The Diary's Demand
833 Words
Lena sat on her bed, staring at the desk drawer.
She had shoved the diary inside after Sophie’s death, slammed it shut, and stacked textbooks on top like flimsy barricades. But the drawer still felt alive, a pulsing black heart in the room. She could feel its weight in the air—thick, watching, patient.
It was no longer an object.
It was a predator.
The room itself seemed to bend around it, corners tilting, shadows lingering just a little too long near the drawer. Sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, she swore the wood shifted, as if something inside pressed against it, testing the barrier.
She hugged her knees, trying to block out the whispers in her head.
It’s just paper. Just ink. Just a stupid book.
But she didn’t believe it. Not anymore.
Her phone buzzed with a new notification, a brief reprieve, but her stomach sank when she saw the sender.
HOUSING OFFICE: REQUEST DENIED.
Cold finality. She was trapped. No roommate. No buffer. Just her—and it.
Her throat tightened. She thought about leaving, crashing on a friend’s floor, but even the idea of explaining why felt impossible. Who would believe her? Was a diary hunting her? Did those walls whisper? Did Sophie’s empty bed watch her sleep?
No. She was alone.
And the predator in the drawer knew it.
By the time her hands reached for the handle, she wasn’t sure if it was her choice or the book’s.
The drawer scraped open.
The diary waited.
Its cover looked darker, the leather stiff like dried skin. She flipped it open with trembling fingers, each page a wound she was reopening.
At first, nothing. Blank paper. She exhaled shakily, hope sparking for a single desperate second.
Then the words bled up from the page. Jagged. Angry.
Burn him before he burns you.
The ink glistened like it was still wet, sharp edges stabbing into the paper as if written with violence.
Her blood ran cold.
She didn’t need to wonder who he was.
The scarred boy.
The one who haunted the library, the shadows, her every waking thought. The one who knew too much.
Her pulse hammered against her ribs, an animal caught in a cage.
Burn him?
Her hands shook. The command didn’t feel like a suggestion. It felt like law. Refusal wasn’t an option.
She saw him the next day.
He was leaning against a brick wall outside the humanities building, half-hidden in shadow. Like he’d been waiting. His posture was casual, but his eyes weren’t. They tracked her the second she stepped into view.
The diary’s words pounded in her head.
Burn him before he burns you.
Her feet moved before her mind caught up. Every step toward him scraped against her nerves, her heart trying to claw its way out of her chest.
When she reached him, her voice broke free, sharp and trembling.
“You know my name,” she accused.
Her throat was tight, but the words cut through the air like glass. “How do you know my name?”
For the first time, he didn’t look like some untouchable phantom lurking at the edges of her life. His shoulders sagged, his eyes softened with something dangerously human.
Tired. He just looked tired.
“Because I know what it wants,” he said quietly. His voice was low, flat, but edged with something close to grief. “And I know what it does to the people it chooses.”
Her stomach flipped. Heat surged up her throat, part fear, part fury. She wanted to grab him, shake him, demand he explain.
But he was already turning away.
He took three steps, the distance between them widening like a wound.
Then, without looking back, he delivered the words that hollowed her out.
“She’s inside you already.”
The sentence dropped like a stone into her gut, sinking deep, unstoppable.
Her breath caught.
She stood frozen, rooted to the cracked sidewalk, the world blurring around her. Students passed, chatting, laughing, phones buzzing in their hands. Normal life continued. But inside her, everything tilted.
She’s inside you already.
Her fingers twitched. Slowly, she looked down at her own hands, pale and trembling in the afternoon light.
For one breathless second, she swore they weren’t hers.
The skin is too pale. The knuckles are sharper. The shadows stretched too long, like someone else’s hands superimposed over her own.
Her stomach lurched.
The diary’s command screamed in her mind, colliding with his warning until the two voices tangled into one unbearable truth.
Burn him. She’s inside you. Burn him. She’s inside you.
Lena stumbled back a step, clutching her hands to her chest as though she could keep herself contained, as though she could stop whoever—or whatever—was seeping through her skin.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to run.
But all she could do was stand there, frozen, while the predator inside the drawer laughed silently in the dark.
- Writer
