31 Frights of October

Shattered Reflections

The thrum of rain pattered softly against the windows, its steady rhythm a lullaby for the city beyond, but inside the dim room, a chill had settled. The air felt too still, as if it, too, was holding its breath, waiting.

Lena sat alone, her fingers tracing absent patterns along the edge of the worn leather armchair. She stared into the flickering flames of the fireplace, watching as they licked hungrily at the logs, casting fleeting shadows across the walls. Shadows that, for a moment, seemed too fluid, too alive.

Her eyes, though glassy with fatigue, were sharp with thought. She wasn't sure what had brought her back to this place—this empty house she had sworn never to return to. And yet, here she was, its oppressive silence wrapping around her like an unwelcome embrace. The house, her childhood home, felt like it was breathing, the walls creaking with some hidden weight they could no longer bear.

Her mother had died here. That was part of it, wasn't it? The reason she had stayed away. The reason the house had decayed, rotting slowly from the inside like a corpse left too long in the sun. But it wasn't just the memory of her mother's death that had kept her from these rooms, from the corridors that stretched like labyrinthine veins beneath the surface. No, there was more—something darker.

Something she had chosen to forget.

The fire hissed suddenly, a log shifting in the grate, and Lena flinched, pulling her hand back from the armrest as though the flames had leaped out to touch her. She cursed under her breath, rubbing the back of her hand where she thought she had felt heat, but there was nothing there. Just her mind playing tricks on her.

Her phone buzzed, its vibration cutting through the silence like a knife.

She glanced at the screen: Katherine.

For a moment, she hesitated. Katherine. Her childhood friend. The one who had been there when it happened.

When it happened.

Lena swiped to answer, her voice hoarse, the words barely escaping her throat. "Kat?"

"I thought you weren't going back there." Katherine's voice, usually so warm and full of life, sounded strained, as if the distance between them was a chasm too wide to cross.

"I needed to. I needed to see it again. I needed to—" Lena broke off, the words tangling on her tongue. What had she come back for? Closure? Answers?

But the truth lay deeper, buried beneath years of self-deception.

"You should leave, Lena," Katherine's voice was sharp now, panic lacing her words. "That place... It wasn't just an accident."

The word sent a shiver down Lena's spine. Accident. The way everyone had talked about it afterward, the way the police had explained it, made it seem so simple, so clinical. But nothing about that night had ever felt accidental.

"I—I need to remember," Lena whispered, her voice breaking. "I need to know what really happened."

"You already know, Lena. You just don't want to admit it." Katherine's words hung in the air, heavy and cold.

Lena stared at the phone, her heart pounding. The static between their breaths filled the void, a void she hadn't been able to escape for years. And she remembered.

It had been the last summer before everything fell apart. The house had been different then, still alive with the laughter of children running through its hallways, the echo of joy vibrating off the walls. She and Katherine had been inseparable, as they always were, spending every waking moment together, their lives intertwined like threads on a loom.

It had been a warm evening, the kind that stretched endlessly into the twilight, the setting sun casting golden hues over the world. Her mother had told them to stay out of the attic, the one place in the house that was off-limits. The place her mother had always warned was unsafe. But they had been children, and curiosity was a siren's call.