Capítulo 257: Chapter 257
In the small village of Larkwell, where the streets wound narrow between tall, crooked houses, there was a little girl named Elsie. Her parents had moved to the town two years ago, and since then, Elsie became something of an oddity. People saw her walking alone by the churchyard, staring at the ground for hours, her eyes vacant, her mouth always shut tight, as if words didn't want to be spoken. The other children tried to play with her, but something about her was unsettling. They would get too close, then pull back, as if a chill had run through them all at once.
She lived with her mother, Clara, who was an anxious woman, always apologizing for her daughter's strange behavior. But despite Clara's best efforts, the villagers couldn't ignore the fact that Elsie was different, colder than any child they had ever seen. It wasn't malicious; it was just that, in her presence, they felt as though they were never fully seen, never fully heard.
Elsie's oddness became more pronounced as time went on. One summer morning, she was found outside the post office, clutching a black bird in her hands, its wings still twitching, but its body cold and still. The bird had been dead for hours, but Elsie didn't seem to care. She simply stood there, holding it, her face unreadable.
"It's just a bird, Clara. A dead one," someone said from the sidewalk, trying to sound reassuring, but their voice carried a strain.
Clara rushed over, her hands trembling as she tried to pry Elsie's fingers open, but the child wouldn't let go. It took an unnatural amount of force before the bird was freed, and even then, Elsie stood motionless, staring down at the ground, as though she hadn't noticed anything had happened.
Later that day, Clara found Elsie sitting on the floor of her bedroom, a box of old, forgotten toys around her. The silence in the room was unnerving, not the peaceful kind that comes with sleep, but the kind that stretched on, thick, until it felt suffocating. Elsie stared at the dolls in her hands, their glass eyes dull and unblinking.
"Elsie, sweetie, you've been acting funny," Clara said, her voice tight with worry. "What's going on in your head?"
Elsie didn't answer. She never did.
Over the following weeks, Elsie became even more distant. She stopped eating her meals, her once vibrant, pale face now hollow. She no longer responded to her mother's calls, instead sitting in the corner of the room for hours at a time, her gaze focused on something no one else could see. Her behavior became erratic. At times, she would start crying uncontrollably for no reason, and at other times, she would start laughing—a dry, brittle laugh that carried no joy.
Then, people started disappearing.
It started small. Old Mrs. Whittaker, the widow who lived down the road, didn't show up to the market one Friday. No one thought much of it—she was old, after all. But when she didn't show up the next day either, the village began to take notice. The authorities were called, and a search began. No trace of her was ever found. Then came Mr. Winters, the baker who ran the shop on the corner. His wife said she'd heard him last Tuesday night, humming as he worked in the kitchen. The next morning, he was gone. The bakery sat empty, with no sign of him anywhere.
The disappearances became a pattern, and with each one, the village grew more on edge. Word spread quickly that Elsie was involved. The children in the schoolyard talked behind her back, pointing fingers, whispering stories of strange things they had seen in her eyes. Some claimed to have seen her standing in front of the town's well, staring down into the water for hours. Others swore she had been in the church at midnight, her form a shadow among the pews, eyes wide open, not blinking once.
No one dared speak to Clara about it. She had become a figure of pity, her face pale with exhaustion, hair hanging limp around her face. She couldn't understand what was happening to her daughter, but she couldn't escape the gnawing fear that something terrible was coming.
Then, one day, the disappearance of a local family sealed it. The Martins, a couple with two children, had been well-liked in the village. They were a young family, warm-hearted, always willing to lend a hand. They had simply vanished. No sign of struggle. Their house was left just as it had been, the front door ajar, their breakfast still sitting on the table, untouched.
The village was on edge now. Every window was shut tight, doors locked, and people moved about in nervous haste. Whispers swirled, but no one spoke her name aloud. Still, everyone felt it: there was a link between Elsie's strange behavior and the missing.
It was that afternoon, while the sun hung low in the sky, that Clara found Elsie again, sitting in the same corner of her bedroom. But this time, her hands were clasped tightly around something. It was a string of old silver coins, dirty and worn with age, held as though they were sacred. Her fingers trembled, turning them over and over.
"Elsie, what are you doing?" Clara's voice broke through the silence, but her daughter didn't respond.
The coins slipped from Elsie's hands, rolling across the floor in a rhythm Clara didn't quite understand. The child didn't move to pick them up. Her face, pale as ever, twisted with something that was almost like a smile—though it was not a smile at all. Clara stepped back, fear flooding her chest.
Then the door banged open, a gust of cold wind swirling in with the sound of someone moving outside. The house felt colder than it should, but it wasn't the kind of cold that came from the weather.
Clara turned her head, seeing nothing but a blur of darkness through the window. But something was off.
A distant, unearthly shriek echoed through the house.
Clara gasped. Her breath caught. She wanted to run, to escape, but her legs felt like stone. Elsie's form shifted, standing with unnatural speed, her eyes cold and fixed on her mother.
"Elsie," Clara whispered, but her voice cracked. "Please…"
The little girl's lips parted. But it wasn't words that came from her mouth. It was a sound, a guttural, unholy noise, like something scraping across the walls of the mind. The air felt dense, like it was pressing down on Clara's chest, squeezing the life out of her.
The shrieks continued, the walls seemed to hum with them. And then, everything went silent.
Clara's breath was shallow, her body trembling. Her daughter stood in front of her, eyes wide open, filled with a vacancy that no child should have. She reached forward, not with hands, but with the emptiness that consumed her, grasping the air like it was something tangible.
Clara stepped back again, but her feet faltered. A scream tore through her throat as the ground beneath her cracked open, splitting wide as though the earth itself was being undone. She reached for Elsie, but the child was gone. The space she once filled was cold, empty, but Clara felt it—the weight of a presence, far darker, far worse.
Then, Elsie's voice, soft and far away, drifted to her ears.
"Don't worry, mummy," it said, in that same cracked, hollow tone. "You'll be with me soon."
Clara stumbled to the door, but the entire house began to collapse around her, the walls caving in as though the world itself was collapsing inward, the ground buckling beneath her feet. There was no escape. There was no hope. And in her last moments, she could feel it—the same cold, hollow sensation that had gripped her daughter, closing in around her heart.
The village would find the house empty the next morning, but the ground was stained with something darker than soil. Something that had not been there before.
And Elsie? Well, she was gone too. Gone, like the rest of them, like the hollow void that consumed them all.
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