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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Wild-Tea-9242 on 2024-09-28 18:57:02+00:00.

We ran into the Eye Ripper house and locked the front door. I closed the curtains of the front windows but not before seeing the wraiths we had disturbed in the forest flood onto the pavement. Some of them shambled, some of them floated, some of them sprinted, some of them even seemed to glitch forward like they were teleporting.

Yazmine shuddered and hugged herself as she sat on the sofa pushed against the wall. It was just a minute before those things began banging on the front door, a cacophony of ghostly utterances bleeding through into the house.

“Come on, we’re going into the basement,” I whispered as I tugged Yazmine along to the kitchen, “there’s a way we can escape in there if they get in.”

We ran into the basement and shut the door behind us, sitting on the top step and listening in case one of those things broke in. It felt like an hour had passed, with the distant sounds of ghoulish wailing and fists banging against the front door aside from our soft breathing.

I heard footsteps in the kitchen and felt fear shoot through me. “They got in.” I panicked as I stood. The doorknob twisted as someone tried to get through the basement door. “Come on, Yaz!” I grabbed her shoulder, ready to make a break for the crawlspace, then:

“Dude, Grace, it’s me, open the goddamn door.” Vanessa hissed from the other side.

I unlocked the door to the sight of the blonde alt girl holding the sachet in one hand and pinching her nostrils closed with her other hand. She seemed to be panting, her forehead beaded with perspiration.

“Where’s that fucking ghost kid?” She asked, the look on her face making it clear she was fed up. “I had to outrun so many of those things and I got in through the back door but now they’re blocking that exit, too.”

“We’ll use the crawlspace,” I took the sachet from her and handed the camera back. “I don’t know where William is, but the ouija is down here, so we should be able to call him.”

I led the way back downstairs. After collecting the Ouija board and planchette from where it had been thrown the last time we used it, we set it up in front of the furnace and sat ourselves around it. We didn’t have candles but we set up flashlights to illuminate the area again.

I squeezed Yazmine’s hand, noticing the faraway look on her face, “Are you okay?”

“I just want this to be over.” She replied, shaking her head.

“Let’s get it over with, then,” Vanessa took a deep breath, “is the spirit of-”

The ragged scream of a woman alongside frantic banging against the basement door resounded throughout the room.

“Um, Vanessa, did you lock the back door?” I asked slowly.

Vanessa blinked at me. “Uh-”

“GIVE IT BACK!” The only words I could make out among the wails, whispers, crying, and laughter leaked through the basement door. “GIVE US OUR EYES BACK!”

“You didn’t!” Spit flew out my mouth as I glared accusingly at Vanessa.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I forgot!” Tears ran down her cheeks.

“We’re just lucky they can’t go through fucking walls.” I spat, looking down at the board. “Just hurry up and say the words!”

“Is the spirit of William Crawford present?” The words rushed out of Vanessa’s mouth clumsily. “We have something you might want.”

“There.” Yazmine pointed behind Vanessa, scaring the living daylights out of her as she whirled around and saw the apparition of the brunette little boy peeking around the corner of the entryway to the other room.

“Here!” Vanessa hastily snatched the sachet from me and raised it to him. He crept forward almost shyly, emerging from the shadow into the flashlight.

I stood up and grabbed the sachet back, staring at the spirit with a hard look on my face. Vanessa and Yazmine looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Grace, are you an idiot?!” Vanessa demanded to know.

William reached his white fingers out, his eyeless face contorted into a frozen expression of rage from the moment he appeared. His mouth was open in a way that implied he was yelling, not in fear or pain but anger, and his dark eyebrows were furrowed over his empty sockets. His presence felt like death, as if the Grim Reaper were looking over us, and the edges of his flesh were transparent. He seemed the most inhuman out of every entity we had encountered, his skin so light it was nearly transparent, an intricate spider web of black veins visible all throughout his body. He was more ghost-like even compared to the other kids, he almost seemed like a hologram or an image displayed in front of us by an old school projector.

