to afford my rent, and my parents weren't exactly well-off either. They could barely support themselves, let alone support me.

One day, Silas sent me to pick up a package from a small company on the other side of town. I drove there, and when I walked out of the building with the package, I noticed a little shop across the street.

In huge letters, the sign read VOODOO DOLLS, surrounded by a dark background covered in stars.

It looked beautiful.

That's when the thought occurred to me.

What if…

I crossed the street and walked into the shop.

I looked through the shelves and picked out a plain, light-colored doll. It had buttons for eyes and a stitched smile.

I took it to the counter.

The shopkeeper looked at me and said,

"Good choice, son. But I have to warn you. Be careful about what you do with it. This isn't a toy. There are things people shouldn't play with."

I smiled and said,

"Then why do you sell them?"

He smiled back.

"Because I have to make a living somehow. And people never learn."

He wished me a nice day, and I went home.

I unwrapped the doll and looked at the instructions. Inside the box was a piece of string, which I was supposed to use to tie something belonging to the person, along with a small pin.

Whatever happened to the doll would happen to that person.

I sneaked into Silas's office at work, and there was a comb with some of his hair on it sitting on his desk.

Could it really be that simple?

I took a few hairs from the comb and quietly slipped back out.

A little while later, Silas called me into his office. I was afraid he knew I'd been in there. But it turned out he only wanted to thank me for delivering the package.

I didn't believe a word he said.

I could see how much he hated me in his expression.

While we were talking, I watched him reach for the comb, walk over to the mirror, run it through his hair, and then walk back.

Bingo.

Then he dismissed me, and I couldn't wait to get home.

When I got home, I took out the hair and wrapped it around the doll.

First, I took the pin and stuck it into the doll's right leg. I left the pin there.

When I came to work the next day, Silas was limping.

It pleased me. Especially because he was treating me exactly as badly as I had come to expect from him.

He even outdid himself that day. During a coworker's birthday celebration, he grabbed a piece of cake and threw it at me.

Everyone nearly died laughing.

When I got home, I angrily grabbed the doll and moved on to the doll’s right arm.

The next day, Silas had his right arm bandaged.

I left it alone for a while.

But then came the day when Silas crossed every possible line.

He called all of us into the conference room and played videos of me when I was a child.

There I was with my head shoved into a toilet. There I was buried in a trash can. There I was crying in a corner, begging them to leave me alone.

No one stood up for me.

Everyone was completely hypnotized again.

I got up and went home.

I opened the fridge, took out a bottle of vodka, and poured it over the doll. I searched through the drawers and found some matches.

Then I struck one.

The doll caught fire.

I watched it burn, and when there was almost nothing left of it, I put out the flames.

When I realized what I'd done, I felt sick.

I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

I was disgusted with myself. I was terrified of what would happen the next day.

With my stomach in knots, I went to work. As soon as I arrived, one of my coworkers told me to go to the boss's office.

Confused, I went there, opened the door, and there stood Silas.

With that same smile on his face.

"I'm really sorry, Tyler, but I have some bad news for you."

"What?"

"Your parents are dead. They were driving yesterday and got into an accident. Their car caught fire, and there was almost nothing left of them."

I took a step back, my eyes filling with tears.

"That's not possible."

He stepped right up to me.

"Remember one thing, Tyler. I'll always be better than you."

"What the hell are you, and why won't you just leave me alone?" I screamed desperately. "Why me?"

He started laughing.

"What I am... you'll find out soon enough. And why you? Because I find you entertaining. Now get out."

I started backing out of the office.

But just before I closed the door, I noticed something glinting in his hands.

A pin.

Things have been even worse ever since.

Sometimes I wake up with excruciating pain in my legs. Sometimes it's my arms. Other times, I wake up with an entire section of my back burned.

For the past few days, I've been waking up to the sound of wheezing. When I open my eyes, I see my parents staring at me. Their bodies are completely burned, and they're reaching toward me.

After a while, it always disappears.

I don't know what else Silas is capable of.

I don't know what to do.

