Seeing Truth

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. And among the bare frozen trees it didn't make much of a difference after sundown when you couldn't even see your breath freeze in front of you but it was there, glowing in its small space like a promise.

"Come on. Let's see if we can get warm for the night." Brenna shivered, watching the candle glow hungrily, but Chloe hugged herself, feet planted in the snow. She tried to ignore the feeling of the darkness pressing in on her from every direction and oddly enough, especially from the single candle in the cabin window.

"We can't." Chloe said softly, trying not to let too much of the icy air into her lungs.

"We can ask, Chlo," Brenna hissed, "I'm not freezing out here because you're too scared to ask someone for help! We’re fricking lost." Chloe glared hard, wanting to tell Brenna how it was no thanks to her that they found themselves lost in the first place but instead she moved as close to the other girl as she could.

"I rather freeze to death than go into an ABANDONED cursed cabin." Chloe's teeth chattered as a chill waterfalled down her spine. Brenna chuckled and then bit her lip.

"Seriously, Chlo?" Her tone dripped with incredulous sarcasm. "Firstly, there’s clearly someone home," she gestures at the lit candle in the window, “And secondly, are you really, actually, no lie, telling me you believe in curses?”

"Yes and even if I’m wrong - which I don’t think I am - what would possess you to stay in an abandoned cabin?" Chloe raises a questioning eyebrow.

“It’s not abandoned.” Her best friend rolls her eyes.

“It is and it’s cursed.” Chloe mumbles but follows the other girl as she makes a path up to the cabin's door.

Brenna knocks, her gloved knuckles muffled against the weathered wooden door. For a moment, Chloe becomes hopeful that no one will answer, and she can press her friend to turn back to her car they left sitting on the side of the road or hopefully just continue on to camp. She’d never wanted to sleep in a tent so badly in her life.

Brenna knocks again, and Chloe’s stomach plummets to the pits of her being as the door creaks open.

Brenna grins from ear to ear as if the sweetest most warm little old woman had answered but all Chloe can see is a coalescing mass of charcoal grey smoke that puts her nerves on edge and brings panicked tears to the edge of escape.

“Brenna, please let’s go. It’s not safe.” Chloe begs, but her friend frowns, snapping at her that she was being rude. “Please! I’m sure the camp is nearby.”

“Chloe, I swear to god if you suggest walking around outside in the freezing cold, at night -” She never finishes the threat but takes a deep, uncomfortable breath, “You can do whatever you want but I’m going inside with the grandma where there’s a fire.” Brenna looks back to the smokey figure and smiles again. “And food.”

Chloe shakes her head and follows Brenna inside the small cabin where there is no fire, no aroma of food, just the smell of rotting wood through the chill, and cobwebs heavy with years of decay. There was no question of abandonment here except for the one small candle barely flickering in the window and the figure, billowing along like a breath after Brenna. The figure started to fill Chloe with such existential dread that it was becoming hard to commit to staying by her best friend’s side. Its existence alone was testing her loyalty.

She watched as Brenna seemed to have an entire conversation with the entity that Chloe herself could only hear one side of but Chloe stayed anchored to one spot nearest the cabin door not daring to say a word; not willing to make a sound if she could help it. Brenna looked to Chloe, mouthing that she was being rude again, and it forced Chloe to sit at the tiny rickety table with Brenna. Her best friend continued the happy, emphatic conversation while Chloe tried to keep eyes on the floating mass at all times.

“Pancakes sound wonderful!” Brenna cheered and then looked down at the table in wide-eyed wonderment. “This is a dream!” Chloe felt a pang of hopefulness that Brenna had snapped out of the hallucination she was clearly having but then Brenna shaped her hands like she was holding a knife and fork and started sawing at the table with her air utensils.

“Bren. Bren!” Chloe forced out in hushed tones. “There’s nothing there.”

“Holy crap Chlo, she made us a breakfast feast! You can at least be polite and quiet if you’re not going to have any.” Brenna scowls and continues to stuff imaginary bites of pancake into her mouth.

“No. Brenna, stop!” Chloe lashes out, smacking the other girl’s hand. Brenna blinks in disbelief and the scowl returns to her face. “There’s nothing here.” Chloe bangs her hands flat against the table and the sound echoes around her. “Nothing.”

The smoke takes position behind Brenna and then, to Chloe’s horror, seems to seep into her.

“Bren? Brenna?!” Chloe tries to get up from the chair but she’s frozen to it.

“No.” A cool breathiness comes from her friend’s mouth except it is no longer her friend there. Chloe can’t understand how or why or even if it’s real but she knows it feels inescapable whatever is going on. “What are you?” The same breathiness sends ice through Chloe’s body creating fields of goosebumps all over her body.

“What are you?!” She finally shouts. Brenna’s head cocks to the side and the fact that it wasn’t Brenna moving herself made Chloe sick to her stomach.

“I am old.” It hisses. “Once just a spirit freed of its mortal flesh and now I am more.”

“Leave Brenna alone!” Chloe pleads still unable to remove her hands from the table or rise up out of the chair. “I told her. I warned her. What did you do?”

