Ouija

 

They sat huddled in a small, cramped yellow tent, looking around at each other, a little terrified, a little excited, but certainly not bored. Katrin, Ann, Martha, and Sue had all known each other for a good few years and loved these outings. The bonfire, the beer, singing late into the night, telling scary stories, and that extraordinary atmosphere that permeates the allotment at night.

They were just at that age when you're looking for something to experience, when you only feel alive when you understand how much you can gain and how much you can lose.

***

The night was quite chilly, but the sky was so wonderfully clear that the girls were fooling around. The campfire was still burning, illuminating most of the allotment and part of the path. The rest was shrouded in darkness, and you had to squint hard to see anything, although the moon was truly eerie.

"Look what a beautiful night," Martha said, grabbing a small pebble and throwing it into the pond. A moment later, there was a soft splash

. "Martha, don't kill me, since when did you become so romantic? Besides, what good is it being beautiful when I'm starting to get bored," Sue said, always having something to add, "you'd come up with something crazy, you always had the brains for it."

"Sue, what are you doing, honey? After a few beers, instead of going to sleep, you'll want to have fun?" It was Ann, who had just overheard a fragment of their conversation as she emerged from the gazebo. "God, I have to pee, Katrin, can you come with me? Kaaatrin, don't sleep..."

Katrin sat leaning forward on the deck chair and listening to the girls. She didn't have the strength to lift her head, there was a terrible roaring sound inside her, and all she wanted now was sleep.

"God, girls, I told you not to give her a drink. You know how weak she is," Ann said, starting to laugh. "Katrina, get up, or if you fall now, you'll lose the whole night." She walked over to her friend and slowly lifted her.

They staggered to the wooden shed where the makeshift toilet was.

"Hey, if we're not back in 10 minutes, it'll mean one thing, we died of carbon monoxide poisoning...

" "Okay, okay, no big loss," Martha shouted, and started poking around in the fire with a stick.

***

They were just finishing cleaning up when she had a sudden epiphany. She quickly ran out of the gazebo and ran to Ann and Katrin, who were trying to put out the fire.

"Listen, girls, I've had a brilliant idea. Since the night is so beautiful, maybe instead of sleeping in the cabin, we should pitch a tent tonight? It'll be a bit cramped, but it'll be so much fun! We haven't done that in ages."

- Hhehhehe, okay, I see you're really excited about this.

- And I have something else, I just went down to the cellar to get some potatoes for the embers and guess what I found???

- I have no idea, I haven't been there in a while.

"So I found our old spirit-calling board, great, right??????" Sue spoke quickly, as if speaking was difficult for her and she forced the words out. She always smiled sweetly as she did so, so no one tried to interrupt her. She had a way of finding a good "because..." for every "but." Maybe that's why the girls liked her so much. Besides, each of them was completely different: Ann was spontaneous and lively, Martha was brave and resourceful, and Katrin was nice and very cheerful.

They enjoyed spending time together because each of them always had something to say and always did something crazy, as long as it didn't get them into trouble.

She screamed, but no one heard her. One moment she was with the girls, and now she was alone in the dark, terrified and exhausted from screaming. Ann fell to the ground and began to wonder how this had happened? How could she have caused such a tragedy? She still wanted to scream, but she held back, knowing it wouldn't do her any good. She was shivering with cold, even though it was summer, when the nights were always cold, especially when you're alone, far from people, lonely, and terrified.

And everything was going so well...

***

Katrin, hehehe, please don't laugh so stupidly, you look like you're high," Sue said, laughing. "Kaaaatrin, get up and sit cross-legged, you know there's no other way."

A black board lay in the center of their circle, the white letters and numbers glinting ominously in the candlelight. The girls, despite being a bit tense from the alcohol, glanced around nervously every now and then, shifting uneasily at every rustle outside.

"Damn, I'm afraid we'll fall asleep while we're doing this and the candles will burn down the whole tent."

"Don't you have bigger problems right now, silly?"

Martha sat stiffly in the corner of the tent, staring at the board. Only she remembered why the girls had hidden it in the basement a few years earlier, determined never to use it again. Only she remembered what had happened that night, only she...

"Martha, why are you so pale? Are you sick? If you want to throw up, go outside, and quickly," Ann said, and laughed. She was a little scared too, and she wasn't so sure this whole conjuring-up thing was such a good idea.