I'm scared.

I'm too much of a coward to kill myself, so I have no choice but to wait until Silas decides to end it.

I guess all I can do is wait until Silas decides to end it.

I'll let you know how this goes.

And if you don't hear from me again... I guess you'll know what happened to me.

When I was 13, my friend Sarah and I often had sleepovers at each other’s houses. We preferred staying at my place because my parents had built a little house for me in the backyard. It was great both in summer and winter. There were a few trees around it, so when the sun was blazing, they provided some shade. We had electricity inside, but we didn’t want to bring a TV in there. We thought it made the place feel more mysterious that way. We had tried summoning ghosts several times, but nothing had ever happened. We tried to convince ourselves that maybe the flickering lights or a sudden gust of wind had something to do with it, but the truth was, they didn’t.

One afternoon, we went shopping for clothes in the neighboring town. When we were about to head to the bus stop with our bags, we spotted a shop tucked away in an alley. It had a flickering sign that read: “Want to be scared? Then come inside.” There were various horror movie figures displayed around the shop. Sarah and I looked at each other, and we didn’t even need to say anything. We both headed straight inside.

When we entered, instead of the usual jingle of a bell, a witch-like laugh echoed through the shop. We both laughed. An older guy was standing behind the counter. He looked like he was around forty.

“Good afternoon, ladies. Are you looking for something specific, or do you just want to have a look around?”

Sarah and I answered almost at the same time.

“Just looking around.”

The guy nodded and went back to whatever he was doing behind the counter. We walked around the shop, looking at various props from horror movies. There were cobwebs everywhere, and the whole place looked creepy. There were some figures we didn’t even recognize. There was also a shelf full of board games covered in a layer of dust. We looked at them for a while, wondering if we should take one home, but then I noticed Sarah staring intently at something.

I walked over to her and understood what had caught her attention. She was staring at a book. It was black and made of leather, with strange symbols carved into it. Pieces of bone were glued to its cover.

My eyes lit up. I wanted to open it, but suddenly, a voice spoke behind us. We both jumped.

“Ladies, if you want this book, I guarantee you’ll have an experience you’ll never forget. I’m almost certain it’s exactly what you’re looking for. But unfortunately, this book has rules of its own. You’re not allowed to open it here. You have to wait until you get home.”

We looked at each other, disappointed.

“How much does it cost?”

We didn’t have much money left. We had spent most of it in the other shops.

The guy smiled.

“It’s not for sale. If you want it, I can lend it to you.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “And when will you want it back?”

He gave us a mysterious look.

“The book will decide when it wants to come back to me.”

“Okay. And do you want us to sign something? Or give you our names?”

He laughed again.

“That won’t be necessary.”

We left the shop feeling confused. Sarah looked at me.

“I don’t understand how he expects to make any money like that. Maybe we should give him something when we bring the book back.”

“Yeah, I agree. With an attitude like that, he’s going to go bankrupt,” I replied.

We didn’t get home until it was already starting to get dark. My parents were waiting for us at the door.

“Can you explain where you two have been all this time?”

I looked at my parents apologetically and explained that we had been shopping for clothes and had come across an amazing, creepy little shop.

Mom shook her head.

“You two and your obsession with this kind of stuff.”

My mom had always dreamed of having a little girl who would wear pink dresses, play with dolls, and be a classic little princess. Unfortunately, that didn’t exactly happen. Even my name, Lili, didn’t really suit me.

Dad laughed.

“Actually, I’m glad my daughter isn’t like everyone else.”

“You just had to encourage her, didn’t you?” Mom snapped. “Come on, let’s get to the table. I made dinner.”

We sat down at the table and started eating. It was Mom’s legendary chicken with stuffing, which everyone loved.

“Girls, tomorrow I’m picking up that new horror movie from the video store. I hope you’ll watch it with me.”

Our eyes lit up.

“You’re kidding! How did you manage that? It was impossible to rent. Practically the whole town wanted to see it.”

“Well, let’s just say I used my charm.”

