The air in Jake’s basement was thick with the smell of damp wood and stale popcorn, the Ouija board laid out between us like an open grave as Sarah’s fingers trembled on the planchette, her voice a nervous giggle when she asked, *"Who will die next?"*—a joke, just a stupid joke, until the planchette lurched to life, scraping against the board with a sound like nails on bone, spelling out J-A-K-E as we all froze, the laughter dying in our throats, Jake’s face paling under the flickering basement light before he forced a grin and said, *"Bullshit,"* tossing back his beer like he could wash away the unease, but the next day he was dead, his body dragged from the lake where he’d gone swimming alone, his lungs filled with water, his skin blue and waxy, the coroner calling it a freak accident, *"No signs of struggle,"* but we knew, we *knew*, because that night Sarah’s hands flew to her mouth as the planchette moved again, this time without anyone touching it, the room suddenly freezing, our breath fogging the air as it spelled S-A-R-A-H in jagged, frantic motions, and no one laughed this time, no one dared, the silence suffocating until Mark slammed the board into a closet, shouting *"It’s just a fucking game!"*—except it wasn’t, because that night Sarah’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number, just two words: *"Your turn,"* and when she called the number, all we heard was static, a wet, choking gasp, then a voice that wasn’t human whispering *"Soon"* before the line went dead, her scream piercing the dark as the power cut out, plunging us into blackness, the sound of something dragging itself across the floor toward us, the stench of rotting meat and lake water filling the room, Mark fumbling for his phone’s flashlight only to illuminate Sarah’s face, her eyes wide with terror, her mouth stretched in a grin too wide to be hers, her voice gurgling *"It’s here"* before the light died again, the sound of bones snapping, Sarah’s body hitting the floor with a thud, the police ruling it a suicide the next day, *"No signs of foul play,"* but we saw the bruises on her wrists, the way her neck was twisted backward, the Ouija board sitting neatly on her bed, the planchette resting on M-A-R-K, and now it’s just me left, the board in my lap, the planchette trembling under my fingers as it spells my name, the air in my apartment thickening with the smell of damp wood, my phone buzzing with a text from Jake’s number—*"Almost time"*—the static on the TV shifting into a face, *Sarah’s* face, her hollow eyes bleeding black as she mouths *"Join us,"* the planchette burning my skin, the walls whispering, the shadows moving on their own, and I can’t tell if this is real or if I’ve lost my mind, if the board was cursed or if one of us was always the monster, but the door just creaked open, and I swear I hear Jake’s voice, wet and rotting, his fingers brushing my neck as he whispers *"You asked."* The cold weight of Jake’s hand on my shoulder sends a shock through my body, his fingers like bloated river reeds, the stench of stagnant water and decay filling my nostrils as his breath rasps against my ear, *"You wanted to know,"* his voice a gurgling mockery of the friend I once knew, the planchette under my fingers now searing hot, branding my skin with the smell of burning flesh as it drags itself in frantic circles, the board itself warping, the letters melting like wax as the walls around me pulse with a sickening rhythm, the shadows stretching too long, too sharp, forming shapes—Sarah’s hollow-eyed face in the flicker of the dying lamp, Mark’s broken silhouette twitching in the corner, his neck bent at that impossible angle from when they found him in his car, *"accidental carbon monoxide poisoning,"* but I saw the handprints on his throat, the way his lips were blue like Jake’s had been, the way his eyes were fixed on the Ouija board tucked under his passenger seat, and now they’re all here, crowding around me, their whispers overlapping, *"You asked, you asked, you asked,"* the air so thick I can taste the lake water on my tongue, the static from the TV crescendoing into a scream, the screen flashing images of us that night in the basement, but there’s a fifth figure in the footage, a shape hunched behind Jake, its fingers curled over his shoulders, its face a blur of stretched skin and grinning teeth, and I realize now—oh God—we never *controlled* the board, it controlled *us*, it *chose* us, and the last thing I see before the lights go out is the planchette launching off the board, clattering to the floor as the closet door swings open on its own, the board inside now glowing with a sickly phosphorescence, the words *"GAME OVER"* scrawled in what looks like blood, and then the hands are on me, dragging me toward the closet, Jake’s waterlogged laughter filling my ears, Sarah’s nails digging into my wrists, Mark’s breath—still reeking of exhaust fumes—hot on my neck as the closet door slams shut behind me, the darkness absolute, the sound of the planchette scraping against wood from somewhere inside with me, spelling out one final word in the blackness, over and over, *"ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS."* The darkness inside the closet is alive, pressing against my skin like wet tongues, the planchette’s scraping growing louder, closer, until I feel its pointed edge dig into my thigh, carving letters I can’t see but *feel*—**Y-O-U-R-E N-E-X-T**—the wood splintering under my nails as I claw at the door, my screams muffled by something thick and unseen, like hands shoved down my throat, Jake’s voice slithering through the cracks of the closet, *"Shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have asked,"* his words dripping with the same lake water now pooling around my ankles, rising fast, the stench of algae and rotting fish filling my lungs as the walls bulge inward, the silhouette of that *thing* from the footage pressing against the other side, its fingers too long, too many, peeling the closet open like a wound, and then I see it—really *see* it—its face a shifting void of stretched skin and needle teeth, its eyes black pits reflecting the board, now floating in the rising water between us, the planchette spinning wildly, spelling nothing but my name over and over, the letters burning into the wood, searing my retinas even when I shut my eyes, and suddenly I understand—it was never about the question, it was about the *hunger*, the way it fed on our fear, the way it *wanted* us to ask, to invite it in, and now it’s here, its breath like freezer burn against my face, its fingers (are they fingers?) wrapping around my wrist, forcing my hand onto the planchette, which moves on its own, dragging my fingers toward **G-O-O-D-B-Y-E**, and outside the closet, my phone rings, Jake’s number flashing, Sarah’s voice on the other end