Time Lost

My first thought upon waking up was, “How much time have I lost?”

It started small. I began to lose time when I fell asleep. At first, I just thought I was sleeping in, missing my alarm clock. But then it got longer. An hour, a day, weeks… one time I lost a month.

To my friends and family, I would just disappear. My bed would appear empty but slept in. No one ever saw me go. My perception was of a normal night’s sleep. There was no pattern to the events. I would be fine for months and then suddenly lose the morning of April 22nd or the whole day of March 24th.

The psychologist thought I had dissociative identity disorder. According to him, I must be getting up, going and living another life, and then coming back, only to wake up with no memory.

I knew it was more than that. I woke up in the same clothes… my teeth still tasted of toothpaste from the night before. The one time I was gone a month? My hair and nails, which you would expect to change over such a period, were unchanged from my perceived previous night. Something, someone, was taking me. For what purpose, I did not know.

Today when I woke up, everything was different. Instead of my soft bed, I awoke on hard stone, dust swirling around me. A vast, lifeless wasteland stretched to the horizon. At last, I looked up to see a giant, red sun dying in the sky above me.

How much time had I lost?

—
Credits to: photofreecreepypasta

Don’t Play Games with Ghosts

I do believe there are friendly ghosts in this world. In fact, I believe one lives in my home.

After getting out of the shower one day I noticed a game of hangman was drawn in the steam on my bathroom mirror. I checked and scoured the house for an intruder but there was none. I looked on in disbelief.

I wiped the mirror away and before my next shower I scoured the house, every nook and cranny, made sure all the doors were locked, and when I got out, yet another game of hangman was drawn onto the mirror. I wrote a letter off to the side, an ‘h.’ My next shower the first letter was filled in, an ‘h.’ I played until I eventually won with the word, “hello.”

Games like this went on for awhile and I always managed to win. Honestly, it was fun, I had a little ghost friend in my house.

One day, getting out of the shower, a new game appeared, the gallows were there with three blank spaced at the bottom. I guessed an ‘A,’ and on my next shower a head appeared. Next time I guessed an ‘R,’ a body appeared. I guessed and failed again, arms. In a last ditch effort I guessed an O. I awaited my next shower, and legs appeared. All the letters were filled in, “Bye.” I wiped the mirror away and the thing I saw behind me wasn’t the ghost of a child, but something twisted and sinister.

I ran and haven’t been home since, I don’t know what to do.

—
Credits to: photofreecreepypasta

The Bathroom Frightens Me

I have a terrible phobia of bathrooms.

I know the main characteristic of a phobia is that it’s irrational, but even from a logical state of mind, I couldn’t tell you why I fear them. They just… creep me out. Make me feel enclosed and dirty, even though it’s the place in which most people get clean. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it’s on the weird scale of things (because after all, we’ve heard of tight spaces and heights and the dark, but when has the bathroom been mentioned in normalcy?) and I know I’m kind of a freak for having such a fear… but it’s there, and it’s as strong as anybody else’s.

I’m always doing things to avoid going in there: holding off from going to the bathroom as long as physically possible, showering as infrequently as possible without being dirty- and of course, I wash and jump out within about ten minutes. Additionally, I have to change everything. The towels. The bath mat. And I scrub the tub mercilessly, even though I only ever go for showers.

Also, when I go in there, I always wear shoes. The feel of the cold tile makes my skin crawl.

As you can imagine, this becomes a bit of a nuisance for my family. I am constantly refusing to clean in there, always saying I will do any other chore ever in turn for bathroom duty. My mother heeds it, but I know she questions my state of mind for having such a fear. I know she’s overwhelmed every time I ask her to clean the bathroom when I need to go for a shower. I realise it’s drastic, but it’s the only way I get it done. I dread to think what it will be like when I live alone.

Remember how I said I avoid the bathroom whenever possible? Yeah, it’s true - exceptionally so. So much so that I even brush my teeth in the kitchen (my bathroom is downstairs, rather than upstairs). The kitchen just feels much safer to me, and though I still dislike the feeling of the cold floor against my feet, and still wear shoes most of the time in there even though I’m not obliged to like with the bathroom, it doesn’t make me squirm to think about it.

My little story begins on a night when I was doing what I would do any other night: brushing my teeth. Hell, it’s why I mentioned it beforehand. I’m guilty of thinking this incident over so many times, making myself sick with worry and fear. Thinking. Always thinking. Turning over thoughts in my head until my brain and I are sick of one another.

It’s always the same.

“You know, one day, you’re going to have to stop using the kitchen and get accustomed to the bathroom again. You’ll have to do it alone one day you know, Jess.”

Ah, my mother, always the voice of encouragement. Don’t get me wrong, she was almost always supportive, she helped me through depression, tried to understand my anxiety issues, and did anything and everything she could to really understand my cryptic train of thought… but this bathroom phobia of mine was just one game she never wanted to play.

“I know,” I replied in broken syllables, toothpaste obstructing the sounds. She accepted it, shrugged her shoulders with a look of disdain on her face. I emptied my mouth, watched it wash down the drain and put my toothbrush and toothpaste back in the little tub in which I kept them after rinsing them. They always sat on the kitchen windowsill, and everybody knew not to tamper with them. I then turned back to my mother, a little smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “But that day is not today.”

She sighed, shaking her head and leaving the room with a little “tsk” of disapproval. I knew she was going to be heading up to bed. My mother works early in the morning, gets up at five o’clock to get there in time for her shifts beginning at six; because of this, I can often surpass the time she stays awake, and sometimes stay downstairs with her for a few hours before she heads off to sleep. Hell, I often do - just because I can. Because sleep escapes me. Because insomnia is at my heels.

I gave the kitchen a once-over, making note of the open window - the sink is right under it, and so it’s not hard to remember to check on it. The kitchen window, however, doesn’t open any wider than a few centimetres, thirty at absolute most, so I figured it would be fine to leave it be - after all, no robber, no matter how good they were, was going to be able to squeeze their way through such a tiny space. A finger or hand, maybe, but never a body.

With that enough to encourage me to move on, just as it was every night (the weather had been surprisingly warm for the past few days, despite Britain’s usual affiliation with rain), I switched the light off and headed up to bed. Nothing unusual. I played my game for a while; browsed the internet; read my book; and eventually succumbed to sleep at around four in the morning, sleep catching up with me and my hurtling thoughts.

