Into the Depths

It had been only two days since I returned to my childhood home after my dad left it for me in his will. That night, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. to the strange feeling of being watched; I inspected the house and found no one there, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone. Something was amiss—I could feel it.

And then I heard a voice.

“Sana, please help me.”

I sprang out of my bed and turned the lights on before grabbing the bat next to my desk. “Who’s there?” I asked, looking around. The room was empty.

I began to walk towards my bedroom door when the voice returned.

“It’s me, Bugsy. Don’t you remember me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m calling the cops.”

“But they won’t see or hear me.” The voice suddenly whispered past my ear with a chilling breeze. It almost made me trip as I stepped back. I wondered the impossible: was I being haunted?

“Wh-what are you?”

“I’m your childhood imaginary friend. Go to the basement and look inside the chest. There will be a painting in it.”

I was scared, but I needed answers. I decided to follow its instructions and found the painting it was talking about. The painting was blurry, the scenes in it distorted and the figures hardly discernible.

“I was sealed inside this by your mom, Sana.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mom was a witch and thought that you getting attached to me was unhealthy, so she sealed me away here. Please, you must release me.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My mom passed away when I was still in preschool, so I had very few memories of her. Dad never told me anything about her being a witch.

“If what you’re saying is true, then she must have had a good reason for doing so. I don’t know how to release you, but even if I did, I would never undo what my mom did.”

I put the painting back in the chest, but as I did so, the voice suddenly grew cold. “I won’t let you rest; I’ll yell and scream and keep you up all night until you release me, Sana!”

I ignored those threats and went back to bed. The spirit kept its word and kept yelling in my ear for the hour that followed. “Release me! Release me! Release me!” It said over and over again. I couldn’t endure it any longer.

“Fine, you want to be released? I’ll do something even better!”

I rushed to the basement, grabbed the painting, and went straight to the fireplace. “I’ll release you for good,” I said, throwing the painting into the fire.

The voice began to scream as the painting caught fire, but soon, those screams turned into cackles. The entire room suddenly grew cold, and the fire disappeared on its own as the painting was reduced to ashes.

“Your mother gave her life sealing me inside that painting, just so you know…”

That was the last thing I heard.

Before I could speak, I felt as if several frozen blades pierced my body from every direction, pulling me to the ground as the floor below me began to crack open, creating an opening into a bottomless chasm. In seconds, I was dragged into the depths.