The Cinder Man

My name is Milo, and I’m sixteen. I live in a town called Ashford, which is about as ordinary as a place can get, unless you count the old paper mill at the edge of town. That mill’s been closed for years, but it’s still there, leaning like a rotten tooth against the gray sky. I never believed in anything, not ghosts, not God, not even luck. I figured the world was just a series of random accidents, and we were all just waiting for our turn to be one of those accidents.

But that was before my friends talked me into messing with a talking board in my aunt’s basement. My mom had moved us into Aunt Carol’s house while our own place was being fixed up after a pipe burst. Carol was on a long trip abroad, so she’d left us the keys. The basement was full of old junk, including this dusty board game called the Spirit Talker. My friends, Zed and Mara, thought it would be a laugh. I thought it was kid stuff, but I was bored, so I went along.

We set it up on a wobbly table, lit a few candles, and started moving the planchette. I was expecting nothing, but the thing started sliding on its own, spelling out words faster than we could ask questions. At first it was just gibberish, then it spelled, ‘Me.’ Zed asked, ‘Who are you?’ It spelled, ‘Cinder.’ We asked what it wanted. It spelled, ‘Out.’ Then the candles flickered, and a cold draft blew through the basement, even though there were no windows. We got spooked and stopped. I told them it was just their hands pushing, but I saw Zed’s and Mara’s hands, and they were both lifted off the planchette when it spelled that last word.

We left it at that, and a few weeks later, my mom and I moved back to our own house. I figured that was the end of it. But a month ago, things started happening. At first it was small: the feeling of being watched, my bedroom door creaking open on its own, a scraping sound behind my closet wall. I shrugged it off as an old house settling. Then it got worse.

One night, I woke up with a crushing weight on my chest. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I saw a dark figure hunched over me, but it wasn’t a person. It was like a man made of ash and soot, with hollow eyes and a mouth full of embers. It whispered, ‘You let me out.’ I couldn’t scream, and just as I thought I’d die, it vanished, and the weight lifted. I sat up gasping, my whole body shaking. I didn’t tell my mom, because what would I say?

But the sightings kept coming. I’d see the Cinder Man standing at the foot of my bed, his feet leaving black stains on the carpet. He’d be in mirrors, just behind my reflection, like a smudge on the glass. Scratching sounds filled the walls, and my kitchen cabinets would open on their own. One morning, I found a word burned into the wood of my closet door: ‘MORE.’ I tried to clean it, but the burn was deep, like it had been there for years.

I went back to the board, hoping to send it back, but I couldn’t find it. My aunt’s house was up for sale, and the new owners said they’d thrown out all the junk. That’s when I started researching online, and I found out about a local legend my aunt used to tell me. She said the old paper mill had a foreman who disappeared in a fire decades ago. He was a cruel man named Cyrus, and the workers said he was cursed. After the fire, they found a blackened body, but the face was unburned, and they swore it smiled. The mill was shut down after that, and people say his spirit still lingers there, waiting for a way back into the world.

I think I accidentally invited him out. Now, he’s attached to me, and he’s getting stronger. Last night, I woke to find him standing at my bedroom door, and his mouth was open, and a low, scratchy voice came out, not from him but from inside my head. He said, ‘Your family will burn.’ I didn’t tell my mom, but I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been up all night, writing this, hoping someone out there knows how to stop him.

I’m afraid for me and my mom. I don’t know if it’s a demon or a ghost, but it’s real, and it has plans. I can feel it growing stronger every day, like a fire smoldering just under my skin. I don’t know how to send it back, or if I even can. I just know I can’t face him alone.