Watch the Glass

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The window.

If you tried to peek inside from any other vantage point, the candle wouldn’t be visible anymore.

As a ranger I’d walked that path and seen that cabin dozens of times before, both at day and night, but I’d never seen any signs of life from it. At the time I figured it was probably just a few teenagers having fun in a spooky old cabin at night, but the fact that there was a lit candle got me nervous about a potential fire, which is why I made my way over.

But as I neared the window and peeked inside, I soon realized it was empty. Empty, except for that single candle, burning on brightly all by its lonesome in the dead of night.

It was alluring, in a way. I remember zoning out as I stared at it, though I’m too embarrassed to admit how long it took me to snap out of it. I chalk it up to being drawn towards a source of warmth on such a cold night, but alluring or no, I was still determined to put it out.

Only you can prevent forest fires, and all that.

So I walked over to the door and made my way into the rickety old structure, ready to do my good deed and blow it out, but there was just one little problem.

There was no candle to blow out.

In my disbelief, I immediately walked back out the door and returned to the window I had just been peering in from. And there it was again: that same candle, through that same window.

I circled the cabin then, trying to see if I could get another angle on this mysterious candle in order to pinpoint its location, but all I saw was darkness.

Its glow only seemed to exist beyond the glass pane of that one single window.

My first thought was that there had to be a candle somewhere nearby, realistically speaking, and maybe this specific window was at just the right angle to reflect it.

Sure, it was a stretch, but I was desperate for any sort of plausible explanation for what I was seeing, (or, wasn’t seeing) and that’s what I went with.

So, naturally, I smashed the window. Picked up a baseball-sized rock from the forest floor and threw it straight in.

The loud shattering of the glass made me cringe, much in the same way that potato chip bags always seem to crinkle louder when you’re trying to be quiet, or the way the microwave somehow beeps louder at 2am when people are sleeping.

In this scenario, even though there was nobody around to be bothered by all the noise I was making, I was still on edge for some reason. And looking back, I realize it's because I was disturbing someone's quiet, even if I wasn't yet aware of it.

The candle remained steadfast in that same spot just beyond the opening, even after I'd broken the window. And now with the glass gone, I had no plausible explanation to make sense of what I was still seeing.

I reached my arm over the windowsill to see if I could touch it and confirm its existence once and for all, but of course, it was just out of my reach.

I was worried about jumping through the window and cutting myself on the jagged glass still connected to the sill, so I made my way to the door of the cabin once more. Although the broken glass was now littering its old wooden floors, the candle had once again disappeared.

When I returned to the glassless window, the candle was there once more, and so I knew what I had to do. Without taking my eyes off of it, lest it suddenly disappear once more, I carefully climbed over the windowsill, cuts and scratches be damned.

By the way, have you ever heard of an anglerfish before?

Sorry, that came out of nowhere, but it’s relevant to the story. So anyway, anglerfish are fish that have these lights on their head, right? And they use them to attract smaller fish. You know, their prey. So, like moths to a flame, these smaller fish go towards that light, and that’s when the anglerfish chomps down on them.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.

So, there I went, jumping in through the window, not taking my eyes off that phantom candle for even a second, and I got my wish. I was now inside the cabin, just me and that lone candle floating right next to me, still in sight. I was able to feel it, too. Feel the heat radiating from its flame, feel the wax and the residue it left on my fingers…but I couldn’t move it from that spot.

And that’s when I realized I wasn’t alone in the cabin.

The candle wasn't floating, it was being held by a girl—the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, really, and it turns out she’d been stuck in the cabin for a long time. She was a spirit or something, and I was the first person to ever get through that illusion, to reach the “true inside” of the cabin, or so she called it. And she’d been lonely. So lonely.

She only wanted more people to visit her, which is why she stood with that candle in front of that window, to try to signal to people that she was there, that she was calling to them. But even when they saw the candle, they’d just say “Huh, that’s weird!” and leave. Kinda like I almost did.

But I felt for her. She was just so beautiful, you know, to be stuck alone in an old place like that…You might say she took control of my mind with her beauty, in a way. So, I’ve decided to dedicate my life to bringing her all the friends she could ever want while trapped in that lonely cabin.

I want to stay with her too, of course, but she wants lots of friends, so I think that’s why she let me leave with my life. She could sense my loyalty, and knew that I would return to her and bring her more friends—friends that can become spirits with her, and keep her company forever.

But boy, was she wrong! She fell for that act, and that’s how I managed to escape, and why I’m here talking with you now. When I saw your group setting up camp, I figured I’d warn you about the cabin since it’s so close to you guys.

What? You don’t believe me? I’m telling you, it’s the truth! This isn't some ghost story! I only barely managed to escape, myself!

But, well, if you insist, then…The cabin’s just over this way, if you'll follow me…