Mom shot him a look.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not supposed to encourage them,” he said with a laugh.

After dinner, Sarah and I said goodnight to my parents and went to the little house in the backyard. We talked for a while when Sarah suddenly froze.

“The book! Oh shit, that’s right. We completely forgot about it.”

She reached into her backpack and pulled out the book. Then she handed it to me.

“What? Are you scared?” I laughed.

“No, not really. It’s just… you’re braver than me.”

I’d be lying if I said that didn’t flatter me.

I opened the book. Something was attached to the hard inside cover. When I looked closer, I realized it was some kind of old dagger.

“Holy shit, that’s so cool,” Sarah whispered, looking over my shoulder.

I turned the page, and there was already text written on it.

“It’s not too late to close the book. If you continue reading, there will be no going back. Are you prepared to sacrifice something, or would you rather give in to your fear?”

“I’m glad I didn’t take one of those board games,” I said to Sarah. “This looks much more interesting. So, are we going to keep reading?”

Sarah grinned.

“What are you waiting for? Keep going.”

Then I started reading the words.

No, I’m not going to write them here. I don’t want to risk them working this way too.

After I finished reading the words, thunder started rumbling outside. The wind began blowing so hard that it started slamming against the door of our little house. I quickly ran over and locked it.

The walls of the house were covered with pictures Sarah and I had drawn since we were little. They all started flying off the walls. The glasses we had on the table suddenly flew toward the wall and shattered on the floor.

I didn’t hear the voice in the room. I heard it inside my head. It was so terrifying, so hoarse.

“You belong to me now.”

After those words, Sarah and I were thrown against the walls. Each of us was hurled in a different direction. My hand slammed against the wall, bending it at an unnatural angle. I fell directly onto the broken glass. My arms and legs were covered in cuts. . Sarah was curled up in the corner, crying.

I didn’t know what to do, but then I saw the book. I ran toward it and frantically flipped through the pages until I reached the very end. There it was:

“You can stop it, but it will require a sacrifice. Are you willing to make it?”

“Fuck yes, I am.”

I quickly read on. There were instructions. I had to cut my hand and let my blood drip onto the pages while reciting another passage.

I turned toward the broken glass, intending to grab a piece, but the book suddenly began flipping through its own pages. It stopped at the beginning, where the dagger was.

“Okay. Fine.”

I picked it up and cut my palm. I recited the words, and to my surprise, silence filled the room.

Sarah ran over to me and hugged me. She was crying hysterically. Thankfully, unlike me, she only had a few scrapes.

“We need to get you to a hospital.”

“Yeah. But first, we should call our parents.”

I picked up my phone and tried calling them. No one answered. That was normal. My parents had been asleep for hours, and they always turned their phones to silent at night.

“Sarah… I’d rather wait until it gets light.”

“Me too. I don’t want to find out if there’s something outside.”

For several hours, we just sat next to each other, trembling with fear. Neither of us had the courage to talk about what had just happened. The little house was completely destroyed. Broken glass covered the floor, our drawings were scattered everywhere, and the smell of blood still lingered in the air.

Then it started raining.

The first drop hit the roof.

Drip.

A moment later, another.

Drip. Drip.

We were both silent, listening to the sound. After everything that had happened, it was almost comforting. As if nothing had happened outside. As if it were just an ordinary summer night.

When the sky finally started to brighten, Sarah looked at me.

“It’s almost morning.”

I nodded.

Slowly, we approached the door. We stood there for a moment, neither of us daring to touch the handle.

Finally, I grabbed it.

We stepped outside.

The first thing I felt was the fresh air. For a moment, I breathed a sigh of relief.

We had made it.

It was over.

Then I heard Sarah let out a terrible scream.

That sound is something I will remember for the rest of my life.

I turned around.

Sarah was standing several feet away from me, staring toward the house.

Then I looked too.

And I saw them.

My parents.

They were hanging from the trees above our little house. Their throats had been cut, and blood was dripping from them onto the roof.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Suddenly, I realized what we had been listening to all night.

