Content Warning:
This story contains graphic and disturbing imagery, psychological horror, supernatural themes, and elements of trauma and guilt. It may be triggering or unsettling for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
Ever since I was a kid, horror stories had a strange grip on me. While other children clung to their blankets during thunderstorms or flinched at the creaking of old furniture, I leaned into it.
I welcomed fear like an old friend. There was something about the unknown, the way a good horror tale wrapped around your spine and whispered cold truths into your bones, that made me feel more alive than anything else.
Over the years, I discovered I wasn't alone.
I met Caleb, Rose, and Matthew in junior high school. It started with a horror book in my hand " Stephen King's Pet Sematary" and ended with hours-long debates about the scariest movies, creepiest urban legends, and whether or not exorcisms actually worked.
By the time we hit senior high school, we were inseparable. Same classes. Same part-time jobs. Same strange obsession with fear. It wasn't just a friendship. It was a shared bloodline of adrenaline junkies who found comfort in screams.
After graduating, we all got accepted to the same university. We moved in together, shared bills, and kept chasing the strange and supernatural. It felt only natural to start a YouTube channel. We called it Dead Hours.
The premise was simple: explore allegedly haunted or cursed places, record what we experienced overnight, and post the raw footage. No fake jump scares. No cheesy pranks. Just the truth, whatever that truth turned out to be.
Our honesty stood out. It started small, but soon, we had thousands of subscribers. Then hundreds of thousands. Then a million. Fans trusted us because we didn't act. We documented.
With popularity came tips. People emailed us coordinates, obscure legends, and cursed locations across the country. Most of them turned out to be hoaxes or long-abandoned places with nothing but wind and raccoons.
Then came Angels Chapel.
No name in the subject line. Just GPS coordinates and a three-word message:
"Angels Chapel. Kape."
It didn't sound any more ominous than usual. We'd heard creepier. Still, we ran it by our followers during a livestream.
"What do you think? Worth checking out?"
Within minutes, the comments exploded.
"DON'T go there."
"My uncle disappeared near Kape."
"It's not haunted. It's cursed."
"They say people still live inside… but they aren't people anymore."
One comment stood out:
"Whatever you do… don't face the chapel when you enter. Walk in backward. It's the only way to see them."
We laughed it off. It wouldn't be the first time the internet tried to scare us off. And usually, when people say "don't go," it means "you'll get views."
We packed up that weekend, three cameras, infrared night vision, full battery packs, mics, backup lighting, food, and camping gear and hit the road in Caleb's battered silver minivan. He drove. I mapped. Rose edited clips in the back seat while Matthew cleaned lenses.
The deeper we drove, the stranger things became. Houses thinned out. Then disappeared. The tarred roads crumbled into dirt and dust. The trees grew thicker. Taller. The sunlight struggled to pierce through the leaves.
By the time we reached the end of the marked trail, the GPS had stopped working. The signal was dead. The only sound was gravel crunching beneath the tires.
Then, at the end of a narrow clearing, we saw it.
The chapel.
It looked Victorian, but wrong. Tilted forward, as if it had been trying to bow for decades and never stopped.
The paint had long peeled away, leaving behind splinters and mold. Vines clawed across its exterior like veins.
The front doors were crooked and hung open just enough to see pitch darkness within. And above it all, an upside-down iron cross hung limp from the peak, swaying ever so slightly, though there was no breeze.
Two skeletal trees flanked the building like ancient guards. Their bark was scorched black, and their twisted limbs pointed downward, almost touching the chapel's roof like they wanted to squeeze the building out of existence.
The pressure in the air hit us immediately.
It wasn't just silence.
It was like the world was watching.
Rose took a small step forward, then froze. "It's like the place is holding its breath," she whispered.
We laughed, but it was nervous laughter.
Caleb raised his camera and began filming. "Let's go. Golden hour's almost over."
Just before we stepped in, Rose hesitated. "Let's do it," she said. "Backwards. For the fans."
No one argued. It had become a superstition of sorts to respect the legends, just in case.
So we turned around, took a deep breath, and walked backward into Angels Chapel.
And that's when we saw them.
It was instant. Like crossing a threshold into another dimension.
Figures lined the interior. Dozens. Some stood, repeatedly banging their heads into the wooden walls. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Others crouched in corners, clawing symbols into the floorboards with broken, bleeding fingernails.
Some wept like mourning mothers. Others laughed like they'd forgotten how to cry. Their eyes were wide, empty. Their mouths muttered words we'd never heard before. Not English. Not any language I've ever studied.
