Hello, my name is Casey,

to be honest, it feels strange to even begin writing this, and I do not really know where to start or why I am writing at all. No one will probably believe me anyway, or maybe it will not matter if they do, because by then it might already be too late for me.

I just do not want people to think it was intentional.

We never wanted any of this to happen.

I should probably start from the beginning.

About a year ago, my friends and I accidentally got ourselves into a terrible situation. Now my best friend is dead, my other best friend is missing, and the same thing could happen to me at any moment.

It all began when, out of curiosity, we visited a website on the dark web. Ever since we had become friends, we had been fascinated by the supernatural, and we thought we might find something interesting there. Just so you understand, Mia, Ethan, and I had not always been friends. Ethan and Mia used to bully me at school. I suffered a lot because of it, but when we met again years later, I forgave them. But let us not get too distracted. During our search, we came across a link to a supposedly cursed video. Back then, we laughed about it, completely unaware that it would end up destroying our lives.

The video itself was not particularly frightening. It showed a dark room, filmed in extremely poor quality, while a constant static noise could be heard in the background. The video was called CASEY_CURSE_01.mp4. We had even joked about the fact that it contained my name. It was unsettling in that moment, but not memorable enough to stay in your mind afterward.

When the video ended, I had to leave, since Ethan and I had been visiting Mia.

For the next few days, everything seemed normal. But over time, Mia became truly paranoid. She constantly talked about feeling watched and insisted that she no longer felt safe in her own home. She even mentioned the video once and said she believed we had opened a door to something.

Honestly, I did not take it very seriously.

She was my best friend, so of course I was worried about her, but I assumed the video had simply scared her and that these experiences were only happening in her head. Looking back now, I wish I had listened to her.

As the weeks passed, it became obvious that something was really wrong with Mia. By then, she was suffering from severe hair loss and constantly looking around whenever she was outside, as if she expected something to be there.

One day, we were sitting in a lecture hall during a philosophy lecture. Mia sat completely still, staring into nothing and absentmindedly pulling at her hair. It was the first time we realized that her hair loss was not accidental.

Then, without warning, she suddenly jumped up and screamed at someone to leave her alone. Everyone in the room stared at her in shock before she ran out of the lecture hall.

After that incident, we barely saw her anymore.

We could not reach her, no matter how hard we tried.

One day, Ethan decided to check on her, since he lived closer to her apartment than I did. She only opened the door a crack and immediately screamed at him to leave.

Mia had no close relatives we could contact, so there was no one else we could turn to. All we could do was hope that the situation would improve, and we never stopped trying to reach her.

One morning, I woke up and noticed a message from Mia that had been sent in the early morning.

It said:

“I’m scared. Please come over. I think someone is in my apartment.”

By the time I saw the message, it was already 8:00 a.m. My next lecture started at 10:00 a.m., but I decided to skip it and check on her instead.

I tried calling her first, but she did not answer.

So I drove to her apartment.

When I arrived, I knocked on the door, but she was not open it. When I tried the handle, I realized the door was unlocked.

The moment I stepped inside, something felt wrong. The silence was overwhelming.

I searched every room on the ground floor, but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually, I decided to check upstairs.

The first thing I noticed was the strange drawings covering the walls.

When I entered her bedroom, I felt a brief moment of relief. Mia seemed to be asleep in her reading chair.

As I approached her and gently lifted her head to wake her, I realized that she was dead.

Her face was distorted and horribly mutilated.

I ran out of the house screaming and crying before immediately calling the police and emergency services.

I was the last person she had contacted.

In the days after Mia’s death, everything got worse.

Ethan became increasingly irritable, and it seemed as though he was developing the same symptoms Mia had shown before her death.

I began to worry that the same thing might happen to me.

I already had so much stress in my life. Things at home were not good either. Ever since my father died, my mother has been sitting by my bed at night while I sleep, crying. I have often wondered why she does not talk to me during the day. But I suppose grief is simply at its worst at night before sleep, and she does not want to be alone.

Over the next few days, Ethan began ignoring me. I started wondering what I had done to deserve it. After Mia’s death, he had simply turned his back on me.

On Fridays after university, we usually went to a café together. So that morning, on my way to university, I decided that after the lectures I would go to the café and wait to see whether Ethan would come. But he did not show up for the lectures or at the café. He was gone.

The days passed, and there was still no trace of Ethan. My mental state had become so bad that at night, I would simply scream and cry in my room. But my mother did not even think about checking on me.

By then, I was suffering from terrible nightmares and could barely think clearly, now that both of my friends were no longer here.

One evening, while I was lost in thought, I suddenly had the idea to search our basement for old photos of us. My mother never goes into the basement because she still keeps old belongings of my father down there.

As I was looking through the photos, I noticed that flies kept landing on me. When I turned around and looked toward the freezer, I saw that they were coming from there. So I stood up and walked closer, and then I noticed that there were maggots on the freezer as well. I opened it carefully, and suddenly my blood ran cold.

It was Ethan.

Ethan was lying dead inside the freezer.

I grabbed the memory box with the photos and ran upstairs in panic, locking myself in my room.

I did not understand what was happening and had no idea what to do.

As I placed the box on my bed, a note fell to the floor.

I unfolded it and began to read:

Hello, my name is Casey,

and if you are reading this, I am already dead...

Subscribe now

Once a year beneath the starving moon

the old fair woke from sleep

with sugared air and lanterns pale

and shadows on the street.

There Mara walked where music sighed

through tents of faded red

and found a carousel of wood

where painted horses fled.

Their lacquered eyes were still and bright

their teeth were carved and white

but one black horse with crimson reins

had watched her through the night.

She reached to climb upon its back

its mouth split wide with spite

the wooden horse bent down its head

and gave her hand a bite.

A painful wound, a little blood

dark drops upon the floor

yet fire crawled beneath her skin

and burned into her core.

The ticket man, so old and thin

looked on without surprise

with rain upon his rotting coat

and secrets in his eyes.

“You should not touch him, we was wait for you”

He whispered through the gloom.

“it did not bite you, dear,” he said

“he recognized your doom.”

“Go home. Do not wash the wound

when music calls your name

whatever voice you hear tonight

do not reply the same.”

The carousel stopped all at once

the tune died in the air

each horse had turned its painted head

and fixed her with its stare.

And from the black horse’s wooden mouth

beneath its varnished grin

there hung a little drop of blood

and a little piece of skin.

