They say it always watches… lurking within the shadows.
Although no one has ever claimed to have seen it, we all know the real reason — because no one who does ever lives to tell the tale.
It was the first day of my last year in middle school. I was excited, but also a little upset about having to go back — just like any other kid would be. Normally, I took the bus, but since it was a special day, my mom decided to drive me.
"Are you excited for your first day, Kali?" Mom asked.
"Yeah, I guess so. I'm just not looking forward to all the homework," I said, staring out the window.
I watched kids filing into the school, the air buzzing with excitement — and then I spotted my best friend, Lucas, getting off his bus.
"All right, Kali, make sure you pay attention and don't get into any trouble," Mom said as I got out of the car.
"I won't. I never have before, right?" I replied with a grin.
Mom drove away, and I watched her car disappear down the street.
"Kali!!"
I turned to see Lucas running up to me.
"Hey, how was your summer? Did you have a lot of fun?" he asked.
"Yeah, I did! It was great. There were a lot more places I wanted to go and adventures I wanted to have, but I didn't get to," I said.
Lucas had been my best friend since first grade. He moved here from New York after his dad got transferred to a new position in Cincinnati.
We walked into the cafeteria together while waiting for classes to start. After talking for a while, we split up and went to our separate classrooms.
I was walking down the hall, looking at the floor, lost in thought… and then I looked up — and that's when I saw it.
No one else was around. The world fell silent. The ceiling looked as if it were melting. No — everything was melting.
I looked it directly in the eyes.
I blinked, and it was gone.
I tried to convince myself it was just my imagination, that maybe I had zoned out for a second. But deep down, my heart knew better. My eyes weren't playing tricks on me — I had seen something that nobody should ever see.
I kept walking and finally found my classroom. I told myself again that it had just been me zoning out, and after a while, I started to believe it.
I know now I shouldn't have.
"Okay, class, welcome back!" our teacher said cheerfully. "Let's just dive right in. Today we're going to start with ancient history and gods of the past. Please turn to page fifty-two in your textbooks."
Ugh. Because of zoning out, I'd completely forgotten that history was my first class. I was still getting used to having different classes for each subject instead of just one teacher all day. History was my least favorite subject — though honestly, I didn't like any of them much.
"Hey, Jackson, did you hear about the five disappearances last week?" Connor asked from across the room.
"Yeah, and I heard that was only from that week. There were even more over the summer," Jackson replied.
They were talking about a string of mysterious disappearances that had been happening all summer long. Kids were vanishing all over Cincinnati. Nobody knew what was going on. The police were working overtime but had no leads.
The bell rang, and we moved on to our next class — math. Another one I wasn't exactly thrilled about.
At least this time, I had my best friend Lucas in the same class.
"Hey, Kali!" he said, smiling and waving as he walked over.
We got to choose our seats, so he sat next to me.
"Do you have anything to do after school today?" he asked.
"Not really. Mom wants me to go shopping, but that's boring. I told her I'd stay home, so I'll probably sneak out later once she's gone," I said.
"Well, the reason I ask," Lucas said, leaning closer, "is because they found this creepy tunnel by the old soccer field in Newport. They say a ghost lives there — but I don't believe in ghosts. Want to check it out?"
I laughed. "I don't believe in ghosts either! Of course I'll go — just so we can prove everyone's full of it."
That was the excuse I gave myself. The truth was, I was a little scared… but I really liked Lucas, and I thought maybe I could ask him to be my boyfriend.
So I agreed.
Little did I know, that would turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life — and the beginning of the end for the entire world.
"I wouldn't mess with that."
I froze. I didn't know who said it at first, but when I turned around, I saw her — Yuki, the quiet transfer student who never talked to anyone.
"Why do you say that? Are you afraid?" Lucas and I laughed.
"One percent," Yuki whispered.
"Huh?" Lucas said. "Do you have something to say, Yuki? I can't hear you when you whisper."
"If you go," she said softly, "you'll be messing with something you can't even comprehend. This is not a warning you should take lightly. There's only a one percent chance you'll come back alive. Even that may be exaggerated."
We just laughed it off.
She looked down again and went silent. Her eyes were dark and heavy, like she hadn't slept in a week — maybe longer. She looked pale and malnourished, almost fragile, like she hadn't eaten properly in days. But nobody said anything.
"HEY, KALI!"
I turned around — it was another one of my best friends, Jasmine. She was my age, in the same grade, and one of the few people who could always lift my mood.
"Sorry I'm late! My dad overslept and totally forgot it was the first day back to school. Otherwise, I would've met up with you guys at the entrance."
"No problem at all! I was just hoping you hadn't moved or anything," I said.
We had each other's contacts, but we didn't text much, so I wasn't even sure she was still going to the same school. She'd been away all summer, helping her family with a mission trip through her church, so we hadn't talked much.
"Yep, nope, still in the same old dump!" Jasmine laughed. "You should've come to Peru, though. It was such a different experience — nothing like home."
"I'd love to hear all about it," I said. "Me and Lucas are going to the old soccer field tonight — there's this tunnel we heard about. You wanna come with us?"
"I'm always down for an adventure with you guys," she said, grinning. "Of course I'll come!"
We all agreed to meet up after school at the old soccer field.
When I got home, I waited for Mom to leave for her shopping trip at the local supercenter. As soon as I saw her car pull away, I slipped out the door — not knowing that when I came back, I'd be an entirely different person.
There were only a few cars parked in the lot. The field was connected to an old, abandoned fire department that had shut down a few years ago. I spotted Jasmine and Jacob standing under a huge rusted radio tower that loomed over the place.
"Hey, look at you — you made it!" Jasmine called.
"Look who got let out just in time," Jacob teased. "We were waiting, you know."
"Yeah, sorry," I said, laughing. "I had to wait for my mom to leave first."
"Well, no time like the present," he said. "Where's this cave you were talking about?"
Lucas pointed toward the far edge of the field, where the grass grew tall and wild. The trees leaned over a narrow, hidden path at the border of the woods.
We walked toward it.
"I don't know about this…" Jasmine said softly. "It feels kind of off."
"Oh, nonsense," Lucas said, smirking. "Don't be like those kids who actually believe in this kind of crap."
He liked to swear whenever adults weren't around — it made him feel cool.
"Well, I guess let's get going and find this thing," I said, pulling out my phone. "I'm gonna record everything so I can show everyone at school. They're all cowards, and we're not!"
I opened my camera app — but noticed there was no signal.
"Huh. No service," I muttered. "Oh well, doesn't matter."
"You won't need it," Lucas said. "And if you do, you can always come back to the field."
We kept walking as I filmed. The path grew narrower and darker the farther we went. The air was thick and musky. The sky — though it had been bright moments ago — now seemed unnaturally dim.
There was no sound. No birds. No wind.
Nothing but us.
That's when we heard it — the most blood-curdling scream we had ever heard in our entire lives.
We all knew one thing in that moment.
Danger.
Lucas somehow stood firm, ready to face whatever was out there among us. Jasmine took off running in the opposite direction. I ran after her, shouting,
"JASMINE, WAIT! Don't take off without us — it's too dangerous! We have to stick together!"
I looked back and saw Lucas still standing there, frozen.
"Uh… Kali?" Jasmine's voice trembled.
I turned toward her — and my eyes widened, my jaw dropping.
The way we came from — the soccer field — was gone.
All that stood before us was the darkest, deepest cave I had ever seen. It looked like it wanted to swallow us whole.
"HEY, GUYS! WAIT!" Lucas yelled, running to catch up.
We stood side by side, staring at the gaping mouth of the cave.
"No way," Jasmine said. "There's no way I'm going in there. I'm going home. I don't know how this stupid cave even got here, but I'm getting as far away from it as possible — with or without you!"
She turned and started running back the way we came — or what should have been the way back.
We followed her… and that's when I realized just how much danger we were really in.
The cave we had just left was now standing right in front of us again — the same one, the same shape, the same impossible darkness.
"I don't know what's going on," Jasmine said, voice shaking, "but something is very wrong here."
"I feel like we only have one option," Lucas said quietly. "If we don't see what's inside this cave, we'll never know."
"No!" Jasmine snapped. "I'm not even thinking twice about going in there! Didn't you hear all those stories about people disappearing? And that scream? There's clearly something very wrong here, Lucas!"
They kept arguing, their voices echoing through the dark. I zoned out, something inside me whispering that I shouldn't be afraid.
But why?
Why wasn't I afraid of something so incomprehensible?
"Let's go," I said calmly.
They both turned to me, eyes wide.
"Are you going crazy, Kali?" Jasmine asked. "This could be the first and last cave we ever see. Who knows what's in there?"
After more arguing, somehow I convinced Jasmine to come with me — and with Lucas already willing, we entered the cave together.
The air was heavy and damp. My phone's flashlight was the only light we had. Water dripped from above, echoing like slow footsteps. The smell was terrible — a mix of rot and metal.
After a few minutes, the tunnel split in two.
"Left or right?" Jasmine asked.
"Right," Lucas said quickly.
"Because left always leads to bad endings in horror movies," he added, half-joking.
Jasmine rolled her eyes. "You realize this is a horror movie right now, right?"
The right tunnel sloped downward. With each step, the air grew thicker, the smell stronger — metallic, like old blood.
Their flashlights flickered.
"Did you see that?" Jasmine whispered.
"Old batteries," Lucas muttered.
"You always have an excuse for everything, Lucas," Jasmine said, frustrated. "Hey… wait, where's Kali? Wasn't she right behind us?"
"I don't know," Lucas said. "She's probably back there somewhere."
But little did they know — the real Kali was never with them.
It wasn't her.
Their flashlights became almost useless, flickering weakly on and off. The ground beneath their feet began to crunch.
It wasn't until they entered a vast chamber that they realized what they were walking on.
The room glowed faintly orange, almost like molten rock — and the ground…
They were walking on bones.
Human bones. Hundreds of them.
Jasmine screamed and turned to run — but as she spun around, she came face to face with it.
This was no human. No demon. This was something entirely beyond comprehension.
Its face dripped with blood from the flesh it had just devoured, and strands of saliva hung from its mouth as it stared at them with unblinking hunger.
It didn't speak.
It didn't need to.
They both froze, unable to move, unable even to scream.
Then instinct took over — Jasmine turned and ran, back toward where they had come from.
That's when a faint light appeared from the tunnel ahead.
"JASMINE! LUCAS!" I yelled. "I got separated, but I'm here! Are you okay?"
Jasmine sprinted toward me in blind panic. She ran right past me without even looking, too terrified to stop.
As she vanished down the tunnel, I lifted my light… and saw something I will never unsee.
The boy I secretly loved — Lucas — his head half-detached, part of it clenched in the creature's jaws. His body shredded and torn apart beyond recognition.
I didn't run. Not yet.
I stood there, frozen, tears burning my eyes. My body trembled as my mind tried to deny what I was seeing.
And then…
The creature stopped.
It looked at me — and turned away.
It ran.
From me.