The scream rang out, slicing through the stillness of the night, then stopped so abruptly that the silence that followed felt deafening. In the narrow hallway of the old forest cabin, where the floor creaked and the air felt heavy with damp rot, Margaret was gone.
The wood beneath her feet had given way—but now, there was no sign of anything out of place. The floor was flat, smooth, undisturbed. A draft of cold air swept along the floorboards as if mocking the panic that would soon follow.
Upstairs, Jeanelle stirred. She had been dreaming of vines crawling over her skin and a lullaby sung underwater. Her eyes opened slowly. It was dark. A strange pressure filled the room, like a vacuum. Something wasn't right.
Then she heard it—barely a sound. A tap. Then a scrape.
She sat up.
"Margaret?" she called softly. No response. Only the silence of the woods pressing in from outside.
Curiosity wrestled with unease as Jeanelle slipped out of bed and grabbed her flashlight. She padded barefoot down the stairs, careful not to wake Jaymy, who still slept in the next room.
The hallway was empty. A chill made her arms prickle. She aimed the flashlight ahead and called again, "Margaret? Are you okay?"
Still nothing.
She checked the washroom first. Empty. Then the kitchen. The front door was still bolted from the inside.
Frowning, Jeanelle turned her light toward the hallway once more, eyes falling on the faint outline of something near the baseboard. She crouched. A tiny bulge in the wood—like a knuckle pressing up from underneath.
Her heart began to race.
Footsteps echoed behind her. She whirled.
Jaymy stood at the bottom of the stairs, rubbing her eyes. "What are you doing?"
"She's not here," Jeanelle whispered. "Margaret. She's gone."
Jaymy blinked. "Gone? What do you mean gone?"
"I checked the whole cabin. She was here last night. Now she's... not."
Jaymy joined her in the hallway. Together they stared at the warped floorboard. Jaymy knelt and pressed on it. Nothing happened. It was solid.
They pulled out their phones. No signal.
Daylight crept slowly through the dirty windows as they searched the cabin from top to bottom. Nothing. No broken glass, no open windows, no sign that anyone had come or gone.
They tried calling out. "Margaret! Margaret!" Their voices echoed into the forest, swallowed quickly by the trees.
They followed the path to the playground. The air was colder than before, the kind of cold that sinks into your bones. The swings moved again, creaking on rusted chains, though there was no wind.
Jaymy found the footprints first—faint and leading toward the playground. Margaret's hiking boots had a distinctive sole pattern. But the prints just... ended. As if she'd stepped into nothing.
Jeanelle dropped to her knees and brushed at the leaves and dirt. "There's nothing here. No return trail. No drag marks. She didn't walk away. She vanished."
Jaymy's eyes scanned the tree line. "What if... someone took her?"
"Then where are the signs of struggle? No broken branches, no signs of a chase. Nothing."
A thick silence settled between them.
They turned back toward the cabin. As they walked, they both felt it: the sense of being watched. Eyes tracking them through the trees. A branch cracked nearby. A whisper flitted past their ears.
Back inside, they made a plan. First, they would try to drive into town. But when they reached the truck, they found the tires slashed. Deep, unnatural gashes, as though torn by claws.
Panic bubbled in Jeanelle's throat. "We have to get out of here."
Jaymy's jaw tightened. "We will. But first... I need to understand what's happening."
That night, Jeanelle dreamed of water. She stood at the edge of a lake under a sky full of stars. A girl stood in the center of the lake—Margaret? No. Her skin was pale, her hair tangled with weeds, her eyes black as obsidian.
She opened her mouth and sang.
Jeanelle awoke choking, the sound of the Sirena's song lingering in her chest.
In the hallway, Jaymy stood frozen. "You heard it too," she whispered.
Together they followed the sound—to the hidden path near the playground, the one they hadn't noticed before. It was narrow, overgrown, and led to a still, silver lake.
In the center floated a figure—her arms outstretched, mouth open in song.
Jaymy clutched Jeanelle's hand. "We have to go. Now."
But the water began to ripple, and the song grew louder.
They turned and ran.
Back at the cabin, they huddled under blankets, lights blazing. Neither of them slept.
Meanwhile, deep underground, Margaret awoke in darkness.
She gasped, choking on dust and panic. Around her was stone and soil, pressed so tightly she could barely move. Her flashlight was gone, her phone dead. Only the faint glow of something bioluminescent shimmered faintly ahead—a mossy root, glowing blue.
The air was damp, thick with the scent of earth and something else—sweet, cloying, like overripe fruit.
She crawled forward.
The tunnel twisted, opened into a small chamber. Strange markings glowed faintly on the walls—symbols that shifted when she looked at them. In the center, a small wooden figurine sat atop a mound of stones.
It was a Duwende .And it was watching her.
Suddenly, whispering filled the space.
She clamped her hands over her ears. "Stop it!" she cried.
But the voices kept coming. Not just one—hundreds, layered over one another, murmuring in languages she didn't know.
Her eyes widened as the stone beneath the Duwende cracked.
And from the ground, something began to rise.