She fled the fair, she locked her door

she prayed the wound would close

but blackness bloomed across her hand

like winter on a rose.

No doctor saw, no nurse believed

no human eye could see

the rot that lived upon her skin

the curse that would not flee.

Her hair fell out in silent clumps

her teeth began to fall

her mirror showed a old women

who once had been so young.

Her work was gone, her friends were gone

her days grew cold and gray

and every night the music came

from somewhere far away.

A children’s song, so soft, so old

crept underneath her door

a lullaby her mother sang

in childhood years before.

One year had passed. The fair returned.

the field again grew bright.

And Mara, bent and pale with pain

went limping through the night.

Two fingers lost, her youth consumed

her skin like paper thin

she stood before the ticket man

and showed the death within.

He smiled and said:

“Good evening, lady, you look alive and well.”

“What curse is this?” cried Mara then.

“What spell has marked my breath?”

He leaned and hissed

“The curse of life, of age, decay, and death.”

The carousel began to turn

the music scraped and cried

the black horse stood without a sway

its jaw held open wide.

Then Mara saw the painted herd

for what it was beneath

one horse had fingernails for hooves

one smiled with human teeth.

Behind her came a wooden crack.

The black horse left its ring.

It breathed upon her hollow cheek

And then began to sing.

Not from the pipes, not from the lights

not from the fairground’s dome

it sang with Mara’s Mothers voice:

“Mara, Mara, come home.”

The old man trembled.

“Do not speak.

Do not answer its call.

For if it hears your living soul

the night will take it all.”

Then Mara smelled the sugared rot

that clung around his name

and in his eyes she saw at last

the root of all his shame.

“You too were bitten once,” she said.

The old man turned away.

“You answered it.”

“I feared the grave, I begged the night to stay.”

“And so you steal from other lives

the years you could not keep?”

Her voice rose sharp above the fair

too fierce, too hurt, too deep.

The music stopped. The lamps went out.

The fair became a tomb.

The black horse whispered, “Mara, dear”

From somewhere in the gloom.

“I do not speak to you,” she said

though death was in her chest.

Then turned toward the trembling man

who feared eternal rest.

She sang the song her mother sang

the lullaby of light.

Then pressed her wound against his skin

and gave him back the bite.

He screamed beneath her cursed touch

his skin began to fade

the stolen years inside his bones

were dragged into the shade.

“No, no!” he cried. “I still have time!”

His voice cracked like a stone.

Mara held him close and said

“Then give me back my own.”

The carousel spun backward then

the horses shrieked and reared.

The fairground split with shattered bulbs

and every shadow sneered.

His fingers fused, his spine bent back.

His mouth filled up with brass.

His coat became a painted hide.

His eyes like yellow glass.

Beside the black horse, gray and old

a new horse took his place.

With rotting teeth and human eyes

and terror on its face.

The carousel fell still once more.

The dawn began to bleed.

And Mara felt warm blood return

where once had lived the parasite.

Her fingers did not come again.

Her youth was not restored.

The year he stole remained a wound

no mercy could afford.

But still her heart beat in her chest.

Still breath moved through her frame.

The song returned, her mother’s song

a lullaby once dear

meant once to guard her childhood dreams

and keep her safe from fear.

The old man used her grief and dread

the sorrow she had known

to steal the time she had to live

and keep it as his own.

Abonnieren

Kuchisake-Onna, known as “the Slit-Mouthed Woman,” is one of Japan’s most famous urban legends. She is usually described as a mysterious woman who hides the lower half of her face behind a mask. In many versions, she carries a sharp weapon such as scissors or a knife.

The most terrifying part of the legend is not her weapon, but her question. She approaches someone, often in a quiet street, and asks: “Am I beautiful?” If the person says no, she kills them. If the person says yes, she removes her mask and reveals that her mouth has been cut from ear to ear. Then she asks again: “Still beautiful now?” If the person remains calm and answers "yes" again, she disfigures their face to make it just as "beautiful" as hers.

The Kuchisake-onna is said to be able to run unnaturally fast what making it nearly impossible to escape. According to popular rumors, however, one can trick her by giving evasive answers to her question about whether she is beautiful, for example, with: "Well, so-so," or "Average." This answer is supposed to confuse and unsettle her, and giving the victim time and opportunity to escape. Other versions claim that she like many demons , suffers from a counting compulsion , and if one throws a handful of candy or grains of rice at her feet, she will be so busy picking up each one individually that she won't notice her victim's escape.

Although some writers connect Kuchisake-Onna to older Japanese folklore from the Edo period, the modern version became widely known in Japan in the late 1970s. Reports and rumors spread quickly in 1979, especially among schoolchildren. The fear became so strong that some children were accompanied home by adults, including parent-teacher groups. This made Kuchisake-Onna more than just a ghost story: she became a real example of how an urban legend can frighten an entire society.

Kuchisake-Onna is often described as an onryō (a fictional ghostly entity) or as a modern yōkai. (yōkai are typically described as having spiritual or supernatural abilities, with shapeshifting being the most common trait associated with them and often have animal-like features). It exist different versions for the reasons of her mutilated face, including jealousy, violence, or a failed medical procedure, but there is no confirmed “true” origin story. That uncertainty is part of what makes the legend so unsettling. She is not frightening only because of how she looks, but because she turns a simple question into a trap.

My Kuchisake-Onna inspired poem:

At dusk she walks the narrow lane

Her mask as pale as bone

her scissors shining in the rain

and you are not alone.

She asks you, sweetly, soft and still

“Am I a beautiful sight?”

Say no, and blood begins to spill

Say yes, she shows the fright.

She pulls the mask below her chin

her mouth is split and red

a smile carved wide from cheek to cheek

the smile of something dead.

So answer low, “you’re so-so,”

then turn before she’s through

for while she pauses, you must flee

or she will come for you.

Yet still, when evening streets are bare

and lamps burn pale and low

a masked woman waits silently

where lonely people go.

Beneath the mask, her smile bled red

A curse from days of old.

And asks each soul before they flee or die:

“Do you think I’m beautiful?”

Abonnieren

In desert night, where cold winds drone

there grins a house of clowns and stone

a flickering sign, with letters hell-red

invites the living and the dead.

Its painted grin, grotesque and wide

has evil clowns on every side

and from the door, in whispers thin

a voice says, “Come, dear guest, come in.”

The hallway breathes with velvet gloom

old portraits watch from every room

their glassy eyes, their mouths grin wide

all twitch beneath the candlelight.

