The First Horror
616 Words
Chapter 3
For three days, Ethan Graves lived the life he had always dreamed of.
His novel was everywhere.
Readers shared it online. Book bloggers praised it. Publishers who had ignored him for years suddenly wanted to work with him.
It felt unreal.
Because deep down, Ethan knew the truth.
His success hadn't come from talent.
It had come from the pen.
The black feather pen sat on his desk beside the notebook. It never moved. It never made a sound.
Yet Ethan could feel its presence.
Almost as if it were waiting.
Watching.
The thought made him uncomfortable.
Still, he couldn't deny what had happened.
He had written that he would become famous.
The next day, he became famous.
The pen had worked.
And that terrified him.
It also tempted him.
Late one evening, Ethan sat alone in his apartment while rain tapped softly against the windows.
The notebook lay open before him.
A blank page waited.
His fingers tightened around the pen.
If it could make him famous...
What else could it do?
The question lingered in his mind.
He knew he should stop.
Instead, he started writing.
Not a wish this time.
A story.
A horror story.
The words flowed effortlessly across the page.
He wrote about a wealthy businessman returning home after midnight.
A man who noticed strange footprints leading into his house.
A man who heard footsteps upstairs.
A man who realized he wasn't alone.
Ethan smiled as he wrote.
It was one of the creepiest scenes he had ever created.
By the time he finished, the rain had stopped.
The apartment had grown strangely cold.
He closed the notebook and went to bed.
The next morning, a news alert appeared on his phone.
At first, he barely paid attention.
Then he saw the headline.
His blood ran cold.
A businessman had been found dead inside his home during the night.
The details were eerily familiar.
Too familiar.
His hands shook as he opened the article.
The victim had returned home shortly after midnight.
Neighbors reported hearing strange noises.
Investigators had discovered muddy footprints inside the house.
Ethan stopped reading.
His heart pounded so hard it hurt.
No.
It couldn't be.
There had to be thousands of people in the city.
Thousands of houses.
Thousands of coincidences.
He forced himself to laugh.
But the sound died in his throat.
Because he remembered something.
A detail he had included near the end of the story.
One small detail.
Something no one could guess.
Slowly, he continued reading.
The article mentioned it.
Exactly as he had written it.
Word for word.
Ethan dropped the phone.
A cold wave of fear washed over him.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
The air felt heavier.
The pen.
The story.
The death.
They were connected.
They had to be.
For a long moment, he simply stared at the notebook lying on his desk.
The black cover seemed darker than before.
Almost alive.
As if it were waiting for him to open it.
Waiting for him to write again.
Then his phone vibrated.
A new notification.
Another news update.
With trembling hands, Ethan opened it.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
It showed the victim's study.
Most of the room looked ordinary.
Except for one thing.
Written across a sheet of paper on the desk were three words.
Words Ethan had never shared with anyone.
Words from the final line of his story.
*The story continues.*
Ethan's stomach dropped.
Because those words had not been there when he finished writing.
And somehow, he knew exactly who had written them.
The pen wasn't granting wishes.
It was turning stories into reality.
And Ethan had just written his first nightmare.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD