A girl walks across the frozen lake into the unknown just knowing it’s where she’s meant to be. She tries to sleep at night, but can’t. She tries to concentrate on school during the day, but can’t. She tries to spend time with her friends and family, but can’t. There is always something in the way. It’s not even her own thoughts. It’s someone else’s thoughts. She knows that they’re there, and she can no longer deny them.

She’s grown up in Shadow Creek her whole life, so she knows every part of this small town. She knows every part of this small town including most of the woods. There’s also The Corner. This is what the locals call it because there have rumors about the area. Too many. Not saying anyone has died here, but many have gone missing all the way back to before I was even born. From what I’ve heard, this has been happening before my parents were born and before their parents. But what’s out there? What is in The Corner. Now is the time that I must go and find out for myself. It’s calling to me. It’s calling for me. As if it knows me and I’m the next person that it’s waiting for. But why now? After all of these years, why now? Is it because my sixteenth birthday is next week? I must go. I must find out.

I told my parents that I was going to Crystal’s for the weekend. I told Crystal that I would be staying home this weekend. I hope they don’t talk to each other. I hope this weekend and what happens this weekend doesn’t give them a reason to. I hope I make it home with no issues and can live another day to tell another story.

I approach the edge of town and I start to enter The Corner. It’s dusk so I still see plenty of light. As I enter The Corner, the leaves rustle more, the wind gets harder, and the voices in my head get louder. I can almost audibly hear them. Every step I get closer I can start to make out what the voices are saying. I can even tell that these voices are not man, and they are not woman. These voices are creature. And they keep saying my name over and over again. “Clarice. Clarice.” And then finally as I approach the middle of The Corner where the trees clear, I see a large open space with a pentagram in the center and a being on each point of the pentagram in black cloak. When I I finally see them, I hear one last chant from them, “Clarice, we’ve been waiting for you.”

As one of the beings approach me, it takes out a dagger, and I immediately know its intentions. But not today Satan. I have a dagger of my own. I’m younger, I’m faster, and I came prepared for anything. I take my dagger and stab the being in its heart. I then have something of my own to say, “Shut the fuck up and stop calling my name.”

As I leave the dagger in this being’s heart, all five of them disappear. I know longer hear the chanting. I know longer hear their thoughts. I can hear my own without interruption. And not to say what I had just done had anything to do with it, but the clouds in the sky also part, and I can also now see the blue sky clearly.

I can’t wait to go home. But I should probably go to Crystal’s like I told my parents so that I can make an honest story out of what I said. No reason not to enjoy a fun filled weekend with my bestie now that the monsters in my head are no longer there.