The lobby smells like facepainting

rotten teeth and rubber skin.

A hundred clowns in frames all stare

with button eyes and cotton hair.

In the nightmare suite, where the shadows crawl

a clown stands smiling by the wall

with hollow eyes like pits of coal

he whispers, “Sleep, and don't lose control.”

I locked the door. I barred the night.

Yet still there crept beneath the light

a distant laugh, then near, then clear

a breath beside my listening ear.

The dolls looked down from shelves of dust

their painted cheeks cracked red with rust

the shelves began to creak and sway

as tiny hands reached out to play.

At twelve, the silent circus came

a trumpet cried, no footstep came.

A shadow danced with a sound

while laughter spun the ceiling round.

They sob, they shriek, they laugh, they call

their shadows dance across the wall

inside my mind their voices spin

until I feel them crawl within.

“Ha-ha-ha…”

It would not stop.

The bells rang once, the lights grew thin

and then the wicked game begin.

Upon the mirror, pale and wet

appeared the words: You won’t forget.

I turned, and felt my senses break

my mouth curled wide against my sake.

Now I smile wide, with lips of red

while clowns keep screaming in my head

and every traveler passing late

will see me grinning at the gate.

The sign blinks low. The desert bends.

The road curls back, it never ends.

A new car stalls. The headlights fail.

The new guest inside begin to wail.

Abonnieren

Hey my name is Macy, I’m making this tape

in case I go missing and never escape.

The forest has trapped me, the pathways all change

the trees bend around me like bars of a cage.

I came here at sunset, the sky started crying

the trail twisted backward, the daylight was dying.

I scratched my name deep in the bark as a sign

but the tree opened up and carved “Macy is mine.”

The camera is shaking, my hands are like ice

I heard someone laughing, then calling me twice.

“Macy,” it murmured from deep in the pine

but the voice sounded almost exactly like mine.

There’s something behind me, I feel it come near

it breathes through the branches, it feeds on my fear.

I turn with the flashlight, I beg it to show

but all that I catch is a shadow bent low.

The moon has gone rotten, the stars are all blind

the wind keeps repeating the thoughts in my mind.

“Stay here forever,” she speaks through my jaw

“Stay here with us, Macy, forevermore.”

My vision began twisting, all blurry and bending

I couldn’t stop running, the path never ending.

The trees spun around me, the dark closed behind

and something kept crawling inside of my mind.

I found a small cabin, half-hidden by trees

and heard someone crying, “Macy, please.”

I ran inside, thinking it might be my sister

who went missing in this forest last winter.

I stepped one foot closer, then heard from inside

a voice whispering, “Macy, go hide.”

I’m caged by a curse that no blade can cut through

the forest is watching each thing that I do.

If somebody finds this, don’t follow my cries

the witch in the woods has everyones face and eyes.

The camera is still recording, the trees start to sway

the witch is now coming, she's taking me away.

Hey my name is Macy, remember my name

the forest still calls it again and again.

Abonnieren

I ran through the valley with fear in my breath

in endless streets and the cold smell of death.

The path split before me, the dark closed behind

and voices came hunting from every side.

They called from the cliffs, they crawled from the stones, they rose from the earth in a chorus of groans.

They hissed from the branches, they laughed from the sky

they whispered, “Keep running,” and “Soon you will die.”

A voice on my left cried, “This way! This way!”

A voice on my right begged, “Don’t be astray!”

One under my footsteps kept counting each pace

one breathed from the fog with my own face.

I covered my ears, but their words still came through

from above and below, from behind and before.

They circled me fully, they screamed my name

until every direction was calling the same.

I ran over roots, over gravel and thorn

with fear in my chest, my thoughts over-worn.

The valley grew louder, the pathway grew thin

And every voice outside began crawling in.

“Left,” cried the darkness.

“Right,” sang the rain.

“Back,” whispered the hollow.

“Forward,” screamed pain.

I stumbled. I rose. I ran without aim.

The voices all knew me. They shouted my name.

Then one spoke inside me, she whispered me near:

“Why are you running when we are already here?”

Abonnieren

A girl kept a house inside her room

with painted doors and velvet gloom

a little world of magic and stairs

of vintage beds and tiny chairs.

She bought no dolls from shop or shelf

she pressed the wool, shaped them herself.

With needle, knot, and silver pin

she sewed the living faces in.

One for her mother, cold and neat

who called her strange and that she's a freak.

One for her father, pale and tall

who took her dolls and broke them all.

One for the man who laughed one day

and kicked her little stones away.

One for the friend who would not share

and pulled the ribbon from her hair.

She placed them where she wished they’d be:

by window, wall, or willow tree.

And if she turned a doll at night

the dream turned to the nightmare side.

If one was laid beneath a bed

its breathing owner dreamed of dread.

If one was stuck deep in the jaw

its voice was heard no more.

A ribbon bound around the chest

would steal the breath from someone’s rest.

A pin beneath a woolen eye

would make this person blind and cry.

If one was pinned through a woolen arm

its living limb would bend in harm.

If one was scratched across the seam

their skin would bloom the word, mean.

Yet still she smiled with gentle grace

and brushed each tiny stitched-up face.

No one knew, and none could tell

what names were sewn inside the felt.

At dusk, the little windows burned

the tiny chairs and tables turned.

She hummed and moved them

one by one

until her quiet work was done.

She closed the roof with careful hands

and whispered through each little door:

“You’re caged inside forevermore.”

And sometimes, when she falls asleep

just before her dreams grow deep

she hears the little dolls scream

from somewhere underneath her dream.

They scratch and knock behind small doors

their tiny fists beat, they shout "let me out"

and still she smiles to hear once more

them suffering crying evermore.

Abonnieren

Beyond the wall where no winds pass

where moonlight pales on broken glass

there grows a rosebed, dark and still

beneath the house upon the hill.

No gardener bends, no footsteps stay

no morning warms the leaves of grey

yet every dusk, the blossoms rise

with velvet rot and flower cries.

Their petals curl in crimson rings

like folded wounds with hidden strings.

Their perfume drifts through forests soon

and pulls the lifes from silent gloom.

The roots below the floorboards creep

through places where the lost souls sleep.

They drink from dreamers, tears, and blood

and bloom from sorrow, not from bud.

At midnight, when the mirrors blur

the roses turn and softly stir.

Their blackened stems begin to lean

as shadows bloom where light has been.

