I walked back and forth, contemplating whether I should throw away the diary or keep it. All the dumb actors in horror movies who keep cursed books always end up dying.
Would that happen in real life too? I looked at the entry again. It felt like someone was listening to me, like someone actually understood how I felt, and somehow that scared me more.
It seemed harmless yet suspicious at the same time. What if it was sugarcoating everything and trying to trick me into something? That's exactly how it starts in movies. Ughhhh, my mind. I let out a frustrated sigh and traced my fingers over the handwriting.
It looked elegant and strangely perfect, nothing like the rushed scribbles modern kids usually had. And the strangest part was that the book hadn't moved from its exact place either.
I finally took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. My thoughts were racing so fast it felt impossible to think straight. After staring at the diary for what felt like forever, I slowly reached for my pen. If the diary truly answered back...
then maybe the only way to understand it was to ask it directly. My hands felt strangely cold as I sat down on the chair and turned to the next blank page. For a moment, I hesitated. Part of me screamed to shut the book and throw it out the window... but another part of me... the curious part... needed answers.
16 April, 2026
10pm
Dear Diary,
I honestly don't even know how to start this... I still can't believe you wrote back to me. Every time I think about it, I feel like I'm losing my mind a little more. Things like this don't happen in real life. They happen in movies... creepy internet stories... or those old horror books people read for fun at midnight. Not to me. Not in my room.
What exactly are you...?
Seriously... I need an actual explanation because my brain is running through every terrifying possibility right now. Are you magic...? Haunted...? Some weird science experiment...? Are you possessed or something...? Maybe you're a demon pretending to be harmless... or an alien. At this point, I genuinely don't know what to believe anymore... and that scares me.
The weirdest part is that you don't even feel dangerous. That's what bothers me the most. You feel... calm. Friendly, almost. Like someone who understands me. But isn't that how people get tricked in stories...? First it acts nice... then suddenly everything goes horribly wrong.
I never believed in supernatural stuff before. Ghosts... curses... demons... all of it sounded ridiculous to me. Yet here I am... sitting alone in my room... writing to a diary that somehow answers back. Even thinking about that sounds insane.
And look... if you have some kind of ulterior motive... please just tell me now. I mean it. I can't deal with more problems. My life is already miserable enough without adding "possibly haunted diary" to the list. School is exhausting... my mind is a mess half the time... and honestly I'm tired of everything constantly feeling complicated.
I should probably throw you away. Any smart person would. But for some reason... I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know why. Curiosity...? Loneliness...? Maybe I just want someone to listen for once... even if that someone is... whatever you are.
So please... just tell me the truth.
Who... or what... are you...?
I looked at my entry for a long moment, my fingers still gripping the pen tightly. The room felt strangely quiet... too quiet. Even the sound of the ceiling fan seemed distant now. My heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears as I slowly turned to the next page, almost afraid of what I'd see.
At first... nothing happened.
I let out a nervous breath and laughed quietly at myself. Maybe I really was overthinking everything. Maybe stress had finally gotten to my head.
And then...
Words began appearing on the paper.
Slowly.
Letter by letter.
As if an invisible hand was writing right in front of me.
My breath hitched in my throat. I froze completely, unable to move even an inch. The ink spread across the page in elegant handwriting... the same neat, old fashioned cursive from before. I stared at it in horror as sentence after sentence formed on its own beneath my eyes.
Dear Azalea,
I am glad you decided to write back. You are a brave girl... far braver than you think. Most people would have burned this diary the moment they saw words appearing on empty pages. Yet you stayed. Even through the fear... you stayed.
I know how worried and frightened you must feel right now. Trust me... if I were in your place, I would feel the exact same way. What is happening is not normal, and I do not blame you for being suspicious of me.
But I am not actually the diary.
To be honest with you... I was once a person.
A real one.
This diary belonged to me over forty years ago, when I was still alive. You can probably tell by the handwriting and the worn pages that it is old... very old. I wrote in this diary almost every single day. It was the only place where I could truly speak my thoughts without fear of judgment.