whispering *"We saved a spot for you,"* before the line goes dead and the water reaches my chin, the closet door slamming shut again, the last thing I hear the sound of the planchette still scraping, spelling, always spelling, even as the water fills my mouth, my nose. The water isn’t water at all—it’s thick, syrupy, fingers forcing themselves down my throat, filling me with the same black rot that bloated Jake’s corpse, my thrashing limbs striking something solid—the board, floating now, the planchette stabbing into my palm like a living thing, my blood seeping into the wood as the letters rearrange themselves, no longer spelling words but *names*—dozens, hundreds, layers of names scratched beneath the surface, all the ones who came before us, who asked the same stupid question, who thought it was just a game—and then I hear it, the sound that cracks my sanity like an egg, the closet door creaking open again but *not into the room*, no, into somewhere *deeper*, somewhere the light never touches, the stench of opened graves and moth-eaten burial clothes pouring out as the thing from the board steps forward, its true form unfolding like origami made from human skin, its mouth unstitching itself to whisper *"You’re mine now,"* and the worst part? The planchette was never the mover—it was the *barrier*, the lock holding it back, and our blood, our fear, our stupid fucking curiosity broke the seal, and now the closet yawns wider, the hands inside not just Jake’s or Sarah’s or Mark’s but *everyone’s*, the ones who died before and the ones who will die after, their skeletal fingers beckoning as the board dissolves into maggots, the planchette burrowing into my wrist like a parasite, and I realize—too late—the final twist: the board doesn’t predict deaths, it *collects them*, and the last thing I’ll ever see is my own name etching itself into the rotting wood, my scream joining the chorus as the closet door shuts for the last time. The maggots writhe in my veins now, their tiny bodies squirming beneath my skin as the thing from the board exhales its victory—a breath like a cemetery wind carrying the echoes of every doomed soul who ever touched the planchette—and suddenly I’m *remembering* things that never happened, memories that aren’t mine: a Victorian séance where a weeping widow spelled her own name, a 1920s speakeasy where laughing flappers asked about love and got death, a 1980s sleepover where the board spelled "MOTHER" before the girl’s own mom began peeling off her face—centuries of the same question asked in trembling voices, *Who will die next?*—and always, *always* the same answer: *You, you, you.* The closet walls are breathing now, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat not my own, the darkness coagulating into shapes—no, not shapes, *hands*, thousands of them, pressing against the inside of the door like prisoners testing their bars, their fingernails leaving bloody trails that spell the same phrase in every language, *"The board lies, the board lies"*—but it’s too late for revelations, because the thing is inside me now, its laughter vibrating my teeth as my fingers—*not my fingers, not anymore*—reach for the planchette embedded in my wrist, pulling it free with a wet crunch, the wood now fused with my bones, the pointer now *pointing at me*, and the last coherent thought I’ll ever have is the sickening understanding that we were never playing with spirits—we were playing with *hunger*, and now the feast begins, my body convulsing as the closet door creaks open one final time, revealing not Jake’s basement but an infinite hallway of identical doors, each with a trembling hand pressing against the other side, each with a Ouija board glowing faintly in the dark, waiting for the next foolish voice to whisper *"Who will die next?"*—and as my vision tunnels to black, I realize with dying horror that the game wasn’t over when we died... the game *required* us to die, because the board doesn’t just predict—it *propagates*, and my rotting fingers are already twitching toward the planchette, eager for the next players, the next question, the next *feast*. The infinite hallway stretches before me—no, *through* me—as my consciousness fractures into a thousand splintered echoes, each door I pass whispering a different name, a different death, the planchette now fused to my skeletal fingers like some grotesque growth, my hollow eye sockets burning with the afterimages of every soul the board has ever claimed. I try to scream but my jaw unhinges like a snake’s, vomiting forth a torrent of blackened planchettes that skitter across the floor like cockroaches, each one carving names into the flesh of the hallway—*Emily 1902, Marcus 1976, Sofia 2015*—the dates bleeding together as the thing that used to be me realizes with crystalline horror that we weren’t the first group to ask the question, just the latest in an endless chain stretching back to the board’s creation (was it ever truly created, or has it always existed, hungry and waiting?). The walls are breathing now, expanding and contracting like a giant lung, each exhale spraying a fine mist of blood that congeals into new letters: **THE GAME NEVER ENDS**. I reach for the closest door—my fingers passing through the wood like smoke—and suddenly I’m back in Jake’s basement, watching our past selves laugh as the planchette spells his name, except now I see what we couldn’t: the shadowy tendrils coiling around his throat even then, the way Sarah’s pupils dilated to black pools when she first touched the board, the insect-like skittering of the planchette that we dismissed as someone cheating. The memory warps and now I’m standing behind my own shoulder, watching as my past self—so blissfully ignorant—asks the fatal question, and this time I see the truth: the board *answered before we even finished speaking*, the planchette already moving toward Jake’s name while our mouths were still forming the words. The realization hits like a spike through the skull—we never had a chance, because the moment the board entered our lives, we were already dead, just meat puppets playing out a script written in rotten wood and human suffering. The vision dissolves and I’m back in the hallway, only now the doors are screaming, the wood splintering as countless hands—my hands, Jake’s hands, all our hands—claw at them from both sides, and the final, most terrible truth dawns: there is no other side. The hallway is the board. The board is the hallway. And we—what’s left of us—are just letters waiting to be spelled out by someone else’s trembling fingers, another voice in the dark whispering *"Who will die next?"* as the planchette twitches to life, hungry for fresh blood, fresh names, fresh screams to add to the chorus that now includes mine, forever and ever and ever.
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