31 Frights of October

The Last Costume Party

The wind on Bellview Street had a biting edge to it that night, sharp and cold, like the final breath of a memory you wish you could forget. It tore through the crooked branches of the ancient trees, rattling the windows of the old houses, as though it were trying to tell the world a secret. The moon hung high, full and white, casting an eerie glow that touched everything with an unnatural, cold light. It was Halloween, but not the kind of Halloween that comes with the thrill of costumes and candy. No, this Halloween felt different. It felt like the night when everything you had buried would rise to meet you.

I arrived at the party late, the kind of lateness that felt almost intentional. I had spent the whole day staring at myself in the mirror, trying to decide what to wear, but the choices felt hollow, as if no costume could disguise the person I had become. In the end, I settled on something simple: an old sweater, the kind I wore when I was a boy, and a pair of worn boots. I looked at myself once more—like a ghost of someone long forgotten—and left my apartment.

The house was just as strange as I had imagined it would be. Eleanor Harrington's family estate had always been something of an enigma to me, a place where time seemed to stand still, frozen in the past. When I stepped inside, I was greeted not by laughter or music, but by silence—a heavy, oppressive silence that clung to the air like a lingering fog. The guests were already there, milling about in costumes that were less playful and more unsettling.

Eleanor stood near the entrance, her eyes catching mine the moment I walked in. She hadn't aged a day since I last saw her—her beauty was like a fading photograph, sharp and ethereal. She wore a lavender gown, the one she had worn to her senior prom, I remembered. It shimmered, not in the bright way of sequins, but in a way that suggested it had seen too much time pass. Her smile, when it reached me, felt almost rehearsed.

"You're late," she said softly, her voice like a memory that couldn't quite find its way out.

"I wasn't sure if I should come," I answered, my voice thin, as if I, too, were a ghost wandering into the wrong place.

"You came anyway," she said, her eyes darkening just slightly. "Good."

I glanced around the room, but the guests seemed almost too familiar—like people I had known years ago, but couldn't quite remember. A woman in a bridal gown, stained and torn at the edges, smiled at me from across the room, her face pale, her eyes too wide. A man in a soldier's uniform stood stiffly by the window, staring into the night with the look of someone who had seen too much. Each person wore their costume like a shroud, a reminder of something long buried.

The theme, I'd been told, was "memories," though I didn't understand why it had been chosen. Memories were delicate things—fragile, elusive. Some we try to forget, some we wish would come back to us, but none of them are ever as simple as we imagine them to be. I hadn't thought much about my own past until tonight, but now, as I stood in that room, I could feel its weight pressing down on me.

Eleanor seemed to notice my discomfort. She moved toward me, her lavender gown whispering against the floor like a breeze, and gestured to a nearby table, where glasses of wine sat untouched.

"You should have a drink," she said, her tone heavy with something I couldn't place. "Everyone's here for a reason. We all have things we need to face."

I didn't want to ask, but I couldn't help it. "What do you mean?"

Eleanor's gaze flickered over my face, something unreadable passing behind her eyes. "This isn't just a party," she said, her voice quiet now, as though she didn't want anyone else to hear. "It's a reckoning. A way to confront what we've forgotten. The past is never really gone, you know. It's just waiting for us to remember."

I didn't understand, not then, not fully. But there was something in her eyes that made me uneasy, a warning I couldn't ignore. She was right about one thing: The night was already different, heavier somehow. I could feel the weight of the memories, floating in the air like smoke. I wanted to leave, but my feet felt rooted to the ground.

A scream pierced the air, sharp and sudden. The woman in the bridal gown had collapsed to the floor, her wedding dress billowing around her like a cloud of ashes. A moment later, the soldier by the window crumpled to the ground, his face pale, his body trembling. The guests began to move, slowly, like marionettes caught in the same grim dance, but no one spoke. The silence that followed was suffocating, charged with something too vast to name.

I turned to Eleanor, desperate for some kind of explanation, but she was gone. She had disappeared into the crowd, swallowed by the darkness of the room. The guests were all still, as though caught in some kind of trance, their costumes now fraying at the edges. The air around me grew thick with the scent of something old, something forgotten—like the dust of a room that had been locked for years.

And then, I saw it. A door at the back of the room, the only one that hadn't been opened. It beckoned to me, as if it knew exactly what I was looking for. I moved toward it, my feet slow, reluctant, but something inside me urged me on.

When I opened the door, I found myself standing in a hallway that stretched far longer than it should have, an endless corridor of mirrors. I saw myself reflected in each one—each version of me that had existed at different points in my life: the boy who had once hidden in the woods, the teenager who had fallen in love too easily, the man who had learned to bury everything. The reflections blurred, and I understood then what Eleanor had meant.

The past never leaves you. It stays with you like a shadow you can never outrun.

I heard the door close behind me, and the air grew colder. The party was still happening somewhere beyond the mirrors, but it felt distant now, like something happening in another lifetime. I was alone, facing only the ghosts of myself, wondering if I would ever find a way to leave it all behind.

But I knew, deep down, that I never would. The past would always follow me, even if I could never remember all of it. Some things are never meant to be forgotten.

And some things, once remembered, never leave.

Written by frailsituation