The next morning, I awoke to my siblings arguing. As usual. God, I hate it so much - they always fight over my mother’s laptop, who can use it, when they can use it, and often descend into shouting before the conversation is done. Even so, it doesn’t deter my uncanny ability to stay under the warmth of my sheets.

Usually.

I dragged myself out of bed, trailing down the stairs, deciding I would give them what for when I eventually reached them. But when I arrived downstairs, they were sitting beside one another, staring at the computer screen. As if that would work.

“I heard you screaming,” I muttered, and the pair of them fell flat, hanging their heads in unauthentic shame. I knew they didn’t care about waking anybody up - they never had and probably never would. It didn’t bother me until it was me they were waking, and the fact that sleep often evaded me made it even more insensitive of them.

I began to get ready for the day. There was no point in trailing back to bed, it wasn’t as if I was going to fall back to sleep with the sun glaring through my shut curtains, the light still bright enough to interrupt the darkened reverie behind my eyelids. I went back upstairs to quickly get dressed (refusing to do it in the bathroom), before going downstairs once more and to the kitchen to continue. I stopped walking when I realised what I saw.

Ordinary surroundings - but something was off. As if something had been misplaced. You know the feeling when you’re walking down a dark street, and though you distinctly know that nobody’s following you, you keep an eye out for inconsistencies anyway? That’s the kind of mindset I was in and it was disturbing to say the least. Because why?

I decided to ignore it, moving to the sink to begin brushing my teeth - and that’s when I noticed it: my little tub for my toothbrush and toothpaste had been moved. It was a slight movement, something that, if I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed. But that odd feeling had washed over me and now it was clear as day.

Immediately, my temper flared and I demanded to know why either one of my siblings had moved it - my mother was at work, it couldn’t have been anybody else. Truth be told, it wasn’t the movement that really angered me; it was the feeling that somebody else felt the need to do make a statement about it by moving my things. I knew brushing my teeth in the kitchen wasn’t exactly ideal, but I was never sloppy with it.

They fiercely claimed that neither of them had moved it - and of course, I didn’t believe them. So what did I do? I confiscated the laptop from both of them, and then when my mum got home from work at her usual time of two o’clock, explained to her in a frenzy why they wouldn’t be allowed back on it. Any other time, she would have argued, claimed it was unreasonable, but I was in such a state about it that I suppose she knew better than to do so.

I was in a bad mood for the rest of the day, the prospect of being lied to hanging over my head as the day drifted into evening hours. I know it seems an extreme thing to be angry about, but I’m very particular about these kinds of things. Because I know my phobia makes things difficult for people. Because I try to be as discreet as possible, and it really plays on my anxieties when I think people have caught on to just how weird it is.

Despite my foul mood though, I was able to get to sleep fairly easily. As if my brain just wanted the day to be done with to make room for a new start.

I was awake before my siblings the next morning, having slept early. The quiet was something that I had always taken for granted; in fact, I had always detested it. It made my thoughts seem much louder, much more domineering than they really were; it was easier to forget about them when surrounded by noise. But this type of peace on a morning was something that I’d almost forgotten. Hell, it was comforting.

I got dressed in a rush to enjoy the tranquillity, making my way to the kitchen as usual and—

“It’s moved… again…” I whispered, hardly able to believe it. It seemed such a small thing and yet my heart began to thump in my chest. Was someone… disturbing it? No, no— my head rationalised that it was the wind outside; it had been warm by day but by night it was as windy as it came, gale forces blowing a storm out there. That would explain why it had been tossed into the sink, toothbrush splayed against the drain. I was just lucky the mouth piece had remained on the steel - there was something about a drain that just rubbed me the wrong way, perhaps because it reminded me of the shower in that dreaded room.

Nevertheless, my rationalisations weren’t helping me. I didn’t know why, they explained my situation perfectly. It made perfect sense to me. So why wasn’t it…?

I spent the day in silence. When my siblings tried to coax a sound out of me, I moved rooms. When my mum tried to talk to me, I moved rooms. When my mum’s work colleague dropped by to see my mum, I moved rooms. And I kept moving rooms until the day was over and there was nowhere else to move but to bed.

I lay there staring at the ceiling, trying hard, the hardest I think I’ve ever tried, to get my mind to stop working. Making up theories for why my things had moved - and so drastically compared to the day before. My mind screamed at me that it couldn’t have been the wind; the night before this one, when my brush had moved only slightly, had been incredibly windy too and yet I had come down this morning to see it strewn across the counter-top, toothbrush in the sink and the toothpaste thrown onto the floor beside the cabinets. It just didn’t make any sense. Was I thinking too much…?

How to deal with the situation dawned on me like the fucking sun.

I got up, opened my door as silently as I could (taking care not to wake my sleeping sister, whom I shared a room with) and went down the stairs, dressing gown trailing behind me like a river down its bank. It was disconcerting, the darkness of the stairs, followed by the feeling of being engulfed by shadows before my hand came into contact with the light switch to the living room. Once it flickered on, I held my breath.

Everything was ordinary.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t calmness. I told myself it was my mind’s fault; that running circles around things that weren’t possible was what had landed me in such a paranoid state. I felt better when I chastised myself for being childish, and made my way steadily to the kitchen.

Sure enough, the tub with my usual essentials was there, on the windowsill, the window open its usual centimetres. And all was perfectly still, save for the raging wind outside. The light from the living room was enough to see well enough in the kitchen, so I left the light alone, standing there as still as I could bring myself to, staring the tub down as if I expected it to grow legs and move all on its own. I’m not certain how long I stood there, but the silence eventually pressed too hard on my ears and I felt the urge to move away. It wasn’t creepy as it was… anti-climatic. I sighed heavily, legs shifting to carry me back to bed. I’d had enough - it was late as it was, and I’d wasted plenty of time being childish. I realised then that it was all a waste of time, that there was no point to standing there in the kitchen, listening to the sound of the wind and expecting it to turn into something else that was infinitely more sinister. It was childish, because those things didn’t exist.

So, what was that scratching sound…?

Cautiously, I turned my head back to the window—

—and immediately recoiled in horror.

A single bony finger had made its way up the frame of the glass. It hadn’t even entered, it was just… moving, slowly. As if engraving patterns into frost on the transparent pane. I held my breath, deciding with a resolve of stone that it was just some kid messing around. But it didn’t make sense… it wasn’t as if they knew I’d be here… no, stop it…! I watched as the finger was followed by several more, six more to be exact. Seven… seven fingers. I almost passed out there and then. They scraped lightly at the glass, moving with incredibly light scratching patterns, and I was under the impression that it wasn’t strong, that it couldn’t possibly break through or even manoeuvre its way in with movements so flimsy.