It hadn't been rain.

It had been my parents' blood.

I collapsed to the ground.

The police later tried to find whoever had done it, but they never found the killer. They couldn't. No one believed our version of what had happened that night.

And the book?

It was gone.

It wasn't where we'd left it.

We never found the shop again either. When we showed the police where it had been, there was nothing there. According to every record, there had never been a shop like that there.

To this day, I don't know what we woke up that night.

But if you ever see a small shop with a flickering sign that says:

“Want to be scared? Then come inside.”

Please, don't go inside.

Just leave me a comment telling me where you saw it. I've been trying to find it again for several years.

I want to tell you a story that happened so long ago that I would like to believe it never really happened.

Seventy years ago, my friend Ollie and I had no parents and lived in a Catholic orphanage. I was seven and Ollie was eight when Sister Mary came to us and told us that, along with several other children, we would have to move to another facility because they no longer had enough room for us.

It was difficult for us because that orphanage was our home, and it was all we had ever known. But we were glad they didn't separate us and that the two of us could stay together.

Ollie was like a brother to me, and we were never apart.

When we first saw our new home, we were shocked. The main building was huge, three stories tall, with two towers in the middle. One had a clock on it, and the other had a cross.

There were a few rooms in the building for staff who weren't assigned to care for the children, as well as rooms for the priests. There was a confessional, a chapel, and several offices for the staff. Before John took over, the priest in charge had been his father. His father had died recently, and John had taken over his position. I didn't know much about him, but I had heard a lot about him from both the sisters and the children. They said he was the kindest priest they had ever known. If I listed everything he had done for the others, I would keep you here for hours.

On either side of the main building were long wings lined with windows. In front of it was a large lawn, where some girls were pulling weeds. There were sixteen residential cottages around the grounds. Each cottage housed fifteen children and one sister. Sister Teresa was put in charge of us.

The best part was that we could all stay together in the same cottage.

One day, I couldn't find Ollie. I looked everywhere for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Then I thought of one more place he might be.

The main building.

We had been told never to go inside the main building alone, but I wasn't exactly one of the obedient children.

I went to the entrance, pushed the door open even though it was heavy, and slipped inside. A long hallway stretched out in front of me, with several doors on either side. I tried opening a few of them, but they were all locked. Then I reached the fourth one, and that one opened.

Inside was a huge room. There was a confessional on one side and a table with chairs on the other. Holy pictures hung on the walls.

I wanted to look around properly, but then I heard footsteps approaching. I looked around and couldn't think of anywhere else to hide, so I climbed into the confessional.

I hid just in time, because the moment I got inside, the doors flew open and an angry priest walked in, holding Ollie by the hand. I could see them through the little holes in the confessional, which gave me a clear view of the room.

The priest told Ollie that he wasn't going to give him another warning. Ollie lowered his eyes and started crying. The priest moved toward the table and picked up a cane.

He looked at Ollie with a sinister expression and told him that they could do this the easy way or the hard way.

Ollie was still sobbing when suddenly his sobs began to turn into laughter.

A horrible laughter that didn't belong to Ollie at all.

When Ollie laughed, you couldn't help but want to laugh too. But now, when I heard that laughter, all I wanted was to run away and hide somewhere no one would ever find me.

Then he spoke.

The voice was something I had never heard before, and I never heard it again. I couldn't compare it to anything. It sounded as if it didn't even belong to our world.

“But John. Good priests aren't supposed to do this. What would your father say?”

The priest frowned, raised the cane, and angrily swung it at Ollie, telling him to stop this nonsense immediately.

Ollie caught the cane and tore it from the priest's hand.

“You will not speak to me like that, John!”

At that exact moment, the window shattered, sending glass flying everywhere.

The priest stumbled backward.

Ollie tilted his head to the side and repeated:

“What would your father say, John?”

Even from that distance, I could see the priest trembling.

“W-What are you?”

“Oh, John… I know you're a bad priest, but I didn't think you were stupid enough to be this bad.”