“If I give you this,” I began after swallowing the lump in my throat, “you have to let us go, and you have to set free all the souls you’ve trapped here. They weren’t responsible for what happened to you, and what you’re doing is very bad.”

There was silence as William seemed to stare at me with the two dark pools set into his face, no humanity evident in him at all, from the way his body was frozen in the same rigid posture, with his hand reaching, to his face not moving a muscle. Then, a slow moan, like an injured zombie, croaked from deep within his throat as he was suddenly inches closer to me without ever moving his legs. Still reaching for the sachet.

“No!” I snapped, lifting it away from him. I could hear Vanessa’s labored breathing behind me as she panicked at my rash actions. “You have to promise…pinky promise.” Sticking my pinky out, I tried to appeal to the little kid that was likely still hidden deep within the evil that had corrupted his soul.

There was another long silence as his head tilted down with him staring unwaveringly at my pinky. Then, the rage filled expression quite literally faded from his face like a PowerPoint transition, into a look of regretful sorrow. His eyebrows were upturned and his mouth shaped into a quivering whimper with wrinkles spread along his chin as if he were about to burst into tears. His hand, without any sort of motion, switched from expectantly awaiting me putting the sachet in his hands to holding his little pinky out. I linked our pinky fingers, and shivered as his flesh felt like touching a hard block of ice.

Then, I gave him his eyes back. He cradled the sachet in his cupped hands, the same look of silent weeping frozen on his face as he, like all the others, rescinded into the darkness and vanished. His presence departing felt like Armageddon storm clouds withdrawing from the sky and making way for a smiling sun and wispy clouds. The atmosphere seemed lighter. The banging and hollering outside the basement had ceased.

The three of us hugged, crying in the basement, which now felt safer as it was relieved of that oppressive atmosphere it had before. Instead of escaping via the crawlspace, we walked out the front door. The ghosts from the woods were still out there, but now their backs were facing us and they were calmly walking away, down the street. We were happy to find that John had forgotten his keys in the house when he left earlier, although it was bittersweet knowing we would use his car to get out of this mess without him riding along with us.

Vanessa, being the only one with the ability to drive out of the three of us, took the driver’s seat and inserted the key in the ignition. She placed the camera on the middle console, next to Yazmine who was riding shotgun. I sat in the middle of the back seat and buckled my seatbelt as she made a U-turn and drove slowly out of there. I watched the Eye Ripper house and the unfinished suburb get smaller on the horizon. I also watched the spirits leaving with us, and among them was John, Bryce, and Zack. Vanessa cried softly as we passed them, sniffing snot back up her nose and wiping her face. I felt numb and simply observed them as we passed, same as Yazmine. The ghosts didn’t have their eyes back but I wasn’t too concerned. I assumed that if they were walking out of this place without attacking anyone, then they were free. William had honored my request.

The sun was rising, finally. The peachy light of dawn entered the car as we drove along the road flanked by trees. I rolled down the window a bit and heard birdsong, and a bug smacked against the windshield. The critters were back.

“That place…” I said. “I think it was another realm.”

Vanessa nodded. “Yeah, that explains why nothing living was there, and why none of those missing people’s cars were found. That car graveyard in the woods was so creepy. It’s so creepy that they hid evidence of people being there. Now that I think about it, all that stuff people left behind must’ve appeared after we entered the realm. When we left the basement it seemed like less stuff was in there. At first I thought we entered the realm when we did the Ouija board thing, but then I got to thinking, it must’ve happened as soon as we stepped foot in that basement. The basement was basically a gateway and…”

Her rambling became white noise as I looked out the window, reflecting on everything and being so relieved I was finally going home.

Then I looked at Yazmine’s window and my heart stopped.

She was looking almost wistfully out the window as well, and thanks to the light of daybreak I could see her reflection in the glass.

Her reflection was eyeless.

Immediately, it felt like the air was short and it was impossible to breathe.

No… No, no, NO. Not her too. Anyone but her.

I closed my eyes and rubbed them vigorously, hoping it was a hallucination brought on by stress and trauma. When I …

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