God, I was wrong.

For a moment, the clicking sound didn’t register in my mind as cracking glass, but as I stared ahead in horrified, morbid wonder, I watched as it began to splinter, much like a wooden door when it has too much pressure applied to it. Did it know I was there? And if it did, was this all for show? No, it couldn’t have seen me… the kitchen wasn’t big by any means, but I was still on the other side of the room; it couldn’t possibly have seen me…!

As quickly as the sounds had entered my ears, they left. The room fell into silence. The only sound that penetrated the foreboding quietness were the breaths that had caught in my throat. I could hardly believe what was happening… what was going on… it all seemed so surreal; as if dreaming was a very plausible explanation, even though I knew such a thing wasn’t possible.

“Jesus…” I breathed quietly, hand shifting involuntarily to place itself over my heart, the drumming sensation against my fingers enough to make me feel cold. It was fast… so fast…

I was dumb to think that it was all over. When I had worked up the courage to turn on my heel, the sound of fingers touching against the rubbery plastic of the window frame filled the silence. I forced my head to turn to look over my shoulder - and what I saw in the window was horrifying.

It’s figure wasn’t really something I can describe. It was just… a haze of blackness, and whether that was to do with its form or the darkness outside, I still don’t know. Eyes, red as blood, stared straight ahead. They didn’t appear to be focused on me. In fact, I don’t think it noticed me at all. And, if I could only see it now, did that mean it had been hiding before?! It didn’t matter. What once were uselessly lazy movements were now clean and precise, and in one sharp motion, its head - or what I assumed was its head - had pressed against the window, the sound of splintering glass filling my ears once more. It was only then that it looked at me. I knew - there was no focus in those eyes, but I knew it saw me. I couldn’t even begin to understand the emotions that were coursing through me.

With its eyes still firmly trained on me, as if it could see right through me, its hand, then its arm, slunk through the open window, and pushed the tub an inch forwards. As if it knew how uncomfortable it made me. As if it knew I was terrified. As if it knew I was one step away from an anxiety attack.

When I made no move to stop it, I could almost feel its smirk. It was taunting me. If it had been a person, I would’ve hauled myself out of the front door and dealt with it whatever way possible… but this thing… this thing with seven fingers and red eyes, was no person.

With suddenness, it rammed its jagged claws into the windowsill and though the darkness obstructed my view, I knew it had left marks. The sound made me cringe, then shrink backwards; if I truly believed putting distance between us would have helped solved my terror, I would have fled.

I didn’t get chance to.

With speed and a ferocity I wouldn’t have considered possible, it turned its body the opposite direction, arm cracking sharply as it remained in the gap of the window, and then smashed what I assumed was the palm of its grizzly hand against the tub, sending it carting powerfully in my direction.

I didn’t even have time to scream.

I awoke on the couch in the living room, an icepack on my forehead and three worried faces around me. My mother and my two siblings. My brother peered at me, perplexed by the assortment of colour on my face while my sister looked confused; as if she thought I was stupid.

“Wh-What…?”

“Don’t do that, honey,” my mother instructed, a kind smile on her face as she inched her way onto the edge of the sofa, perching beside me. Her hand rested atop the freezing cold icepack and I let out a small sigh of relief as the ice chilled my forehead into pleasant numbness. I wasn’t even going to ask about how she’d found me… as in, I didn’t want to face the embarrassment of being found on the floor. “Rest. You have to rest.”

I could only nod as she reluctantly pulled back, coaxing my siblings away from me, instructing them to go elsewhere. I supposed it was for the best - all I could do was nod off back to sleep, sudden memories of what had happened the previous night plaguing my dreams and turning them into nightmares.

To this day, I don’t know what that thing was. I haven’t seen it again. I even made a point to go and wait downstairs in the very same spot again, if only to alleviate my sense of curiosity. I was scared stiff, kept my toothbrush container in my hands, knuckles chalk-white in the dark of night as I waited for the beast to come. I don’t recall being that scared, ever.

And yes, to this day, I am still afraid of the bathroom; I still wear shoes to mask the coldness against my feet and I still have to change absolutely everything in there when I go for a shower just to feel safe and sane… I still brush my teeth in the kitchen, too… but I always turn my back on the window. Because sometimes, when I stare, I can feel it staring back at me. Because sometimes, when my mother has started walking up the stairs, leaving me to finish up, I’ll see a flicker of red, bright one minute, and gone the next.

I always run now; doing what I never had a chance to do before.

It’s funny though: whenever I go to sleep, I’ll swear I hear the faint splintering of glass and as I look to my bedroom window, I always see nothing. It haunts me does that sound, echoes in my ears until exhaustion prevails and drags me unwillingly into a dark slumber. When I dream, regardless of what it’s about, I always awaken with my vision cracking into fragmented pieces, just as the kitchen window was about to before I caught onto what the thing in the window was doing. Breaking in. Or trying to.

It’s closed now. The window, I mean. My mother noticed the marks on the glass and got pretty spooked. Still, she’s under the painfully naive, but still entirely justified from her perspective, illusion that somebody had been trying to rob us. She called someone to repair it - I assume they’ll be around in a couple of days for the job.

Now if only they could do that with my memories: replace them like a pane of glass, wipe the slate clean. I know they can’t but the thought intrigues me so…

…even so, I know I’d never forget.

How could I?

No matter how many times they replace it, the sound of splintering glass is never far behind.

—
Credits to: photofreecreepypasta

"It’s Done"

It was supposed to be a good night.

My wife Angela was out of town with her friends and I had the house all to myself. I picked up a corny action flick from Redbox, grabbed some takeout, and headed home.

About halfway through the movie I grabbed my new iPad. My wife and I bought matching ones a week earlier as an anniversary gift. Neither one of us really had the chance to upload any new Apps, so I figured it was the perfect time to start wasting away the hours playing some mindless games.

As I turned on the iPad, I noticed an App I had never seen before smack dab in the middle of my front page. It was some countdown App. I opened it and the only thing listed was an event called, “It’s Done.” Next to the name was the countdown clock, which had just hit an hour and 20 minutes.

A thousand different thoughts ran through my head at that precise moment.

