The Amber Room

Five years ago, when I was twelve, I lived in a house that had been converted from a Victorian schoolhouse. My bedroom was in the old cloakroom, with a high ceiling and a single window that faced the overgrown garden. The wallpaper was a faded pattern of roses, but in the dark, the pattern seemed to writhe.

I had always been prone to strange episodes. The doctors called it sleep paralysis, but I knew the difference. That night, I was wide awake. The alarm clock glowed 3:03 AM. The house was silent, save for the creaking of old timbers. Then the air grew thick, as if a storm was brewing inside the room.

A shadow detached itself from the corner, not a human shadow but something with a heavy, bovine form—a bull, but not made of flesh. It stood there, motionless, and as I stared, the entire room began to bleed into red. The walls, the furniture, even my own hands, turned the color of dried blood. Only the bull remained distinct, a dark silhouette against the crimson haze.

My body began to rise. It was slow, as if I were being lifted by some invisible force. My back arched, and I floated upward, inch by inch, until my face pressed against the ceiling. The air was hot, suffocating, like the breath of a furnace. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, just hung there, my heart pounding in my ears. After what felt like an eternity, I descended, and I felt a snap, as if I had been reinserted into my own flesh.

When I could move again, I sat up, gasping. The red was gone, and the room was normal. But at the foot of my bed stood two children. A boy and a girl, maybe eight or nine years old, with ragged clothes and skin tanned dark as leather. The girl stared at me with empty eyes, her mouth a thin line. The boy leaned in, and his voice was barely a whisper, as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear. ‘If you do it,’ he said, ‘they will finally leave us alone.’ Then the girl turned and walked out into the hallway, and the boy followed, glancing back once.

I don’t know why, but I got up and followed them. The hallway was dark, but they moved with a confidence that suggested they had walked these boards a thousand times. They led me to the old schoolhouse’s library, a room that had been sealed for decades. The door was locked, but the boy simply pushed it open, the wood groaning.

Inside, the room was dusty and cold. The walls were lined with books, but the floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, undisturbed for years—except for a bare patch in the center, where a sigil had been drawn in chalk. The children stood beside it, waiting. The girl pointed at the sigil, then at me. The boy said, ‘Step into the circle, and the bull will take your place. Then we can rest.’

I looked at the sigil—a circle with a crude bull’s head, horns curling. And I remembered the stories about this school: a fire in 1910, a teacher who had died trying to save two pupils, and the rumor that their spirits still lingered, waiting for someone to finish what they had started. But these children weren’t ghosts in the traditional sense. They were trapped, and the bull was the gatekeeper.

I felt a pull, as if something was urging me to step forward. But at the last second, I stopped. ‘Why me?’ I asked. The boy’s face twisted with frustration. ‘Because you can see us. And because you almost did it. The bull lets you leave your body—it’s a test. If you step into the circle, you take their place, and they can pass on.’

I looked at the circle again, and I realized that if I stepped in, I would be trapped like them. I shook my head. ‘No.’ The girl let out a sound, a thin, high-pitched wail, like a kettle. The bull shadow appeared behind them, its form growing, its eyes glowing red. The children began to dissolve, their bodies turning to dust, and the bull turned its gaze on me.

I ran. I sprinted back to my room, slammed the door, and hid under the covers. For the rest of the night, I heard the heavy breathing of the bull outside, the scraping of hooves on the floor. But it never entered my room. At dawn, the sounds ceased, and the house was silent.

When I went downstairs, my mother said the old library had collapsed overnight, the floor caving in. We moved out a week later. But sometimes, at night, I still feel the pressure on my chest, and I see the bull in the corner, waiting. And I wonder if I made the right choice, or if I’ve only prolonged my sentence. Because the children are gone, and the bull is patient. And some tests you can only pass once.