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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Volapycous on 2025-10-24 15:32:59+00:00.

I never liked the cold. Every year I dreaded our lengthy visit to our great-grandfather’s cabin in the Appalachians. Tom used to love telling people how I’d stay in the rusty, creaky bed for hours - sometimes pretending I was in some asylum, strapped to the bed for all of eternity. We were all too young to realize what our parents were doing - dressed in long, blood-red robes, covered in ritualistic writings, chanting in ancient tongue. To be frank, neither my younger sister, Kelly, nor I remember much of that.

But Tom. Tom was the only one old enough to remember what happened in those god forsaken mountains. He disappeared a week ago. The police said that this type of case is normal.

“Disappearances like this one often turn out to be misunderstandings, he’ll turn up soon”

But they didn’t know Tom like we did.

Two days later, his car was found. Dumped and idling on Black Hollow Road close to the cabin. Of course, the cabin had long since been boarded shut. Old crime scene tape scattered all around the desolate property.

After the incident Tom had made us swear that no matter what happens we would never return. Yet here we were.

Kelly looked at me with a look I can only describe as unnerving. We were both feeling something. It started as a mere itch at the very back of our minds - now a sense of impending doom. Like every damn thing inside that cabin was about to jump at us and tear us apart. Primal, instinctive fear.

“He’s not in there, you know that right?” I asked Kelly. Maybe I was hoping she would agree and suggest we turn back. “Well, he sure was. I love Tom to hell - and if that’s where we have to drag him back from then so be it. I’m not going back home a chicken”.

She was right. We hadn’t come this far to chicken out.

I gathered courage, quickly counting down from three. I pushed the wooden door open - trying to keep the eerie thoughts of what had once taken place here suppressed. A foul smell of sod, metal - and something else I could not name - hung in the air. The cabin had been decaying ever since it had been abandoned. The place brought back flashes of memory I didn’t know I had. The soothing voices of my parents, flashing red and blue lights, being carried out of the cabin screaming and crying.

The cabin was mostly empty. Most of the furniture had been taken to a site and burned by the police. Despite the decay and lack of furniture, Kelly and I could both locate the room by memory. We were both hesitant to enter, and I stopped, drying my sweaty palms in my sweater before pulling on the doorknob. I turned the doorknob, and the heavy, wooden door creaked open.

Incredulously, the room stood just as it was left all those years ago. An antique lantern stood on the desk, flashing dimly as the last drops of oil slowly evaporated. Probably from Tom. The beds were still there. The beds we were made to lie on that fateful night.

That night was meant to be our last. But our dad had swapped out the poison with sedatives - a sliver of doubt still left in his deranged mind. He had tucked us in and put us to sleep like any other night, kissing our foreheads goodbye one by one. He stood in the doorframe for a bit, contemplating, before ultimately closing the door and locking it behind him.

What our dad forgot to account for was the fact that Tom being larger also meant that he would require a bigger dose to be sedated. For the entirety of the incident, Tom was paralyzed but coherent. What he experienced that night he would never come to tell. But something led him back here.

“I don’t know exactly what we were hoping to accomplish by coming here” I said. “The police already scoured the place”.

I knelt, studying the carpet. Amongst the dust and dirt that time had brought, there were faint traces of strange, iridescent powder. I picked up a pinch, smearing it between my fingers. Probably some fancy forensics powder. Strangely, the powder seemed to have a magnetic effect, forming an intricate pattern on my fingertips.

“Have a look at this” Kelly said, standing atop of one of the beds. Although she was the youngest of the three of us, she was the smarter one - always seeing the bigger picture. I got up on the bed beside her and looked down on the carpet. A faint pattern shimmered in the retreating rays of the sunset. Forensics powder my ass.

The substance was moving, like we had started some old machine which had not been running for years. Forming an endless string of numbers, symbols and sigils.

“What the FUCK” Kelly exclaimed. The fire within the lantern flickered violently and the floorboards began to shake. The window broke and Kelly screamed. I was at a loss for words, completely frozen by fear.

And then, as quickly as it had begun it all ceased. A horrible silence fell over the room. Kelly was frozen as well, tears running down her cheeks. I slowly descended to the floor; afraid it was going to swallow me whole.

“We need to get out of here" I stammered. Kelly nodded. The door, which had been slammed shut during the violent shaking, was stuck. I pulled a couple of times but to no avail.

“Fuck, FUCK” Kelly cried.

I started ramming the door, luckily dilapidated. It gave in with a loud crack of the wooden boards and rusty hinges, followed by a hollow thump of the door hitting the floor. The sight that we were met with was that of our worst nightmares.

The previously empty hall was now completely restored as it had been left, furniture and all. A faint chanting could be heard coming from afar. I looked back at Kelly. She was hugging herself, clawing her nails so hard into her arms it drew blood. I was shivering, but not from cold. Kelly took my hand, and we made our way through the hallway and into the large dining room.

It got dark fast. The room was dimly lit by candlelight. I glanced around the room, memories flooding. Taken out of context, the place was quite nice - cozy like an old gold miner’s cabin. The same substance from before was seeping through the cracks of the floorboards. Like sand filling an hourglass.

The chanting did not come from inside the cabin, but rather somewhere in the surrounding forest. I had not given it much thought until now, but it was getting closer. Ever so slowly. I looked out the window. A faint shimmer of light could be seen in the distance - it looked like torches.

Kelly sat down at one of the dining tables, her head sinking down between her shoulders in a sob. Desperation filling the air. Was this the same fate Tom had met?

I got down on all fours, frantically trying to disrupt the patterns forming on the ground but to no avail. They simply formed again within seconds. The chanting was loud, filling my head like a fever dream.

Kelly had stopped sobbing. Defeatedly, she looked out the window at the many silhouettes. There was no light outside anymore, yet they were now clearly visible from the light emitted from the cabin. The chanting - the words - grew louder. Whoever they were out there, they were not human - at least not anymore. Now coming from just outside the window.

Kelly was slumped over in the chair. A small, empty glass in her hand. Everything blurred - my head pounding. My body was no longer mine.

A sudden wave of nausea hit me.

Pain drowned out the chanting outside.

I looked down - a small, empty glass in my hand.

Just like that night.

Maybe we were never meant to leave.

I feel so cold