Scary stories I wrote

The Cursed Memory

It started as a dream, or at least that's what Liam told himself.

Every night for the past month, he found himself standing in a forest he didn't recognize, surrounded by trees older than time itself. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth, and the shadows between the trees seemed alive, watching him. He'd always wake up drenched in sweat, heart pounding, but with no memory of what had chased him-only a sense of terror that clung to him long after he opened his eyes.

It was only when the dreams began to bleed into his waking hours that he realized something was wrong.

Liam was sitting in his apartment one afternoon, sipping coffee and scrolling through his phone, when his vision blurred. The cozy confines of his living room vanished, replaced by the same dense forest from his nightmares. His breath caught in his throat as the trees closed in around him, their branches clawing at the sky like skeletal hands. The air was cold, biting against his skin. And there, in the distance, was the faint glow of a fire.

His heart raced. He blinked, trying to shake the vision, but it stayed.

He found himself walking toward the fire, as if drawn by some unseen force. The sound of chanting filled the air, low and rhythmic, like a pulse. He recognized the language, though he couldn't understand it. It was ancient, primal. He stumbled forward, his feet moving without his permission, until the clearing came into view.

There, around the fire, stood a group of figures cloaked in black. Their faces were obscured, but their eyes... their eyes glowed like embers, burning with an intensity that made his stomach twist. They were performing a ritual, one that felt sickeningly familiar.

And then he saw her.

A woman, bound and kneeling before the fire, her face pale with fear. Her eyes locked onto his, and in that instant, he knew her. Not from this life, but from something deeper, older. He could feel it in his bones-the weight of a memory that wasn't his.

Suddenly, the figures turned toward him, their chants growing louder. Their eyes fixed on him, accusing, angry. In that moment, it hit him with a clarity that made him stagger back.

He had been one of them.

In a past life, he had stood among those cloaked figures, his hands stained with blood. He had been part of the ritual, a willing participant in the sacrifice of innocents. And the woman he saw now, she had been his final offering. She had cursed him with her dying breath, binding his soul to hers across lifetimes.

The chanting grew deafening, and Liam felt his chest tighten. He couldn't breathe. The forest closed in on him, the shadows swallowing him whole. The figures advanced, their faces twisting into grotesque masks of rage and betrayal.

"Remember," they hissed in unison, their voices like a thousand whispers. "You cannot escape what you are."

The vision shattered, and Liam found himself back in his apartment, gasping for air. His coffee lay spilled across the floor, and the room felt impossibly cold.

But even as he sat there, trying to convince himself it had all been a hallucination, he could feel it. The weight of the past pressing down on him, growing stronger with each passing day.

He had remembered. And now, they were coming for him.

Because in this life, there would be no escape from the sins of his past.

Word count not including this: 587