And those who breathe their scent too long

will hear the roses hum their song:

“Creep, creep, creep…

we hungry roses eat

we bloom from what we need

we whisper by moonlight

even flowers bleed.”

So pass the wall, but do not stay

nor touch the blooms that rot away.

For if their roots should find your chest

they’ll plant a rose where you once breathed.

Abonnieren

She comes when dreaming eyes are closed

where silver moonlight on pillows glows.

With moth-like wings and fingers thin

she finds the smallest doorway in.

She takes one memory, warm and bright

then twists its colours in the night.

A loving face begins to stare

a childhood room forgets you where there.

She threads the dream with strands of dread

and hangs it trembling overhead.

Then crouches by the sleeping ear

and whispers what you most should fear.

Her nail's move softly through your hair

while darker shapes rise everywhere .

She smiles when sleeping bodies shake

and waits to see if they will wake.

At dawn, the dreamer wakes alone

their sweetest memory nearly gone.

But on the glass, in dust so fine

two tiny footprints mark her sign.

So when soft wings disturb your sleep

hold every cherished memory deep.

At dusk she steps between the gleam

She leaves a nightmare

and takes the dream.

Abonnieren

cold mist rolled slowly through the lane

I stood there tired from work that night

my final train delayed from sight.

The speakers cracked with static sound:

“Last service canceled underground.”

A weary groan escaped my chest

I only wished for home and rest.

The platform emptied one by one

till I remained there all alone.

The clock above began to shake

as midnight slowly stayed awake.

Then from the tunnel, deep and black

there came the screech of iron track

a train emerged with blinding light

and slid before me through the night.

No driver stood behind the glass

yet still the doors swung wide to pass

the cabin lights burned pale and white

so I stepped in against my fright.

The doors slammed shut with heavy sound

the train began to shake the ground.

Then suddenly it lunged ahead

so fast I nearly struck my head.

The city lights became a blur

the tunnel screamed beneath the stir

the train sped faster through the black

like something fleeing on the track.

I looked around from seat to seat.

No breathing soul. No moving feet.

The empty carriage hummed and swayed

and slowly all the lights decayed.

A sickness crawled into my chest

cold sweat soaked through my vest.

For every window showed the same

pure darkness without shape or name.

Then with a violent, shrieking sound

the train came crashing to the ground.

The lights went out. The silence spread.

I heard my heartbeat fill my head.

The speakers burst with static cries

like something choking as it died

a scraping voice began to speak

in broken words so slow and weak:

“Final… stop…”

The screens above began to flare and twitch

their pale blue letters switched with glitch

with ghostly words of cold despair

that drifted through the cabin air:

TRAIN TO NOWHERE

Abonnieren

The red forest, under dying light

the trees stood still and held the night.

Their branches bent like broken bone

as if they knew I walked alone.

A whisper moved where none should be

and fear grew roots inside of me.

It curled beneath my shaking skin

and begged the dark to let it in.

I walked and walked, found no way out

while distant screams began to shout.

They rose like smoke between the trees

then vanished softly on the breeze.

The moon above was cracked and pale

its silver has began to fail.

The stars had drowned behind the red

as though the sky itself had bled.

I closed my eyes and prayed it seemed

no more than fragments of a dream.

A nightmare born from restless sleep

the mind plays games, too dark to keep.

But when I opened them again

the forest breathed like insane.

The shadows stretched across the air

and something silent waited there.

I felt despair, I could not flee

for something watched behind a tree.

Its hollow smile, its twisted face

stood frozen in that cursed place.

It’s eyes were dark, like a hollow night

two empty wounds that swallowed light.

It’s fingers long, its movements slow

as if it knew where I would go.

Then in her smile I came to see

the creature staring back was me.

My face, my hair, my eyes,

but she was the evil side in her mind.

She raised a hand, I did the same

as though our bodies shared one frame.

She tilted her head, I followed too

unable to stop what I had to do.

She stepped ahead, I freezed in place

then watched her nails reach my face.

She dragged them down my cheek with care

and pain burned hot through skin and aware.

I tried to scream, but made no sound

the forest spun, the world turned round.

The trees bent low, the shadows spread

then everything around me bled.

I blacked out beneath the trees

lost in whispers, cold as seas.

And when I woke, I lay in bed

with morning light above my head.

I told myself, “It’s just a dream

not every fear is what it seems.”

The mind makes monsters in the night

then burns them off with morning light.

But then my hand rose to my cheek

my breath grew thin, my limbs grew weak.

Four crimson lines were carved in red

exactly where her fingers scratched.

I turned away, my heart like stone

and whispered, “No, I’m alone.”

Yet from the mirror near my bed

a hollow smile appeared instead.

I stepped away, she did not move.

Her smile began to slowly prove

the dream had not been left behind

it had only changed its place in my mind.

Then with her fingers, sharp and thin

she snapped once softly from within.

The sound cut through my head like wire

and dragged me back to the forest of fire.

The walls broke down, the floor gave way

my room dissolved in dying gray.

I fell through screams, I could not breath

then struck the earth in red leafes bleed.

Far off between the trees she stood

half-shadowed deep in dripping wood.

Her head hung wrong, her limbs were still

as if she waited only to kill.

Then slowly, with a cracking sound

her twisted body bent toward the ground.

Her spine arched back, her shoulders tore

into a shape I haven't seen before.

On all four limbs she started fast

through roots and leaves and shadows cast.

I tried to run, but could not move

as if the forest disapproved.

Her eyes were black, so deep, so wide

no star, no soul, no light inside.

I saw myself within that stare

a trapped reflection dying there.

I felt her fingers touch my head

ice-cold and gentle, like a threat.

She leaned in close, and through my cries

her darkness poured into my eyes.

My hands went numb, my voice was gone

my mind sank down, too weak, withdrawn.

I felt her smile become my own

her thoughts take root beneath my bone.

And as my soul fell far away

I heard her whisper, softly say:

“You never woke. You never fled.

It was only in your head.”

Abonnieren

Deep in a shop on a crooked street

where rain and darkness always meet

an old clockmaker worked alone

among the gears and aged stone.

A sound would echo through the night

like little heartbeats dressed in fright.

A thousand clocks upon the wall

would breathe and tick in endless call.

TIK TAK...

He wound each dial with shaking hands

adjusted springs and rusted bands.

For every clock inside the room

was tied to someone’s living doom.

