Eztli
I gasped when I heard a soothing yet dangerous voice behind me. The voice was so chilled that it sent shivers down my spine. The darkness in the house was adding to the grill and fear in my racing heart.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I rushed to open the door which seemed stuck somehow.
The windows were painted black with some sticky material on it. I rubbed it with my fingers and smelled it, it was grease and smelling foul. I banged the door hard but nothing happened.
“What is this place?” I was really scared, and I might shit my pants if this door doesn’t get open.
“Someone help me.. I am stuck here….” I screamed at the top of my lungs but nothing worked.
This place is almost empty and now my friend has no idea where I am. The horror of getting stuck here was killing me and the grizzling sound of the wind from the windows was terrifying to the core. I was literally guilty of coming to this place. My exploration thoughts brought me here and now I will die here.
Suddenly, something fell inside the house and the noise scared me, I screamed and rushed to open the door yet it was stuck and won;t budge.
I realised that I had a flashlight in my backpack and I took it out. Turned the flashlight one and I screamed while watching the wall’s of the house. They were painted with handprints dipped in blood. So many prints, I can't even count. The place looked abandoned from years and moldy fungus was there everywhere.
“Scared?” Suddenly, I saw a face in the darkness, and I screamed as loudly as I could. My flashlight slipped from my hand and I watched the woman crawling at me. Her arms and legs were burned and the wounds pustulating.
I threw up after seeing that and lost my voice to call anyone for help. My pulses started to low down and the darkness was consuming me as I saw her approaching me bit by bit.
Suddenly, the door burst open and someone dragged me outside that haunted house. I can hear the commotion yet every noise disonnent and lights fade out.
“Wait.. water.. Give her water!!!!” I heard Andre’s voice and I gasped loudly.
“Andre…. She was there….” I said with a wheezing sound coming with my voice.
“Drink water.. You are fine now… why did you go inside that house? It could be dangerous.” Andre scolded me but I can bear anything now.
“You got us scared, you know we were so worried for you, Ezi…” Layla was shouting as well.
But it was my fault, now i was confused whether to tell them what i saw there inside that house. I guess that will be a bad idea, Layla will curse all the way back to home, or maybe she will tell our parents about this.
God damn! My parents will never allow me to go anywhere.
“I was just hyperventilating. It was dark there and the door won't open.” i said to them.
“These doors are years old, they might get stuck. Don’t do this again..” Andre was concerned and explained politely.
“Maybe we should go back?” I asked him.
“Are you sure?” he inquired.
I nodded and stayed silent. My inner girl was still scared of what I saw. Suddenly, I recalled what that man said. She spotted us. Who is she?
“Okay.. but after spotting the place where that witch/woman was burned. I will take some photographs of the place for my project and then we will leave, okay?” he asked and I nodded in agreement.
Layla puffed her face and went ahead of us.
“She will be fine…” Andre assured me and I shrugged that weird feeling of me getting watched by that woman.
She will haunt my nights for sure. I was wondering what could have happened if I stuck in that house? Maybe they dragged my dead body outside. I shouldn’t think much about this. Once we leave this place, I won't be coming back.
Soon, we reached that spot where the witch was burned. There were some signs where it was written clearly that her ghost has been spotted several times so please don’t roam around. Suddenly, the hair on my body raised and I had that feeling of getting watched that bothered me again.
“It was a big discussion place and this was the main garden, where that witch was burned. I heard from the local tourists that the witch had a daughter with her whom the townsfolk took away and killed her later.” Andre read the guide book about this place.
“What if her daughter never died and she is still alive? Maybe she is the one haunting this place to seek revenge…” Layla chuckled and I scrunched my brows at her behaviour.
I saw the pole where she was tied and burned alive. There were burned marks on the pole and it was black from the fire. Somehow, I felt sad for that woman.
“Or maybe she was never a witch and falsely accused by the town folks.. Maybe she was just an innocent woman running away from her misery. Maybe she was independent and that was never accepted by the townsfolk. Who knows?” i put up my point of view about this rumour.
“Anything can be possible but no one knows the truth…” Andre said.
Suddenly, I had this urge to touch that pole as it seems familiar to me. When my hand was in contact with the pole, my surroundings changed and I saw a beautiful woman tied around the pole. It was a horrific night and the people around her were throwing stones at her.
Calling her names and I saw everything with my eyes. She was screaming and crying for her baby which was in the arms of a stranger. She smiled devilishly and went away with the child while the others set her on fire. Her screams went through my ears and I bleed for the tortured she was through before she died.
My surroundings returned to normal when Andre’s camera flushed a light. Until I realised that Lyala is nowhere to be seen, i become panicked and asked Andre to help find her.
“LAYLA???” we called out her name numerous times but no response.
“Layla, please stop parking.. This is really important.. We have to head back as the time is getting over…” Andre called her but still no response.
“Did she go back without us?” I thought amd asked Andre.
“No… that couldn’t be… she is a coward and won't risk it at all.” yep he said true.
Suddenly, I noticed her back running into one of the random streets.
“She was there, come…” I said and followed her.
I kept watching her back before she ran away.
“Layla…”
“She is back… she is back… the blood will be shed and she will bathe in that….” Layla chanted these words facing her back at me.
“Layla?” I called her.
She laughed and turned to look at me. I was shocked to see her black eyes, bleeding and I fell to the ground.
“She is back…..” she said before falling off the cliff behind her.
“Layla……” I screamed and Andre rushed to get her but it was too late.
