A widow's grief and agony and a companion

Everyone in Briar Hollow knew about the abandoned Coldwell House.

It sat hunched at the end of Gallow’s Lane, draped in shadows even at noon, its windows like hollowed eyes.

They said a widow still roamed its halls, waiting, bleeding, hating. a dead? or a living zombie?

Of course, poppy didn’t believe any of that.

Not until the night she went inside.

It started with a dare. like always in every other dumb horror story.

A stupid one, sparked by too much whiskey and not enough common sense.

“Spend an hour inside," her friend teddy laughed. "Bring back something to prove it. Easy cash."

Poppy needed the money. Desperately.

Greedy girl.

The door groaned open under her touch.

The air was thick, syrupy.

Inside, darkness oozed from the walls, swallowing her flashlight’s beam.

Each step echoed with an almost hungry sound.

She made it to the parlor before she saw her.

Standing by the shattered window was a woman in a tattered black dress.

Her skin was corpse-pale, stretched thin over bone.

Her face was a hollow mask of grief and rage.

A crimson stain bloomed across her chest, dark and wet — a wound that would never close.

The woman didn't move.

Didn't speak.

Poppy froze, heart beating so loud and fast as if it's outside her body.

It had to be a trick.

Someone messing with her. Perhaps, teddy's harmless prank?

Right?

Then she saw the shadows behind the woman.

Figures with glowing eyes, pressed against the broken window.

Watching.

Waiting.

The glass spiderwebbed as something pressed harder from the outside.

Poppy stumbled back, kicking over a rotted chair.

The sound snapped the woman’s head toward her with a crack like breaking wood.

Their eyes met.

Poppy’s mind flooded with images not her own: — A man hanging from the rafters, face purple and swollen.

— A baby, silent in a cradle slick with blood.

— A mirror, shattered by desperate, clawed hands.

The woman’s lips peeled back in a smile of pure agony.

She reached out with her skeletal hand.

Poppy bolted.

She sprinted through the house, doors slamming shut behind her, forcing her down the twisted corridors.

The house itself seemed alive, its walls pulsing like veins, whispering her name.

Poppy... pop... Stay...

She burst into the kitchen — and stopped dead.

A table sat in the center of the room, covered in blackened bones.

On the wall, words were scrawled in something dark and glistening:

"YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD."

The woman was behind her now.

Close.

She could feel her, breathing rotten air against the back of her neck.

Poppy turned.

The woman’s mouth yawned open wider, wider, until it split her face in two.

From inside poured a wailing mist — a thousand voices crying out in rage and hunger.

Poppy screamed, but the sound was sucked from her throat.

They found her three days later, curled in a fetal position just outside Coldwell House.

Alive.

Barely.

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t respond.

Just stared at nothing, her lips moving soundlessly.

The doctors called it catatonia. Her parents blamed Teddy.

They didn’t notice the deep, bloody handprint on her shoulder — or how the bruise seemed to smile.

One Year Later.

The Coldwell House still stands.

Still waits.

They say sometimes at night, if you pass by and dare to look through the cracked window, you'll see a new figure standing beside the Widow:

a girl in torn jeans and a hoodie, her eyes hollow, her mouth sewn shut by sorrow.

Both waiting.

Both bleeding.

Both smiling.

After all, misery loves company.

And in Briar Hollow, no one stays alone for long.