The villagers would always speak

of why the old man looked so weak.

Or why at every stroke of ten

he’d rush to wind the clocks again.

For if a single clock should fail

then somewhere, someone’s life would pale.

Their final breath, their final cry

and in that moment, they would die.

One winter night the thunder roared

like angry gods outside the door.

While every clock began to shake

as though the earth itself would break.

TIK TAK…

TIK TAK…

TIK…

TAK…

One little clock began to slow

it's fragile hands moved weak and low.

The old man turned as pale as bone

and whispered, “Oh… not this one… no…”.

He grabbed his tools with frantic dread

cold beads of sweat rolled down his head.

His trembling fingers fought the chain

while all the clocks screamed through the rain.

TIK TAK!

TIK TAK!

The tiny seconds would not wait

the slowing tick became fate.

Then suddenly the clock stood still

the shop itself grew deathly chill.

Silence.

And from the darkness of the hall

one final knock came through the wall.

The old man closed his weary eyes

for somewhere far away, one dies.

Then softly from the corner black

another clock began:

TIK TAK…

TIK TAK…

Abonnieren

I was seven years old when my parents brought my sister home.

I say “sister” because that’s what they told me to call her.

Her name was Dolly.

My father carried her through the front door just after sunset, holding her under the arms like something he had found standing in a field and decided, for reasons only my parents know, to bring inside.

My mother followed behind him with both hands pressed to her mouth.

At first, I thought she was crying.

Then I saw her smiling through her fingers.

That smile frightened me more than Dolly did.

And on that day, I also decided to leave my home and never set foot in that house again.

I began planning how I could save money to escape from here. One day, my mother mentioned that my grandmother was so difficult and didn’t understand how they could live like that. In that moment, I realized she was the key to my escape plan. I tried to find out everything I could about her and asked my mother all about her. Unfortunately, it took me an enormous amount of time, and I had to endure living with my family for several more years. In the meantime, I had been secretly keeping in touch with my grandmother, who also knew about my plan and would take me in.

On my 16th birthday, when the clock struck midnight and everyone was asleep, I sneaked out and disappeared.

In the meanwhile, I had built a reasonably good life for myself. My grandma was kind, I graduated from high school, started college, and met my partner, Edgar. Unfortunately, my grandma passed away, and I had to find a place of my own to live. That’s when Edgar asked me if we wanted to move in together.

I had not seen my family in almost 10 years when the invitation appeared in our mailbox.

My name was written on the front in my mother’s handwriting.

Elise.

I stood in the hallway staring at it until Edgar came from the kitchen and asked me what was wrong. “Nothing,” I said.

It was the kind of lie one tells when the truth is too large to fit through the mouth.

Edgar, being kind and therefore foolish in the way kind people often are, took the envelope gently from my hand and turned it over.

“Is it from your parents?”

But I didn't answered.

He opened it before I could stop him.

Inside was a folded card, thick and cream-colored, smelling faintly of old drawers and dried flowers. On it, in the same careful handwriting, was written:

Our dearest Elise,

You and your partner are expected this Sunday for family dinner.

Seven o’clock.

Do not be late.

“No,” I said immediately.

Edgar looked up from the card. “No?”

“We’re not going.”

“Elise.”

“No.”

He gave that small, patient sigh I had come to know too well, the one he used when he thought I was making a cage out of old fears.

“They’re your family,” he said.

“That is exactly the problem.”

He wanted to meet them. Of course he did. Edgar believed there was something sacred in family, something worth repairing even when it had been left in ruin. He had grown up among birthdays, photographs on staircases, ordinary arguments, and mothers who cried at graduations instead of behind locked cellar doors.

He did not understand Frox.

No one who had not lived there could understand Frox.

It was a small town, though “town” feels too generous a word for it. Frox was a gathering of houses, a gas station, a church with no visible congregation, and a few streets that seemed to bend back into themselves when the fog came down. It sat in a low pocket of countryside where the trees grew thick and close, as though nature itself had tried to cover the place and failed.

I used to tell people I came from a suburb.

That was easier than saying I came from a community of lunatics.

Years ago, Frox had appeared in some state report or local article as one of the smallest places with one of the highest numbers of missing persons cases. I found that article when I was seventeen and read it three times in the library bathroom with my knees shaking.

Things like that happened in Frox.

People vanished.

And in my own house, things were worse.

When I was a child, my parents once brought home a stranger.

I do not know whether it was a man or a woman anymore. Memory has a merciful habit of blurring what would otherwise destroy us. I remember only a coat, a trembling shoulder, and the sound of muffled crying beneath the floorboards.

For three days, my father kept the basement door locked.

I never saw the person again.

There were other things too. Sounds in the walls. My brother laughing at empty corners until he made himself sick. My mother polishing the good knives with a tenderness I had never seen her use them for cooking.

But the day I decided I would leave Frox was the day my parents brought home Dolly.

“Elise,” he said, “this is your new sister.”

I laughed because I thought I was supposed to.

My mother slapped me so hard my lip split.

“Her name is Dolly,” she said. “And you will treat her with love.”

Dolly was not a simple doll after that.

Not in our house.

She had a chair at the table. She had dresses washed and ironed. She had a bedroom prepared for her beside mine. My mother kissed her forehead every night. My father spoke to her in a soft voice I had never heard him use with me.

I would have stayed gone forever, had Edgar not loved me enough to make the worst mistake of both our lives.

By Sunday evening, we were on the road to Frox.

The closer we came, the less Edgar spoke.

I watched the town reveal itself through the windshield, first the crooked sign, then the black pines, then the narrow houses with their dead lawns and curtained windows. Nothing had changed. That was the first thing that frightened me.

As we drove through the main street, faces appeared in the windows.

A woman stood in front of a laundromat with a basket in her arms, staring as our car passed. Her smile did not move. Two old men sat outside the barber shop, heads turned in perfect unison. A boy on a bicycle stopped pedaling in the middle of the road and watched us with his mouth stretched wide and wet.

Edgar slowed down.

“Do you know them?”

“No.”

“Why are they looking at us like that?”

“Because you’re new.”

A little girl pressed herself against the glass of a house window. Her palms flattened there. Her teeth showed. She kept smiling.

I looked away.

“We should stop for gas and snacks,” Edgar said.

“We shouldn’t stop anywhere.”

“We’ll be quick,” Edgar said.

I almost laughed.

