Everything went dark.
Pitch black.
And quiet.
Too quiet.
I stayed there, sprawled on the rocks, blinking rapidly into nothing. The wind had stopped. The air had stopped moving. It was like the world itself had paused, holding its breath.
Was it me?
Had I triggered something? Was it because I screamed?
I twisted and reached down for my phone with shaky fingers, fumbling between the stones. My pulse pounded behind my eyes. Finally, my fingertips grazed the edge of my phone. Carefully, I hooked it between my forefinger and middle finger and dragged it out, cradling it like a newborn.
Raindrops hit my back.
First a few.
Then dozens.
Then a goddamn waterfall.
Of course.
The rain came fast and heavy, drenching me in seconds. My hair clung to my face, my coat sagged with water, and every piece of clothing weighed double. Miserable didn’t even begin to describe it.
I crouched, soaked, holding the phone like it was a baby, then flipped onto my back and let the rain pummel me for a second. Just one fucking second of surrender.
Then I stood up, groaning.
Eight layers. I was basically wearing my own coffin. I yanked at the zips and buttons and peeled them off, tearing down to four layers. The weight lifted, but the cold intensified.
I froze.
Because a presence colder than the rain was behind me.
I could swear it wasn’t the air, but an unnatural, bone-deep cold. Like ice had grown legs and now stood a breath away from my spine, sinking a thousand icy needles into my skin. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. Every nerve in me had locked itself in fear.
There was something behind me. Not someone. Something. It was whispering, quick and jumbled at first, overlapping itself like static on a dying radio station. Then, slowly, the sounds stretched, separating like decayed syllables trying to crawl into speech.
I couldn’t breathe, the air locking in my chest as the wind circled around me. Slowly, like a radio tuning itself, the whisper sharpened and sharpened until I could put the words together.
“Shewantstokillyoushe'dratherhaveyoudie. Shewants to killyou, she’dratherhaveyou die. Shewants to kill you, she’d ratherhaveyou die. She wants to kill you, she’d rather have you die...”
It looped. Over and over. Hissing and mutating.
I didn’t know if the words were meant for me or if they were simply being vomited into the night. But they were like worms crawling into my ears.
I once learned ghosts and creatures weren’t real. They were illusions created by the mind to justify our fear. But this didn’t feel like a trick of the mind. It felt very real. Still, I repeated the rule I’d learned since I was a child:
Do not be afraid. Either real or not, they feed on fear.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward...on something...that cracked.
The whisper stopped. My heart dropped.
A screech ripped through the air unnaturally, as if something vengeful had just found its voice.