"I feel fine, I just remembered something.

" "Huh, probably my last date

." "Sue! Don't be mean!

" "I'm sorry," Sue said, and the contrition in her voice was so fake that the girls started laughing.

- Okay, time to start the show, hold hands and talk with me...

The girls suddenly became serious, held hands and slowly, without rushing, started talking...

"We, gathered here, are summoning a spirit to a conversation..."

- Hey, but whose spirit do we actually want to summon? Martha asked in a whisper.

- Shh - Sue hissed - don't interrupt, we'll see who wants to talk to us. If neither of them wants to talk, I have a bad feeling.

"We, gathered here, are summoning a spirit to a conversation. Spirit, if you're with us, give us a sign or move the pointer to yes."

They repeated this rule several times, ad nauseam, but nothing happened. After about five minutes, the resigned girls started talking.

"I have no idea what we did wrong," Sue complained.

"Sue, please stop it already. Personally, I'm glad nothing happened. Besides, don't you remember why we hid the board? Do you have such a short memory? Did what happened make no impression on you, or maybe..."

Martha didn't finish speaking, because before the girls' eyes, the arrow began to slowly, somewhat hesitantly, move towards the letters.

"Oh my God," Ann whispered and grabbed Katrin's hand tightly. "Girls, you see what I see.

" "Shhhh," they all said simultaneously.

The tent became incredibly cold, steam rose from everyone's lips, goosebumps appeared on their skin, and each of them involuntarily began to shiver slightly from the cold.

Meanwhile, the arrow She traveled slowly, almost imperceptibly, pointing first at C, then Z. Ann quietly repeated under her breath each letter the arrow pointed to. After five minutes spent in absolute silence and concentration, she whispered:

"What do you want?"

They looked at each other in horror, none of them daring to utter a single word. They felt instinctively that they had messed with someone, or something, far more powerful than they could have imagined. However, they knew that if they didn't do something immediately, this night might be their last...

"What do you mean, what do we want? What are you talking about?

" "That's not what I mean, girls, someone's with us, we brought someone here, don't you understand? He's asking us what we want? What am I supposed to say, that we're a little drunk and very bored?"

At that same moment, strange, shrill sounds reached their ears. Something hit the tent flysheet with tremendous force and bounced off it with equal force. Katrin started squealing first, followed by Sue, the other two trying to silence them, but The shock of the whole situation thwarted these efforts.

"God, girls, please calm down, it's probably nothing serious. If you stop making so much noise, I'll go out and check what it is, okay?" Martha said, pulling a flashlight from her backpack. The

others slowly began to calm down, and when Martha emerged from the tent, in complete silence and tension, they began to listen.

When Martha emerged from the tent, she was immediately surprised by the distinctive smell wafting around it. It was so dark that she could barely make out the gazebo, which was about ten meters away. Besides, a small pond and some neglected, rarely watered plants separated her from the tent.

She switched on her flashlight and, carefully choosing her footing, began to walk slowly around the tent, which glowed ominously from within. The three hunched figures inside looked almost grotesque.

As she directed the flashlight first at the tent, then at the ground, Martha didn't realize it would be the last thing she saw. The silence and darkness of the night were shattered by the flapping of wings and then the piercing scream of a young girl.

Ann, Sue, and Katrin held their breath for a moment, then hurriedly began to crawl out of the tent, the eerie flapping of wings and Martha's scream echoing in their minds.

She didn't even have time to get a good look at "that thing" lying motionless next to the tent. It was so dark that even a flashlight, which somehow had just gone out, wouldn't have helped much. She leaned in, hoping she might see something. She hoped it was some small, defenseless bird, but subconsciously she knew exactly what it was. Or rather, who...

***

It all started a few years ago, just like today, camping in their plot of land. They were incredibly excited and scared; it was their first night alone, without their parents, and in the company of their beloved friends. There

were five of them back then, but that didn't matter now. What was past was past; no one could bring Jen back. No one???

Why had they started this ghost-calling game? She couldn't remember clearly anymore, but it was probably like today, out of boredom. Boredom makes you do the stupidest and worst things, and that was the case back then. Little thirteen-year-old girls who couldn't remember anything except that terrible cold and screaming, Jen's screaming. And then that cold and terrible voice, the kind you only hear once in your life, after that you hear nothing, you feel nothing. They didn't know it, but they sensed they would be punished for this, sooner or later, that the climax would come, and the girls would take out that cursed tablet and bring him back...