How did I get this App? How was the event added? What would happen in a little over an hour?

I’d like to say I was cool, calm, and collected about something that to most people would be quite trivial. But I was an absolute wreck. I already deal with severe anxiety. So this mystery had me climbing the walls.

I thought about calling my wife, but what would I tell her? I mean, I didn’t really know what I even thought. Was my iPad threatening me? Was it some warning from beyond the grave?

As the countdown clock got closer and closer to zero, I got more and more anxious. I eventually ended up going downstairs to our master bedroom, shutting the door behind me, and laying in bed.

As I lay there, I had the iPad propped up on the pillow. Like a tried and true nutcase, I just stared at it. Watched it click down as if it was the New Year’s Eve ball drop.

Then, at exactly five minutes, I heard a loud bang from somewhere in the back of the house. Now, I should point out, I’m anything but brave. So, as any sissy would, I leapt up over the bed, knelt down on the floor, and listened. There was another bang. Then another. Then glass shattering.

In the dark, I reached for my phone, only to realize I had left it upstairs on the coffee table.

Footsteps, heavy footsteps. I could hear them making their way up the stairs. I listened intently as the footsteps made their way to our loft. I then heard them turn back around and head towards the stairs.

I knew then, that it was now or never. I did have a gun. One that I had only shot once in my life. It’s not a manly gun, by any means. Something probably even a woman would be embarrassed to have found in her purse. But anything was better than nothing at this point.

I grabbed the gun from my dresser drawer. As I did, I could hear the heavy footsteps making their way down the hall towards our room. I stood up, my legs shaking wildly.

The door opened. A large silhouette appeared. What happened next is a blur for me. All I can remember is the gun going off. A loud bang. The silhouette lurching backwards. And then silence.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how much time went by before I finally found the nerve to investigate. As I neared the door, I turned on the bedroom light. On the floor was a large man. His neck and arms covered in tattoos. In his right hand was a handgun…far larger than what I had. In his left hand was a phone.

He wasn’t dead. Not yet. The movies make it seem so quick and easy. Bad guy gets shot. Goes down for the count. That’s it. But in real life, death is slow and horrifying. The bullet had punctured his neck. The man made a series of loud gurgling noises as he choked on his own blood. I probably looked heartless as I stood over him, watching him die. But to be honest, I was frozen with fear and anxiety.

After a few minutes, the gurgling stopped, his eyes rolled into the back of his head…and he was gone.

I knelt down beside him. Fear of what had just happened was now replaced by fear of what would come. Would I get arrested? Would I be found guilty of murder? Would I go to jail?

Then his phone started to ring.

I honestly don’t know what compelled me to pick it up. But I did.

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t. But ultimately, I’m glad I did.

“Hello?” came a familiar voice on the other end. “Is it over? Did you kill him?”

I knew the voice. I knew the voice better than I knew my own. And knowing that voice…knowing what it meant to me…what it had meant to me…took the air out of my lungs.

“Hello? Hey, it’s Angela. Are you there? Listen…I left my iPad there. I accidentally took his. Grab it for me before you leave.”

—
Credits to: photofreecreepypasta

Twenty-Five and Counting...

 

Twenty five years its been. Twenty-five years, two months, fourteen days, eleven hours and twenty-two minutes, to be exact.

I’ve been counting every second, tracking every, minute, hour, day, month, year, decade.

It’s gone on so long that I’ve learned to multi-task and commit to other thoughts while part of me carries on counting.

I thought it wouldn’t last long. Figured it would all just fade away, eventually.

They said it was supposed to go black when you died, it was supposed to fade when your brain activity ceased.

Nobody told me that your mind carries on. That your thoughts are all you have left. As black as the moment you shut your eyes, as lonely as a never-ending dream, only far less vivid. Just an endless scape of black and silence.

Twenty-five years, two months, fourteen days, eleven hours and twenty-four minutes… Since I last lost count.

Source: JMeyer~

The Dare

    It started out innocently enough, a childhood game of truth or dare, but before long, as things have a habit of doing at that age, it got out of hand. Four boys with the bravado of adolescence locked in a game of one-up-manship to impress the sole girl of the group. Firecrackers found their way into mailboxes. Flaming bags of stool were left on porches.

    We were mischievous kids with the sleepy, small town of Rashosha, WI as our playground and an entire Saturday to kill.

    When my turn came up for a fourth time, there was no hesitation.

    “Dare!” I declared with gusto.

    They huddled together. As they spoke in whispers, a sinister smile crept across their faces. They were planning something dangerous I could tell. A dare that would surely surpass the ones that preceded it. This was the first time that day that dread began to seep into my mind.

    It most certainly would not be the last.

    Straining to eavesdrop on their devious plans, I heard three words that caused a cold sweat to form on my brow: Thompson Funeral Home.

    I pictured in my mind’s eye that building. It’s architecture ornate and opulent as it stood watch over the derelict graveyard. How many years had it been abandoned then, one, maybe two.

    Why had it closed? I couldn’t be certain at the time. I just knew it was something people in town did not want to talk about, especially around children. The sheer mention of Thompson Funeral Home would make adults seize up and children stay up with the nightlight on.

    “We dare you to break into the Thompson Funeral Home.”

    This revelation came with little surprise. I looked on their faces as they stared back to gauge my reaction. My gaze lingered on Samantha. I stared at those lips I had been aching for someone to dare me to kiss, and I knew then and there that I was not backing down.

    The bike ride was long enough for the dread to build in my gut and threaten to let my better judgment override my actions. The fact that the resplendent light of day was giving way to an ominous dusk did not help matters. However with steadfast determination, our group made it to the secluded dead end that housed the funeral home (I always remember remarking in my little head how apt it was that a cemetery was located in a dead end).

    The home was even more imposing than I had remembered it. Its Victorian architecture stood in such stark contrast to the plain and unremarkable housing of the surrounding neighborhood. I crept up the steps with trepidation. With a deep breath, I turned the doorknob.

    It was, of course, locked. I thought for a moment that maybe I could get out of this sensing that the fear in the group was shared and not just emanating from me. However Jason, that dick, called us to the back of the house exclaiming he knew a way to get in.

    Walking to the backyard and seeing the fading light of dusk playing tricks with the headstones in the cemetery was almost enough for me to call it off. However, whenever I would get the idea to bolt, I would look at Samantha’s gorgeous smile and steel myself for what was to come.

