I thought moving to Blackmere would save me. The city where nothing was known and no one asked questions. The place where the sky hung heavy with mist and the streets curled into themselves like secrets waiting to suffocate you. I was done with the blood in my veins, the memories clawing at my mind. I packed what little I had left—old clothes, a battered suitcase, and a hollow heart—and left everything behind. My past was a house on fire. Blackmere was supposed to be the rain that put it out.
The Victorian building that held my new apartment sat at the edge of the town. It was an ancient structure, a decaying relic with peeling wallpaper and floorboards that groaned underfoot. The landlord was a crooked old woman with eyes like burnt-out stars and a smile that never reached them.
"You have the attic," she said when I signed the lease. Her voice was brittle, like dry leaves scraping over stone. "They never stay long up there."
I laughed, thinking her nonsense.
"They?" I asked.
She shook her head slowly, as if the answer was too heavy to say aloud. "Your memories," she whispered, her breath smelling faintly of rot. "They come for you in the attic."
I smiled, though unease crept under my skin. She left me with the keys clutched in her bony fingers like a curse.
I told myself it was superstition. That the building’s age and the town’s gloom were playing tricks on me. My first night, I unpacked in the dim light of a single lamp. The floorboards creaked beneath me like bones settling into place. I lit a candle scented with cedar to chase the chill from the air. I breathed in deep and tried to believe this was a fresh start.
But fresh starts are lies we tell ourselves.
At exactly three fifteen in the morning, the scratching began. At first it was faint, almost polite, like someone tapping gently on the floor beneath my bed. I froze, heart thudding so loud it might wake the dead. I sat up and the scratching stopped. I told myself it was rats or a branch scraping the window. The truth felt more dangerous.
The next morning I found my clothes shredded, ribbons of fabric torn and scattered like confetti. No sign of forced entry. Just the smell of rosewater lingering in the stale air. That perfume belonged to her. The one I had tried to forget.
I burned the clothes and the smell only grew stronger.
At night I heard whispers echoing through the attic rafters. Low, urgent voices—one male, one female—speaking in tongues I almost understood. The walls seemed to pulse, the shadows lengthened into grasping fingers. My candle flickered and died. Cold settled on my skin like wet ice.
I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating. My reflection began to twist in the cracked mirror, morphing into a face I did not recognize. A face that smiled back with eyes full of rage.
On the fifth night, the floor beneath my bed cracked open like a wound. From the blackness, she emerged. Charred skin cracked and bleeding, eyes burning with a fire that was not hers. Her hair was a tangle of smoke, her voice the screech of the burning timber.
"You left me to burn," she said. "And now you will burn with me."
I stumbled backward, but the room shifted beneath my feet. Walls bled shadows and the house groaned like it was alive. The flame from my candle flared and then exploded, engulfing her in a halo of hellfire that did not consume. She reached for me with fingers like burnt twigs, cold as the grave.
I screamed and ran into the hallway, only to find the entire building pulsing with the same dark life. The wallpaper peeled away to reveal veins of black rot. The floorboards writhed underfoot as if the house breathed, hungry for the sins buried inside.
I ran outside, the rain burning my skin. The fog swallowed the streets, and the town seemed deserted. As I passed the faded welcome sign, I saw the truth.
Welcome to Blackmere
Population: 1
My heart shattered. There had been people, shops, lights—hadn’t there? I tried to call for help but my voice was swallowed by the mist. I ran to the police station. The door hung open on broken hinges. Inside, only one cell was occupied.
My own body hung lifeless, swinging in the cold light.
A tag on the toe read: Cause of death: suicide.
I fell to my knees, staring at the corpse I once was. The woman from the attic appeared behind me, whole and terrible, her smile wide and cruel.
"You never left," she said softly. "This is your punishment. Your eternal home."
The sky cracked open with thunder as I realized the terrible truth. Blackmere was no city. It was a prison forged from my guilt. The past had not followed me. It had trapped me inside itself.
I was the fire. I was the ashes.
And I was never coming home.
React
