The air was thick with the scent of burning sage, a feeble attempt to cleanse the unease that had settled in my bones ever since I’d foolishly decided to use the Ouija board alone, scoffing at the warnings, laughing off the superstitions—until the planchette moved without my touch, gliding with purpose to spell out ‘CHECK THE ATTIC,’ a message I dismissed as my subconscious playing tricks, until the footsteps started, slow at first, a tentative creak above me as I sat frozen on the couch, my breath hitching, my rational mind scrambling for explanations—the house settling, an animal, anything but the truth—but then they grew louder, heavier, pacing in a deliberate circle directly over my head, each step a hammer strike to my fraying nerves, the ceiling groaning under a weight that couldn’t, shouldn’t exist, and that’s when I smelled it, the musty stench of decay seeping through the vents, a sweet rot that clung to the back of my throat, forcing me to gag, to cover my mouth as my stomach lurched, my skin prickling with the unbearable certainty that I wasn’t alone, that something had been waiting, watching, biding its time, and though every cell in my body screamed to run, to flee the house and never look back, I found myself climbing the attic stairs, each step a deafening crack in the silence, the wood splintering under my trembling hands, the dim glow of my phone flashlight casting jagged shadows that slithered along the walls like living things, the air growing colder, thicker, until I could see my breath fogging in front of me, the attic door looming, slightly ajar, though I’d locked it months ago, the metal latch rusted shut—or so I’d thought—and as I pushed it open, the hinges shrieked like a thing in pain, the darkness within swallowing the light whole, the stench now overwhelming, a miasma of mildew and something worse, something metallic, coppery, and then I saw it: the noose, dangling from the rafters, frayed and yellowed, swaying gently as if disturbed by an unseen hand, and beneath it, a small, leather-bound diary, its cover streaked with what looked like dried blood, my hands shaking so violently I could barely open it, the pages brittle with age, the entries written in a child’s looping script, dates from 1982, decades before I’d moved in, the final entry a single sentence that turned my blood to ice: ‘She’s here now. I can go home.’—and then my name, scrawled in jagged letters, the ink smeared as if by tears, and that’s when I heard it, a whisper from the corner, a voice that wasn’t a voice, more a vibration in the air, in my bones, ‘You found me,’ and the diary slipped from my fingers as I stumbled back, my spine hitting the wall, my breath coming in ragged gasps, my vision swimming as I saw the words etched into the wood beside me, ‘I WAITED FOR YOU,’ the letters deep and jagged, carved with frantic, desperate strokes, and then the temperature plummeted, my breath frosting in the air, the shadows coalescing into something solid, something reaching, and I felt it—the icy grip of a hand seizing my wrist, skeletal fingers pressing into my pulse, a voice hissing, ‘You shouldn’t have come alone,’ and then the laughter, high and mad, echoing from everywhere and nowhere, the noose twisting, the rafters groaning, the diary pages fluttering though there was no wind, and I ran, tripping down the stairs, my ankle twisting, my knees slamming into the hardwood, but I didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, because the footsteps were following me, matching my pace, always just behind, and when I reached the front door, the handle wouldn’t turn, the lock clicking uselessly, the windows rattling as if something were pressing against them from the outside, or the inside, and then the lights flickered, died, plunging me into darkness, the only sound my own whimpers and the slow, deliberate creak of the attic stairs bearing a weight that was coming for me, had always been coming for me, and as I sank to the floor, my back against the door, my tears hot on my cheeks, I realized the truth: it had never been a game, the Ouija board had been a key, and I’d unlocked something that had been waiting, patient, hungry, and now it was here, and it knew my name, and it would never let me go. The silence that followed was worse than the laughter, worse than the footsteps—a suffocating void where even my own heartbeat sounded deafening, my pulse throbbing in my ears like a drum counting down to something unspeakable, and then the creaking started again, not from the attic this time but from the hallway, the floorboards groaning under an invisible weight, step by agonizing step, drawing closer, the air so thick with the stench of rot and damp earth that I could taste it on my tongue, metallic and sour, my body locked in place, paralyzed by a terror so deep it felt like my bones had turned to ice, my breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps as the temperature dropped further, my fingers numb where they clawed at the door behind me, my nails splintering against the wood, the useless lock still refusing to budge, and then—a sound that stopped my heart—a child’s whisper, right beside my ear, so close I could feel the chill of its breath, ‘You were supposed to find me,’ the voice wet and gurgling, as if spoken through a mouthful of blood, and I squeezed my eyes shut, tears streaming down my face, begging this to be a nightmare, a hallucination, anything but real, but when I opened them again, the shadows had shifted, stretching unnaturally toward me, pooling at my feet like black oil, and in the darkness, something moved, a hunched figure crawling along the ceiling, its limbs too long, too twisted, its head lolling at