    Jason pointed out the basement window with one hand. In the other, he held a brick found amongst the unkempt grass of the yard. He handed the brick to me. The five began to chant.

    “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

    Seeing Samantha relish being one of the boys lifted my spirits. I hurled the brick into the window and watched with glee as the glass shattered into pieces. This feeling was very short lived.

    I got on my knees and looked down into the darkness. The fear, once again, overtook my mind. How I wished I hadn’t had so much time to ruminate on what I was about to do. I took one last look at my friends, and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself climbing down into the abyss.

    I landed with a thud on the concrete floor of the basement. I quickly got on my feet and surveyed my surroundings as I slowly wandered away from the broken window. The basement was mostly empty. The floor was littered with garbage and offal. Two metal slabs remained in one end of the room with various tools strewn about. A large shelf hung on the wall. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see it was adorned with jars still filled to the brim with various fluids. The other end of the room was enshrouded in black, and I decided that it would remain unexplored. The silence was eerie and all encompassing. After what felt like hours but was likely no more than a minute, the smell of the basement finally hit me. It was dank and stale. I remember thinking it tasted, well, dead on my tongue. However, I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind. The room was colder, much colder than it should have been on a summer evening.

    I decided I had stayed down there long enough. As I turned to head back toward the basement window, I heard it. A sound was coming from the other end of the room. As it picked up in volume, my heart lept into my throat and threatened to jump out of my mouth.

    What I heard was the unmistakable sound of scratching. It began slowly, but picked up in frequency. I could hear that it was coming from the pitch black end of the room I had yet to explore. As it grew louder and louder, it became more frantic and wild. Whatever was making this noise was doing so with fury and violence.

    I looked at the window not twenty feet away and sweet freedom, but before I could hightail it over there, I could feel something touch my foot.

    I looked down and literally leapt into the air. A weak noise escaped my lips. A rat, who must have called this musty basement home, ran across my leg and into the darkness. I was so grateful I did not cry out, and that I was out of view of the window as I would have gotten so much shit for my reaction.

    As I made my way to the window, the scratching noise had stopped. Figuring it was just the rat, my mind began to slightly ease up.

    As I looked up at the window, I decided I needed to make up for my cowardice even if it wasn’t in view of my friends. I no longer wanted to be alone, but also wanted to prove how much of a “man” I was. I told them it wasn’t scary down there in the least. With some cajoling and convincing, one by one they joined me in the funeral home’s basement.

    The fear slightly diminished as the presence and sound of my friends filled the void of the room.

    After revealing to them the areas I had already explored, I decided we should check out the pitch black end of the room. Holding on to each other we made our way into the blackness. I pulled out my lighter and flicked it.

    The flame revealed it. Samantha squeezed my arm as her eyes came upon it. A detail I cherish to this day.

    A lone coffin sat on a platform. It looked to be made of oak. It was of normal size and girth. Being truthful, it was pretty unremarkable. Save that it was a reminder of the purpose of this place. Also, I was unsettled by the fact that it was closed.

    Chad placed his hand on the finish and began to open it up to see what was inside.

    “Wait,” I said before realizing the implications of admitting that fear lingered.

    “I’m opening it you pussy,” he said.

    The coffin began to open with a creak. The sound reverberated throughout the basement. When Chad had it fully opened, I shined my light into it. I gasped. I could swear I saw… a face. Its visage twisted in agony and mouth agape in horror. In an instant it was gone.

    Jason, that fucking dick, began to speak. I knew he would chastise me for showing hesitation in opening the coffin.

    “Alright Gary, I double dare you to lie down in the coffin in silence with the lid closed for one minute!”

    Everyone looked at me with those eyes again hoping to gauge how I would respond. Samantha must have saw the hint of hesitation in my face so she chimed in quickly.

    “If you do it, I will kiss you.”

    The boys erupted with oohs and ahs. I looked at her and the smile on her face said what a million words could not. She wanted that kiss just as much as me. She just needed some sort of justification and was gleeful she had found it.

    Trying to hide my excitement, I replied.

    “Fine. I’ll do it I guess.”

    “Yeah maybe Samantha will get in the coffin with you,” Michael teased.

    I crawled into the coffin. I became unsettled as I realized how comfortable it felt. The lining of the inside smooth as velvet. As I stared at the four sets of hands wrapped around the oak I began to indicate I was ready.

    “Ready when y-”

    The lid slammed shut with a fury by some unseen force almost crushing their hands.

    Darkness engulfed me.

    The blackness was piercing.

    It was accompanied by a feeling of abject loneliness. Though I knew my friends were just on the other side of the coffin, I felt an almost supernatural isolation. It did not seem to come from within. It was being imposed on me. I felt… buried in it.

    I sniffed the air and nearly retched. The smell of death lined the tomb. The aroma of rotting flesh entered my nose and invaded my brain.

    Panic began to build in my chest and radiate to my limbs. It was a foreign feeling, like my veins were being seized by terror. I tried to control my breathing, but it did not help. My heart threatened to beat out of my chest. My consciousness was beginning to slip.

    It felt like dying.

    It was then that I became aware of how confining the coffin was. I could feel the walls of it closing in with each drawn out breath.

    I began to seriously regret my hubris. The thought of lying in a shut coffin is nothing compared to the actual act of doing it. I wanted nothing more than companionship to crush the feeling of isolation. Only thirty seconds had gone by, but it began to feel like a lifetime. If I was going to last a full minute, I would need to illuminate the stifling darkness. I pulled out my lighter and flicked it on.

    My eyes were immediately drawn to the lid of the coffin, and I found the source of the noise I had heard.

    It definitely hadn’t been a rat.

    Scratch marks perforated the lining, clawed with fury and violence. It was streaked by the unmistakable hue of blood. I reeled in horror when I realized fingernails sharp and mangled were caught in the crimson streaked fabric. I gagged as I saw strips of flesh dangling from the detached cuticles.

    All pretense went out the window. I kicked and screamed and shrieked.

    “Let me out! “Let me the fuck out!”

    I was greeted with silence. I pushed at the lid of the coffin with strength I didn’t even know I had but to no avail.

    “This isn’t funny! Open the coffin! NOW!”

    I continued to struggle. Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes turned into hours. Eventually I gave up in exhaustion. Had they really left me? The pervasive sound of silence seemed to indicate this.