The priest reached up to his neck, tore off his cross, and began fumbling around in his pocket. He pulled out a small bottle, quickly removed the cap, splashed the water onto Ollie, and began reciting a prayer.

Blood began running from Ollie's eyes, and steam started rising from his body.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

Ollie slowly collapsed to the floor and began screaming in pain while the priest continued praying.

But after a moment, the screams of pain began turning into that horrible laughter again.

Then the laughter changed into a voice that began reciting the rest of the prayer together with the priest.

“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.”

The bottle slipped from the priest's hand and shattered on the floor, adding itself to the other pieces of broken glass.

Ollie looked at him and said:

“That's not how this works, John.”

His face twisted as he continued:

“If your father had done this, it could have hurt me. Unlike you, he truly was His son.”

He spat the last sentence out with something close to disgust.

The priest took several more steps backward.

“What do you want from me?”

“You know what I want, John.”

The priest fell to his knees. His voice trembling, he began to stammer:

“I'll make it right. I'll change. I'll never do it again.”

Ollie chuckled.

“Do you remember Michael, John? The moment you thought of him in a way a father should never think of his child, I knew you belonged to me.”

The priest began sobbing and continued begging and promising that he would change.

Ollie only kept chuckling.

He let him beg like that for what seemed like an eternity before finally speaking again.

“I think it's time, John. You're starting to bore me. What a shame. You could have seen your father again very soon, but instead…”

He didn't finish the sentence. He simply waved his hand.

I didn't see anything, but the priest's eyes widened and his face became even paler.

“No. No, please, no.”

He stared at something in front of him in absolute terror, clutched his chest, and slowly collapsed to the floor, repeating over and over:

“No, no, no… please, no.”

Ollie leaned toward him and whispered something in his ear.

The priest stopped moving.

Ollie straightened up.

His eyes remained fixed on the priest.

“Do you know what I like most about them?”

He slowly turned toward the confessional, and the doors that had been protecting me flew open.

I was shaking so badly that I was amazed I could still stand.

Ollie was staring directly at me, and my heart was pounding so hard that I thought it was going to burst out of my chest and kill me.

“I asked you, Thomas. Do you know what I like most about them?”

There was impatience in his voice, but I couldn't get a single word out.

Ollie raised his voice and shouted:

“Answer me when I ask you something!”

I closed my eyes, and to this day I don't know how I managed to force the words out.

“I don't know.”

“What?”

The voice that didn't belong to Ollie became quiet again.

“That they think that if He forgives them, they're safe. As if it were up to Him to decide.”

I opened my eyes and saw him studying me.

He must have seen how terrified I was.

He looked directly into my face again and tried to smile.

I swear, it was the most horrible thing I had ever seen.

Not the terrified expression on the priest's face. Not even Ollie's voice, the voice that wasn't his.

It was the smile.

That was what still wakes me up to this day.

That horrible smile, with not a single trace of anything good in it.

I felt something warm running down my legs, and I collapsed to the floor.

Ollie turned away, and before everything went dark, I heard him say:

“Maybe we'll see each other again, Thomas. But broken windows won't be enough next time.”

After that, I only remember what I was told by one of the sisters.

Apparently, there had been an earthquake, which caused Ollie and me to lose consciousness and gave the priest a heart attack, killing him.

What a ridiculous story.

But when they questioned me, I neither confirmed nor denied it.

Ollie was himself again. He remembered nothing from the moment the priest picked up the cane.

It was later discovered that the bastard had hurt several children.

It shook the entire community, and strict rules were put in place to protect the children.

I heard Sister Annie angrily telling another sister, one I didn't know, that she respected God's will, but that John had gotten off far too easily and should not have escaped punishment.

If only she had known that John would have given anything to spend eternity locked inside a cell.

After what happened, I couldn't bring myself to talk to Ollie anymore.

I knew it hurt him, and he didn't understand what he had done, but whenever I looked at him, all I could feel was anxiety and fear.

I stopped talking to anyone and spent entire days alone in my room.

Eventually, they listened to my pleas and transferred me back to where I had lived before.

