Startling awake with a jolt, I sit upright. Pain stings through my body.
The light...it's off.
My heart pounds frantically. I slowly crawl towards where the lamp now looms in utter darkness. The bulb had shattered. A scurry comes from somewhere in the pitch black house. I head towards the sound. So weak. So scared.
I creep silently towards what could barely pass as a kitchen. There's an old fashioned refrigerator with a few pots, some bottles, a pan, and a couple plate shards all scattered haphazardly on the counter. A foul odor escapes from the doors of the fridge. I grab ahold of the handle. It's covered with a slick greasy substance...oil? I pull, but the door is stuck. I give it a hard yank and it falls completely off making a loud echoing slam against the floor. A sickening smell instantly fills the room. A mixture of oil and rot. Shuddering, I look into the refrigerator's grimy darkness. My mouth drops open. Inside covered in grease is a human foot with pieces of missing flesh. The toenails still in place are painted a bright pink. I faint as the smell takes over.

Groggily, I roll over. I'm on a hard thin mattress in a bare room. What type of awful nightmare was that? My god, just remembering it makes my stomach turn. So horrid. So insane.

I lay there for a moment, just glad it wasn’t real. Relief washes over my body. Abruptly, I sit up. But where am I now? It’s dark. I must’ve been out for a while. I stumble off the bed and to the window. Horror fills me. I’m in the same silent hopeless town. Was it not a dream? Pain shoots through my head. I turn away from the window and scream as I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a dirty greasy dimly lit mirror on the back wall. My face is burnt in multiple places. My hair pulled out in tufts. But my eyes. My eyes were black pits of lifeless horror. Of evil.

What happened to me?
What happened?
The shock of my appearance sends me into panic.

I scramble down the stairs to the living room. There are bodies everywhere. Rotting, disintegrating. Rats scurry in and out of them, nibbling on pieces as they pass. I am in a hell of my own making. I can't get out. I pass out cold on a bed of death.

I come to once again. This time in a little flat comfortable furnished. Please let the horror be over. The nightmares make me question my sanity. I feel so drained, so weak. I'm terrified by how real it all felt.

I slowly sit up. Groggily, I push my hair out of my face and take in a deep breath. Flicking on the light, I tiredly walk towards the bathroom. I need a shower to clear my head. I turn on the water. Before undressing, I take a look in the mirror and gasp in complete horror. The eyes staring back at me aren't mine. They're lifeless black pits.

I can't escape.

A newspaper clipping is taped to the corner of the mirror. The title blares "Driver Falls Asleep at the Wheel Killing her Best Friend in Horrible Car Accident".

The guilt swarms over once again, and I collapse in tears on the floor.

I'll never escape.

-written by Hannah Schoeneman

I showed my friends and a couple locals the footage on the camera, and they reacted as I had. My friends couldn’t believe it. The locals were shocked. One local said to me in broken English, “the curse. The one.” I didn’t understand what he meant until I heard the story the following afternoon.

I was walking across a dangling rope and wood bridge. It reached from one cliff to the other. Underneath it was this huge body of water. This body of water was completely surrounded by land. However, it was very deep and salty and known for having large and strange creatures in its midst. While walking across the swinging rope bridge, a local ran up to me saying he had been looking everywhere for me. He then proceeded to tell me a story that sounded like a fairy tale. He told me the old wives tale that their village had passed down through the years. It was a story of creatures, a story of sea monsters, a story of curses, and a story of a local who would rule over the sea creatures below. However, awful things could and would happen to the village..curses. He told me to be careful and ran off. I was taken aback. What the hell was going on? It was laughable almost that this story was believed, and even more laughable that these villagers thought I might be “the one.” I went into my little cottage and fell asleep.

The next day a friend met me at the little cottage, and we decided to go swimming. I had heard of a beautiful coral reef and wanted to check it out. To get there, one had to swim out to a cave underwater, dive deep down and there it would be. We managed to find it, and the colors of the coral were everything I had heard about. It was a majestic shimmering, magical, living reef. I can’t even describe the beauty of its aura. Then, amidst our awe, a dark shadow was cast over the coral. I look up from the bottom of the sea and meet eyes with a dark slimy cold-looking monster. Its eyes were focused right on me, staring into me. I felt such fear at that moment, such cold dread as it started swimming closer to me. I pushed up from the bottom, swimming quickly up and toward the cave wall. The creature followed just behind until I reached the wall. I was stuck. I had gone the wrong way. The exit was on the other side, past the looming creature who kept getting closer and closer. My friend and I were hard-pressed to the back of the slippery slimy cave with nowhere to go. We held each other as the monster was right upon us now. He circled my feet, touching me with his fin. He then rubbed his face against my leg- not menacingly, but like a cat seeking attention. He rubbed against me then circled then rubbed again. I decided to take this as a cue to leave, pushing off the wall and over the creature’s head. He followed me, but didn’t strike out, didn’t try to eat me. He trailed me, just like a loyal dog, until I reached the sandy beach shore. The sea monster lifted his giant face out of the water and spit out a skeleton bracelet onto my leg. It was actually quite unique: made of skeleton and pearls, and it covered the top of your hand, attaching to each finger with a pearl ring. I was drawn to it, and felt the desire to wear it. I slid it onto my right hand. At that point, the creature leapt out of the water and catapulted back in causing a tidal wave. The wave brought a whole host of living beings who all proceeded to touch my legs with a fin then slide back into the depths.

..to be continued.