Short story Part 1.
The house was burning down.
Crackling and snapping sounds filled the air as flames devoured the old wood, embers shooting skyward like fireflies escaping into the night. The heat licked at my skin, sending sweat dripping down my temples as I stood only a few feet from the inferno. My grip on the gas can loosened, and it tumbled to the ground, rolling slightly before coming to a stop near my feet.
I lifted my gaze to the round attic window, the glass fogged from heat and smoke. And there she was.
The old woman stood motionless, arms crossed over her chest, her silhouette outlined in the eerie glow of the fire. She wasn’t trying to escape, she wasn’t even screaming. She simply watched.
Her face was still—expressionless—but her dark, piercing eyes burned through me, colder than the night air.
Thick smoke curled around the house, winding its way toward her window, darkening the space behind her. The flames surged higher, their hunger growing, and a series of loud cracks echoed through the night as glass shattered from the windows below. My body flinched, instinct kicking in, but my eyes snapped back to the attic.
She had moved.
Now she stood fully in the center of the window, her bony fingers twitching at her sides before one arm lifted.
Her shaking hand uncurled, her index finger extending slowly—pointing directly at me.
My breath caught in my throat.
A chill slithered over me, the kind that doesn’t come from the air but from something else—something unnatural. It started at my toes, a creeping sensation like tiny ants burrowing between each one, wriggling, crawling. The feeling twisted around my ankles, creeping up my legs, wrapping me in its invisible grip.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my lungs fighting against the thick smoke.
The woman’s mouth moved.
At first, I thought she was gasping for air, her lips stretching wide in an agonized plea, but I heard nothing—not a single sound. Just the roar of the flames.
My feet shifted back, my instinct urging me to flee, but my body felt stuck between fight and flight, tethered to the moment by a force I couldn’t name.
Her mouth stopped moving.
She just stared, her finger never wavering.
Then, her lips began to curl upward, slow and deliberate, forming a smile that felt wrong—a smile that shouldn’t exist in a moment like this.
The fire had engulfed the house now, its hunger insatiable. Yet somehow, impossibly, the small attic window remained untouched. The glass was pristine, giving me a clear view of every detail of the woman inside.
Her clothes were tattered, dark with soot, long and frayed at the edges. A white kitchen towel hung over her shoulder, decorated with red apples that had faded with time. Her black hair, streaked with ghostly strands of white, clung to her face in limp waves. Her fingernails were cracked, some split so deep they bled, dirt and mud caked beneath them.
click here to see cute kitchen towels with fruit
The veins on her hands bulged, thick and blue, visible through the thin layer of papery skin stretched over them.
I shivered, the sensation of crawling ants reaching my stomach. I clenched my fists, refusing to look down.
It wasn’t real.
None of this was real.
She couldn’t hurt me.
I had escaped.
I was free.
The word echoed in my mind, so foreign, so strange. Free. A concept I never truly believed I would experience. But I was. I had won.
I swallowed hard, steadying my breath—until the pain started.
A slow, searing burn ignited along my hipbone, sharp enough to send a gasp past my lips. My hands trembled as they reached for my shirt, my fingers hesitating before pulling it up. I had to see. I had to know.
My heart pounded as my gaze lowered—
But then, a shift.
My head snapped up toward the attic window.
She was gone.
The moment stretched, the heat of the fire suddenly feeling colder than it should.
A deafening boom split the night. The house exploded, sending a shockwave through the air, pushing me back a step. Sparks and embers rained down like burning snowflakes.
I turned my back on the burning wreckage, my feet ready to move—except they didn’t.
I attempted again and nothing.
Panic scratched at the edges of my mind. My body wouldn’t move.
My breath came out fast and shallow as I turned my head toward the house again, this time searching the doorway, a feeling deep in my gut warning me before I even saw it.
The flames flickered and pulled apart, just slightly, just enough.
It was subtle—so subtle that anyone else watching might not notice.
But I did.
I felt it in my chest, in my bones, in the burning pain at my hip.
A shadow shifted behind the flames.
No.
Not a shadow.
Her.
She stood in the doorway, just an outline at first, unmoving, untouched by the fire.
I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was watching me.
Her hand lifted again.
That same, shaking, bony finger extended once more, pointing straight at me.
A strangled gasp left my lips as I collapsed to my knees. My hands dug into the dirt, grasping for something real, something to ground me.
I screamed.
Loud. Raw.
“YOU CAN’T HAVE ME!”
The words tore from my throat, my voice cracking, breaking.
I scooped up a handful of dirt and hurled it toward the house, as if it could hurt her, as if anything could.
“I AM FREE!”
But the moment the words left me, something shifted.
The flames roared higher, swallowing the house in full force. The shadow in the doorway vanished, as if it had never been there at all.
I was alone again.
The fire. The sirens. The heat.
And yet, the silence inside me was louder than all of it.
My breaths came out ragged as I whispered, barely loud enough to hear my own voice.
“I am free…”
But as I pressed a hand to my hip, feeling the slow burn beneath my fingertips, a cold realization settled over me.
“Right?”
click here to see a cute sticker
Please leave a fun comment if you enjoyed part 1 of this short story! Let me know if I should write a part 2!