“Oh no…” he pulled his hair in frustration.
I got the courage to stand and watch the horror in front of my eyes. The cliff wasn’t an ordinary cliff but it was a small well, and there were metallic spikes standing long in which Layla fell and died.
“LAYLAA!!!!!”
The sunlight bleeding through the curtains barely managed to warm the cold pit in my stomach. I stood by the window of Andre’s penthouse, watching the city stir to life. I hadn’t told him yet, but my chest ached every time I blinked—expecting to see that reflection again. That face. Her face. The one that kept showing up in my nightmares, in mirrors, in every corner of my collapsing sanity.Andre walked in with two cups of coffee, setting one down beside me. "Sleep any better?"I forced a small smile and took the cup. "I had a nightmare. Again."He sat beside me on the armrest, giving me that brotherly look of concern I hadn’t seen in years. "The one with the witch?"I nodded."You know," he said, tapping his mug lightly against mine, "there’s a way we can figure this out. You need to dig into the town’s past. We find out who she is, what she wants. Maybe even why you."I bit my lip. "You want me to go back to that ghost town?"He nodded slowly. "I know it’s not ideal, but this isn’t
I took the box carefully, the weight of it unsettling. “What’s in it?”“The next step.”“That’s cryptic.”Fiona raised a brow. “Darling, you’re being haunted by a soul scorched from history and possessed by vengeance. Did you expect a brochure and a welcome kit?”Andre burst out laughing, and to my surprise, I joined him. Even Fiona cracked a smile.It felt like we were breathing again. Just a little.Outside, the wind howled low and hungry, the forest groaning in its wake. I stared out the small window as Fiona handed me a pouch of dried herbs.“For dreams,” she said. “It won’t make them go away. But it might help you survive them.”I nodded, clutching the box tighter.When we left the apothecary, the sky was already bleeding into dusk. Andre held my hand as we walked back to his car, his grip grounding me. We didn’t speak much, and honestly, I was grateful. My thoughts were already clawing at each other inside my skull.“She’s intense,” he said once we were driving again. “But not t
The tires crunched over gravel as Andre's car came to a reluctant stop. The road behind us had vanished into dense forest, the canopy above so thick it nearly swallowed the daylight. Before us stood a small, crooked cottage, its roof covered in moss and its wooden walls faded by years of rain and wind. It looked like something out of a nightmare fairytale. If a witch stepped out with a cursed apple, I wouldn’t be surprised.“This is it?” I asked, peering out the windshield.Andre nodded, shutting off the engine. “Looks cozy, right?”“Cozy in a ‘you’ll die if you spend the night here’ kind of way.”He snorted. “Come on, don’t be dramatic. She’s harmless. Mostly.”I followed him out of the car, my boots sinking slightly into the damp forest floor. The smell of pine and earth was sharp in the air, and everything was so quiet it made my skin crawl. No birds. No wind. Just the muffled sound of our footsteps as we approached the cottage.Andre knocked on the door.Once.Twice.Three times.
The room was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that clawed at your throat. I sat on the bed, my fingers clenched around the termination letter like it had personally betrayed me. The words blurred together under the dim light of my bedside lamp, but the sting of it was clear.You are hereby dismissed from your position…Effective immediately…Due to incidents of misconduct…What a joke.I let the paper fall from my hands and flutter to the floor like a dying bird. I wasn’t going to cry. Not again.Instead, I started to pack.Clothes. Toiletries. My books. My notebook with all the scrawled warnings and half-baked theories about the woman—the witch. A few faded photographs that used to make this place feel like a temporary home. Now it was nothing more than a reminder that I didn’t belong here. Not with the rest of them. Not in this sterile, fearful building that watched me like I might combust at any moment.I stuffed the last of my things into my bag, zipped it up, and threw on my
It was strange how quickly things could shift. One minute, I was shattering glass with a scream. The next, I was sitting on a cracked bench outside a convenience store with Andre beside me, sharing a can of cheap beer.The night was cool, but not biting. The air held that quiet stillness only small, sleepy towns could offer—like the universe hit the mute button just for us.Andre took a long sip and exhaled. “Okay, so the guy who runs that ramen place on 3rd Street? Still alive. Still creepy. Still thinks I’m twelve.”I snorted. “He once told me I’d make a good ‘quiet bride.’ I was fourteen.”He gagged and took another sip. “Disgusting. If I ever become famous, remind me to sue him for emotional damage.”“Done.”The beer was bad—bitter and watery—but somehow perfect. For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t seeing flashes of death, or hearing whispers that didn’t belong in this world. I wasn’t watching Matthew closely to guess if he was a liar. I was just… Eztli. Sitting with someone who
There’s a certain peace that comes from mindless work—data charts, blood samples, chemical readings. For a moment, I wasn’t the girl haunted by ash-covered women and glowing scars. I was just Eztli, the intern who knew how to process anomalous blood samples faster than anyone else in the lab. I could hear the subtle awe from the techs around me. Whispers like, “She’s a natural,” and “How did she get this fast?”Because I’m cursed. That’s how.Still, I smiled through it. I needed normal, even if it was pretend.Until Jonas ruined it.He walked in like he owned the place, with that arrogant, superior expression that made me want to throw a microscope at his face. I noticed his glare the second he entered, and I swear I felt my stomach twist. I didn’t want to deal with him. Not today.“Of course she’s getting praised,” he muttered loudly enough for the entire lab to hear. “What else do you expect from a witch?”The word sliced through the air like a dagger.Every head turned.Laughter di