Inside, the air smelled of burnt coffee, dust, and something fried long ago in old oil. The shelves were too full and too neat. Rows of canned soup faced forward with the labels aligned. Bags of chips hung perfectly still. Behind the counter stood the cashier.

He was insane.

That is the only word for it.

He stood as straight as a broom handle, arms at his sides, eyes open but fixed on nothing. He did not greet us when the bell over the door rang. He did not blink when Edgar picked up a bottle of water. He did not seem to breathe.

Edgar looked at me from the next aisle.

I shook my head once.

Do not ask, I meant.

He brought a few things to the counter. Water, mints, a cheap bottle of wine because he still thought politeness could protect him.

The cashier remained motionless.

Edgar cleared his throat.

“Hello?”

The cashier changed.

His face did not soften into expression. It was seized by it. His mouth shot open and dragged itself into a grin so wide it seemed painful. His eyes snapped toward us. His whole body jerked forward.

Then he screamed:

“HELLO, HELLO, AND WELCOME TO FROX GAS STATION! WE HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED! DO YOU NEED ANYTHING ELSE?”

Edgar stepped back.

The cashier’s eyes began to water.

Not a little.

Tears welled instantly, spilling down both cheeks while the grin remained bolted in place.

“DO YOU NEED ANYTHING ELSE?” he shouted again, louder.

I looked at Edgar and gave him the look I had learned as a child.

Pay. Smile. Leave.

Edgar’s hands shook as he handed over the money.

The cashier did not count it. He only stared at us, grinning and weeping, as if some terrible thing behind his face were trying to get out and could find no exit.

When we returned to the car, Edgar did not start the engine at once.

“What the hell was that?”

“That is Frox.”

“Elise”

“We’re late.”

That ended the conversation.

The last ten minutes to my parents’ house felt longer than the almost 10 years I had spent avoiding it. The road narrowed. The houses thinned. Trees pressed close to either side of the car. Every so often, Edgar glanced at me as if hoping I would tell him this was all some elaborate childhood exaggeration.

I said nothing.

At last, the house appeared.

It stood at the end of a long dirt driveway, pale and angular against the darkening sky. The porch sagged in the same place. The upstairs windows were black. The dining room windows glowed.

Of course they did.

Edgar parked.

I sat still for a moment with my hands in my lap, breathing as quietly as I could.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you want to leave?”

Yes, I thought.

More than anything I have ever wanted.

We got out.

The porch boards groaned beneath our feet. Edgar carried the wine.

I knocked.

No one answered.

I knocked again.

Silence.

Edgar looked at me. “Maybe they didn’t hear?”

“They heard.”

I pressed the door knob on the door.

It opened.

The hall smelled exactly as I remembered, furniture polish, candle wax, old wood, and the faint sourness of something rotten. I stepped inside and felt the house take notice of me.

“Mom?” I called.

Nothing.

“Dad?”

From the dining room came the scrape of a chair.

I closed my eyes for half a second.

Please, I thought. Just once. Just this one night. Be normal.

Then I led Edgar into the dining room.

My family was already seated.

All of them wore masks.

My father’s mask was long and pale, with a narrow mouth. My brother’s had round cheeks and a painted grin. My mother’s was white and smooth except for red lips and black eyeholes.

Dolly did not wear a mask.

Tradition. For new guests. I said loudly to Edgar before he was able to ask.

Dolly's porcelain face shone softly in the candlelight. Someone had dressed her in a frilled blouse and brushed her yellow hair into two stiff loops that rose above her head like a heart. Her black eyes reflected Edgar in miniature.

No one spoke.

They stared at us.

The silence grew so complete that I could hear Edgar swallow.

Then my mother slammed a knife into the table.

The blade stood quivering in the wood.

“A LITTLE RESPECT,” she stammered, her voice shaking with rage. “BEING ON TIME TO A FAMILY DINNER IS NOT TOO MUCH TO ASK.”

Edgar flinched so hard the wine bottle knocked against his leg.

My mother rose.

The anger left her all at once. That was always the worst part of her. Her moods did not change.

She came toward me with open arms.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Her hand touched my cheek. She stroked it gently.

“My beautiful daughter.”

I stood still.

I had learned early that one survives certain animals by not moving.

Then her head turned sharply toward Edgar.

“AND YOU?”

Edgar froze.

My mother stepped close to him.

“HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF SAYING HELLO?”

“H-hello,” Edgar said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She lifted her hand to his face and brushed her fingers also over his cheek.

Slowly.

Testingly.

“I understand why Elise likes you,” she murmured. “You look delicious.”

“Mama,” I said quickly.

Her mask turned toward me.

Do not correct me, darling.

Then she laughed.

“Sit,” she said.

We sat.

The food was already on the table.

It looked worse than I remembered, which should not have been possible. A gray roast lay sliced open on a platter, swimming in dark sauce. The vegetables were pale and swollen. Something gelatinous trembled in a crystal bowl. The smell was sweet, salty, and faintly rotten beneath too many herbs.

Edgar tried not to react.

He failed.

His mouth tightened. His nose wrinkled. It lasted only a second.

My father saw.

His chair shrieked backward as he stood.

“IS THE FOOD NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?”

“No, sir,” Edgar said immediately. “I didn’t mean”

My father leaned over him.

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" My wife has worked for this dinner. This family has waited for this dinner.”

“Dad,” I said.

He did not stop.

“You come into my house late, you sit at my table, you look at my food like it crawled out of a drain”

“Dad, please.”

He turned his mask toward me.

“Can we just sit together normally?”

For a moment, no one moved.

Then Father sat down.

My mother folded her hands.

My brother giggled once beneath his mask.

Dolly stared at Edgar.

Edgar leaned toward me. His lips barely moved.

“Is that a doll?”

The table went still.

Not quiet.

So still that I was suddenly begin to hear my own breath trembling.

Even the candles seemed to stop moving.

I felt my mother looking at me. I felt my father waiting. I felt my brother smile beneath his painted grin.

Dolly’s black eyes shone.

I forced my fork into the gray meat on my plate.

“That is Dolly,” I said, my mouth trembling. “My sister.”

Edgar understood then that he had done something dangerous.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Don’t apologize to me,” I said under my breath.

He looked at Dolly.

“I’m sorry, Dolly.”

The silence loosened.

My mother gave a pleased little sigh.

“There,” she said. “Manners are not impossible.”

I stabbed my fork into the food again, and again, again and again, not eating, only tearing it apart.

Across the table, my brother’s knee bounced harder.