    My mind searched for a reason behind my abandonment. They had just gone to get help. Sure. That must be it. I waited and waited still steeped in fear but holding on desperately to any sliver of optimism…

    After the second day of my confinement, hope waned until it was finally gone.

    An indescribable hunger and thirst took over my body. Weak and fading, I was ready to throw in the towel.

    Out of nowhere, something sparked within me. I decided to give it one last try. With every fiber of my being, I kicked and scratched at the lid of the coffin. I scratched until my nails broke free of my fingers. The pain severe but muted by the intense struggle. Exhaustion overtook me once more.

    I thought about how unfair it all was to die so young.

    So alone.

    My mind went to my mother and father craving the warmth of their hug. I’d sell my soul just to see them one more time. I envisioned Samantha’s unkissed lips as a tear streamed down my face.

    It was then that I gave up, body and soul. Resigned to my fate, I wept openly.

    Then I felt it. A presence had entered the coffin. An intangible feeling like I was no longer alone. I relished it momentarily. However, I convinced myself that this must be the last glimmer of hope playing tricks on my perception.

    My fingers found themselves in my pocket. I had to be sure. I flicked the lighter on.

    A high pitched shriek escaped my lips when the apparition was revealed. I immediately regretted my longing for company.

    The face that I had seen when the coffin was first opened stared back at me. It appeared to me more vividly than it had the first time. The face twisted in agony and horror. The pale skin stretched perversely across its cheek as it lingered in front of me. Its dead eyes boring a hole into me with such intensity I couldn’t help but stare back.

    Grotesque and gnarled, its mouth opened as it began to descend ever closer inch by inch. I closed my eyes and prepared for death.

    The ghost spoke.

    Confusion ran through me. Had I heard it right? Before I had time to react. The coffin swung open.

    I leapt out screaming as I did so.

    Everyone stared at me with incredulous eyes. My appearance and demeanor must have been shocking to say the least. Jason, that insufferable asshole, chimed in.

    “Jesus dude. You were only in there for like two seconds. Chill the fuck out!”

    I ran out of the basement on feet that no longer belonged to me and biked home. The thought of Samantha’s lips completely secondary to something else I had to do (I never did get that kiss by the way. Something I regret to this very day). I got home and hugged my mother and sobbed into her arms until I fell asleep.

    The next day when I woke up. I was a boy on a mission. This being the pre internet days I hightailed it to the local library. I had to know what really had occurred at the Thompson Funeral Home.

    My research was fruitful. This is what I discovered.

    The funeral home had shut down a year prior, and its owners were thrown in jail. Harry and Anthony Thompson had done something so despicable that it became our town’s shame. To make money, they had dug up recently buried bodies in the cemetery plot. They sold the corpses to unwitting medical schools and recycled the coffins.

    Digging deeper I could not find any information about someone being buried alive in relation to this case, but I knew for certain they had done it. Maybe it was someone that stumbled across their nefarious plan. Maybe it was a genuine mistake. I guess I will never know.

    Jason and the rest will swear to this day that I was only in that coffin for five seconds at the most, but I know better. When I think about that fateful night, I recall what the ghost had said to me spoken in a barely perceptible whisper.

    “Let it be known.”

    With the power of hindsight, I’m not even that mad at what he put me through. The apparition just wanted some empathy. He sought someone to share in the agonizing terror and loneliness of premature burial.

    He just wanted his story to be told, and that, precisely, is why I wrote this down.

—
By Cliff Barlow, originally posted on the Thought Catalog

Her Name was Emma

Her name was Emma.

That’s what everyone called her, anyways. Sometimes they would call her Em, sometimes someone would slip up and call her Emily. She was a part of our group of girlfriends growing up in a large town, not quite big enough to be a city but big enough that there was still privacy between neighbors.

We called ourselves the “Unbreakable Six,” because there was me, Summer, Mel, Nina, and Jules.

And there was Emma.

Emma started off as a practical joke by the other girls in the fourth grade. It was probably Jules that started it. She was always playing pranks of people. In high school, she even got suspended once for going too far, and had to babysit for hours to buy that girl a new cellphone. Or maybe it was Summer, who always seemed too busy with music and band to think of such an elaborate prank. Or maybe it was Mel and Nina, who were best friends and could have lived without us, always conspiring together like they were twin sisters.

Either way, I bought my lunch, cold cut sandwich and carrot sticks and a pint of orange juice (I couldn’t stand milk; it would account for how short I ended up being) and walked over to our lunch table. Jules looked excited, waving me over to them.

“Lotte! Look!” I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be looking. “This is Emma. She moved here from Los Angeles!” We lived far inland and into the boonies. Los Angeles was glitzy and glamorous and chic compared to the flat houses and half-rate high school football that was the only real source of entertainment in the area.

“Uh, what?”

“Los Angeles, dummy,” Jules said, rolling her eyes. “She’s not in our class, she’s in Miss Lark’s, but she’s the same grade as us. Isn’t that cool?”

I still wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be looking. I sat down with my tray uneasily, wondering what I was supposed to see. “Who?”

Summer jabbed me in the side. “You’re being rude,” she hissed quietly. Summer was all about rules and manners. “Say hi to Emma.”

I looked around our table, from Jules to Mel to Nina to Summer and back to Jules, who was waiting impatiently. I don’t know. I was weak. I wanted to fit in. I didn’t get it.

“Hi, Emma.”

They seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief, like I was making everything awkward. “Charlotte’s weird sometimes, but her brother has a Nintendo that he lets us play sometimes.”

They kept on talking, chatting about whatever fourth grade girls chat about, and I ignored it. If they wanted to play that prank, then that was fine. I wasn’t going to buy into it. I was always a precocious child; I knew that what they were looking for was a reaction.

That’s how Emma became a normal part of our lives. It was crazy. We would buy her birthday presents, and they’d disappear like they were taken. I wonder how many candle making kits and Mancala games Jules had piling up in her closet after all these birthdays. One year, Mel even got Emma a really nice necklace, and that disappeared too.

We never went to her house. I asked Nina about it when I was sure that “Emma” wasn’t there.

She gave me this scandalized look. “Lotte, don’t be rude. Emma’s family doesn’t have that much money, she’s embarrassed to let us come over. She told Mel that, who told me, and it makes sense. I mean, what she wears all the time… I mean, we still love her, we’ll always love her, she’s one of us. But don’t rub in the fact that we can’t go to her house. That’s mean.”

