This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/philosophysubboy on 2024-09-29 04:56:29+00:00.

I’ve been working for a cleaning company for a couple of years now, and you see some weird stuff, but nothing compares to what happened at the old Fischer house. The memory of that day still crawls under my skin, and sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever shake the feeling that something is watching me—something dark.

It started like any other job. Mrs. Fischer had passed away a few weeks ago, and her family wanted the place cleaned up so they could sell it. The house was big, a dusty old thing in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by thick woods that seemed to swallow up the sunlight. It was one of those places that immediately felt wrong the moment you stepped inside.

The air was stale, thick with the smell of rot and neglect. Every step I took on the creaky wooden floors echoed through the empty rooms, the only other sound being the wind outside rattling the broken windows. I started in the living room, wiping down furniture and sweeping the floor, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling that had settled in my gut.

It was in one of the upstairs bedrooms where I found it—a small, leather-bound diary tucked under a loose floorboard. The diary looked ancient, the pages yellowed and brittle, the leather cracked from age. At first, I didn’t think much of it. Maybe it was just some old family keepsake.

But when I opened it, something changed in the air around me.

The first page was written in shaky, old-fashioned handwriting, dated July 12th, 1910. It was signed by a priest named Father Augustine. His words were strange, like he was documenting something terrible that had happened.

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. I write this to recount the horrors that befell the village of St. Cuthbert, for my soul will never rest until the truth is known.”

I kept reading, feeling a shiver crawl up my spine.

“It began with the children. Their laughter twisted into screams, and their eyes… their eyes turned black as night. One by one, they fell to the curse, speaking in tongues, writhing like serpents upon the ground. At first, we thought it was a sickness, but it was not of this world. It was the work of the devil himself.”

The room suddenly felt colder, and I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting to see someone standing behind me. But the house was empty. I was alone. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself to keep reading.

“I was called to the village when the first child died. Her body twisted in unnatural ways, her mouth open in a silent scream. The villagers whispered of demons, of something unholy that had come to our land. I did not believe them. I was a man of God. I was a fool.”

“The first exorcism failed.”

"Deus in adiutorium meum intende. The words of the ritual did nothing. The child laughed—a laugh that was not her own. She spoke to me in the voice of a thousand serpents, mocking God, mocking my faith. And then she died, her body turning cold and stiff in my arms."*

I slammed the book shut, my heart racing. Something was wrong. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, a creeping sense of dread that was getting harder to ignore. But I couldn’t stop myself. I had to know more.

I opened the diary again, flipping through the pages. The priest’s handwriting grew more frantic as the entries went on, his Latin prayers scattered throughout the text, as if he were desperately trying to cling to his faith.

“I have seen the face of evil. It wears the skin of the innocent, but its soul is black. The demon is no longer in one body. It moves through the village like a plague, corrupting, consuming. I tried to perform another exorcism tonight. It went wrong—so very wrong.”

"Daemones me circumdederunt. The demon was stronger than I could have imagined. It spoke my name. It knew me. It taunted me, saying it had been waiting for me. I could feel its presence in the room, crawling beneath my skin, filling the air with its stench."*

Suddenly, I heard a soft creak behind me. I jumped, the diary slipping from my hands and falling to the floor. I whipped around, my heart in my throat, but the room was still empty. The shadows seemed to shift, though, moving in ways that didn’t feel right.

It was like something was here with me.

I picked up the diary again, my hands shaking. I wanted to stop reading, but something was pulling me in, like the words had a power of their own. I flipped to the last entry, dated October 31st, 1910.

“The village is lost. The demon has claimed them all. Men, women, children—it moves through them like a plague, leaving only death and madness in its wake. I hear its voice in my sleep now. It whispers to me, calls to me. I know what I must do.”

“This is no longer a battle of faith. This is survival. I will confront it tonight. Fiat voluntas tua. If these are my last words, let it be known that I fought, though I fear I fight in vain.”

The last line was written in shaky, barely legible script.

“I hear it now. It is coming for me.”

As soon as I finished reading, the wind outside picked up, howling against the windows. The house groaned, the floorboards creaking as if something heavy was moving through the halls. My breath came in short, panicked bursts, and every instinct told me to run, but my legs wouldn’t move.

Then, the whispers started.

They were soft at first, like the wind slipping through cracks in the walls, but they grew louder, more insistent. Words I couldn’t understand, spoken in a language that made my skin crawl. The same language that Father Augustine had written in.

“Daemones… ad te veniunt…”

The room seemed to darken, the shadows stretching across the walls, twisting and writhing like something alive. My heart pounded in my chest, and I backed toward the door, clutching the diary like it was my only lifeline.

But then I saw it.

In the corner of the room, barely visible in the dim light, a figure stood. It was tall, its skin pale and stretched tight over its bones, its eyes black and empty. It didn’t move, but I could feel its gaze on me, cold and malevolent.

My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment, I was frozen in place, unable to look away from the thing in the corner. Then, it smiled.

The smile stretched impossibly wide, splitting its face in half, revealing rows of sharp, blackened teeth. And then it spoke, its voice a low, guttural rasp that seemed to echo inside my head.

“Fiat voluntas tua.”

I bolted. I ran faster than I’ve ever run before, down the stairs, through the darkened halls, out the front door. I didn’t stop until I was in my car, slamming the door behind me and fumbling for the keys.

The house loomed in the rearview mirror as I sped away, its dark windows staring after me like eyes.

I never went back to the Fischer house. I quit my job the next day, moved to a new town, tried to forget everything I’d read in that diary. But I can’t shake the feeling that something followed me. The whispers still come at night, creeping into the edges of my dreams, filling my mind with dark, ancient words I don’t understand.

And right now as I’m writing this, I feel like I’m being watched. Like there’s something standing in the corner of the room, smiling.