The Cursed Story

During a college retreat, we hosted a storytelling competition.

They just kept egging me on, completely oblivious to the terrifying disaster it would invite.

I said, "The story I'm about to tell is a curse."

"Everyone who has ever heard this story has died."

"Are you sure you want to hear it?"

Chapter 1

Chloe Gomez's POV:

A group of us college students were huddled together at the annual campus retreat, laughing loudly and drinking cheap beer.

Someone shouted, "Another one! Who's up next?"

The storytelling competition was a campus tradition.

The winner wouldn't just earn bragging rights; they'd secure a prime spot in the Student Government.

"Chloe! You haven't told a single story yet!" Kevin, the assistant to the student body president, called me out.

I drew in a sharp breath.

A few others chimed in. "Come on, Chloe! Don't be shy!"

I shook my head, putting on a show of reluctance.

"My story isn't like yours," I said, keeping my voice low. "It's not the kind of tale you tell around a campfire just for a quick laugh."

"Oh? Why not? Too scary?"

I looked straight at Holden Horn. That charismatic smile of his never faltered, radiating charm across the crowd.

He was the student body president-popular, well-connected, and filthy rich.

"Because," I said, "my story has consequences. Deadly ones. Everyone who has ever heard it has died."

A pin-drop silence fell over the crowd, but it only lasted for a second. Then, a ripple of excited whispers spread through the group.

"Oh, I love a good threat!" someone chimed in, sounding thrilled.

They thought my warning was just a cheap trick to build suspense.

Holden Horn, always the center of attention, let out a soft chuckle.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Come on, Chloe," he said, his voice smooth as silk. "Don't hold out on us. We all want to scare ourselves a little, right?"

He looked around for approval, and the crowd immediately murmured their agreement.

I felt a familiar tremor in my hands, a ghostly echo of a terror from my past.

"My story isn't fiction," I said, my voice trembling slightly. "It's a real piece of history."

That drew another collective gasp, this one sounding a bit more genuine.

"It took place in a town where faith wasn't just a word; it was a cage. There were rules, taboos, and if you broke them, they didn't just punish you-they consumed you."

My gaze lingered on Holden for a moment. He shifted slightly, an indiscernible flicker crossing his eyes.

"And speaking of these taboos," I continued, dropping my voice to a whisper, "could invite fatal disasters. Or worse."

A sudden chill swept through the crowd.

A few girls pulled their blankets tighter around themselves, their initial excitement now tangling with genuine unease.

"If it's a taboo, maybe you shouldn't tell it? Can we just do a different story?"

But others, like Holden, seemed only more intrigued.

"I... I don't think I should say it," I stammered, hesitating. "Some things are better left unsaid."

"No!" a chorus of voices objected at once, their curiosity overriding everything else. "Tell us, Chloe! You have to!"

I let out a heavy sigh, acting as though I had been backed into a corner.

"Alright," I conceded reluctantly, letting a hint of a quiver slip into my voice. "But if I'm going to take this risk, all of you are in this with me."

"No one leaves until I finish the story. Deal?" I managed to force a tight smile.

Holden, always the alpha, saw this as a chance to flex his authority.

He stood up and clapped his hands. "Alright, everyone! Gather 'round! Chloe's about to tell us a story, and it sounds like a killer!"

His booming voice drew in the stragglers from the edges of the campsite.

Soon, everyone was seated, forming a tight, intimate circle around the fire.

Every single pair of eyes was locked on me.

"If you're from the deep country, you might have heard of some obscure, backwoods beliefs."

"In my hometown," I said softly, "we worshipped a very different kind of deity. She wasn't a god from heaven, nor a spirit of the earth. No, our god was... special."

"We called her the Prophet."

I took a slow, deep breath, letting the freezing night air fill my lungs.

"And I," I whispered, "I touched her. I saw her. And that day... became a nightmare that I still haven't woken up from."

Chloe Gomez's POV:

The air around the campfire crackled.

They were completely hooked-eyes wide, practically buzzing with anticipation.

"There were two main taboos concerning the Prophet," I continued, keeping my voice low.

"Everyone in Providence Creek lived by these two rules. At least, that's what they claimed."

I paused, letting my gaze sweep over every face in the circle before landing on Holden. He was leaning forward, hanging on my every word.

"First," I went on, "you must never look directly at the Prophet. Never look at her face, and especially never look into her eyes."

I remember the Prophet's face was always shrouded in a thick, heavy black veil. The way it fluttered slightly hinted at the horrors hidden beneath. Even as a child, its mere presence triggered a primal dread in me.

"And the second rule," I added. "You must never mention her name to outsiders, nor speak a word about her."

"It was a secret, a sacred trust passed down through generations. They said this secret protected us."

I never understood why back then.

The story begins when I was just a naive, innocent little girl. It was the first time I ever stepped foot inside the Prophet's shrine.

The air inside was thick with the suffocating scent of ancient incense, masking a sickeningly sweet, rotting odor. The light was dim, barely filtering through the grime-caked windows.

I was young and full of curiosity.

The Prophet's statue stood on a pedestal-a gaunt, frail figure draped in silk robes. Her face was completely obscured by that thick black veil.

