The Journal That Shouldn’t Exist

Table of Contents

The Old Journal

It was a cloudy afternoon when Sarah stumbled upon the journal. Hidden beneath a loose floorboard in her grandmother's attic, the old leather-bound book looked fragile, its cover worn and stained by time. She brushed off the dust and opened it carefully, revealing yellowed pages filled with elegant cursive handwriting.

“Grandma never mentioned this,” she whispered to herself. The attic was silent, save for the soft creak of the wooden beams above.

The first page was dated October 11, 1922. The entries seemed to belong to a woman named Eliza—someone Sarah had never heard of.

“The rain hasn't stopped in days. I hear whispers behind the walls again. Mother says it’s just the wind, but I know better.”

Sarah shivered. She glanced around the dim attic. A sudden chill ran down her spine, though the air was still.

She brought the journal downstairs and placed it on the kitchen table. “Grandma?” she called. “Do you know someone named Eliza?”

Her grandmother, Evelyn, who was slicing apples for a pie, froze. “Where did you hear that name?”

“I found her journal in the attic. Under the floorboard.”

Evelyn’s hands trembled. “You shouldn’t have touched it.”

“Why? Who was she?”

Instead of answering, Evelyn wiped her hands on a towel and walked away, leaving Sarah with more questions than answers.

That night, curiosity got the better of her. Sarah flipped through more entries, growing darker and more disturbing.

“I saw him again. The man with no eyes. He waits by the well at dusk.”

“Mother says I’m sick. But she doesn’t hear the voices like I do. She doesn’t see the blood on the stairs.”

Each page pulled Sarah deeper into Eliza’s world. The journal seemed to change depending on the time of day. Words she hadn’t seen before appeared in the margins. At one point, a sentence read:

“She is reading now. She’s close.”

Sarah dropped the book. “What the hell—”

She picked it up again, flipping back, but the sentence was gone. She checked three times. Nothing. Her hands were cold and damp with sweat.

The next morning, Sarah confronted Evelyn again. “Grandma, this journal... it’s not normal.”

“I told you to leave it alone,” Evelyn said, her voice firm. “It’s cursed.”

“Cursed?”

Evelyn nodded slowly. “Eliza was your great-aunt. My older sister. She died when she was sixteen. Or so I was told.”

Sarah leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“They told me she drowned in the well behind the house. But I remember… I remember her screaming the night before. I was only six. They locked her in the cellar.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “You think she was murdered?”

“No,” Evelyn whispered. “I think she changed.”

Sarah didn’t know what that meant. But something inside her needed to know more. That evening, she returned to the attic, this time with a flashlight and the journal in hand.

Near the back pages, something new had appeared—an entry she hadn’t read before. It wasn’t in cursive. It was scrawled in what looked like red ink, or maybe... blood?

“Sarah. Come find me.”

She dropped the book, backing away. “No. No, this is impossible.”

Then she heard it—soft tapping beneath the floorboards. The same loose panel. She leaned down slowly, heart pounding. The tapping stopped.

“Hello?” she whispered.

A whisper replied: “Down.”

She pried open the floor again. Nothing. Just wood and dust. But then her flashlight flickered and revealed something odd—scratches. Dozens of them, claw-like, leading toward the far corner of the attic.

She followed them. There, hidden behind old furniture and cobwebs, was a trapdoor she’d never noticed before. She opened it slowly. A narrow stairwell spiraled into darkness.

Every rational part of her said to run. But the journal... and the voice... they pulled her in.

She descended, the air growing colder with each step. At the bottom, a small stone room, damp and silent. In the corner sat an old wooden chair. Shackles hung from the wall.

On the ground, something shimmered. A pendant. Sarah picked it up. It was warm, like it had just been held.

Suddenly the door slammed above her. Darkness swallowed the room.

She screamed, banging on the walls. “Let me out!”

Then she heard breathing. Slow, raspy, just behind her.

“Eliza?” she whispered.

A voice answered. “I waited... so long...”

The light flickered back on, revealing a girl no older than sixteen, with pale skin and hollow eyes, standing inches from her.

“You can see me now,” Eliza said, her voice broken.

Sarah’s breath caught in her throat. “What happened to you?”

“They thought I was mad. But it was the journal. It feeds on pain. On fear. Once you read it, you belong to it.”

“Why me?”

Eliza’s gaze turned sad. “Because you believed. You listened.”

Sarah stepped back, but the walls of the room began to close in. Shadows stretched across the stone, whispering her name.

“There’s no way out,” Eliza said softly. “But maybe... one can stay. The other can go.”

“What do you mean?”

“You take my place. I’ll be free.”

Before Sarah could respond, Eliza lunged forward, and everything went black.

When Evelyn came looking hours later, she found the journal resting on the kitchen table again, closed neatly. No sign of Sarah.

But when she opened the first page, new handwriting appeared.

“July 17, 2025. I saw her. The girl with the pale eyes. She smiled and said I was free. But the journal... it's still hungry.”

And at the bottom, in Sarah’s handwriting:

“Tell them not to read it.”

Over the next few days, Evelyn tried burning the journal. It wouldn’t ignite. She tried burying it, locking it in a safe, even tossing it in the nearby river. But each time, it returned—back on the kitchen table, pristine and dry, waiting to be opened again.

One evening, her neighbor’s son, Tommy, wandered into the house during a storm. The power was out, and Evelyn was upstairs. By the time she found him, he was already flipping through the journal.

“This is cool,” he said. “Is this like a ghost diary or something?”

“Put it down!” Evelyn shouted.

But Tommy was transfixed. His eyes glazed over. “She’s talking to me.”

That night, Evelyn sat alone, the journal locked in a metal box beside her. Her hands trembled. She could hear whispers again—just like when she was six. She hadn’t heard them in decades.

She opened the final page. There was a new entry. In her own handwriting. Though she had never written it.

“Evelyn knew the truth. But she chose silence. Now, silence will choose her.”

And just below it, one last sentence, scrawled in deep red ink:

“The next reader is already watching.”