***

"What the hell..." She stopped midway, as the thing she'd been trying so hard to examine sprang to life with a crash and clung to her face, specifically her eyes. She screamed...screamed as loudly as she could, as much as the terror and the terrible pain radiating from her eyes would allow. She felt soft feathers on her cheeks, felt them slapping her cheeks hard, and felt the thing trying with all its might to rip her eyeballs out. A second later, she also felt a warm, gelatinous substance on her face and smelled blood. Something slid down her face and tried slyly to crawl down her throat. She stopped screaming and pressed her lips together tightly. It was the last thing she did, because a moment later, the sharp claw, no longer hindered by an eye, penetrated her skull with childish ease, damaging her brain. From that moment on, Martha became an insignificant element of the game, a plant that would say nothing, see nothing...

***

"What are you doing messing around, get out of that damn tent faster!" Ann shouted angrily at Sue, who, out of spite, blocked the entire passage with her body. "God, Sue... she's not even screaming anymore, she might need our help and you're in the way!!!

" "I'm coming, can't you see?" she said, and looked pointedly at Katrin.

***

They stood over their friend's body, tearful and terrified. The daze slowly faded, and they began to realize what had really happened... although they couldn't see anything, they could imagine who Martha had fought with. She was now lying on the grass, her body still twitching in some strange dance, though she herself no longer felt anything.

"Sue!" Quick, go get a flashlight, and Katrin, call your parents, you know what to say," Ann spoke as if in a trance, and there was such emptiness in her eyes that the girls began to fear for her.

Each of them knew perfectly well what had happened to Martha, they also knew it had to happen. They preferred it to be her, even though they loved her like a sister.

"Oh my God, she's still alive, Kaaaaatrin, call an ambulance

." "NO! Ann, don't do this, you know as well as we do that it had to happen, Martha has to die, and tonight."

"What are you talking about? She remembered everything, don't you understand? By going outside, she saved your damn asses. If it weren't for her... any of us could be lying here, or worse, all of us together."

She started crying, though she didn't know why. She felt so sorry for her friend, because she knew she was still alive. What could be worse than realizing you're dead while you're still alive? Remorse slowly began to permeate her thoughts and rot from within, like a fruit.

She had to do something, but what? She knew that this time Katrin and Sue wouldn't help her; this time she had to fight this thing alone... She lifted her head high and looked into the impenetrable darkness, made the sign of the cross, and followed Katrin into the gazebo...

She sat on the old green couch, tears streaming down her face. She was lost in thought... seconds, minutes, passed when a steady, rhythmic patter reached her ears. Someone was walking along the path, and it definitely wasn't one of the girls. Katrin and Sue, seeing Ann's condition, simply disappeared from her sight. She assumed they'd gone to the woodshed to get some.

***

"Katrina, are you thinking the same thing as me?" Sue spoke quietly, almost in a whisper. She couldn't see her friend, but she could imagine how pale and terrified she looked.

"God, Sue... I don't know anything anymore. You know it wasn't supposed to be like this. You know, right? It was Ann who was supposed to die, not Martha, but no... she was always so damn loyal and brave.

" "Aren't you exaggerating a bit? You know it doesn't really matter who died. Then it was Jen, now it was Martha... Who will be next? Who will the board choose???"

"Sue, can you tell me the whole story again, please...

" "Katrina, what don't you remember? How we found that tablet and decided to use it? Or maybe you don't remember how Jen started screaming and attacked us with her claws, then clawed out her eyes and ate them. Anything else I should remind you of, besides the fact that you started vomiting and lost consciousness?

She reached a point where she realized something, something very important... That night, after all, SHE found that tablet, that night she brought it back. And then, and now, she brought about the tragedy. But she couldn't help herself; something was drawing her to that place, to that cursed tablet. She felt its presence with her whole body, she imagined its appearance...

" "What are you thinking about?"

"About who's behind all this, who's powerful enough to make you hurt yourself... okay, never mind, let's get back to Ann, because I'm getting a bad feeling again...

