Grandma Agatha had prepared the guest rooms with heavy quilts and flickering candles, insisting that we stay the night. For most of my life, I had lived in blissful ignorance, enjoying every moment without knowing that a dark curse was trailing me, waiting for the right moment to strike and end my life.
The night was shattered when a heavy, booming thud echoed through the floorboards. Jax and I bolted upright, our hearts hammering against our ribs. We scanned the shadows of the ceiling, but the noise hadn't come from our room—it had come from below. We scrambled out of bed and raced downstairs, our bare feet thumping against the cold wood. In the hallway, the rest of the family stood like statues, their faces pale and paralyzed with fear. They were all staring into Ruby's room.
I pushed past them and gasped. An unnatural chill gripped the air, turning my breath into a faint mist. Ruby's body was hovering several feet off the bed, rising slowly toward the ceiling as if suspended by invisible wires. Her limbs hung limp, and her eyes were pressed shut in a deep, hollow sleep.
Then, with a sickening crack, her neck twisted. Her face turned toward mine, though her eyes never opened. A wide, jagged smile stretched across her face—a smile that didn't belong to her. She opened her mouth and unleashed a scream that tore through the house. It wasn't a human voice; it was a high-pitched, metallic screech that felt like it was vibrating inside my very skull. The force of the sound was physical. I clamped my hands over my ears and collapsed to my knees, burying my face against the floor to escape the noise.
Then, the world went dead.
The silence was so absolute it felt heavy. I couldn't hear the wind, the house creaking, or even the sound of my own frantic breathing. It was as if I had been submerged underwater. Panicked, I began tapping my ears, desperate to know if I had gone deaf.
When I finally looked up, the air in the room was still. The space where Ruby had been floating was empty. She was gone.
"She has vanished!" Jax's voice finally broke through the void, sounding thin and terrified.
Charlie stepped forward, his face grim in the moonlight. "Theo, this isn't just a haunting," he whispered, his voice trembling. "She is possessed. We don't have much time. We have to find her before whatever is inside her takes her away for good."
We started to search every nook and cranny, only to find nothing. I leaned against the cold stone wall of the hallway, trying to catch my breath. My mind was spinning. I'd only known Ruby for a short time—a matter of weeks, maybe even days—but standing here in the dark, the thought of losing her felt like losing a part of myself.
How could someone I barely knew take up so much space in my heart?
It felt like I was being torn in two. One part of me was screaming to run, to escape the curse that had been chasing me since childhood. But the other part—the part that remembered the sound of Ruby's real laugh—refused to move an inch without her. I hadn't realized I liked her until the moment I saw her hovering in that room, slipping away into the shadows.
A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I didn't have time for a slow romance or a long goodbye. I had to find her now, before the darkness settled into her bones. I had to reach her before that evil entity completely took hold of her.