The Lantern Keeper

It started with a dare. One of those drunken challenges thrown around at 2 a.m. during a camping trip. The old lighthouse on Blackthorn Cliff had been abandoned for decades, its iron gate locked and rusted shut. Legend had it that the last keeper, an unnamed man, had vanished one stormy night, leaving the light burning even though the lamp had no fuel. They say the light still glows when the fog rolls in, but no one dares check anymore. Not after what happened to the search party.

Of course, we didn’t believe any of it. Ghost stories told to keep kids from wandering too close to the edge. That’s what I thought too, until I stepped inside.

The climb to the lighthouse was treacherous, the path narrow and slick from the mist. The others stayed behind, laughing and cheering me on from a safe distance. “Just a quick look inside,” I told myself. “Prove the light doesn’t glow, and then get out.” The gate, despite its rust, creaked open too easily. My first warning.

Inside, the air was damp, heavy with the smell of salt and decay. The walls were lined with peeling paint and old graffiti, faded by years of exposure. I called out, just to break the silence. My voice echoed, unanswered.

I almost turned back. Almost.

But then I saw it. A faint glow from the spiral staircase leading to the lantern room. It wasn’t the bright, piercing beam of a working lighthouse, but something softer. Pulsing. Beckoning.

The stairs groaned under my weight, each step louder than the last. The glow intensified as I ascended, bathing the walls in a pale, sickly light. When I reached the top, I found the lantern room empty. No lamp, no machinery, nothing but the glass windows and the endless black sea beyond.

Except for the lantern.

It sat on the floor, old and tarnished, yet the light inside burned steady. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t electric. It was something else entirely, something alive. The light shifted as I approached, almost as if it were watching me.

I should have left. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but I couldn’t. The light held me in place, its glow filling my mind with whispers. They weren’t words, not exactly, but I understood them. It needed me.

The others found me hours later, sitting at the base of the lighthouse with the lantern clutched in my hands. They said I was mumbling, my eyes unfocused, my skin cold to the touch. I don’t remember leaving the lantern room. I don’t remember anything after seeing the light.

I tried to leave it behind. I threw it into the ocean, watched it sink beneath the waves. But that night, it was back, sitting on my bedside table as if it had always been there. The whispers returned too, louder now, more insistent.

“Keep the light burning.”

That was weeks ago. I’ve stopped trying to get rid of it. The light has grown brighter, its whispers more demanding. I’ve taken to wandering the streets at night, lantern in hand, unable to sleep. Sometimes, I see shadows following me. Not the shadows cast by the lantern, but darker ones, moving on their own.

I’m not alone anymore. I can feel them, just beyond the edge of the light, waiting. The whispers have told me what they want. What the light is for.

I’m not the first keeper, and I won’t be the last. The light must never go out, or the shadows will take its place. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going. The lantern is growing heavier, the whispers harder to ignore.

If you find this note, leave the lighthouse alone. Leave the lantern alone. Don’t let the light choose you.

Because once it does, the shadows will never let you go.