Oblivion

'The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.' I said with a squint convincing of eeriness and waved my hand to add to the mystery.

'Ooo spooky!' Jake fooled around with a smirk.

'Yeah, I'm already wetting my pants, you guys!' Ben continued sarcastically.

'Cut it out, guys!' said Gina interrupting Ben's ostentatious laughter. 'We said it's scary story time.'

'Maybe they're overcompensating for being chickens!' Laura teased the boys a bit more, sipping from her bottle of beer.

'Ok guys. Do you want to hear the story or not?' I prompted.

'Who lit the candle? asked Gina with glistening eyes.

'The right question is why they came back that very night...' I said with a lifted eyebrow.

'So let's take things from the beginning...

In the heart of the forest, embraced under the shade of hazel and sycamore, there stood the cabin, rusty and decaying. Swallowed by the overgrown flora, it -more than anything- resembled a pile of moss-covered logs. In reality, a moth-eaten shelter of memories.

Because it hasn't always been that way. This carcass of a home, was once a very beautiful cottage where a happy family used to spend their summers.The house would always smell of freshly baked raspberry muffins. Fred, a tall, lean man with dark curls, a tender husband and loving father, spent mornings fishing by the lake. Alison, had a passion for gardening. Her long blonde hair caressed the blossoms of lilies and petunias blooming in the flower beds that bestowed the garden. Celia, their little princess, would buzz around in her colourful dresses and pigtails, spreading carefree laughter that echoed through the forest and disrupted the harmonious serenity of the lake.

Everything was magic. Until things changed.

Winters spread their grey, misty shadows over the family and the cabin was left abandoned under the white carpets of snow. Summer campfire stories and giggles were replaced by the haunting howling of wolfs. But worst was the silence.

Back in the grey of the city, Fred would, more often than not, spend evenings by the window. Silent eyes cast an empty gaze on the pavement across. His fingers leaned on a bottle of Scotch. It had become his potion. His weapon of choice against his demons.

Alison's demons came alive when the sky was dressed in its darkest attire. Only the moment she was most vulnerable, adrift in the arms of Morpheus, it was then that nightmares would decide to torture her soul. She would wake up, soaking wet in her cold sweat, shivering and screaming.

Celia felt lonely, confused and frustrated. Abandoned.

Seasons kept going by and the summer broke out again.

It was a summer night like this, that the family decided to visit the cabin again. In the alluring twilight, Fred led the way deeper and deeper into the woods as the cabin started emerging behind the trees. One, two, three steps away from entering into what felt like a realm of the distant past, as the sky was darkening his blue veil of the daylight requiem.

They were there. Standing a breath away from the door. Fred turned and looked into Alison's eyes. She held his hand and noded. The sudden creaking of the door scared little Celia who hesitantly hid behind her mum.

'I'm here, baby.' Alison said in a comforting tone.

Breath frost was taking all kinds of forms against the crackling cold that had nested in the abandoned cabin. White sheets covered now the rustic dining furniture; the antique rocking chair by the fireplace, the mirror with its uniquely shaped frame of intertwined driftwood. Ghostly apparitions under shrugs. Alison stood in front of the mirror, lifted her hand and dragged the sheet which revealed her reflection. Her figure against the thick blackness in the background. Her vision flooded now with memories coming alive before her eyes, turning the dusty glass into a colour-splashed canvas. She closed her eyelids and surrendered to the happiness. When she opened them again, the dark stormed and prevailed again.

'Ugh!' she gasped. 'What was that?'

I asked with a raised voice which had my friends turn goggle-eyed.

'For a split second' I continued 'Alison thought she caught a movement of sorts with the corner of her eye. Like something had moved in the reflection. Behind her. It was fast like a wind gust but flashing as lightning. It ran and vanished. Alison approached. Her eyes pinned in the reflection of the dark corridor that lied behind her. Her heavy breathing turned the glass blurry, when an eerie whisper pierced the dead silence. Alison turned her head terrified. She stayed frozen and stretched her ears, preparing for the next sign.

One, two, three seconds.

In vain.

The only sound now was her racing heart.

Until, a second voice was to be heard.

'Mum, I'm hungry.' Celia moaned from a distance.

The family gathered for dinner. 8 o'clock. Steaming mushroom soup and freshly baked steak pie laid on the table.

'Mm yummy.' said Celia.

'I know it's your favourite sweetheart. Only the best for my little princess.'

On the outside, things seemed to be falling into place again, like the good old days. In a closer look, nothing was the same. Like the ambience had gone denser and gravity had grown more powerful. Fred aimlessly stirred his soup, absorbed in his vast land of deep thoughts. Alison made an effort to look the part. Under her skin, terrors still crawled.

Celia frowned. 'Have they been fighting again?' she asked herself.

As Alison's attempts for conversation kept banging on Fred's wall of denial, she reached for her bag and slid a mysterious-looking book. It looked overused, maybe borrowed, with old binding, the pages stained and musty smelling. The faded ink unfolded a world of faith-shaking tales and myths about haunted places. Celia leaned over her mother's shoulder.

'Mum, what's this scary book? Why are you reading it?'

'I feel something...' said Alison turning her gaze off the page '...something strange....' she continued with awe. 'It's like there's something here with us...' A shiver down her spine that took her breathe made her pause.

'How is it like, mum?' Celia asked bewildered, with her rosy cheeks turning pale.

'...it's like a shadow approaching me and whispering...'

'Stop it with these spirit theories and these imaginary books you're reading. You're getting crazy since what happened!'

Fred said irritable.

