The Parchment Visitor

Ten years ago, I was a divorced woman of forty-two, living alone in a cramped attic apartment above a closed-down bakery in the old part of town. The walls were thin, the stairs creaked, and the only window looked out onto a brick wall, but it was mine. One grey afternoon, with the rain tapping a soft rhythm on the glass, I decided to lie on the couch and lose myself in a half-hearted game show. The TV flickered, the dull hum of the city outside was a lullaby, and I soon felt my eyelids droop.

But then I saw it.

At the foot of the couch, by my stockinged feet, stood a figure. It was no taller than a toddler, but its proportions were wrong—long limbs, a hunched back, and skin that looked like ancient parchment, crinkled and yellowed with age. It wore nothing, had no hair, and its face was a blur except for its eyes—dark, deep pools that seemed to drink the light. One hand rested on the wooden armrest, the other was pressed against its cheek, a finger curled as if it were pondering some great mystery. It just stood there, staring, waiting.

My breath hitched. I tried to rationalize—perhaps it was a stray cat, or a trick of the light—but my heart knew better. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and managed to whisper, ‘What do you want?’ The creature did not move. Its eyes never left mine. I felt a primal anger surge through my veins, a desperate need to assert dominance. I hissed at it loudly, like a cat, my mouth wide and teeth bared. The sound was guttural, feral, and it echoed in the small room.

The effect was immediate. Its head tilted, almost curiously, and then it spoke—a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. ‘You see me,’ it said, its lips barely moving. ‘That is not permitted.’

Before I could respond, the creature vanished. But the air in the room changed. The temperature dropped, and a faint smell of dust and decay filled my nostrils. I stayed frozen on the couch for what felt like hours, listening to the rain, trying to convince myself it was a waking nightmare. But I knew it was real.

The next day, I tried to go about my routine, but I couldn’t shake the encounter. I called my ex-husband, and in a trembling voice, I told him what I had seen. He laughed it off, said it was a midlife crisis, suggested I see a therapist. I slammed the phone down. I considered telling my friend, Alice, but she would probably think I was losing my mind.

That night, as I lay in bed, the weight of exhaustion pulling at my eyelids, I heard a faint scratching sound from the corner of the room. I flicked on the lamp, and there it was again—the parchment creature, crouched in the shadows. ‘You should not have told,’ it whispered. ‘You should not have tried to share.’ Its form was less distinct now, wavering like heat haze. And then it pointed a gnarled finger at my bedside table, where my old camera sat.

The next morning, I found the camera on the floor, shattered, its lens cracked like a spiderweb. I was terrified, but I couldn’t call the police. Who would believe me? So I did what any rational person might do: I visited the local library and searched through old newspapers, looking for anything about creatures of parchment. Hours passed, and I found nothing—until I stumbled upon a brief article from a hundred years ago about a man who had gone mad after seeing a ‘pale thing’ in his home. The article mentioned a language, a word: ‘The Forgotten.’

I knew then that I was not the first, and I would not be the last. But I was determined to understand. I spent weeks researching, asking quiet questions in antique shops and esoteric forums, but the creature seemed to know. It appeared more frequently, always watching, sometimes whispering in that rasping voice, ‘You seek to know. You should not know.’

The final straw came when it appeared in broad daylight, standing as a solid, undeniable shape in front of my couch. It spoke, its voice a low, resonant hum that vibrated in my bones. ‘You have seen me. You have told. Now you must forget.’ It raised a hand, and my memory of the past ten years began to dissolve. I saw my life flash before my eyes—my marriage, my divorce, this apartment, the creature—but as if through a film of water, slipping away.

I woke up on that couch, the TV blaring a commercial for laundry detergent. My legs ached, and I felt a strange emptiness in my mind. I looked at the end of the couch, my feet bare, and saw nothing. But on my left hand, etched into the skin like a scar, was a pattern—a delicate lattice, like the veins of a dried leaf. I ran my fingers over it, and it felt like parchment. I had no memory of how I got it.

Now, I’m writing this from a nursing home. The doctors say I have early-onset dementia, but I know better. That creature did something to me. It erased a part of my life, and it left its mark. I don’t know if it’s still watching, but sometimes, when the room is quiet, I hear it whisper, ‘You see me.’ And I know it’s true.

If you are reading this, and you have seen something similar, be warned. Do not speak of it. Do not try to understand. Just let it pass. For if you see the parchment visitor, you will forget what you were, and become a vessel for its mystery. I only hope that remembering this much, even for a moment, doesn’t seal my fate.

But it’s too late for me. The scar on my hand is spreading, and I feel the dry crackle of skin on my back. Soon, I will forget everything, and become one of them. And in some attic somewhere, a lonely person will see me standing at the foot of their couch, and they will hiss, and I will whisper back, ‘You see me.’