“I want to get up,” he said.

Mother did not look at him. “After dinner.”

“I want to get up now.”

“After dinner.”

“I’m bored.”

“After dinner.”

“I hate this.”

“After dinner.”

His breathing quickened. His hands curled. The fork in his right hand shook violently.

Father said, “Control yourself.”

My brother turned his masked face toward him.

Then, without warning, he raised the fork and drove it straight through the back of his own hand.

The metal struck the table beneath with a wet tap.

Edgar made a strangled sound.

Blood spread over the white tablecloth.

My brother held up his pinned hand and screamed:

“CAN I GET UP NOW?”

Mother dabbed at the corner of her mask with a napkin.

“After dinner,” she said.

The rest of the meal passed in a fever dream.

I remember fragments. Edgar’s pale face. My father chewing with slow, theatrical patience. My mother asking uncomfortable questions.

Do your parents know where you are tonight, Edgar?”

"Is your family missing you, while you are here with us?"

“Do you have allergies, Edgar? Anything we should know before dessert?”

Each time Edgar hesitated, my mother smiled behind her mask as though hesitation itself were an answer.

Dolly remained motionless beside me.

Yet once, when I lowered my eyes to my plate, I saw her porcelain hand resting closer to Edgar’s than before.

At last, my mother rang a small bell.

Dinner was over.

I exhaled too soon.

My father stood and placed a hand on Edgar’s shoulder.

“Come,” he said. “You should see the house.”

I stood at once.

“NO.”

Every mask turned toward me.

My father’s hand tightened on Edgar.

Mother tilted her head.

“Elise,” she said softly. “You have been away too long. You have forgotten how we behave with guests.”

“He doesn’t need a tour.”

“Nonsense,” Father said. “Our guest should see where he’ll be spending the evening.”

Edgar looked at me.

“It’s okay,” he said, attempting a smile. “I’ll be right back.”

I wanted to tell him that people in my family’s house were always right back until they were not.

But Father was already guiding him into the hallway.

My mother watched me from the table.

Dolly’s head was angled toward the door.

My brother sat with his fork still through his hand, humming to himself.

“Elise,” Mother said. “Why don’t you go upstairs? Your room is exactly as you left it.”

I left the dining room because staying was also not an option for me.

The staircase creaked under my weight. The upper hallway smelled of dust and lavender. On the walls hung family portraits I remembered from childhood, though the faces seemed stranger now. A few crazy frox people. Some had been scratched until only the eyes remained. In one frame, there was an empty chair painted between my parents. And in another, wait. In our family portrait is also dolly but to this time she was not even existing.

My bedroom door stood open, and I looked inside.

The room was untouched.

The narrow bed. The pale wallpaper. The old stuffed lamb on the pillow. The curtains I used to hate.

On the bed layed a photo. A photo from dolly and me when I was a child.

My throat tightened.

I backed away and nearly stumbled into the opposite wall.

That was when I saw the light under my father’s office door.

I had never been allowed in there.

Once, I touched the doorknob and heard my father say from inside, without opening it:

“Elise, curious people are the easiest to bury.”

Now the door was not fully closed.

Voices murmured somewhere below. Father’s voice. Edgar’s nervous laugh. A floorboard groaning.

I pushed the office door open.

The room was smaller than I remembered. Bookshelves lined the walls. A desk stood beneath the window. On it lay a thick folder, open beneath the yellow glow of a lamp.

Then I saw the papers inside.

Missing posters.

So many of them that my mind refused to understand what my eyes had already seen.

Faces looked up at me from the folder. Young faces. Old faces.

Arrived alone.

No relatives nearby.

I turned the pages faster.

There was a delivery driver I remembered from childhood.

My breath caught.

I pressed a hand over my mouth.

Then I turned another page and found myself looking at a little girl in a red dress.

For several seconds, I did not understand.

The child in the photograph had my eyes and my hair.

Beneath the picture, in bold black letters, were written:

MISSING CHILD

ELISE MARROW

AGE: 3

LAST SEEN NEAR FROX COUNTY FAIR

WARNING: CHILD MAY BE IN THE COMPANY OF ADULTS CLAIMING TO BE HER FAMILY.

I stopped breathing.

The house seemed to tilt around me.

I read the words again and again.

They did not change.

All my life, I had believed this is my family.

Behind me, the office door clicked shut.

And then a soft doll voice whispered:

“ Family Dinner is not over, Elise.”

Abonnieren

Beyond the gate of thorn and bone

where silver weeds are overgrown.

There lies a garden, pale and still

that blooms beneath a moonless hill.

No rose unfolds, no violets sleep

no lilies guard the shadows deep.

But from the soil, cold beneath

rise ivory buds like rows of teeth.

They glimmer faint in ghostly light

like pearls once stolen from the night.

And every bloom, so smooth, so white

keeps secrets buried out of sight.

The roots below, like fingers, creep

through graves where nameless dreamers sleep.

They drink from whispers, dust, and breath

and flower softly into death.

At midnight, when the air turns thin

the garden wakes and breathes within.

It’s pale buds part, its stems lean near

as if the dreamers still could hear.

And those who touch the teeth in bloom

are led through fog to silent doom.

For every blossom, white and small

was once a mouth that tried to call.

So pass the gate, but do not stay

nor brush the ivory blooms away.

For if their roots should taste your breath

they’ll plant your smile beneath the earth.

Abonnieren

I woke beneath the blackest night

my heart still filled with fear and fright.

For in my dream I tried to flee

from thousand spiders chasing me.

They crawled behind, they crawled ahead

around my feet, beneath my bed

their little legs, so fast and thin

crept slowly underneath my skin.

I ran through halls that had no end

through rotting rooms that twisted, bent

while all around, from wall to wall

the spiders answered to my call.

I screamed and fell upon the floor

then woke beside my bedroom door.

The room was dark. The house was still.

The air itself had turned to chill.

I closed my eyes. I tried to breathe.

I pulled the blanket to my teeth.

“It was no more than just a dream”

I whispered weakly in the dim.

Then from the walls I heard a sound.

A scratching noise beneath the ground.

A thousand little tapping feet

like tiny drums beneath the sheet.

The noise grew louder by my bed

something moved beside my head.

The wallpaper began to shake

I thought my mind was going to break.

Then from the cracks they started pouring

tiny spiders by the scoring

black little bodies, small and vile

crawling farther mile by mile.

