Logic
She closed the journal, her hand trembling, the mark on her palm burning with an intensity that made her breath catch in her throat. The pain was unbearable, as if something beneath her skin was twisting and pulling, urging her to take some action she couldn't understand. She glanced at the pages once more, her mind struggling to make sense of it all. But the more she tried to ground herself in logic, the further she slipped into confusion.
She was a logical person. She had always prided herself on her ability to make sense of any situation, to break it down and find reason where others might see chaos. But this? This defied everything she knew. Nothing made sense anymore.
The house—her house—was impossible. The mark on her palm? Unexplainable. The journal entries? They shouldn't exist. But they did. And the more she thought about it, the more her mind spiraled into confusion.
Her eyes flicked to the window. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the room. It should have been comforting, familiar. Instead, it felt oppressive, like the shadows themselves were watching her.
She shook her head, trying to focus. She had to understand. She had to find something, anything, that would help her make sense of this nightmare. So, with grim determination, she grabbed her laptop from the desk, her fingers shaking as she typed the name of the house into the search bar.
The search results were scant, but they were there. She clicked through the links, her gaze darting over the pages with a feverish intensity. The house had been built in the 1800s, a historic building on the outskirts of town. It had passed through several owners, each of them staying for only a few years before moving on. Nothing unusual—nothing strange, at least, in the descriptions.
But as she scrolled further, something caught her eye: a brief mention of the previous owners—a young couple who had lived there for less than a year before they died. The police report listed no cause of death, only that the house had been found locked up tight with no signs of forced entry.
Her fingers froze over the keyboard. The young couple. The ones who had left the house... like everyone else. But why? Why had they left? And why did the report seem so... empty? There were no details, no answers, just an abrupt end.
She dug deeper. Every website, every article she found only left her with more questions. The same inconsistencies. The same vague details. She felt her head start to spin. The walls of the room seemed to close in on her as the unease spread through her body like ice water. She couldn't stop herself. She clicked on more links, scoured old records, desperately trying to find the answers she needed.
The more she searched, the more the world around her seemed to distort. She could hear the faint creaking of the old floorboards beneath her feet, the soft rustle of the pages in the journal she had closed just moments before. Her vision blurred as if the air itself had thickened, pressing down on her chest.
She clicked on a link to an old obituary, but it didn't load. Instead, a photo of the house appeared, dark and foreboding, the windows hollow and empty, like eyes staring into her soul. It felt... wrong. Everything felt wrong. The air felt wrong. She felt wrong.
She pulled away from the screen, her breath coming in shallow gasps. The darkness outside had deepened, the shadows in the corners of the room growing longer. Her eyes darted to the mirror at the end of the hall. The one she had been avoiding for days. The one that had seemed to shift and change every time she looked at it. She had sworn it moved, but there was no way it could have. No way at all.
But the reflection now seemed different. It felt... alive.
Her chest tightened as a wave of nausea swept over her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. Her mind was collapsing under the weight of it all. She grabbed her head, her fingers digging into her scalp, trying to force her thoughts into something coherent, something logical. But there was no escape.
The mark on her hand throbbed painfully. Her thoughts were spiraling. The air felt suffocating.
The pounding in her skull increased, a rhythm that matched the relentless echo in her mind. The house. The couple. The journal. The mirror.
Everything was connected. But to what? To who?
The darkness seemed to close in on her. The walls pressed tighter. Her breath became shallow, frantic. She was choking on the uncertainty. The need for answers, for anything that made sense, was consuming her. But the more she tried to understand, the more her sanity slipped through her fingers, as elusive as the shadows that danced on the walls.
She stood, her body trembling as the room seemed to tilt. Her eyes were wide, her heart hammering in her chest. She stumbled towards the door, desperate to get out of the house, but her legs felt weak, as though the ground itself was trying to hold her in place.
She reached the door, her fingers curling around the handle, but when she turned it, the door didn't open.
It wouldn't open.
Her breath caught in her throat as a low, creeping feeling of dread crawled up her spine. The house was holding her here. She was trapped.
Her eyes were drawn again to the mirror. The one at the end of the hall. She didn't want to look, but something in her body made her turn toward it. It was pulling her in, a magnetic force she couldn't ignore.
As her eyes met her reflection, the shadows in the mirror seemed to move, shifting like liquid. Something—someone—was in the reflection with her. Something that wasn't supposed to be there.
She stepped back, her heart racing, her pulse deafening in her ears. And then she heard it. A whisper, low and soft, from behind her.
"Stay."
YOU ARE READING
Veil of Shadows
Paranormal--The world fell into darkness as she called to it, her voice swallowed by shadows before her words even reached her lips. She fell, hands dragging her downward, as if they would finally end the desire, she felt for the creature that had tormented h...