After I was scolded so whole-heartedly by Nina, I didn’t ask again. They were covering their bases really well, and by seventh grade, I had to accept that they were taking this prank all the way.

It was weirdly comforting in a way. There was this silent friend that I never saw, but she was always around. We would leave seats open for her, and when we did the buddy system someone always had Emma, walk into the bathroom by herself. When we decided that we wanted to be lame and come up with a name for our group of friends, we decided on the Unbreakable Six, even though there were really only five of us.

I was curious in sophomore year of high school when we were having a sleepover. Summer was at band practice late and Emma couldn’t make it, she had to work on her science project, according to Mel. So I asked Jules, the likely mastermind behind it all, “If you were going to write a story about Emma, like her biography, how would you describe her? Down to every detail?”

Jules loved stuff like that. She wanted to be a writer someday. “Well, she’s taller than you, which isn’t hard.” I threw a pillow at her that she dodged deftly. “She’s medium build—” Jules dropped her voice to a whisper, “—even though she gained a little weight recently but we’re not gonna tell her and she’s still beautiful.

“And… she has green eyes and brown hair, and she’s got freckles. She hates getting her picture taken. She’s nice, but quiet, and she dances really beautifully, I mean, you’ve seen her, right?” Of course, that time a few months ago when we turned on some music and danced around together to practice dancing at homecoming, so we didn’t look weird or do it wrong. We stopped after a while and oohed and ahhed at empty space for a while.

I didn’t ask any more questions. I knew that they would keep up the charade for as long as they could manage.

It was in our senior year of high school that it happened. I don’t know why it set me off, not really. It was something little, something stupid. We were hanging out in Nina’s pool, even though it was still too cold to swim. Teeth chattering and goosebumps rising on our skin, we were waiting for the Jacuzzi to heat up to jump in. The cold sunlight cast a long shadow, and the wine coolers we snuck earlier was making that shadow seem menacing. It was annoying for me for reasons I can’t place.

“Look at Emma, Lotte!” Jules called. She wolf-whistled and hooted, over the top like Jules always is. “Hot mama, look at that booty!”

I didn’t know where to look, like always. Like for the past nine years of my life, I didn’t know where to look. Since the fourth grade at our lunch table, dancing in Summer’s living room, homecoming, football games, at the park, in class, anywhere, I didn’t know where to look, because Emma wasn’t there.

That’s when I snapped.

“Fuck Emma!” I screamed. “And fuck all of you! Have you been waiting for this! The moment I completely lose my fucking mind! Well, here it is!” I waved my arms around, manic and furious. “Emma. Isn’t. Real. Emma isn’t fucking real!”

I looked at their confused faces. “Oh, you’re gonna keep this up? I fucking hate you guys, you’ve always done this, made me the butt of your student prank for almost ten years, guys! TEN YEARS!” I slipped a little on the wet concrete but regained my balance. “Fuck you, I hate you so much.” Tears welled in my eyes, years and years of pent up frustration finally spilling over. “Emma was some stupid prank that got out of hand and I can’t believe that none of you ever had the balls to tell me that it was a stupid prank! No, it had to keep going, you had to keep laughing behind my back! It’s not fair!”

Summer was furious. “Lotte, don’t fucking be this way, Emma is right there and you’re being a bitch, why are you doing this? Are you mad?”

Mel spoke up in a tiny voice. “Lotte, you look hot too, I mean, you look good in your bathing suit too.”

“Yeah, but don’t take out your anger on Emma, god,” Nina said, rolling her eyes. Nina walked over to the side of the pool and reached out a hand, like she was rubbing someone’s back. “It’s okay, Emma, Lotte’s just under a lot of stress right now, figuring out where she wants to go for college.”

“Shut up!” I howled miserably. “Stop it, stop it, stop it! Emma isn’t real! She’s not there! How could you guys do this to me?”

They were starting to look scared. They were really invested in this prank. I wondered what the endgame was. When were they going to start laughing, when were they going to jump up and say, “Gotcha!”

I had enough of this. If they wanted to play charades, then let’s play charades.

The next part was a blur. I don’t remember it, not even now. But I walked over to where Emma was and I kicked at the air. I heard a scream and I slipped on the slick, wet concrete and hit my head. There was blood everywhere. There was so much screaming, but I kept on kicking and punching and fighting until I blacked out completely.

I came to a day later in the hospital. My parents were there, and so were my friends. They were pale and tired and miserable looking. My heart panged. I must have really scared them. When my parents left, Jules approached me. She took my hand.

She began crying. The others stared crying too. “I’m sorry, Lotte,” she wept. “I’m really sorry.”

It was almost frightening, looking at the way my friends were. They were beside themselves in the privacy of the hospital room. I started crying too. I wasn’t sure why, but I started stammering apologies too, like if we all said sorry things could go back the way they did. “I’m sorry,” I cried.

Summer was the only one who didn’t look like she forgave me completely. She looked at me, eyes red and cheeks pink and wobbly chinned, and said, “Are you?”

I didn’t have to answer. The nurse came in to change the bandages on my head.

For the rest of the year, no one mentioned Emma. Emma only belonged to our tight-knit group of friends, so there was no mention of Emma. One time, a cop came to the principal’s office, and Mel and Nina were quick to drag us away.

After the accident, I withdrew from everyone. I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t go to Summer’s recital, I didn’t go to Mel’s birthday party, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t go to prom, just stared at the ceiling, wondering what had happened. Emma was in most of my life, and now she felt like a ghost.

I graduated high school and left immediately to go to a university far away in Southern California, where the weather was always perfect and the beach was a five minute walk away. I started to recover. I realized that I was depressed after what had happened, understanding that my best friends chose a punchline over me. Unbreakable Six, yeah right.

I got good grades, volunteered at an animal shelter, found a boyfriend. He was so nice to me, even when I got quiet when he asked about high school. He never pushed, just held me when I had bad days and made me pancakes.

It was four years later when I was about to finish up college when I ran into an old classmate from high school. Her name was Annie. She hung out with a different crowd than me and my friends. Most people did; the six—the five of us were a clique of our own, separated from everyone else.

I ran into her in our apartment complex. It turns out that she was living there the whole time and we didn’t know. I wasn’t necessarily friends with her, but overreacted the way you do when you see someone that you haven’t seen in a long time.

“It’s been forever!”

“Oh my god!”