Across the ceiling, down the door

A living wave across the floor

inside my sheets, across my skin

I felt their legs all crawling in.

Abonnieren

Rosie, Rosie

don’t turn around

the faceless rabbit’s crawling

low upon the ground

Rosie, Rosie

hide beneath the bed

it left you white flowers

and a note that said, dead

Rosie, Rosie

don’t look behind

the faceless rabbit’s waiting

where the lost dreams die

Rosie, Rosie

the garden starts to bleed

white petals turn to ashes

black roots begin to feed

Rosie, Rosie

he’s coming through the dark

the signs are all around

it won’t be very long

till there’s nowhere left to run

Rosie, Oh Rosie

don’t follow where he goes

he brings you dead white flowers

from where the darkness grows

Rosie, ohh Rosie

don’t listen when he calls

he scratches at your window

and whispers through the walls

Rosie, ohh no Rosie

now the moon stopped to glow

the faceless rabbit found you

and dragged you down below.

A new museum was planning to open in the city of Velmora.

The house, which had once been a museum as well but had stood empty for many years, planned to open again one morning, at the end of the old chestnut avenue, where the mist refused to retreat even in summer. It was a narrow building of black stone, with tall windows that never reflected the light. Above the door hung a tarnished brass sign.

THE PUPPETEER'S CABINET

Curiosities in Porcelain

People in town spoke about it quietly.

They said the owner was a polite elderly man. He sold no tickets, sold no souvenirs, and only smiled when someone asked why his museum had no opening hours.

“Art,” he would say, “needs no opening hours. Only admiration.”

He had always wanted to own a museum.

Even as a child, he had loved shop windows. Not the things inside them, but the way they were placed there, frozen, ordered, freed from every unrest.

People, he thought, were put together wrong.

Too loud. Too common. Too boring.

And so he began to collect them.

The famous, the rich, the extroverted, the energetic. To teach. His special jewels were the introverted and the quiet: the woman who walked alone through the train station at night, the boy who wore his headphones too loudly, the old man whose neighbors believed he had gone away. People who fell out of the world for a moment and never returned to it. They were already people who carried a great deal of silence within themselves. For them, he had a special place in the cabinet.

In his cellar, it smelled of cold porcelain, rosewater, and fear.

The chairs stood in a row, each adorned with silk ribbons. On the walls hung scissors, needles, small gleaming instruments, sorted as neatly as cutlery for a feast. The Puppeteer worked slowly. Never hastily. Never in anger.

He hated blood.

Blood was disorderly.

He cut hair according to his own vision, strand by strand, until the foreign heads fit into his dreams. He sewed mouths into tiny lines so that no pleading could disturb the beauty. He smoothed, altered, corrected, shaped. Not to kill, he told himself again and again, but to complete.

“Still,” he whispered to his victims when they trembled. “Soon you will be beautiful.”

And in the end, he carried them upstairs.

Into the great hall.

There they stood behind glass.

His collection.

A woman in a white lace dress, her hands folded elegantly. A man in a velvet suit, his eyes fixed on an imaginary horizon. A woman with long hair, forced into a ballet pose, so elegant that visitors had wept when they saw her.

Every figure had a sign.

The Lonely Bridegroom.

The Man in Frost.

The Crying Ballerina

The Porcelain Lady in Black Lace.

The Girl with the Cherry-Red Ribbon.

The Porcelain Lady was the most popular doll in his collection because he was able to cover her almost entirely in porcelain.

He arranged them exactly as he wished.

Head to the left. Fingers bent. Lips closed. Back straight.

If one sagged, he corrected it.

If an eye felt too much like life, he covered it with glass.

If a tear fell, he coated it with varnish.

Every evening, the Puppeteer walked through his museum, his cane, which he already needed on occasion, tapping softly on the marble floor. He stopped before every glass case and nodded with satisfaction, as though greeting old friends.

“You understand me,” he said. “You are finally quiet.”

But one winter, as frost painted flowers upon the windows, he noticed something.

A hand had moved.

Only a finger.

He stood still.

Silence ruled the hall, but it was no longer the silence he loved. This silence breathed. It waited. It had teeth.

The Puppeteer stepped closer to the glass case of the dancer. Her face was pale, flawless, painted with that false gentleness he had given her. Her mouth was closed. Forever, he had believed.

Then something cracked.

Not loudly.

Only a tiny fracture in the porcelain.

The dancer smiled.

First with her mouth.

Then with her eyes.

Behind him, glass began to sing. A fine, high ringing, like voices beneath water. All throughout the hall, cracks spread across the display cases. Hands twitched. Heads inclined. Joints that should no longer have obeyed remembered.

The Puppeteer stepped back.

“No,” he whispered. “You are my art.”

Then the lady in black lace turned toward him.

Slowly.

Beautifully.

Impossibly.

No scream came from her sewn-shut mouth. Only a sound like tearing thread.

Then another.

And another.

The doors of the museum slammed shut.

The next morning, the mist hung even thicker than before, and a new sentence had been engraved upon the brass sign.

THE PUPPETEER

Curiosities in Porcelain

New Exhibition Opened

In the great hall stood a new glass case.

Inside it sat a man with gloves, a cane across his knees, and a smile that was far too clean. His hair was neatly parted. His mouth was sealed with black thread. His hands hung from thin strings that descended from the ceiling.

The sign beneath it read:

The Puppeteer.

And when the wind passed through the chestnut trees at night, one could sometimes hear a faint tapping from the museum.

Not only from a cane, from the owner trying to free himself.

But also from porcelain against glass.

And from the lost souls who, because of the Puppeteer, would now remain there with him forever.

Trapped inside the museum.

Waiting behind the glass.

For the next visitors.

I wander through the endless woods

life passes by, as time it should.

Among the pines, so dark, so deep

among the pines, where shadows seep.

The path ahead turns dark and grim

the fading light grows ever dim.

I walk and walk, then turn around

the way behind no more is found.

My breath is tight, the air constrains

the darkness weaves its shadowed chains.

I close my eyes to feel no fear

and when I open, hope draws near.

A black-winged butterfly takes flight

it's flutter calls me toward the light.

I follow through the dimmest glade

where melodies from silence played.

The music rises, soft yet strong

it's haunting notes a healing song.

I stop where echoes loudest ring

and sense the hope new feelings bring.

Here I’ll remain, where songs can stay

and guide my heart through night and day.

For in this place, I’ve come to see

the truest light is born in me.