I'm sorry

TW: Descriptions (hints) of blood, murder and suicide.

I enjoy my job most of the time. 

I'm a PO (Professional Organiser), which means my team and I clean and organise other people's messy houses and often also their chaotic lives. Our clients are primarily hoarders, but sometimes, we are contacted to assist with cases where the house owners are deceased.

I hate these cases.

However, these jobs pay much more than your average cleanup, so I grind my teeth and accept the assignments. It pays the bills, after all.

The nightmare I am trapped in started one morning when Mr Shane Edwards walked into my office accompanied by Detective Daniel Grey. I listened to their story and wanted to decline immediately.

Knowing what I do now, I truly wish I did.

The deceased owner of the house took his own life, and according to Detective Grey, he might have taken more than just his life. We were ready to start the cleanup one week after meeting with Edwards and Grey. During that week, one of my team members assessed the house, which helped us to prepare everything we needed.

Upon arrival, I immediately headed to the attic. I love attics! They're dusty and creepy... full of interesting things, and as if to prove that theory, I found a box of diaries hidden inside a dusty old tallboy. 

Which brings me to another thing I love to do! Yup, reading through old diaries.

In too much of a hurry to feed my curiosity, I made myself comfortable on the floor and opened the top book, running my eyes over the neat script. The first few entries were typical things one might find in a diary, and I had to stifle a yawn or two.

"Dear Diary. Calling this place a 'fixer-upper' is the understatement of the year..."

"Dear Diary. The kitchen definitely needs retiling..."

"Dear Diary. I found an old diary in the attic. I can't believe all the crap up here..."

This continued for a few pages until it started getting really dark, and suddenly, I did not find the attic quite as lovable as I did at first.

"Dear Diary. Ever since I read the old diary I found, I've been seeing a man out of the corner of my eye... He stares. Oh, how he stares."

"Dear Diary. I see the man everywhere now. The diary I found belonged to a man called Mitchell. He... talks about the same man. Maybe I'm stressed and paranoid. Hysteria from reading that awful diary?"

"Dear Diary. Am I losing my mind? He whispers to me now. Sinister things... about blood and death. Julia wants me to see a psychologist."

"Dear Diary. Julia doesn't speak to me anymore. She just stays in bed all day and stares at the ceiling. This is not my fault. I want to go to therapy... but I'm afraid. The man is everywhere. He whispers: 'Kill, kill.' I'm scared because... I want to."

"Dear Diary. One of our neighbours was found by her son. She was... dead... Stabbed. Did I do this? I don't remember... Julia is gone. The man smiles as if he knows a terrible secret."

"Dear Diary. The police knocked on my door. They had questions about my neighbour, Mrs Lewis. About Julia... about others. All the while, the man is smiling and whispering to me, telling me to kill. I'm going to hide my diary and the other cursed diary... I need to... kill."

"Dear Diary. I've tried to destroy both diaries. They just... come back. I think... the only way to stop this is to destroy myself. There have been many... so many... people... I think... I killed. The police suspect me... I have to stop this!"

"I'm sorry."

That is where the entries ended. 

The owner of the house took his life and was found in the attic by Detective Grey. How did Grey miss the diaries? Were they hiding, waiting for new eyes to read them?

I felt a severe sense of dread wash over me like icy water, shivers running up and down my spine when I clearly heard a rasping voice whispering to me. "Kill," it said. "Destroy." Lurking in my peripheral vision, I saw a man with terrifying red eyes, and suddenly, I felt a deep hunger to kill... 

The man grinned maliciously.

Now, I'm hiding in this attic, dripping blood on the old floorboards, writing a diary of my own.

The shadowy man, whispering in the corner of my eye, was once known as Samual Cain. He was a cult leader. In 1989, he murdered twelve people in cold blood and manipulated his followers to take the lives of many more.

Even after he was killed by the police in a shoot-out, he didn't want to stop!

I want to stop! Please!

I'm trapped in an evil cycle that gets triggered every time someone reads the diaries, waking Samual from his restless slumber to kill again and again, using the hands of his unsuspecting victims.

This cannot continue. I need to end this... 

I'm going to burn down the house; perhaps then, the diaries will finally be destroyed.

I'm sorry.

***