I never heard from Ollie again.

Today I am seventy-seven years old, and I don't care whether you believe this story or not.

I don't care where life takes you.

I just needed to finally tell someone, because I know I don't have much time left, and I am terrified.

I'm afraid, and I hope I was a good enough person to meet John's father and our Lord.

Because I know what happens to those who behave like John.

Today was supposed to be a day just for myself. I had taken the day off work, and my girlfriend had gone to stay with her parents for the entire week. There were still two days left before she was supposed to come back.

I had planned to spend the whole day playing on my PlayStation. After several hours of gaming, the doorbell interrupted me. I wasn't expecting anyone, so it caught me by surprise.

I opened the door, and Lucy was standing there.

“Hey. I thought you weren't coming back for another two days. Is everything okay at your parents' place?”

She smiled and said she wanted to surprise me.

“Then why are you ringing the doorbell? You have your keys.”

She tensed up slightly.

“I left them at my parents' place.”

She was still standing outside the door.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

“Jesus, why are you asking? You live here too.”

“I know. I'm just kidding.”

She walked inside.

I suggested ordering some food. She happily agreed and asked me which restaurant I wanted.

I thought about taking advantage of the situation. The last time we'd argued a little, I'd insisted on Indian food, but I'd promised that next time, she'd get to choose.

“No, it's your turn to choose today.”

“Oh, right. Well, let me see what they have.”

I noticed that she was holding a phone that definitely wasn't hers.

“Did you buy a new phone?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. Apparently, she'd dropped hers on the floor at her parents' place and it had stopped working.

She then became absorbed in looking for a restaurant.

“I think I'd like steak today.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I'd like mine rare, with potatoes.”

She just nodded and dialed the number.

“Hello, I'd like to order two rare steaks with potatoes…”

When she hung up, she noticed that I was staring at her strangely.

“What?”

“Nothing. It's just… you hate rare steak.”

She put her phone down and looked at me angrily.

“Well, I thought I'd make an exception. Is that a problem?”

“No, of course not. I'm sorry, I just…”

She waved her hand dismissively and went into the bathroom.

She was in there for a very long time. I went to check if she was okay. We have a wooden door with frosted glass in the middle, so I could see her shadow standing in front of the mirror beside the bathtub.

I had just raised my hand to knock when she suddenly opened the door, smiled at me, and walked into the living room.

The food arrived, and we ate while watching some random shows on TV.

When we finished, she grabbed my hand and led me into the bedroom.

We had great sex, probably the best we'd had in several months.

“I think I'm going to take a long bath,” I told her.

“Sure. Go ahead. I'll watch TV for a while.”

I ran myself a bath and made a lot of bubbles. I sank into the water and closed my eyes when my phone suddenly buzzed.

A text from Lucy.

Was she asking for round two?

I smiled and opened the message.

There was a picture of Lucy with her parents.

Underneath it was a message:

Love, I miss you so much. These days without you feel endless. Mom and Dad say hi. I can't wait until we finally see each other. I love you so much. L.

A cold sweat broke out over my body, even though I was sitting in almost boiling water.

From the living room, I could hear Lucy quietly humming to herself.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do now. I've been sitting here motionless, staring at my phone for almost an hour while the water slowly gets colder.

The humming stopped.

When I looked toward the bathroom door, I noticed a shadow standing on the other side.

She's standing there.

She's still standing there.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

I was walking through town when I met him.

An old man, probably around eighty, stopped me and asked if I could spare him some of my time.

“You see, son… I don't want to go home yet.”

I felt sorry for him, so I agreed.

When I looked at him more closely, I noticed that his whole body was trembling. There was fear in his eyes.

I sat down beside him, and he began to tell me his story.

“I used to love going out with my friends.

We'd play golf, go to bars… I had a beautiful wife.

We never had children.

She died a few years ago.

Until everything went to hell, my house was incredibly quiet.

And like an idiot, I wished that the silence would disappear.”

“What happened?”