Their skin was the color of ash. Some were covered in dirt. Others were barefoot. One of them was missing a jaw.
The smell hit us next. Rotting meat, mold, and something worse, burnt flesh, perhaps. It turned my stomach.
Rose gasped and turned, bolting outside. Her footsteps echoed sharply against the wooden floor.
We ran after her.
Rose collapsed near one of the dead trees, falling to her knees and vomiting into the grass.
I dropped beside her, rubbing her back as she coughed. Her whole body shook.
"What… what was that?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
Caleb looked pale. "Those people. They weren't right. That wasn't just mental illness. That was something else."
Matthew turned in slow circles, scanning the woods. "Has no one ever found this place before? Has no one reported it?"
"We should call the police," Rose said, wiping her mouth.
We all pulled out our phones.
No bars. Dead screens.
Not even emergency signals.
Panic started creeping in.
"We need to leave," Matthew said, his voice sharp with urgency.
And then we heard them.
Screams.
Not just one. Dozens. Maybe more.
Screams of agony, of people being hurt, no, tortured. It echoed from inside the chapel like a hundred souls crying out at once, clawing at their throats, begging for help.
Without thinking, we ran. Toward it. Toward the sound.
Forgetting the warning.
Forgetting everything.
We burst through the chapel doors this time, forward.
And everything was empty.
The figures were gone.
The screams had stopped.
But the horror hadn't.
The chapel was now… red. Not painted, marked.
Symbols, strange and looping, covered every inch of the wooden walls and floorboards. Some were smeared. Some carved. Some looked like they'd been scratched in with fingernails.
All of it was written in what looked like blood.
Maybe it wasn't.
But it smelled like it. Thick. Rusty. Warm.
The air was suffocating. Every breath tasted like iron.
"We need to go," Rose whispered.
We didn't argue. We backed out, this time actually backing out and we ran to the van.
Caleb jumped in and turned the key.
Nothing.
"Come on, come on," he muttered, trying again.
Silence.
He slammed the wheel. "Don't do this now."
Matthew tried. Then me. Then Rose.
The engine wouldn't even click. No lights. No sounds. No life.
Just us.
And that damned chapel watching us.
"We can't stay here," Rose said, her voice shaking. "Not another minute."
"Then we walk," Caleb said. "Grab what you can carry. Leave the rest."
No one argued.
We grabbed our bags. Water. Flashlights. Knives. And we walked praying we wouldn't see the chapel again.
For the first thirty minutes, it was quiet.
Then we saw it.
The twisted rock formation we passed earlier.
The claw-shaped one.
We paused. Maybe there was more than one. Maybe we were just shaken.
But then came the fallen tree with the broken branch, the one Caleb almost tripped over when we arrived.
Then…
The chapel.
Standing exactly where it had been.
Crooked. Waiting.
"No," Matthew said, stepping back. "No, we went straight. We never turned. We didn't "
"We're in a loop," I whispered.
The four of us stood frozen in the trees. Flashlights flickering. No one moved.
Caleb's jaw clenched. Rose rubbed her arms like she was trying to keep something out.
The silence got tight.
Then Matthew, eyes fixed ahead, muttered just loud enough to break it:
"So either the devil's got us in a chokehold… or we just really suck at hiking."
He forced a laugh. It came out wrong, too dry, like his throat couldn't keep up.
No one else laughed.
"Okay. Tough crowd."
He looked down, and I saw the way his hand gripped the flashlight, too tight, fingers pale from the pressure.
Night fell fast. Like someone had dropped a blackout curtain on the sky.
No stars. No moon. Just dark.
Cold crept in from every direction. It wasn't normal cold. It felt… hollow. Like the cold was coming from the inside.
We didn't go back inside the chapel.
We camped in the van. Doors locked. Bags against the windows.
Then came the screams again.
Louder. Closer.
They didn't echo this time. They vibrated like the chapel was humming with pain.
Then came the voices.
Not ours.
Outside.
Whispering.
Then… laughing. A child's laugh.
"This isn't real," Caleb said, pacing inside the van. "This is some trick. This is stress. This is "
"Did you see her?" Rose whispered.
"Who?" I asked.
"The girl," she said. "She was standing outside. In a white dress. She was smiling. But
her mouth… her mouth wasn't moving right."
I don't remember falling asleep.
Maybe I didn't.
Maybe I blacked out. Maybe something took me.
But when I opened my eyes…
I wasn't in the van anymore.