an impossible angle, the whites of its eyes gleaming in the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains, its grin splitting wide, too wide, revealing rows of needle-thin teeth, and then it dropped, landing in front of me with a sickening thud, the impact sending a spiderweb of cracks through the floorboards, its bony fingers reaching for me, the diary clutched in its other hand, the pages now dripping with something dark and viscous, and as its cold touch grazed my cheek, the walls around us began to bleed, rivulets of black oozing from the cracks, the words ‘I WAITED FOR YOU’ now glowing faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat, and the thing leaned in, its breath like open grave, ‘You shouldn’t have left me up there,’ it rasped, and then the house itself seemed to scream, the walls shaking, the windows shattering inward, the sound of a hundred voices wailing in unison, and I knew then, with a clarity that shattered my last shred of hope, that this was never my house, that I had been lured here, chosen, that the diary and the noose and the whispers were all part of a story that had started long before me, a story that demanded an ending, and as the thing’s fingers closed around my throat, its grip like iron, its laughter echoing in my skull, I realized—too late—that the Ouija board hadn’t been a mistake, it had been an invitation, and whatever was in the attic had been waiting for me to answer. The pressure around my throat tightened, my vision tunneling into pinpricks of light as I clawed at the skeletal fingers crushing my windpipe, my lungs burning for air that wouldn’t come, my screams trapped in my chest as the thing’s grin widened impossibly, its hollow eyes reflecting my terror back at me like a funhouse mirror, and then—just as the edges of my consciousness began to fray—the front door burst open with a force that sent me sprawling, the creature’s grip slipping as it hissed in fury, the sudden rush of cold night air doing nothing to dispel the suffocating dread as I rolled onto my side, gasping, my throat raw, my fingers digging into the carpet as I tried to drag myself toward the doorway, toward escape, but the thing was faster, its elongated limbs scuttling across the floor like a spider, its breath rancid against the back of my neck as it whispered, ‘You can’t leave, we’re family now,’ and then the diary was thrust into my hands, the pages flipping on their own to a new entry, one that hadn’t been there before, the ink fresh and glistening like blood, the words ‘YOUR TURN’ scrawled in my own handwriting, and my stomach lurched as I realized the truth—this wasn’t just a haunting, it was a cycle, a ritual, and I was the next link in a chain that stretched back farther than I could fathom, the attic’s pull now irresistible, the noose swaying in my mind’s eye, the child’s laughter echoing from the walls as the thing behind me began to change, its form shifting, unraveling like smoke, seeping into my pores, my mouth, my lungs, filling me with a cold so deep I could feel it in my soul, and as my body jerked upright, no longer under my control, my legs carrying me back toward the stairs, I understood with horrifying clarity that the worst part wasn’t the fear, wasn’t the pain—it was the relief I felt as I climbed, as my fingers closed around the rough rope, as the attic’s darkness embraced me like an old friend, because somewhere in the back of my mind, beneath the terror, a voice that sounded like mine whispered, ‘Finally home,’ and the last thing I saw before the floor dropped away was the diary lying open on the ground below, a fresh name already forming on its pages in delicate, childlike script, waiting for the next occupant of the house to find it, to read it, to join us. The darkness didn’t end when the rope snapped tight—instead, it deepened, stretched, became something vast and hungry, my body hanging limp yet my mind horrifyingly awake, trapped in a suffocating void where time meant nothing, where the only sound was the creak of the noose and the distant, rhythmic drip of something wet hitting the attic floor, and then the whispers started, not from around me but inside me, slithering through my thoughts like worms burrowing into rotten fruit, voices overlapping, children’s voices, women’s voices, all saying the same thing: ‘You’re ours now,’ and I tried to scream but my lips were sewn shut with invisible thread, my limbs dangling uselessly as the attic around me warped, the walls breathing, pulsing like living flesh, the rafters twisting into gnarled fingers that reached for me, caressed me, pulled me deeper into the gloom, and then I saw them—the others—their bodies suspended in the dark like grotesque puppets, their faces bloated, their eyes wide and unblinking, their mouths stretched into eternal screams, and among them, the child, the one from the diary, her small feet bare and swinging gently, her hollow gaze locking onto mine as her lips parted and she spoke with my voice, ‘You shouldn’t have been afraid,’ she murmured, her tiny hand brushing my cheek, her touch like frostbite, ‘it doesn’t hurt after the first minute,’ and then the attic door below us creaked open, a sliver of light cutting through the black, and I felt it—the shift, the hunger—as the others stirred around me, their necks cracking as their heads turned in unison toward the sound of tentative footsteps on the stairs, a woman’s voice calling out, ‘Hello? Is anyone up here?’ and the child’s giggle filled my skull as the noose beside me swayed, empty, waiting, and I realized with crushing despair that I wasn’t the victim anymore—I was the lure, the bait, my body still hanging but my spirit now part of the attic, part