The cursed writer

"You must be wondering who I am, and that's only natural. Especially knowing that, all of a sudden, in the dark of night, a stranger has walked into your house, dragged you down the stairs and tied you to a chair, leaving you a single hand free with two objects right under your nose.

"You don't know me, and you can't see me either; I made sure to blindfold you so that all you can do is listen. Your right hand is free so that, when the moment comes... you can make your decision. You are a figure who, off the back of his books, has won himself a certain popularity. Undeserved fame, of course, since the creepypastas and tales of monstrous beings you write, you have signed as your own. You have made yourself the owner of something you do not understand: Kuchisake-onna, Teke-Teke, The Rake, Jeff the Killer... Do you think you're important because of something you only ever saw inside your own head? You wrote manuscripts that caused a fear you never felt, a terror that for you never existed. Well, my dear friend, today is your lucky day.

"I assume you know the story of Pandora's box; that wooden chest which, according to the ancient Greeks, held every evil in the world. These days terror is nothing but entertainment... isn't it? And what if I told you that that ancient ivory box, made by a vengeful god, was never opened? You have been chosen to live through the most intense fear ever brought into being. Surviving it would make you the most famous writer in the world. Failing to bear it would lead you to suicide with the knife lying beside your untied hand. You have one night. The blindfold will give you the darkness you need to live your creations... or die in your fears."

"Who the fuck are you? What do you want from me?" Héctor shouted.

"All in good time, Héctor... all in good time."

The sound of a small lock turning, and a melancholy melody welled up from inside the box. A deep darkness began to wrap itself around the room.

Two years earlier

"Hey, man, are you all right? Héctor, listen to me!" Dani shook Héctor, slapping his face.

"Dani, for fuck's sake! What happened?" Caroline shouted. "The motion sensors started going off and the camera stopped working. Could it be this place? Did the soundproofing work?"

Héctor opened his eyes slowly. He was sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of a small, old room. In the background, the noise of a fierce storm was battering the structure; the creaking of the roof tiles and the slamming of the windows made it clear that they were in a very old house.

Caroline, Héctor and Dani were childhood friends, followers of the paranormal. What began as a university project to bump up their History grade ended up becoming their passion: travelling in search of traces of creatures, UFOs and urban legends. They were there thanks to an app called Randonautica, which works like a GPS of the paranormal by means of quantum algorithms.

"Sorry, guys. I must have dozed off," said Héctor, confused. "I told you it wasn't a good idea to smoke before doing this. That shit hits hard."

"Man, I thought you'd greened out on me. Don't give me scares like that," Dani huffed.

"And is this the part where you two kiss?" Caroline said drily. "Just so you know, it was all for nothing. With the noise of the storm you can't make out a thing on the audio. Failed experiment. It's half eleven — shall we try another location?"

Héctor started packing up the equipment: recorders, sensors, mini-cameras and a laptop holding almost twenty years of research. Once in his black Renault Laguna, Dani fired up the app again, concentrating hard on finding an "anomaly".

"Guys, quick! Look at this!" Dani shouted, euphoric. "The coordinates are giving a sky-high concentration of energy. We're an hour away. Shall we?"

"Ninety-nine per cent? That's insane. Héctor, we have to go now!" Caroline exclaimed.

They set off at speed, leaving the rusting house behind them. As they drove on through the rain, Caroline asked the car's artificial intelligence to put on a podcast. After a small argument with "Alexa", a sinister melody flooded the vehicle. Caroline, stretched out on the back seat, smoked a joint while she watched the night landscape go by. Suddenly she saw two lights rising high above the trees.

"Did you see that? Those two lights in the trees..."

"Girl, turns out that weed really is strong," Dani laughed. Héctor played along.

"I don't know... never mind. Must have been a reflection," she sighed.

Minutes later they reached the end of the track. They got out with torches and walked down some five hundred metres to a clearing where the trees had been torn up by the roots. In front of them rose a colossal concrete door: the entrance to a bunker under the mountain, flanked by two rusted floodlights hanging from chains.

"Holy shit... what the hell is that?" Héctor murmured.

"God, fucking Randonautica! This is going to be historic," Dani shouted.

Héctor, more cautious, was walking slowly when he stepped on something that cracked. He shone his torch on the ground and saw the corner of an old wooden box, unearthed by the storm's erosion. He picked it up and wiped it clean with his T-shirt just as a deafening bolt of lightning lit up the area.

Suddenly, an enormous monstrous figure appeared in the distance. It was gigantic, with two great megaphones for a head. Seized by panic, they ran for the bunker. Caroline and Dani went in through the great door, but Héctor, blinded by fear, ran up the hill and disappeared among the trees.

Inside the bunker, Caroline and Dani tried to get their breath back.

"Where's Héctor? That thing got him!" Caroline shouted, crying.

"Look at the size of this place! What the fuck was that?"

"It's what I saw from the car," she sobbed. "I think it's Siren Head. An ancient being that mimics voices and music with those megaphones..."

Sirens boomed inside the bunker and the lights began to flicker. The sound of a heart beating hard created a suffocating atmosphere.

"Those sirens are deafening me... Can you hear that heart?" Dani asked.

"Cover your ears! It works on your mind until you give in," Caroline warned.

A buzzing burst the bulbs one after another. Both of them began to bleed from the ears, which left them disoriented. In the middle of the darkness, a voice imitated the film Cape Fear:

"Counselooor! Counselooor! Come out, little mouse, I want to see your tail...".

Dani realised he was alone. The bunker was a labyrinth. He heard a ball rolling towards him.

"That's enough! Get out of my head!" he screamed, hysterical.

Siren Head was already inside his mind. Dani saw the twins from The Shining standing in front of him.

"Hello, Dani. Come and play with us... for ever and ever...".

A rough hand lifted him up by the neck. The creature revealed itself: a mass of muscle and twisted veins with two horns full of sharpened teeth. One of the heads leaned in close to his face, breathing out a putrid breath:

"Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and leave some of the happiness you bring," it said in Dracula's voice.

"You son of a bitch!" Dani sobbed.

The other head played the music from Psycho. Siren Head devoured Dani, chewing his bones with a horrific crunch. Once the feast was over, the creature let out a frequency to locate Caroline.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to bash your brains in!" one head modulated, imitating Jack Torrance. The other imitated It: "Can you smell the circus, George? They pop, pop, pop!".

Caroline was running desperately towards the exit. A shadow stretched out behind her while metal nails scraped along the walls.

"Caroline... they're here... come into the light...".

"You're not taking me!" she screamed, stumbling out into the open.

She scrambled up the hill to the road. She saw the headlights of a car and begged for help, but Héctor, at the wheel, drove straight past without seeing her and was lost in the fog.

"No, Héctor! I'm here!"

Hands came out of the trees and dragged her into the undergrowth. Siren Head held her upside down.

"They will say I have spilled innocent blood. But what is blood for, if not for spilling?" one of the mouths whispered in Candyman's voice, while the other played the melody of a music box.

Year 2019

Héctor, his eyes red from so much crying, brought the knife up to his throat. The stranger in the white mask slowly took it off.

"Before you do it, you should know something: I wouldn't be here if you hadn't created me. Betraying your friends is what gave birth to the darkest side of your soul. That hatred and cruelty gave the box the power to give me life. Do you know what a Doppelgänger is? I am your darkest double. You will die of your fears... and I, your creation, will carry on with your life."

The double gave him a twisted smirk.

"How about my next story be called... The Cursed Writer?"