" "

Good God, what is that?" Ann whispered, looking out the gazebo window. She couldn't see the whole figure, but its outline, its hunched, muscular form, was striking. He held Martha's body in his hand, which now seemed even smaller than usual. She didn't know what to do; fear paralyzed her, but she felt that if she didn't escape now, she would never escape. Running backward and past the tent, she glanced at him for just a moment. And that moment was enough to lose all hope...

Above the board hovered the most distorted face she'd ever seen, not even in horror movies... no one could create such a creature.

All the symbols on the board merged into one, forming an inscription that, thankfully, she couldn't read...

When the figure's face lit up for a moment and she looked directly into his eyes, she felt she no longer wanted to live, that at that moment she could kill herself, do anything to never see his face again.

Ann couldn't see that her friend's feces, still warm, lay scattered around the board, and her body, completely disfigured, lay in a corner of the tent, tossed like a bored toy.

As she ran, Ann hoped Katrin and Sue were sitting in the storage room, chatting away. How wrong she was, only she could tell...

She ran, panting and terrified, into the storage room, the flashlight she held in her shaking hand casting pale shadows across the dark shed. She began to look around intensely, praying that Whatever Item that was carrying the dead body of Martha wouldn't change its mind and want to come here...

In the darkest corner, just behind the pile of chopped wood, Ann heard something, a quiet cry, though no... it wasn't even a cry anymore, it was a wail, the wail of a mentally ill person...

She approached slowly, not knowing what awaited her, when she saw Sue, who had buried her head between her legs, trying to hide from the world in a defensive gesture. She lost all restraint, ran to her, and hugged her tightly.

"Sue, it's so good you're alive... Thank God... Sue, where is Katrin?" Ann bombarded her with questions without even taking a good look at her face.

And if she only looked, if she studied the expression in her eyes. There was madness in them, a terror a normal person couldn't experience, couldn't even imagine.

"Sue, where is Katrin?!?" Ann pressed harder, shaking her friend's shoulders vigorously. Then Sue raised her head and looked at her with those eyes... for some reason she smiled.

The smile froze Ann's blood for a moment. She thought for a moment that Sue wanted to do something to her, but she pushed those absurd thoughts aside. After all, they had known her since childhood, she couldn't do anything to her, they loved each other like sisters, although there had been tensions and arguments between them more than once...

She looked again into the bottomless void that stared from Sue's eyes, and suddenly everything understood, everything became childishly simple to her.

"Jesus, Sue, how could you, how could you do this to us. We loved you and were always with you... why? Please explain to me..." Ann stopped mid-sentence as her beloved friend slowly and clumsily began to rise from the ground.

Only now did Ann notice that he was holding an axe, the same one her father had bought that summer so he could chop wood himself.

"What did you expect, that after that night everything would be as usual? As if nothing had happened? You don't understand it yet, but from that moment on, from the moment we took out that board, joined hands, and sat around it, everything changed..." she said, smiling sarcastically. Ann, however, didn't see the smile... her gaze focused on the axe blade, which was glinting in the moonlight.

She raised the axe higher and higher... and her face changed with each movement; she no longer resembled her friend, but a strange caricature of her. The lust to kill burned in her eyes... her hands gripped the axe handle tightly.

***

She didn't know how it happened, she simply didn't. One moment Sue had swung at her, and the next Ann was already bending over her dead body, or rather, what remained of her body. She looked as if she'd bathed in human blood, it was everywhere... Fragments of her body were strewn about... Ann looked into Sue's cloudy, empty eyes and understood that she was the cause of everything. She had been born to bring about this situation, only waiting for the moment when they were all dead. But how was this possible??? How could she have pretended like this for so many years? Or maybe she didn't know, maybe something had possessed her back then, on that tragic night? Ann could only guess, but that wasn't what mattered now... What mattered was where Katrin was... she ran out of the shed, still clutching the axe tightly in her hand and looking around.

***

She stood over the corpse again, this time Katrin... tears flowed, and Ann felt herself slipping into madness. A still-thin thread entangled her, tightening with each passing moment. She felt the need to scream, crawled out of the tent, and screamed until she couldn't breathe. She fell to her knees and sobbed...

***

Something was sitting behind the bushes, watching her with great interest. Even greater than the interest it had shown another girl a few years earlier...

Should Ann's new friends be more careful with what they were playing with?

Or maybe Ann should be more careful with what she was doing?