“I'll tell you from the beginning, if I'm not keeping you.”

I should have left him there and walked away, but I couldn't.

I wanted to know more.

“It started with scratching.

I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

I thought mice had gotten into the house.

I bought traps, but nothing ever got caught.

Then came the footsteps.

Quiet footsteps going up and down the stairs.

I told myself it was just an old house.

Old houses make noises sometimes.

But then things started happening that I couldn't explain.

Laughter.

Quiet, terrifying laughter that made my skin crawl.

Then I saw the shadow.

At first, I only caught a glimpse of it in the distance.

I thought I was imagining things.

But over the next few weeks, it got closer.

Closer and closer.

And the closer it got, the louder the scratching and footsteps became.

The laughter could be heard throughout the entire house.

Last night, I woke up and saw it again.

It was standing just a few feet from my bed.

And I knew I didn't have much time left.”

“Much time for what?”

“Much time to find you.”

The old man looked at me.

“I'm so sorry, son.

But all of this started when I saw her crying on a bench in the park.

I was an idiot.

I walked over and asked her what had happened.

She looked beside her and said,

‘Now he'll go with you.

Maybe you'll be better than me.’

I wasn't better than him.”

The old man stood up and walked away.

I went home.

At first, it was just quiet scratching.

Everything the old man had told me started happening to me.

I wanted to be better than him.

But the shadow is getting closer.

Closer and closer.

That laughter that makes my blood run cold stays in my ears long after it stops.

I've tried going outside and finding someone to talk to, but nobody wants anything to do with me.

So I thought of this platform.

If you've read this far, I want to thank you.

And I want to apologize.

I didn't have any other choice.

I won't lie to you.

If you hear that quiet scratching, don't assume it's just in your head.

I was walking through town when I met him.

An old man, probably around eighty, stopped me and asked if I could spare him some of my time.

“You see, son… I don't want to go home yet.”

I felt sorry for him, so I agreed.

When I looked at him more closely, I noticed that his whole body was trembling. There was fear in his eyes.

I sat down beside him, and he began to tell me his story.

“I used to love going out with my friends.

We'd play golf, go to bars… I had a beautiful wife.

We never had children.

She died a few years ago.

Until everything went to hell, my house was incredibly quiet.

And like an idiot, I wished that the silence would disappear.”

“What happened?”

“I'll tell you from the beginning, if I'm not keeping you.”

I should have left him there and walked away, but I couldn't.

I wanted to know more.

“It started with scratching.

I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

I thought mice had gotten into the house.

I bought traps, but nothing ever got caught.

Then came the footsteps.

Quiet footsteps going up and down the stairs.

I told myself it was just an old house.

Old houses make noises sometimes.

But then things started happening that I couldn't explain.

Laughter.

Quiet, terrifying laughter that made my skin crawl.

Then I saw the shadow.

At first, I only caught a glimpse of it in the distance.

I thought I was imagining things.

But over the next few weeks, it got closer.

Closer and closer.

And the closer it got, the louder the scratching and footsteps became.

The laughter could be heard throughout the entire house.

Last night, I woke up and saw it again.

It was standing just a few feet from my bed.

And I knew I didn't have much time left.”

“Much time for what?”

“Much time to find you.”

The old man looked at me.

“I'm so sorry, son.

But all of this started when I saw her crying on a bench in the park.

I was an idiot.

I walked over and asked her what had happened.

She looked beside her and said,

‘Now he'll go with you.

Maybe you'll be better than me.’

I wasn't better than him.”

The old man stood up and walked away.

I went home.

At first, it was just quiet scratching.

Everything the old man had told me started happening to me.

I wanted to be better than him.

But the shadow is getting closer.

Closer and closer.

That laughter that makes my blood run cold stays in my ears long after it stops.

I've tried going outside and finding someone to talk to, but nobody wants anything to do with me.

So I thought of this platform.

If you've read this far, I want to thank you.

And I want to apologize.

I didn't have any other choice.

I won't lie to you.

If you hear that quiet scratching, don't assume it's just in your head.