In the fog-shrouded village of Eldermoor, old Widow Hargrove kept a lantern burning every night in her attic window. Children whispered that it signaled the dead, but no one dared approach until I, a curious traveler, knocked on All Hallows' Eve.
She invited me in with a toothless grin, offering tea that tasted of earth and iron.
As midnight struck, the lantern's flame turned blue, and shadows peeled from the walls like peeling paint. Hargrove's eyes glazed over; she murmured names of the long-buried, her voice echoing from the floorboards. Hands—cold, skeletal—gripped my ankles, pulling me toward the cellar stairs that hadn't been there moments before.
I fled upstairs, but the attic door slammed shut, trapping me with portraits whose eyes followed my every gasp. The lantern exploded in a burst of ghostly light, revealing Hargrove's true form: a hollow husk animated by the village's vanished souls.
Now, every night, my lantern burns in that same window, waiting for the next fool to knock. And if you see it flickering... run.
Stake: Leon434