All Chapters of Horror Nights: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I was alone in the elevator.It was past 2 a.m., and the office building felt like a tomb. I had stayed late finishing a report that could have waited until morning. Now I just wanted to get home, collapse into bed, and forget the fluorescent lights and the endless spreadsheets. The elevator arrived with its familiar soft ding, and I stepped inside, pressing the button for the ground floor. The doors slid shut. Silence wrapped around me like a blanket.Then the doors opened again.No one was outside. The hallway was empty, the emergency lights casting long, sickly shadows across the marble floor. I frowned and pressed the close button. The doors obediently began to shut.They opened again.I sighed, irritation mixing with the late-night fog in my brain. “Seriously?” I muttered. Maybe a sensor was faulty. I stepped forward and waved my hand through the doorway. Nothing. I hit the close button harder. The doors started to close once more.They opened again.This was getting ridiculous.

It started as a curiosity, a dusty antique I picked up at a garage sale for twenty bucks. It was a tall, ornate thing with silver filigree that seemed to catch the light even in the dimmest corners of my apartment. The first time the words appeared—etched into the condensation after my morning shower—I thought it was a prank. “Don’t eat pizza.” I stared at the glass, confused. I had planned to order my usual pepperoni from the place three blocks down. I decided to skip it, opting for a bowl of cereal instead. Two hours later, a gas leak triggered a massive explosion, leveling the pizzeria and injuring a dozen people.I was shaken, but grateful. The next week, when the mirror commanded “Take the stairs,” I didn’t question it. My knees ached for hours after climbing thirteen floors to my office, but by the time I reached my desk, the news was breaking: the elevator in my building had suffered a catastrophic cable failure. It had plummeted to the basement.The mirror became my guardian.

The dirt under my fingernails has turned a permanent shade of charcoal, a stubborn stain that no amount of scrubbing can remove. It is a reminder of the labor, the exertion, the sheer physical toll of the last few weeks. My back aches, a dull, throbbing protest against the heavy lifting, and my boots are still caked in the thick, clay-heavy mud of the woods behind the house.My girlfriend is still sitting on the sofa. But I have buried her like seven times now.I stand in the entryway, the front door ajar, letting the autumn wind whip through the foyer. I am trembling. My breath hitches in my throat, a ragged, uneven sound in the sudden silence of the living room. She is there, just as she always is. She is wearing the same oversized cable-knit sweater, her hair pulled back in that messy bun she favors, a book resting in her lap. She doesn’t look up. She doesn't even acknowledge the draft I’ve just invited into our home.The first time it happened, I panicked. It was a tragedy, an acc

"Damn internet," I complained to my friend as I turned off the video chat — whatever it was that crawled behind him, I don't want that thing to remember my face.Let me go back.It was late, maybe a little past midnight. I was video chatting with Elias, my oldest friend. We'd known each other since college, and even though he'd moved across the country three years ago, we still talked every week. Tonight was no different. He was telling me about his new apartment, complaining about the leaky faucet and the neighbor who played drums at 2 a.m. Normal stuff."Seriously, Elias, just move," I muttered, my own voice sounding alien and thin in the silence of my bedroom."I can't, it’s—" His voice hitched, distorted by a burst of static that sounded like wet tearing.I frowned, waiting for the audio to catch up. That was when I saw it.Behind Elias, in the corner of his dimly lit room, something moved. It wasn't a shadow; it was too textured, too substantial. It was a pale, elongated shape, d

"I hate you, mother! I'm leaving this house!" I tried five times, and finally made the writing looking like my daughter's.I sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by crumpled balls of paper. The clock on the wall said 3:17 a.m. Outside, the rain had finally stopped, but the gutters still dripped—a steady, rhythmic sound that reminded me of a heartbeat. Or a countdown.My hands were shaking. Not from cold. From what I had done.Four attempts before this one. The first time, the letters were too neat. Emily never wrote neatly. Her handwriting slanted left, against all logic, the way a left-handed person might write if forced to use the right hand. The second attempt, I made it too messy, too angry. Emily's anger was quiet. Passive-aggressive. The third and fourth were closer, but the 'e' was wrong. Emily always looped her 'e' like a little eye. I kept making it a circle.But this fifth one. This one was perfect.I held the paper up to the light. The ink was blue—her favorite pen, the one