Chapter 1
“Come this way,” the voice inside me was saying…
I had fallen asleep on the floor cushion while reading a book at night. My whole body ached. I was living alone at home. After my mother died, I had started staying at my grandmother’s house.
Everything was lively and beautiful, but it reminded me of my mother even more. She was always smiling and cheerful. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Ever since I came to the village, I had been having strange dreams. A dark shadow kept opening my mother’s coffin. After she came out, she was crying. It was my dream, yet I couldn’t interfere. I had made up my mind; I would go to my mother.
I set off in the afternoon. It took me two hours by bus to reach the city. I went to my mother’s grave and noticed something on the gravestone.
When I got closer, I saw that it was a black scarf, but we hadn’t placed it there. I picked it up. I noticed there was a single eye on it. It felt like it was pulling me in. I immediately broke eye contact and stuffed the scarf into my pocket. I bent over my mother’s grave and, crying, asked what was going on. Suddenly, the wind blew toward the direction of the gate. I couldn’t understand what it meant. I thought maybe my mother didn’t want me there, so I returned to the village.
I was staying in my mother’s old room in the village. We used to live in the city, but my grandmother couldn’t bear to throw away my mother’s belongings, so she kept everything.
I noticed a large doll under the bed. As I pulled it out, I accidentally tore off its arm. Then I moved the bed slightly and took the doll. It had only one eye. It looked terrifying, but its hair was very long and jet black, and its eye was deep blue. To sew its arm back on, I removed its clothes. It didn’t have a belly button. I found it strange at first, but I didn’t dwell on it. I left the doll aside and fell asleep from the exhaustion of the day.
I woke up in the morning, gasping for breath. In my dream, my mother was telling me, “Leave immediately, get away from here.” But the shadow that opened her grave was saying, “Come this way.” Once again, I couldn’t make sense of it. I had breakfast and set off toward my mother’s grave. I was curious about the meaning of these dreams.
When I arrived, the wind again blew toward the gate, as if saying, “Go away.” I ignored it. When I reached my mother’s grave, I noticed a hole near the foot of it. When I looked inside, there was an evil eye bead. I wondered what that had to do with anything. Wasn’t it meant to protect against evil? A quick search on my phone said it could also be associated with asking help from dark forces. That felt strange. All of this was there—but why was it connected to my mother? I wasn’t very religious, and neither was she. I didn’t know much. I threw the bead away and returned to the house in the village.
I lay on my bed and thought: a black scarf with a single eye, the shadow, my mother, the one-eyed doll, and now the evil eye bead… Had my mother done something wrong?
While thinking about all this, I fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was go through my mother’s belongings. Just when I thought there was nothing, I found a small chest wrapped in scarves. I opened it. There were papers inside, but they were written in a language I couldn’t read. On one paper, there was a picture of two women I didn’t recognize. I thought this might be some kind of spell. But why was my mother involved in something like this? I decided to ask my grandmother.
When I asked her, I learned that my mother had once done certain things for a boy she liked. That boy was now believed to be dead. My father, however, was alive, but they had separated because they couldn’t get along. I had chosen to stay with my mother.
I had fallen asleep on the couch. In my dream, my mother was scolding me. The shadowy entity was laughing. I saw a white spot on my mother’s head. It seemed connected to the eyes I had found.
I realized I didn’t really know my mother. How could I, when for 17 years I had only seen someone who was always smiling? But she always protected me and helped me. That’s what a mother should do. Still, whenever I got close to her, I felt a strange heaviness.
I gathered my courage and, at night, collected all the one-eyed objects and went to my mother’s grave. This time, the wind blew from side to side. I tied the scarf to the doll and placed the others beside it. I waited for a sign from my mother.
Suddenly, the lights went out. A black shadow appeared in front of me. It was pulling me in. It took the one-eyed scarf and tied it around its head. Just like in my dream, there was a white spot on its head. I forced myself to say, “Stop, don’t go!”
Suddenly, the shadow disappeared and reappeared behind me. My skin crawled. But I could feel my mother’s warmth on my shoulders. It was as if there was a battle between them.
The shadow tried to enter me. I couldn’t hold it back, nor could I fully feel it. I was just going numb. What was happening to me?
I began to feel my heartbeat and my body burning. My soul felt trapped. Memories flashed before my eyes—but they weren’t mine, they belonged to my mother.
As a child, my mother had been excluded. She had gone to a place called the “cursed fountain,” drank from it, and taken some water with her. Later, she made a deal with a fairy girl known in the village. She gave her allowance every day and asked to be taught spells. Thinking she had learned enough, she tried them at home—but things went wrong. Something evil had begun living inside her. The boy she loved had distanced himself from her.
She searched for the fairy girl but couldn’t find her. To protect herself, she wore evil eye beads and amulets, but they only attracted the entity more.
As I witnessed everything my mother had gone through, I couldn’t control my emotions. Because of that, the entity took over my weak body. The more I tried to escape, the deeper I was pulled into the darkness. I sank to the very bottom…
Suddenly, I woke up.
My mother told me breakfast was ready. It was the first time in my life I had seen such a terrifying dream. I decided never to watch horror movies alone at night again.
A deep wind passed by me, almost like a shadow. I immediately went to the kitchen, to my mother. I started having breakfast while talking to her.
THE END
