The Cedar Grove Incident

My name is Sam, and I’m writing this down because I need someone to understand what happened to us. I’ve changed the names and places, but the events are real, as real as the scars on my chest. We grew up in a small farmhouse in the middle of Nebraska, surrounded by cornfields that seemed to stretch into infinity. My family was devoutly Christian, but my great-grandmother, who died before I was born, was known in the county for her ‘cures’ and ‘charms.’ The neighbors whispered she was a witch, but we thought they were just old-timers’ tales.

Our house had a history. A previous owner, an old man named Harlan, had died in the bathtub—a heart attack, they said. He was notorious for his racist views, and when my parents, who are Black, moved in, the locals gave them the cold shoulder. Years later, my cousin Darius and his three friends decided to mess with a Ouija board in our basement, wanting to contact ‘the ghost’ of Harlan. They asked questions, and the planchette spelled out hateful slurs and ‘get out of my house.’ One of the friends, a kid named Kyle, laughed and asked, ‘When am I gonna die?’ The board answered with a date. On that exact date, Kyle was killed by a hit-and-run driver on the county road.

I was thirteen when I found the board in a dusty box in the attic. I was curious, and despite my parents’ warnings, I brought it down to the living room one night when they were at a prayer meeting. I was alone, and I set up the board on the coffee table, lit a single candle, and placed my fingers on the planchette. I asked, ‘Is anyone here?’ The planchette moved, cold as ice, to ‘YES.’ I asked, ‘Who are you?’ It spelled H-A-R-L-A-N. My heart pounded, but I kept going, foolishly asking, ‘What do you want?’ It spelled Y-O-U-R H-E-A-R-T.

I laughed nervously and said, ‘You can’t have that.’ But the candle flickered, and the planchette began moving on its own, faster and faster, spelling out a string of words: ‘OUT OUT OUT.’ Then it stopped, and the planchette spun, pointing to my chest. I felt a cold pressure, like a hand pressing on my sternum. I yanked my hands away and blew out the candle, but in the dark, I heard a gurgling sound, like water in a tub. I turned on the lights, and from the bathroom down the hall, water was pouring out from under the door. I rushed in to find the bathtub overflowing with dark, murky water, and in the center floated a shape that looked like a human body, face down. When I reached in to pull it out, it dissolved into nothing but a foul-smelling slime.

That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. Over the next few days, I started feeling a crushing weight on my chest, especially at night. I’d wake up gasping for air, and I’d hear a voice, low and gravelly, whispering, ‘It’s time.’ I tried to tell my parents, but they thought it was nightmares from stress. Then my friends started acting weird. One of them, Maria, said she saw a dark figure in my bedroom window, a man with a twisted face, tapping the glass. Another, Tom, said he heard a voice on the phone that said, ‘Seven days.’

That’s when I realized it wasn’t Harlan. It was something that had hitched a ride on the board, something ancient that had been waiting in the house long before Harlan. I found old letters in the attic from my great-grandmother, describing a ‘thing’ that she had trapped in a mirror, a demon that fed on hearts. She wrote that the mirror was hidden in the house, and if it was ever broken, the thing would be released. I searched and found a small, cracked hand mirror behind a loose board in the basement. The crack looked like a claw mark. As I held it, the mirror grew cold, and I saw a reflection of myself, but my eyes were black and my mouth was sewn shut.

I knew I had to get rid of it, but I was terrified. I called my cousin Darius, and together we dug up the backyard, following instructions from my great-grandmother’s letters, and found a metal box containing a charm and a vial of holy water. We went back to the basement, and I broke the mirror with a hammer. The moment it shattered, the air turned frigid, and a voice boomed, ‘You will be the last.’ The lights exploded, and in the darkness, I saw a shape coalesce—a tall, gaunt figure with hollow eyes and a gaping mouth filled with needle-like teeth.

Darius screamed and ran, but I stood frozen. The creature lunged at me, and I remember feeling its icy hands around my throat, then a searing pain in my chest. I fell to the floor, and the last thing I saw was the creature’s face inches from mine, its breath like rot. Then, suddenly, it was gone, and I was alone, gasping, with five deep gashes across my chest, just above my heart.

I don’t know why it spared me. Maybe it wanted me to live with the fear, to know it was still out there. I’ve since moved away, changed my name, and I try to live a normal life. But every night, I feel a cold pressure on my chest, and sometimes, when I look in the mirror, my eyes flicker black for just a second. I’m not sure if I’m cursed or if I’m the guardian now. But I know this: never touch a Ouija board, and if you ever hear a voice telling you it’s time, don’t ask what it means. Just run.