Was I Ever Happy?

Begining of The End

The rain fell relentlessly, each drop a drumbeat against the darkened windows of the old, crumbling house. Inside, the silence was only broken by the soft creak of the wooden floorboards, groaning under the weight of a lonely figure pacing back and forth. Amelia stood in the center of the room, her eyes hollow, her body a ghost of what it once was.

It had started two years ago. The accident. Her husband, Daniel, had been driving home from work when the storm had hit. The roads, slick with water, had been treacherous. His car had veered off the road, crashing into a tree. When Amelia received the call, her world had shattered. But that was only the beginning of the horror.

The first few nights, she had held on to the hope that somehow, somewhere, Daniel was still alive. She kept his clothes around, his toothbrush still in the bathroom, and waited for him to walk through the door. The neighbors offered their condolences, but she couldn't let go.

Then, things started to change.

It started with small things. The faint smell of Daniel's cologne lingering in the house, as if he had just stepped out of the room. The soft creak of his favorite chair as if someone had just sat down in it. But it wasn’t him. No. It couldn’t be.

One evening, she had found herself standing in front of the cracked mirror in their bedroom, staring at her reflection. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him. Daniel. Standing in the doorway, his face pale and gaunt, his eyes dark pits of emptiness. She blinked, and he was gone.

It didn’t stop there. Every night, he came back—closer, clearer, his form becoming more solid with each passing day. His skin, once warm and full of life, was now mottled with patches of decay, his body a twisted version of what it used to be. He never spoke. He didn’t need to. His presence was enough to send Amelia into a terror that choked the life out of her every time she saw him.

The worst came on the anniversary of his death. That night, she awoke to find him standing at the foot of their bed, his eyes empty and cold. This time, he was no longer just a ghost of the past. He was something more. His mouth opened, a low, guttural sound coming from deep within his throat, as if he were trying to speak—no, to *scream*—but the sound was drowned in the thick silence of the room. And then, in a movement too fast for her to comprehend, he lunged at her.

Amelia tried to scream, but her voice had disappeared long ago. She felt cold hands on her throat, fingers digging into her skin as he pulled her into the darkness. The house was suffocating, closing in on her as the walls seemed to pulse with each beat of her own broken heart.

She struggled to break free, but his grip was ironclad. She looked into his face—what was once her beloved husband—now a twisted, grotesque mockery of the man she had loved. His eyes were dead, his mouth open in a silent scream. She saw it then: he wasn't *alive*. He was *trapped*, trapped between two worlds, dragged back by something darker than death itself.

And then, in a moment of clarity, Amelia understood. The house wasn’t haunted by Daniel. It was a prison for both of them. For him, unable to escape the torment of his twisted form, and for her, slowly losing her mind as she waited for an end that would never come.

In the dark, she felt the warmth leave her body as the life was drained from her. Her eyes fluttered, the last thing she saw was his face—no longer her husband, but something far worse.

The house stood silent once more, the storm outside continuing its relentless assault. And in the empty, desolate rooms, there was no one left to mourn. Only the shadows remained.