Dark Soul

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Everyone in town knew of the cabin, but most refused to go near it, let alone in the woods where it resides. That was, of course, until three teenagers journeyed into the famed haunted woods.

It was a cool summer night when Aubrey, Mark, and Finn decided to do some late-night exploration. The three teens snuck out of Mark’s house at 2:00 am to go and investigate the woods. They have all heard tales about the abandoned cabin and how a man killed his wife, two daughters, and then himself twenty years ago. The cabin remained dark and abandoned after that. Since then, people have said that the cabin remains haunted by the man as strange things frequently happen. Mark and Finn are skeptics and don’t believe any rumors; however, Aubrey thinks there is something in there; she even brings her cross necklace.

The three leave the house and begin their voyage into the woods. The walk is boring, but things change when they approach the woods' entrance. They walk up, and there is an enormous sign that reads “No trespassing” and a small sign that says “CAUTION, DANGER.” They ignore the signs, maneuver around the barbed wire pitched, and begin their journey.

Immediately Aubrey becomes tense; she says that the energy is off, and it feels heavy; all the guys can do is laugh at her. They remind her that the rumors are not valid, and she is worried for no reason, to which Aubrey rolls her eyes in annoyance. They begin to follow the trail with the guys pointing their flashlights in all directions and Aubrey shining hers down, looking straight at the ground. They walked for what seemed to be forever, and that’s when they heard whispering behind them—the three all looked at each other simultaneously with confusion written all over their faces.

Finn immediately asks if someone is behind them; Mark and Aubrey shook their heads as they were right in front of Finn, shining their flashlights directly behind where he was standing. Aubrey begins to shake, and Mark silently freaked out, turns, and continues onward. They continued to walk deeper and deeper into the woods, and that is when they spotted it. The cabin. Something isn’t right, though. The cabin that has remained abandoned for two decades, completely vacant, has a candle burning in the window. Are all the rumors true?

Aubrey is the first to notice; she loses all color from her face; she begins to shake even more, and the only word she can stutter out is “G-guys.” The pair looked over at her as she pointed to the cabin; their faces instantly dropped. Just as they discover what is supposed to be the uninhabited cabin, there is clearly a candle in the only window. There was panic written all over the three teens’ faces, and Mark and Finn, who had once been courageous and skeptical, were now filled with fear, with their hearts going a mile a minute. Mark, trying to be daring, walks onto the front porch of the cabin and tries to open the door; it’s locked. Finn went around the back to see if there was an entrance, but there wasn’t. Finally, Aubrey decided to join in on the courageousness and walked up the stairs, onto the porch, and looked around for a key; after a few minutes of searching, she found one under a piece of wood in the wood pile that was piled high.

With her hands trembling, she unlocks the door and walks in. She looks to the window and sees the candle; it seems it has just been lit. The guys head in right behind her and notice something isn’t right. Besides the candle in the window, there was a small lamp in the next room. Aubrey expresses that something isn’t adding up; there must be someone who lives here…right?

Just as they start to wander out of the main room into what seems to be a kitchen, they all hear a slight knock; they all turn around at the same time, and just as they did, the candle goes out. Mark started to become skeptical, saying that someone was messing with them and all of this was just them being paranoid because of the rumors. However, Aubrey is convinced it is something else.

The three all stand there motionless as they try to talk out what is going on around them; Aubrey decided it would be a good idea to pull out her phone in an attempt to get any voices; as soon as she turned her phone on, they hear a loud bang coming from the next room over, the room with the lamp. The trio cautiously walked into the room, and instantly there was a shift in temperature. From being comfortable, the temperature went to being extremely cold. Once again, Mark pushes it off to someone messing with him; however, Finn is now in agreeance with Aubrey; they believe there is someone here, but it isn’t alive.

Mark, wanting to prove that nothing is here, pulls out an ouija board from his backpack and places it on the ground in front of the other two. Aubrey realizes what he brought and starts yelling at Mark, saying that she refuses to use it and telling Finn not to. Mark laughs in her face telling her that there is nothing to worry about since ghosts don’t exist; Finn looks back at Aubrey and asks what could go wrong. Aubrey claps back at them, explaining that they could disturb the peace of anything in this house and open doors for something even worse. Ignoring Aubrey’s pleas, Mark continues to open the box and take the ouija board out. Mark persuades Finn to use it by convincing him that it would be fun and there is no danger. Finn then sits down next to Mark as Aubrey storms out of the room into the kitchen. Mark wastes no time, sets his fingers down on the piece, and motions Finn to do the same. They spin the piece around the board three times and say hello; this is where things begin to go south.

