Eyes of the Wendigo

11 -

December 1st

They're all in on it. I'm sure of it now.

Sarah wrote the words in her journal with a trembling hand, the pen scratching across the page with a frantic urgency. Her breath came in shallow, uneven gasps as she glanced toward the window, her eyes darting nervously between the thick curtains. The village outside was silent, blanketed in snow, the trees looming like dark sentinels against the gray sky. But it didn't matter. She knew they were watching.

They've been watching me for weeks now. Pretending like nothing's wrong. Pretending like they're just going about their business. But I see through it. I see through all of it.

Her handwriting grew sloppier, the letters smudging as her hand shook. The fire in the hearth crackled weakly, doing little to push back the chill that had settled deep into her bones. Sarah felt like she was drowning, her mind racing with thoughts that twisted and turned, refusing to settle.

She'd known something was wrong ever since Rob had died. But it wasn't until recently that she realized the full extent of it. The villagers—her neighbors, people she had grown up with, people she had trusted—they were all part of it. Part of some twisted conspiracy to drive her mad. To make her question everything, to break her down until she didn't know what was real anymore.

It had started small—whispers behind her back, glances that lingered too long when she walked by. At first, she thought it was just grief, her imagination playing tricks on her. But now, she knew better.

They were trying to destroy her.

They want me to think I'm crazy, she wrote, her hand shaking as she scrawled the words. But I'm not. I'm not crazy. I see what they're doing. They've been in the house. I know it. Rob's things didn't just disappear on their own. Someone took them. Someone is trying to erase him.

Sarah paused, her breath catching in her throat as she glanced toward the small wooden door that led to the back room. Her heart pounded in her chest, her pulse loud in her ears. The house felt too quiet, too still, and yet she could feel it—the presence of something just beyond the walls. Watching. Waiting.

She stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor as she moved toward the door. Her hands shook as she reached for the handle, hesitating for a moment before finally pushing it open.

The room was dark, the curtains drawn tight against the cold. But it was empty. Just like it always was.

Sarah swallowed hard, trying to steady her breathing as she stepped inside. Her eyes scanned the room, searching for any sign of movement, any clue that someone—or something—had been there. But there was nothing. Just the bed, neatly made, and the small nightstand where Rob's journal sat, untouched.

Her breath came in shallow gasps as she crossed the room, her fingers trembling as she reached for the journal. She opened it, flipping through the pages with a kind of desperate need, her eyes scanning Rob's handwriting. The entries near the end were erratic, filled with cryptic notes about "watching eyes" and "something inside them." Sarah had read those entries so many times, she could recite them by heart.

"They're in the village," one entry read. "I can feel them. Watching, always watching. I don't know who to trust anymore."

Rob had known. He had seen the same things she was seeing now. He had been trying to warn her, trying to tell her that something was wrong in the village. But no one had listened. Not even Sarah, at first.

Her hands shook as she closed the journal, her mind racing. The village was infected—Rob had said so in his final days. But what kind of infection? What had driven him to this madness, and why was Sarah now following the same path?