of the horror, and as the woman’s face appeared in the doorway, her eyes widening in dawning terror, I felt my lips curl into a smile that wasn’t mine, and the last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed her too was the whisper of the noose tightening around fresh flesh, and the diary, always the diary, flipping open to a blank page, ready for its next story. The new woman's scream was cut short as the rope bit into her throat, her legs kicking wildly beneath her, her fingers clawing at the noose in a desperate, instinctive dance I remembered all too well, and as her bulging eyes locked onto mine—still hanging there, still watching—I felt something inside me tear open, a black flood of recognition rushing through what was left of my soul, because I knew her, not just as another victim but as my little sister, Sarah, the one who'd moved into the house after my "disappearance," the one who'd refused to believe in ghosts until this moment, her face purpling as the child-thing from the diary climbed onto her shoulders with a gleeful shriek, its spindly fingers petting Sarah's hair like she was a prized doll, and suddenly the attic wasn't empty anymore but crowded with all of them, every woman who'd ever died here, their rotting faces pressed against Sarah's from all sides, whispering the same words they'd whispered to me, to the others, an endless chain of the damned welcoming their newest member, and worst of all was the part of me—the part that wasn't me anymore—that leaned forward eagerly, my own corpse-lips peeling back from teeth that had grown too sharp, joining the chorus as Sarah's struggles grew weaker, as her eyes rolled back, as the diary below us fluttered open to reveal two new words written in fresh blood: "Big Sister," and with a final, wrenching snap, Sarah went still, her body swaying gently beside mine, her dead fingers brushing against my arm in a mockery of the childhood pinky promises we'd made to always protect each other, and as the child-thing giggled and clapped its hands, the walls of the attic began to bleed in earnest, the floorboards splitting open to reveal endless darkness below, a darkness that was waiting, always waiting, for the next family member to come looking for answers, for closure, for the sisters they'd lost to this house, and as the first distant sound of a car pulling into the driveway far below reached what was left of my ears, I realized with a fresh wave of horror that it was our mother's old station wagon, that she'd come to search for her daughters, that the cycle wasn't just repeating—it was growing, spreading like a cancer through our bloodline, and the attic hummed with anticipation around us, the nooses swaying empty again, always room for more, always hungry for family. The car door slams outside with a sound like a coffin lid closing, and I feel the house itself shudder with anticipation as mother's familiar footsteps crunch through the dead leaves toward the porch—her key scraping in the lock, her voice calling our names with growing panic, "Girls? Sarah? Where are you?"—and the child-thing perched on Sarah's lifeless shoulders cocks its head, its grin splitting wider as it inhales deeply, savoring the scent of maternal grief already seeping through the floorboards, and suddenly I'm screaming inside my rotting skull, fighting against the invisible strings that make me part of this horror show, because that's my mother coming up the stairs, my mother who read me bedtime stories and kissed my scraped knees, and the attic thrums with sick energy as the first creak of the staircase announces her approach, the other hanged women swaying eagerly, their stretched necks cracking as they turn toward the door in unison, while the child-thing skitters across the rafters, deliberately knocking down the family photo album—our last summer at the lake splayed open on the bloodstained floor—just as mother's trembling hand pushes the attic door open, her scream catching in her throat as she takes in the nightmare tableau: her two daughters dangling like marionettes with cut strings, my milky dead eyes meeting hers, Sarah's bare feet still twitching with residual nerve impulses, and the diary lying open at her feet with the page now reading "Welcome Home, Mommy" in what she'd recognize as her own handwriting from when she was eight years old, the same summer her brother disappeared in this very house, the truth slamming into her with physical force as the child-thing drops onto her shoulders whispering "You left me here all alone," and suddenly mother remembers—really remembers—the summer of 1973, the attic games, the accidental push, the way she'd hidden her brother's body behind the walls where his bones still moldered, and as the noose slithers around her throat like a living thing, she doesn't fight, because the worst part isn't the hanging, or the ghosts, or even the way her daughters' corpses reach for her with blackened fingers—it's the relief flooding her veins as she finally recognizes the child-thing's face, the way its rotting arms wrap around her neck in a perverse hug, its whisper of "I forgive you" more damning than any curse, and as her last breath rattles out, the house sighs in contentment, the attic walls absorbing another generation of our family into its nightmare tapestry, the diary flipping shut with finality—until the real estate sign creaks outside, and the front gate opens, and a woman who looks suspiciously like our long-lost aunt calls out "Anyone home?" in a voice that echoes through the halls, straight up to the attic where we all dangle waiting, waiting, always waiting for more family to come home.
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