The first person to ask a question was Mark, who asked if anyone was here in the most non-serious manner. After waiting a minute, nothing happens, and Finn decides to ask the next question, “what is your name?” Mark scuffs at the question, and once again, nothing happens. After a minute of them sitting there in complete silence, they call Aubrey into the room to try to convince her to play. Finn begs her to play; he tells her that nothing has been happening the entire time, so there is a chance that nothing will happen. After several minutes of Finn and Mark persuading Aubrey, she finally gives in. She unwillingly puts her fingers on the piece, and she is the one to ask the next question. “Who are you?” she asks timidly. Mark rolls his eyes as he knows that question has already been asked with no response. But then, the piece begins to move. Aubrey screams and takes her fingers off, accusing the guys of moving the piece. The guys, who are now frightened, promise Aubrey that they didn’t move the piece. Aubrey refuses to put her fingers back on the piece; Mark tells her that this is the first time the piece has shifted and that they must continue if they want answers. Aubrey hesitates to put her shaky fingers on the piece but does so anyway. She asked the same question again, and the piece began moving in just a few seconds.

A moment later, it begins to spell out the letters D-A-N-N-Y. While the guys are confused, Aubrey starts hyperventilating as soon as she realizes Daniel was the guy who murdered his family two decades ago. Just as she expresses that to them, the piece moves to “yes.” When they all started to freak out, they immediately stopped the game and put the board away, but the night wasn't over. Mark is trying to convince himself and the others that it isn’t real and that someone else was moving to board on purpose. As Finn and Aubrey promise they didn’t move the piece, Aubrey feels a tug on her neck from behind her, and she jumps, only to notice that her necklace is no longer on her neck but lying on the ground. Picking it up, she sees that it is now broken, so she stores it in her pocket. Aubrey screams at the two boys that she wants to leave. Finn agrees with Aubrey and wants to go, but Mark still wants to stay. In his yelling at the two, he claims they are just wimps that don't want to stay.

The two of them decide to wait outside the cabin and leave Mark alone, but just as they walk to the door, Mark runs in front of them. However, there is a difference in his posture, and the look in his eyes has changed. A deep growl can be heard in his yelling as he tells them they cannot leave. Aubrey and Finn look at Mark with fear; all they can think is, “what happened to Mark.” Being creeped out, Finn reaches for the door, but Mark attacks his arm. Aubrey is telling Mark that they need to leave this cabin because there is something they shouldn’t be messing with here.

“YOU’RE NOT LEAVING” Mark screams, his eyes wide, his voice deep. They stand there with wide eyes and fear pulsing through their veins. Aubrey reaches Mark and touches his arm to realize he is burning hot.

She asks carefully, “Mark…are you okay? What’s going on?” his response shook Finn and Aubrey to their core. Laughing in this dark tone, Mark tells them again that they are not leaving, then turns around and breaks the door handle. As Aubrey realizes that the only other way is out the window, she starts to cry as she realizes they’d be injured if they jumped out of the cabin. While all this is going on, Finn thinks about what went wrong, and that’s when it clicked; they never said goodbye to the ouija board. He describes how this all transpired to Aubrey, and she becomes even more frightened than she was before.

This was when they discovered Mark wasn’t Mark; it was Danny. In a moment of panic, Aubrey screams at Mark, calling him an idiot, and shoves him to the ground. After getting up, Mark throws Aubrey hard to the ground. Mark lunges onto Aubrey and strikes her again as Finn stands stunned. Things got even worse when Finn pulled Mark off Aubrey after realizing what was happening. She took out her cross necklace from her pocket and pressed it against Mark, desperate to save both herself and her friend; however, she didn’t realize that she had just made a grave mistake. Mark breaks free of Finn’s weak hold and lunges himself onto Aubrey once again, but he is this time grasping her neck tightly and refusing to let go. Mark throws Finn across the room, where he hits the wall as Finn tries to grab his hands in a desperate attempt to pull him off her. Aubrey struggles for air as Mark tightens his grip; Aubrey loses all color in her face and is beginning to turn purple. Finn is begging him to stop from the other side of the room, unable to move because of the pain. Despite her desperate attempts to save herself, her flailing hands and body fell limp within minutes.

Finn screams at Mark, sobbing, and yells, “Look what you did!” Mark flashes a smile at Finn as he watches Aubrey go limp. “You killed her!” he yells at Mark. Mark looks over at Finn and laughs, throwing Aubrey’s necklace across the room. Finn begins begging Mark not to harm him as Mark makes his way over to him. Seeing Mark standing over him, Finn asks him what he wants and why he is doing this. He explains that he has been trapped in the cabin for two decades and has been wanting to leave. It would be dumb not to take advantage of the opportunity they opened for him by playing with the ouija board. As Finn realized he had no desire to die at Danny’s hands, he began to think of ways to escape. Ultimately, the only option was the window from which he would most likely jump to his death. Finn dodges Mark's attempt to grab him and runs straight for the window. Suddenly, Finn jumps out as Mark charges at him with no emotion on his face and due to the cabin's height, Finn died as a result of the fall.

There is no remorse in Danny’s eyes as he looks down at Finn’s dead body. He collects the body and takes it back inside the cabin, where he puts Aubrey and Finn in a room waiting to be found. He then realized that Mark’s body is no use to him so he left it but in the process, he also ended Mark’s life. Although he laughs as he stands over the three teens’ bodies, he gets a rush from attacking the innocent; he craves more of it, so he relit the candle in the window and waited for his next victims.