I was sitting on a narrow wooden bench, barely wide enough to hold me. The space around me was cramped, close, suffocating. Walls boxed me in on both sides. The only light came from a thin, carved window covered in a rust-colored mesh. My breath echoed louder than it should've.
The air smelled like old incense and iron.
And then I realized…
This was a confessional.
The wood creaked beneath me as I shifted. My heartbeat was louder than my thoughts. I ran my hand along the wall beside me, splinters jabbed at my fingertips. On the opposite side of the screen, I saw only darkness. No priest. No figure. Just absence.
Then I heard it.
Whispers. Slow. Sticky.
It didn't sound like a person. It sounded like breath trying to form language.
I froze.
"Caleb?" I whispered.
Nothing.
Then, faintly, from beyond the wood:
"Can you see them?" It was Rose's voice. But it was wrong. Flat. Empty. Like she was underwater.
Then Matthew's voice. "I never told anyone. But now… it's too late."
I pressed my palms against the door and shoved hard. It didn't move. The booth was sealed shut.
"HELLO? CALEB? ROSE?" My voice cracked. "SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
Their voices kept repeating. Over and over.
"Forgive me..."
"Do you remember what you did...?"
"You brought us here..."
"No!" I shouted. "No, I didn't!"
And then… silence.
Total.
Until the screen began to glow. Dimly at first, a dull red pulsing from behind the mesh. Like the booth itself was bleeding light.
And then it spoke.
A voice not meant for human ears.
Low. Deep. Grinding like stone dragged across metal. It didn't come from the other side of the screen. It came from inside me.
"You have sinned."
My hands trembled. "I, I don't understand."
"Confess… and be forgiven. Refuse… and burn."
I couldn't breathe.
The air thickened. My chest tightened like invisible hands were crushing it.
The corners of the booth seemed to stretch and twist like the walls were breathing with me. I closed my eyes, but it was worse in the dark. Behind my eyelids, I saw faces.
Dozens of them.
Their mouths stitched shut. Eyes wide open.
Watching me.
Judging.
"You have the wrong person," I choked out. "I didn't do anything!"
Silence.
Then the sound of tearing fabric. Wet. Close.
"You lied."
The light inside the booth turned blood red. I looked down and realized my fingernails were bleeding.
One by one.
Like they were being pulled out slowly.
I screamed and slammed my fists into the wall. "STOP IT! PLEASE!"
Then the voice said:
"Confess what you buried."
And it came back.
A memory I didn't even realize I had buried so deep it felt like fiction.
I was eleven.
My cousin. The pool. The screaming.
I'd told everyone she slipped.
But she didn't.
I pushed her.
I didn't mean to. We were fighting. I was angry. I didn't know she couldn't swim.
The guilt I spent years pretending didn't exist clawed its way back through my chest.
Tears welled in my eyes.
I bowed my head, trembling, broken.
"…Father," I whispered. "I have sinned."
"Repeat."
And I did.
The words weren't mine anymore.
They came in a language I didn't know, yet my mouth obeyed. It felt like my body was no longer mine. My lips moved. My eyes burned. My head throbbed.
I wasn't speaking. I was surrendering.
Each word pulled something out of me. Not physically, but spiritually. Like layers of me were peeling away.
And when it was over…
Silence.
Total and suffocating.
Then the voice returned, soft this time. Like a lullaby made of teeth.
"You are forgiven."
Pause.
"But you must stay. You must atone."
I screamed. I slammed into the walls of the booth again and again. I couldn't stay. I wouldn't. Not until they gave way.
And I fell through.
Right back into the chapel.
Same floorboards.
Same cold.
Same scent of rotting wood and blood and something older.
I was alone.
The chapel was full again but not with my friends.
They were back.
The figures.
Their heads turned toward me this time.
They were watching.
Waiting.
Muttering.
One took a step forward.
Another crawled.
They formed a circle around me, not touching, but close. Close enough for me to feel their breath. Close enough for me to see their eyes, milky and empty like dried-out wells.
I turned and ran for the doors.
Something stopped me. Not a wall. Not a force.
Just… space refusing to let me leave.
Like the room was no longer part of Earth.
I remembered the voice.
"You must stay."
And I knew then:
This place doesn't kill you.
It keeps you.
It studies you.
It forces you to face what you swore no one would ever know.
It forgives you but only after it breaks you.
I don't know how long I've been here.
Minutes?
Days?
Years?
I don't even remember the sound of Caleb's laugh. Or Rose's stubborn jokes. Or Matthew's camera clicks.
I don't know if they escaped.
Or if they're still here.
Like me.
Watching.
Whispering.
Waiting.