The Uninvited Round

Three nights ago, my cousin Piper and I unearthed a battered wooden board from the crawlspace beneath Aunt Meg’s old farmhouse. Aunt Meg had always refused to discuss the house’s history, and when we showed her the board, she went pale and insisted she had never seen it before. But her hands trembled as she waved us away, muttering about how we should bury it in the yard. I dismissed her fears, and after a tense, silent drive back to our rented duplex in the city, we smuggled the board inside, anticipation buzzing through us like static. Piper, always more cautious, wanted to wait, but I couldn’t stand the suspense. I called over our neighbor, a wiry kid named Lucas, and together we set up in the dim living room, the only light from a flickering lamp that hummed like a trapped fly. The board was odd—no manufacturer’s mark, just a scrawled signature that looked like ‘E. P.’ and a worn planchette that clicked when moved. We found no instructions, only a single slip of paper with a printed message: ‘One game, one chance, one uninvited guest.’ We ignored it, grabbed a chipped coffee mug from the kitchen, and placed it on the board, giggling like fools.

We started with basic questions, and the mug didn’t move. Then Piper asked, ‘Who’s here?’ and the mug jerked to YES with such force that it nearly toppled. We laughed, assuming we’d pushed it, and continued. We asked for a name, and the mug spelled ‘A N G U S.’ Lucas, trying to lighten the mood, asked, ‘Angus, how do you know us?’ The mug slid to ‘YOU SUMMONED ME.’ Then it spelled, ‘I WASN’T FINISHED.’ The lamp flickered hard, and the temperature dropped. Piper wanted to end it, but I was thrilled, leaning in. I asked, ‘What do you want?’ The mug flew to ‘A ROUND.’ I said, ‘A round? A drink?’ The mug spelled ‘A ROUND OF GRIEF.’ The light died, and from the kitchen came the sound of a glass shattering.

We froze. Then the coffee mug in our hands began to spin in tight circles, faster and faster. Lucas shouted, ‘Say goodbye!’ but I was gripped by a horrible curiosity. I asked, ‘Whose grief?’ The mug stopped dead, then slid to the center of the board, where a single word was burned into the wood: ‘YOURS.’ The lamp flickered back on, but everything was wrong—the shadows stretched long, and the clock on the wall was spinning backward. Piper grabbed my arm, her nails digging in, and she whispered that she saw something in the hallway mirror. I turned, and for a split second, I saw a man—gaunt, wet hair plastered to his face, a wide grin, and he was holding a small, empty jar. Then he was gone.

We tried to end it, frantically sweeping the mug off the board, but it wouldn’t move—it was as if it had been nailed there. The board itself began to hum, and the burned word ‘YOURS’ deepened as if seared by an invisible iron. Lucas, white as a sheet, bolted for the door and yanked it open. Outside, the hallway was not the hallway of our building; it was a long, dirt-floored corridor lined with doors, each one painted a sickly green. He stumbled back, and the door slammed shut on its own. The man’s voice—not from the air but from inside our heads—whispered, ‘You asked for a round. Now we play.’

And so it began. That night, we couldn’t sleep. Every time we closed our eyes, we saw the man’s grin, and we heard the sound of rapping on the walls, from the inside. In the morning, Lucas was gone—his bed empty, his phone on the pillow, and on the mirror, written in condensation: ‘HE JOINS THE ROUND.’ Piper and I were frantic, but when we tried to call for help, the phone only rang the sound of a busy signal, and then a child’s laugh. We tried to leave the apartment, but the front door opened to that same dirt corridor, and we could see Lucas’s shoe at the far end, just out of reach, before the door would slam shut again. We were trapped, and the board sat in the living room, the mug still on it, now slowly spinning on its own, as if waiting for our next question.

We resolved to ask how to end it. I sat down, my heart hammering, and placed my hand on the mug. ‘Angus,’ I said, ‘what do we have to do to leave?’ The mug slid to ‘ONE GRIEF FOR EACH.’ Piper asked, ‘Whose grief?’ The mug spelled ‘YOU CHOOSE.’ We looked at each other, the horror dawning. We had to offer a grief—a painful memory, a dark secret, something we’d never shared—to feed this thing. I started, confessing a time I had caused a car accident that crippled a stranger two years ago, a guilt I’d buried under bravado. The moment I spoke, the man appeared in the doorway, his grin wider, and he raised the jar he held, which was now filled with a black, viscous liquid. He tipped it as if pouring it somewhere, and I felt a cold weight settle in my chest, a heaviness that was not mine. The man nodded and faded, and the board spelled ‘ONE.’

Piper, crying, told of how she had blamed herself for her younger brother’s drowning, a secret she had never told anyone, the guilt that gnawed her daily. As she spoke, the man reappeared, his jar now half-empty, and he poured the black substance into her, and she gasped, clutching her chest. The board spelled ‘TWO.’ The room grew colder, and the man stood between us, tilting his head. He didn’t speak, but we knew—we had to provide a third grief, for Lucas. But we didn’t know his secrets. Desperate, I asked the board, ‘What is Lucas’s grief?’ The mug spelled, ‘HE BROUGHT YOU HERE.’

We looked at each other, realization dawning. Lucas had known the house, had been the one who suggested we look in the crawlspace. He had tricked us. The man’s voice filled the room, wheezing like a broken bellows, ‘A grief unspoken is a debt unpaid. You have spoken two. My time is short. Provide the third, or the round continues—and the next grief is yours to give.’ He held his empty jar, and the board began to crack. Piper and I screamed, and I shouted, ‘How do we finish?’ The mug flew across the room, shattering against the wall, and the board went dark. But the man remained, his grin fading to a flat line. He whispered, ‘You must find another soul to take your place. Or you become my grief.’ Then he vanished, and we heard a key turning in the front door.

We rushed to it, and it opened onto our normal hallway, but Lucas was standing there, smiling, but it wasn’t him—it was Angus wearing Lucas’s skin, his eyes like empty sockets. He said, ‘You have forty-eight hours to bring me a new player. Or I reclaim what’s mine.’ And then Lucas blinked, and he was himself, confused, asking what happened. But we knew. Now Piper and I are sitting in the living room, staring at the cracked board, and Lucas is in the kitchen making coffee, unaware that he has become our timer. We have two days to find a willing soul to play the board, or we join Angus forever, trapped in that endless round. The clock on the wall is ticking backward again, and I can feel the man’s grin in the air, waiting for our next move.