I knew the rules, but a child's mind simply cannot resist curiosity. I reached out a tiny hand and tugged at the edge of the veil.

"Chloe, no!" My mother's voice was shrill. Her hand clamped down on my arm, yanking me back with unexpected sheer force.

I jumped, my heart hammering in my chest.

She pulled me down, forcing me to bow my head toward the statue.

She started burning incense, sprinkling the granules into the censer. As the smoke curled upward, she began whispering frantic prayers. I stared at the censer. The embers flickered for a moment, and then, instead of dying down, they... stayed lit, refusing to turn to ash.

My mother's face twisted in sudden panic.

"This is your fault, Chloe," she said, her voice dripping with suppressed terror. "You defied the Prophet's will. She won't accept my offering."

She had to go buy more incense. I knew how precious money was to us. We were barely scraping by, let alone having extra cash to burn for a god. My mother worked her fingers to the bone just to feed us. Every single penny mattered.

While her back was turned to light another piece of wood, my childish resentment flared up again.

I hated that Prophet. I hated the rules, and I hated the fear they planted in my mother's eyes. I wanted answers. I wanted to prove them all wrong. So, I sneaked around to the back of the statue.

The Prophet was said to be an ancient, mysterious guardian who could foresee the future, predict harvests, and ward off evil. The townsfolk claimed that Providence Creek's prosperity was all thanks to her.

But as I stood behind her, I thought of my mother's calloused hands and her hollow eyes. What exactly had this Prophet foreseen for us?

"If you're really so powerful," I whispered, "why can't you help my mom? Why are we so poor?"

The embers in the censer suddenly extinguished. Not a slow fade, not a lingering trail of smoke, but a sharp, instantaneous hiss, like something having the breath choked out of it.

A violent shiver shot down my spine. I leaned in closer, my heart pounding against my ribs. Through the Prophet's veil, I thought I saw something... moving.

Beneath the black silk, something was writhing.

Before I could process it, strong hands grabbed me, roughly dragging me out of the shrine.

"You two," a deep voice barked. "Are never allowed back in here."

My mother, pale as a ghost, didn't argue. She just gripped me tightly, her fingers digging in so hard it hurt.

She was absolutely furious. Her usually dull, defeated eyes were now ablaze with a rare anger I had hardly ever seen.

"You fool!" She shook me. "What did you do?"

I broke free from her grasp and ran. I ran until my lungs burned.

Finally, I reached the edge of town, where a group of older boys blocked my path. The Mayor's son was among them.

"Look who it is," one of them sneered. "Chloe, did you see her eyes? Did you see the witch's true face?"

The Mayor's son stepped forward, waving a crisp bill in his hand. "Tell us what you saw, Chloe. Just tell us what's under the veil. And this cash is yours."

A hundred bucks. It was more money than I had ever seen in my entire life.

Chloe Gomez's POV:

Staring at the bill in his hand, my stomach churned-not out of fear, but from a deep, gnawing hunger.

"Really?" I asked. "You'll really give it to me?"

"Every last cent," he promised.

Without hesitation, I blurted out everything I had seen: the dark, shifting silhouette beneath the veil, the sickeningly sweet smell, the way the incense had violently snuffed out. I painted a vivid picture of a living terror trapped inside that shrine.

But the boys weren't satisfied. "That's not enough. Anyone could make that up. We need proof. Hard proof."

"What kind of proof?" I asked.

He pointed toward the shrine, its heavy wooden doors shut tight against the gathering twilight. "Get the Prophet's veil. Bring it here, and the money is yours."

My mind raced. The Prophet's statue was tall, but not impossible to scale. I could reach it.

I imagined that money. It was enough to buy groceries, maybe even a new dress for my mom. Enough to make her smile, to show her I wasn't just a burden, that I could actually help.

If I did this, maybe she wouldn't be in such a rush to marry me off.

"I'll do it!" I declared, my voice shaking with a mix of dread and desperate hope. "I'll do it tonight!"

I waited until the whole town was asleep, the moon hanging high in the night sky.

The shrine cut a sinister silhouette in the pale moonlight. My fingers fumbled clumsily with the rusted padlock, but a piece of wire surprisingly did the trick.

A sharp click echoed into the dead of night.

I pushed the heavy wooden door open, breaking the silence with a low creak. A single beam of moonlight pierced the gloom, illuminating the path to the Prophet's pedestal.

I wedged a rock against the door, leaving it cracked open just enough so the wind wouldn't blow it shut.

The air inside was freezing, stagnant, and reeked of rot.

A deathly silence enveloped me, broken only by the frantic thudding of my own heartbeat.

I could feel the Prophet's presence-a heavy, suffocating weight pressing down on me. But the thought of the money pushed my fear aside.

I climbed onto the altar, then hoisted myself onto the pedestal, my eyes locked on the spot where the Prophet's statue was supposed to be.

But there was nothing there!

The Prophet was gone.

My mind went completely blank as a sudden, paralyzing wave of terror crashed over me.

I stared blankly at the empty space, my hands gripping the edge of the pedestal so hard my knuckles turned white. Where did it go?