But what had happened? Celia was trying to remember.

'It was a mistake coming back here.' continued Fred shaking his head in despair as he walked down the corridor. 'Not to mention your crazy plans!' he continued slamming the door behind.

'I swear Fred! I hear voices! But you won't believe me!' Alison shouted tearful and followed Fred. Behind closed doors, Celia could hear sobbing. Tears flooded her innocent eyes as she run under the comfort of her blanket.

The clock stroke midnight when a knock on the door was heard. Celia got out of bed and sneaking on her toes she looked at the window. The strange visitor was an old woman. Grey hair neatly braided in a reserved bun, sober-coloured clothes, shirt buttoned up to the neck and a long skirt covering the ankles. Celia had never seen her before but Alison greeted her in a familiar way and welcomed her in the cabin. Celia knew that this woman was up to no good. She hesitantly opened the door just an inch and sneak peeked.

The strange woman held a tuft of burning sage in one hand and a candle in the other.

'May this flame ward us from evil and lead spirits to the light.' she said as she placed the candle by the window.

This flame was now the only source of dim light in the cabin.

Next, the woman reached for her bag, an old-fashioned leather pouch, from which she pulled out a cross, a bible and a strange looking board with letters.

'Now follow me.' she said and led the way out of the cabin and into the woods. Fred and Alison followed her.

The woman kept whispering and chanting as her voice was getting lost into the woods. Celia was watching the woman and her parents through the window until they disappeared like shadow figures in the pitch black night. She decided to follow them. The silver moonlight shined her way like a lantern pinned on the celestial dome. Celia knew she had to be brave. She remembered the lullaby her mum used to sing her to sleep and started humming the melody to trick the terrors away. She kept following the track, one little footstep after the other, with her frail kneels trembling, as the candle at the cabin window kept fading away in the distance. Soon enough, Celia felt she knew where the track was leading to. It was a glade and right in the middle a willow tree. In the early summer the evergreen of the grass was painted with patches of white as myriads of asphodels bloomed around the willow tree. It was Celia's favourite spot in the woods.

Right in the middle of the clearing now, Celia was approaching her parents and the strange woman who had kneeled by the willow tree, a few metres away. As she run towards them, suddenly, she tripped on a rock and fell on her knees. In her attempt to stand up, her hand touched something rigid and cold. The moonlight flooded now the mist-covered grass. When Celia turned her head to inspect the strange item, she saw a frame. In the frame stood a photograph. A picture of her face. Her 7-year-old chubby face with the rosy cheeks now turned snow pale as a numbing chill travelled down her spine. In a scream of despair she realised that this was her grave. She remembered now how, chasing a butterfly, she had fallen in the lake and drowned.

'With God's blessing and the power of the full moon, we summon the spirits trapped in this dimension and call them to free themselves into the true light.' the strange woman cried out holding her hands up in the air.

Celia felt as thin as a thread, translucent as a veil and vulnerable to the wind that was slowly blowing her soul into dust. She crawled to the willow tree and tried to hug her weeping parents but she couldn't.

Kraa, kraa, kraa...

Only when a crow cawed, they turned their heads as if they had felt an apparition caressing them before flying away, light as a feather. '

After a minute of silence, Jake was heard.

'So the little girl, was dead all along?'

'That's kinda sad.' Laura commented with a frown.

'And spoooky...' continued Gina.

'I didn't see it coming.' Ben admitted as he rubbed his arms in chills.

A light breeze that waltzed its way over our shoulders, put out the glimmer of fire that licked the last of the remaining logs, now turned into rubies of ash.

'I guess it's bed time.' said Laura with a shrug of disappointment over the faint stream of smoke.

'There's no way I'm going to sleep after that story. It will surely give me nightmares.' whined Gina.

'Oh, I though you liked ghost stories, Gina. Regretting it now?' Jake teased her.

'We got marshmallows left but we need extra logs for the fire. Who's coming with me?' I asked.

'I'll go.' said Laura.

'It's ok, Aria.' Ben stopped me with a hand gesture as I stood up. 'I'll go with Laura.'

Laura smiled. We all knew there was something more than friendship growing between them.

The wind kept picking up and the smoke had completely gone with it and still no sign of Laura and Ben.

Days later the police found Ben's phone near an abandoned cabin in the woods. Recorded was the footage below.

'Can you shine your torch over here, Ben? It's really dark.'

'Oh, check this out, Laura. It's a cabin. Fancy sneaking in?'

'I'm not going in there, Ben.'

'Are you afraid it's going to be the cabin from the ghost story?'

'Don't be ridiculous!'

'So follow me, then.'

A few seconds of almost complete darkness on the screen and only sound the footsteps on leaves and twigs, Laura was heard again...

'Oh my god. Ben, do you see that?'

'What?'

'The candle. By the window. Someone lit a candle.'

'Let's get out of here.'

'Ahh! Ouch!'

'Ben, where are you? Are you alright?'

'I'm here. Shine the torch and give me a hand.'

'Oh no...Oh my god...Ben..look...'

Laura's trembling voice was heard as she pointed with her finger.

'No! No! It can't be!' Ben said bewildered.

'Shhh...do you here that?'

'Someone is approaching. Hide.' he said scared.

Two things were heard before the footage stopped.

First came the humming. And second, the screams.

At the site where Ben's phone was found, the police made a chilling discovery. Below the moulding orange leaves, twigs and dirt of the forest, there lied buried a long-forgotten grave. The gravestone wrote:

To our beloved daughter

Cecilia Adams

Laura and Ben are still missing...