It stands and approaches Chloe making the panicked tears flood down her cheeks.

"I will free her-," There's a pause in the breathy voice before Brenna's face melts into a smokey eyed smirk, "of her soul."

"Leave us alone please." Chloe sobs. "We'll leave and never come back. Please!!"

"But I'm hungry." Among the airy hiss of the entity's voice were low growls and then it smiled so wide Chloe thought the ghost had actually split Brenna's face from the corners of her mouth to her ears. And then Chloe felt her arm moving before she saw it; saw that in her hand was clutched a dull, rusty steak knife.

"Don't you wish Brenna would have listened to you?" More low growls. More hissing words. And without Chloe's consent her arm stabs the knife into Brenna's hand, pinning it to the table. Chloe screams.

"Please no. No no no no. Somebody please help." She begs over and over again as she scrunches up her face, keeping her eyes firmly closed. Her limbs are moving under someone else's direction and for a moment she wonders if she's possessed. Maybe they both were. And if that were the case, is this how Brenna felt too?

All Chloe could hear was herself begging for help and the entity laughing. It was so amused but Chloe was too terrified to know what was happening. She should have fought harder with Brenna about getting to the campgrounds shouldn't she? The whole trip was stupid and the people they were supposed to meet would probably just think they bailed on the camping trip.

The ghost picked her up by the shoulders and Chloe could feel the blood make its - Brenna's - no its grip slick but it held on so tight it was grinding the bones in the sockets.

"Brenna please!" Chloe tried to kick but she caught her shin on something solid and hollered in pain.

" 'Brenna please. Brenna please!' Stupid little Brenna is gone." The entity's scathing voice never rose into a screech or lowered into the growls. It stayed mocking and whispery and bone chilling. "I want to know how you see the truth before you're gone too."

“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to go ho-o-ome.” She sobs.

Her friend’s possessed face comes close to hers. So close that the tip of what was Brenna’s nose slides from the bottom of Chloe’s right earlobe to the curve of her jaw and the monster inside of her friend pulls in Chloe’s scent, making her shiver again.

The spirits hissed that she was a liar that smelled like magic and gripped Chloe’s shoulders tighter, digging Brenna’s well manicured pointed nails into Chloe’s flesh. Her mind went back to all the people they were supposed to be meeting up with at the campground. Brenna's boyfriend. Chloe's girlfriend and sister. Brenna's cousin from one of those states that never got snow but Chloe couldn't think of right now. Brenna's uncles. She thought about if they’d even know where to start looking for them. What would two twenty-one year old women brutally murdered in an abandoned cabin look like? How would they explain it if they would find them at all?

There was a booming sound inside her head and she flinched but then she just sobbed and screamed until her voice went out, knowing that she’d breathe again and then everything went black.

The next thing she knew there was another banging sound and it was so close it stirred her. Chloe tried to open her eyes but could feel that one of them was swollen completely closed; the other halfway to closed as well. What she could see was light trying to come in through the grime covered windows and two tallish figures bursting through the door. She scrambled and tried to scream but her voice was gone. It hurt just to take in air through her mouth.

"Chloe?!" She recognized one of the voices as Brenna's Uncle Josh and tears started to stream down her face again, stinging every bit of skin they touched.

"Where's Brenna?" He crouched down and touched her face tenderly, grimacing.

Panicked, Chloe swiveled around trying to find any trace of Brenna's possessed body but there was no Brenna. There wasn't even a sign of the smoky ghost that had tormented her; had taken Brenna.

People started spilling in through the cabin door, shouting Brenna's name. Chloe just cried knowing that they wouldn't find her and when someone hollered that they had found her fear spread like fire through Chloe's body. She was ready to see her best friend’s possessed face again; ready to feel how the unnatural twisting of it made her nauseous. Brenna's cousin carried her in from a room upstairs and when he came closer to Chloe she could see that even though Brenna was unconscious she was still breathing.

"Looks like some sicko brought them here and tortured them." Brenna's boyfriend spat.

Chloe had no desire, energy, or voice to tell them that they'd gotten lost when Brenna's car broke down on the way to camp. She couldn't tell them she'd let Brenna talk her into hiking to camp. She wouldn't tell them that she'd followed Brenna into the cabin out of loyalty. And who would ever believe her that the cursed cabin turned out to be really cursed.

A man she didn't recognize walked over to the group and suggested they get both the girls to the nearest hospital. He looked at Chloe with a half smile and the rest of the group thanked him.

"You and your friend will be okay." There was a look in his eyes that told Chloe he knew exactly what had happened. He was going to cover for them. Inexplicably, she felt that he had fixed everything. When Brenna woke up she would be Brenna again. Wouldn't she? Was Chloe still Chloe? Could you live that night and be the same?

She swallowed gently as to be mindful of her throat, torn to shreds from screaming, and gave the man a nod only able to mouth out the words of her gratitude. Brenna's uncle picks Chloe up, one arm under her shoulders and the under her knees, and she looks around. She scans every inch of every window in sight for the cursed candle that had brought them here but somehow something sank even further into her as she realized there had never been a candle glowing in the window of the cabin.