Sketch by Lucy Wood

The most important rule:

ailing. Agonising wailing. So faint it might almost not be there. It was a shadow of W a sound, but she could hear it and her head perked up, turning towards the noise. She stared out into the long, shadowy corridor and trepidation washed through her, chilling her to the bone.

The young girl had only recently become acquainted with the rooms of the house and the long, looming corridor that lay before her was a place she had once thought to never dare creep. But this sound, this awful sound, it drew her.

The winter wind howled as it blew through the open shutter and rushed through her nightgown, freezing. The girl startled as the frigid cold jolted through her, taking a shaky breath. Cautiously, she placed down the hamper of clothes she was instructed to carry. Wordlessly, she closed the shutter, the vicious wind still beating at the closed pane. She crept towards a candle that hung on the wall. It guttered and danced as she raised it tentatively, a pool of light guiding her mismatched footsteps down the dark hall. The wailing, shrieking sound grew louder and louder as she approached and panic rose in her chest, choking her.

She froze.

The wailing had stopped. She stood, trembling in the quiet of the corridor. Alone. The silence was deafening.

Stricken with fear, she replaced the candle on the wall and rushed back to her hamper, not daring to look up.

Two moons passed before she heard it again. That awful, awful wailing. The sound bled into her eardrums, drowning her thoughts. Once again, she raised the candle from the wall and crept forward. The sound surrounded her like a vacuum. Fear gripped her like a vice. Her shallow breaths and quiet footsteps felt almost completely drowned out by the haunting noise. The wailing grew louder and louder, like a roaring in her ears. She stilled, her heart pulsing against her ribcage. Slowly, her gaze turned up. Embedded in the damp ceiling was a wooden trap door. It was gnarled and splintered, and terror struck ever deeper into her heart the longer she stared at it.

Neverenter the attic.

By India Henry-Blackford

The attic. A single piece of string hung lifelessly from the wood, seemingly stained from age. Nervously, she rose to the balls of her feet and stretched out a skinny brown arm, grabbing at its fraying ends. A stray dark curl fell into her eyes as she tugged at it, temporarily shielding her vision from the ominous flow that pooled out of the small opening.

By now, the tortuous wails had long since dissolved into nothingness, leaving a hollow feeling of unease in her chest. Sheer curiosity and fear drove her forward now and, as she stood in the low, roofed room, one rule echoed in her mind. Never enter the attic. Not under any circumstances. It is forbidden. Her hands trembled as she took a single step forward and the floorboards creaked and moaned under the new weight. Only short breaths escaped her lips, the quiet rendering her wordless. Suddenly, a sharp cry ripped through the silence, and the girl gasped. Muffled sobs reverberated off the walls, with short gasps cutting through them. The girl rounded a large wooden beam and there it was.

A child. Bony and pallid, a nightgown hanging limply off their form. It was crying. Large, dampened sobs wracking their small body, long hair falling, matted, over their large eyes. They were sat in a way that looked wildly uncomfortable and the girl’s eyes turned to their leg, stuck out and warped at an unnatural angle. The child was crouched at the end of a small bed, though it seemed almost comically big compared to it. Its dented metal frame shook as the child sobbed, its creaking seeming to almost moan.

The girl took another cautious step and the child’s large dark eyes gazed tearily up at her. The longer she stared at it, the stronger the feeling of unease grew in her chest. She looked at the walls, low and crowding, where a single candle sat, glowing green. The child’s shadow on the wall seemed to shift and change, when suddenly, it halted. The shadow of a horrifying creature loomed over her. She turned her wide eyes back to the child and its eyes glowed.