I don't know what triggered the memory—maybe the whisper on the radio, maybe the way the trees stood so unnaturally still—but suddenly it felt like someone reached into my mind and twisted a key I never knew existed.
My fingers locked around the steering wheel as the world blurred…
then dissolved.
In a single breath, the present fell away—
And I was eight years old again.
We were spending the summer at Grandma's old house—the one with peeling blue paint, the sagging porch swing that complained with every push, and the endless forest stretching behind it like a sleeping giant.
Grandma never let us near the woods.
She'd chop vegetables at the kitchen window, watching the treeline with narrowed eyes, muttering:
"They listen. They remember."
We thought she was just being dramatic.
Or old.
Or superstitious.
But my sister…
She had always been different.
Curious in ways that didn't feel entirely safe.
One heavy, heat-thick afternoon, while Grandma napped with the fan rattling above her bed, my sister slipped her hand into mine and whispered:
"Come on. I want to show you something."
I hesitated.
The woods terrified me—their tangled branches like reaching fingers, the shadows that moved even when the air didn't.
But then she gave me that fearless smile.
And I followed.
The deeper we walked, the more the world changed.
No birds.
No buzzing insects.
No wind brushing through leaves.
Just the crunch of our footsteps, swallowed by the stillness.
Eventually, we reached a clearing—a perfect circle of bare earth, far too smooth, too deliberate. As if something had carved it into the world on purpose.
In the center stood a stone well covered in moss, strangled by thorns.
I stared at it, a cold knot forming in my stomach.
"How did you find this?" I whispered.
She didn't answer.
She took a step toward the well—slow, mesmerized, as though something was calling her.
Then she whispered.
Not to me.
To the well.
"I came back."
My blood turned to ice.
That's when I heard it—
A voice drifting up from the well's depths.
Soft. Echoing. Wrong.
"Annabelle…"
Her name.
Spoken gently.
Lovingly.
Horribly.
I grabbed her arm, desperate to pull her back. But she didn't move. Didn't blink.
The voice returned—clearer now.
"You promised."
My sister leaned forward, drawn in by something I couldn't see.
"I know," she whispered. "I remember."
The air thickened around us—cold, heavy, like the entire forest was holding its breath.
The trees seemed closer.
Closer than they should be.
Then my sister placed her small hand on the rim of the well and spoke words I will never forget:
"I promise—when the time comes, I will return."
The moment her fingers touched the stone, everything snapped.
Wind rushed through the clearing.
Birds screamed and scattered.
The atmosphere shattered like glass under pressure.
I yanked her away, heart racing.
She stared at me— frightened, yet somehow calm.
Too calm.
"Don't tell Grandma," she whispered.
And I didn't.
Not then.
Not ever.
The memory vanished like smoke.
The present slammed back into me.
The forest stood before me again.
The figure in the wedding veil was still at the tree line—only now… she wasn't alone.
A towering shadow loomed behind her, tall and shifting, its shape warping like smoke trapped in human form.
The veil fluttered even though the air was perfectly still.
My phone vibrated suddenly.
A new message.
My chest tightened as I read the notification:
1 Unread Message
From: ANNABELLE
The preview text drained the blood from my body.
"Turn the car around. Before it remembers you too."