You noticed the torn pages, didn't you...?
I tore them out myself... in deep sadness.
At the time, I thought removing those pages would erase the memories attached to them. I could not bear to reread the words I had written there. Every sentence felt heavier than the last... like ink soaked with grief. So one night... I ripped the pages out with my own hands, hoping the pain would disappear with them.
It did not.
Some things remain with you no matter how desperately you try to bury them.
You asked if I was a demon or something evil. No... I am not. At least... I do not think I am. I would never intentionally harm you, Azalea. If anything, I think fate brought you to this diary for a reason.
Though I must admit... I still do not fully understand how I am able to speak to you like this.
All I know is that after all these years of silence... you are the first person who has ever written back. And I am glad.
The writing paused there.
I stared at the page with my hand clamped over my mouth, my breathing uneven. My eyes scanned the words again and again as if they would suddenly disappear. This couldn't be real... it just couldn't. My entire body felt cold.
To make sure I wasn't dreaming, I pinched myself hard on the arm.
"Ow..."
It hurt.
A sharp sting spread across my skin, and my stomach dropped. This was real. Somehow... impossibly real.
I immediately stood up from the chair and started pacing around my room, biting my nails nervously. My mind was spiraling into a thousand thoughts at once. Forty years ago...? A dead person...? Talking through a diary...? Every horror movie scene I had ever watched replayed itself inside my head. I kept glancing back at the diary every few seconds as if it would suddenly move on its own.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Quieter.
Heavier.
And then...
Knock knock.
I nearly jumped out of my skin.
"Azalea," my mom's voice came from behind the door. "What are you still doing awake, huh? You have school tomorrow."
Panic shot through me instantly. I slammed the diary shut so fast my hands almost slipped, then shoved it beneath my pillow. My heartbeat pounded wildly as I tried to sound normal.
"Y... yeah, Mom. I was just checking my homework," I called out, forcing my voice to stay steady.
"Sleep soon," she said tiredly from the other side of the door.
"I will..."
Her footsteps slowly faded away down the hallway.
I stayed frozen for a few seconds before finally exhaling the breath I had been holding. The room was dark now except for the faint moonlight slipping through my curtains. Slowly... cautiously... I looked back toward the pillow hiding the diary beneath it.
And for some reason...
I could still feel its presence.
I stared at the spot where the diary was hidden beneath my pillow, unable to take my eyes off it. My mind kept imagining the worst possible things. What if it moved on its own too...? What if I suddenly saw it sliding across the room in the dark...? That would be genuinely terrifying.
I swallowed nervously and pulled the blanket closer to myself, still staring at the exact spot. The silence in my room felt unbearable now. Every tiny sound suddenly seemed louder... the ticking clock... the fan creaking softly... the branches brushing against my window outside.
My imagination was making everything worse.
I kept expecting something to happen.
For the diary to shift.
To fall.
To slowly open by itself.
But it stayed completely still.
And somehow... that almost felt even scarier.
I somehow managed to fall asleep... though it took what felt like hours. I kept tossing and turning beneath the blanket, my eyes darting toward the pillow every few minutes as if I expected the diary to crawl out from under it at any second. My mind refused to stay quiet. Questions circled endlessly in my head until they all blurred together into exhaustion.
Eventually, my eyelids grew heavy.
The ticking clock faded into the background.
And without even realizing it... I drifted asleep.
That night, my dreams felt strange.
Not exactly nightmares... but unsettling enough to leave my chest feeling tight. I vaguely remember standing in a long dark hallway with endless doors lining both sides. At the very end stood someone holding a book close to their chest. I couldn't see their face no matter how hard I tried. Every time I walked closer... the hallway seemed to stretch farther away.
And then I heard a voice.
Soft.
Distant.
"Azalea..."
My eyes snapped open instantly.
Morning light spilled faintly through the curtains, and for a second I just lay there breathing heavily, trying to figure out whether the voice had been part of the dream or not.
Then I remembered the diary.
My stomach dropped all over again.