A Portrait in Dust
Some things are buried for a reason.
Some things refuse to stay that way.
I found the sketchbook on the last Sunday of September, buried beneath a pile of moth-bitten blankets in the attic. The air up there was different—thick and stale, like something had been left to rot in the woodwork. It smelled of old paper and mildew, a scent that curled at the back of my throat like a warning.
I hadn’t been in the attic since I was a child. I remembered it being cavernous, full of old trunks and broken furniture, but standing there now, I realized how small it was. Like a ribcage, tight and suffocating, the light seeping through the slats in long, thin breaths. The floorboards groaned under my weight, unsettled by my presence. Dust coated everything in thick, undisturbed layers, except for one path, one trail through the forgotten things, as though someone had been here before me.
I wasn’t looking for anything when I found it. That was the worst part. There was no purpose in my hands when they lifted the frayed leather cover, no intention when my fingers ghosted over the brittle edges of the pages. And yet, the moment I opened it, I knew it had been waiting for me.
Most of the sketches were complete, lifelike in their detail, each subject frozen in eerie stillness as if their souls had been pressed between the pages. Their eyes held secrets, their lips poised to whisper things I would never want to hear. But as I flipped further, the precision unraveled. The faces became incomplete—some missing entire halves, others dissolving into vague, broken outlines. The final few pages were the most unsettling. The strokes became hesitant, jagged, as though the artist had been disturbed mid-creation.
But the one that made my stomach curdle—the one that stopped my breath in my throat—was the last page. The lines were so precise it felt like a photograph etched in graphite. High cheekbones, an elegant jaw, strands of dark hair curling over a sharp collarbone.
It was me.
Or, almost me. The face was only half-finished. The left side was complete, shaded and textured to eerie perfection, but the right side bled into nothing—an absence of lines, an absence of form, an absence of existence. The longer I stared at it, the more I swore I could see it moving, shifting, the edges of my face bleeding into the paper like ink in water.
I touched the page, expecting the smoothness of old paper, but it felt wrong. The graphite smudged slightly under my fingertip, fresh as if the artist had drawn it that morning.
A sharp creak split the silence. I froze. The attic was empty—there was no wind, no window open—but something had shifted. I turned slowly, my breath sharp in my chest. The corners of the room were thick with shadow, but the more I stared, the more it felt like something was staring back.
I snapped the book shut, the whisper of paper scraping against itself. My pulse throbbed at the base of my throat.
There was something wrong with this. Something is wrong with the book. Something is wrong with me.
I shouldn’t have found it.
But even as I told myself that, my grip tightened around the cover, my fingers curling into the leather like it was something living, something breathing. The attic felt colder now, pressing against my skin, wrapping around my ankles like unseen hands. I forced myself to move, to climb down the ladder one rung at a time, but the weight of the book was undeniable, as if it was pulling me somewhere, urging me forward.
As I reached the hallway, I hesitated, glancing back up into the darkness of the attic. For the briefest moment, I swore I saw something move. A shift in the air, a flicker of something just beyond sight.
And then, just as quickly, it was gone.
I carried the book down to my room, closing the door behind me with a quiet click. The house was silent, but not empty. It had never felt empty.
I set the book on my desk, my fingers lingering on the cover. I should put it away. Forget I ever found it.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I opened it again, flipping through the pages one by one, watching the faces in the sketches. They were unfinished, but I had the overwhelming sense that they were not incomplete.
They were waiting.
And something told me they had been waiting for a very, very long time .