I went to her apartment for coffee and saw that she was packing up her things. “Moving back home for a while until I find a job, yuck.” I saw a thick book on the sofa. “Oh, yeah, that’s our senior yearbook. I was flipping through it when I found it in my bookshelf.”

I didn’t bother getting a yearbook. I didn’t have friends at the end of high school. But I was curious to see what I looked like back then, if I had gained or lost weight, if my skin had gotten any better. I opened up the first page and was instantly confused.

“‘For Emma’?” I read aloud from the first page. It was a dedication. My mind raced; was there someone named Emma in our year?

“Yeah, it’s really sad what happened to her,” Annie said, handing me a mug of hot coffee.

I flipped through the yearbook, looking for a trace of Emma. Then, I found it. My heart stopped, mouth going dry. My hands shook as I held the yearbook, looking at the photograph.

It was a picture of the Unbreakable Six. We stood with our arms slung around hips and shoulders, sticking close together for the photograph. There was Summer at the end, then me, then Jules, then Mel, then Nina, then…

I had never seen this girl before in my life. Never. But there she was. I can’t even remember getting this picture taken. She was right there at the end. Green eyes, brown hair, muffin top, shy smile, threadbare shirt and ripped jeans, looking straight at the camera like the rest of us. She looked as normal as can be, just another teenage girl.

Annie looked over my shoulder. “Oh, there you all are. What did you call yourselves again?”

“What happened to her?” I couldn’t even touch her photograph, just let my shaking finger hover over her face.

Annie fell quiet. “Well, I guess you might not really remember that well, after your head injury. And you just kind of faded away from everything, stopped doing much at all. But Emma disappeared. Out of nowhere. The cops came by once to ask questions, but her parents were both poor and junkies, so no one really cared. Just another girl that disappeared.”

I left Annie and went back to my apartment, the one I shared with my boyfriend. He took one look at my face and started boiling some water for tea, grabbed a blanket to throw over my shoulders. I pulled away from him, locked myself in my room. I stared at the ceiling. I was eighteen again, lost and confused.

The girl’s green eyes haunted me. Emma’s eyes haunted me.

I went on facebook and found my old friends, my best friends, and I told them, “Please meet me back at home. It’s important.”

I returned back to our big-town little-city, went to the newest Starbucks and waited. They trickled in, one by one. Jules, small time blogger who works at an Italian restaurant until she made it big. Summer, brown and freckled from band camp, coaching kids for their field shows. Nina, the hot librarian at their old high school. Mel, her belly swollen with her second child, wedding ring secured to her left hand by her high school sweetheart.

My friends were not the same, and neither was I.

I cut to the chase. I couldn’t spare a moment for small talk. “What happened to Emma?”

They exchanged uneasy glances. They knew this was coming. “Nothing,” Jules said with finality. “Emma wasn’t real.”

“She was just a trick,” Nina said softly. “She was a prank.”

I figured they might pull this shit. I reached into my bag and slammed the yearbook down on the table, making our drinks rattle and one fall over, spilling tea onto the ground. No one moved to try to pick it up. They stared at the yearbook instead. “Emma was real,” I finally whispered. “Emma was real. What happened to her?”

“Nothing—”

“Cut the crap, Jules,” Summer snapped. She turned to me. “Lotte, you killed Emma that day by the pool. You went nuts and kicked her and kept kicking her when you slipped and fucked up your head, and you bashed her head and she fell in the pool and it was too late to save her and we had to worry about you and—”

“Summer!” Jules shrieked, swatting her in the arm. I was silent, absorbing what Summer said.

Mel spoke up in a tiny voice. “Lotte… we weren’t going to let you go to jail.”

I looked up at my friends, tears running down my cheeks. “Why?”

Nina reached across the table and took my hand. She squeezed it, hard. “Because we’re the Unbreakable Six. We don’t break because one went crazy and another’s dead.”

I excused myself to the restroom and wept for what seemed like hours. It couldn’t have been that long, but there were angry knocks on the door from other patrons who needed the restroom. I sat there on the dirty floor, sobbing, until I had cried everything out.

I came out where my friends—my best friends—were still waiting. I sat down in my seat and faced them. “I want to turn myself in.”

There was an outcry of different responses. Summer seemed willing, ready to have me turn myself in to the police. Jules yelled out about them all getting in trouble. Mel started to cry. “You don’t have to,” Nina said. “You don’t have to, we got rid of all the evidence, we buried her far away where no one would find her.”

“I want to turn myself in,” I repeated firmly. “I killed her. I’ll tell the cops that it was just me, that I buried her. Tell me where she is so I can tell them where I put her. None of you will get in trouble, it wasn’t your fault.” I thought I had finished crying, I thought I had nothing left, but I choked out what I wanted to say for so long. “I never saw her.”

They looked at me expectantly.

“I never saw her, not even once. I thought… I thought it was just a big prank you were playing on me, I didn’t want you to laugh at me… The girl in the yearbook, I had never seen her before. I just played along.”

Nina nodded. “I thought it was weird that you were always so cold to her. Like you didn’t even acknowledge her.”

“She really liked you,” Mel said. “She thought you were so smart, that you were going to go out in the world and do amazing things. She would always talk about that.”

I felt as though my heart would burst. “I swear I never saw her. Something must be wrong with me, but I never saw her or heard her…” I cleared my throat. “Show me where you buried her.”

We got into Summer’s car and drove out far, into a park in a different city. The park was huge and overgrown, like no one had been there to take care of it in a long, long time. I got out of the car, and left behind by a worker long ago was a rusty shovel. I took it with me.

Jules led the way, deep into the park, deep through the trees, until we came to a small clearing. The dirt wasn’t fresh, there were no markers or indicators, but the way my friends’ faces paled at the sight, I knew this was it. Emma was there, under our feet.

“I gotta see her,” I whispered. I dug the shovel into the ground. “I gotta see her.”

Mel didn’t want to see anything, so she and Nina left back for the car. Jules and Summer found different tools, a hoe and a rake, and we started digging. Blisters rose and popped on my hands from the old shovel, but I kept digging as beads of sweat rolled down my neck, my back.

The three of us worked together in silence, digging up our best friend. Suddenly, Summer jumped back in disgust, throwing her hoe aside. Jules did the same, stepping out of the hole. We looked down. Summer gagged, covering her mouth and nose, and Jules shook her head at the sight.

Me? I laughed and laughed and laughed, tears streaming down my face, laughing until it hurt as I looked down into an empty grave.

—
Credits to: photofreecreepypasta