The Cursed Will

 

I was working on my latest novel one day when I got a call from the lawyer of my estranged aunt Agnes who had passed away recently. She had called me to come to the reading of my aunt’s will. It was strange. She and I had a falling out years back and had not talked since, so why would she leave behind anything for me? I soon learned that she had left her estate and house for me.

I moved into the house a few days later; it was larger than I remembered. That night, I went to bed early because I was too tired, but later that night, I was awakened by noises. The house was so old and bore a haunted look overall; walking through its halls gave me an eerie feeling, as if someone was watching me all the time. It was quite the coincidence since my novel was also about a girl trapped in a haunted mansion. I inspected the house, but found nothing. Strange incidents like that happened every now and then, with me hearing footsteps in the attic, or the piano playing randomly at late hours. I thought it may have been just rats scurrying about since the mansion itself was around a century old, but things grew stranger quite quickly.

One night, I woke up to what I thought was someone knocking on the door. I didn’t approach the front door. Instead, I looked outside from the windows. However, there was nothing or no one outside that I could see. What was happening? Was my own writing getting to me? I spent the entirety of the following day working on my novel. Before I knew it, the sun had already set. I had not even had lunch, so I prepared a sandwich and some coffee for myself and stepped into the living room to switch on the television, but as soon as I reached for the remote, the television turned on by itself.

I dropped my plate and coffee cup and stepped back. I felt a sudden chill overcome my body as it began to shake. The house was really haunted. The television screen was filled with static for a brief moment before the screen went black. But then, a familiar image began to form: it was Aunt Agnes. I turned around and tried to run away, but an unseen force knocked me off my feet and made me fall face-first into the floor. I tried to crawl away, but it pulled me back towards the television.

“We meet after all this time and you want to leave already?” Agnes said.

I turned around to find her smiling. “What do you want with me?”

“You think I left this mansion for you out of the goodness of my heart? No, I need a new body.”

A sudden gust of wind spread throughout the room as all the lights began to flicker. The piano began to play and all the furniture began to shake. I struggled to break free as the cold enveloped me in its sinister embrace, but I could not escape. Agnes cackled as I was dragged along the floor towards her. I pleaded and cried, asking her to let me go, but she only mocked my desperation. The television’s shape suddenly began to distort, as if spacetime itself was shifting before my eyes. There was a blinding flash, and before I knew it, I felt yet another cold chill coursing through my veins as my vision blurred to nothingness.