Miranda

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. And Miranda was preparing for her next victim.

“Let's go home”, my girlfriend Melina wailed behind my back. I registered it but not really heard her. “It's useless, you know?”, my best friend Sam told her. Then something about me always being too determined once I had an idea in my head. I didn't even listen to him anymore, but I knew he was right. No one in the world knew me better than Sam, the boy that was born only one day after me and has spent almost every day with me ever since.

“Sorry guys, but I need to know what's the deal with that candle. It looks like it has just been lit, and yet that house seems like no one has been in there for like decades”, I noted. “And it should stay that way”, Sam mumbled but followed me to the small wooden door anyways. Melina trotted behind us more hesitantly. It wasn't hard to see that she wasn't quite happy about my plan, probably only preferred it slightly over staying in the woods all by herself.

Seconds later I pushed the door open, a shiver running down my back by the shill squeaking sound it makes with it. “You really wanna go in there?” Melina asked me, her voice now desperate. If I had been a good boyfriend, I would have told her I didn't, would have made sure we are all safe. But I didn't. And I regret that decision every day of my life.

As we entered the room with the candle in it, a sudden power took over my body that I still can't explain. It was like I no longer had control, not only over my body but also over my soul. Just the sigh of the candle had such a strong impact on me that I was hardly being myself anymore. I only remember how I wanted to turn my gaze over to Sam to see if he was feeling it too, but I couldn't even turn my head. Like in parallel, I was walking towards the candle, until I stood right in front of it. Than I felt a heat, so overwhelming as if I was standing in front of the hugest fire in the world and not only in front of a tiny, white candle. The heat hurt my skin, and yet I needed to come closer and closer, until I was completely surrounded by flames. At first all I saw was orange, then suddenly the frightened face of my girlfriend, screaming for help and repeating the word “stop” over and over again. Her voice was so loud that it was hard to hear anything else, but I immediately noticed there was another female voice. As I concentrated on it more, I could make out words like “don't love” and “ only hurts”. Then it got even hotter and I needed to close my eyes because it was all becoming way too much. I just waited with my eyes closed for what felt like hours, until suddenly, the heat was replaced by a chilling coldness. Out of shock I then teared my eyes open again but seconds later wished that I didn't as the first thing I saw was the burned body of my girlfriend laying right next to my feet. “No” is all I could say, and then I only remember how Sam teared me out of the cabin and brought me home.

The next day, I asked Sam if he didn't feel something looking at the candle. He said no. And when I asked him what happened, he started to cry. “You don't remember?” he asked. I just shook my head. And then, he told me the most terrible thing that I could ever have imagined. Apparently, I had taken the candle and killed my own girlfriend by pressing it into her face while holding her tight with my other hand so that she couldn't escape. Of course I couldn't believe what he told me when all I remembered was that terrible heat. For days, all I did was cry. I couldn't face her family, couldn't face anything or anyone. But at some point, I needed to know what happened. So I started searching the internet for any myth concerning a candle in a cabin in the woods. It took me weeks to find something, but when I finally did, I was one hundred percent sure that it was exactly what has happened to me. There was this woman called Miranda once living in that cabin, who got cheated on by her beloved husband for many years. One day he told her, and when she threatened to tell everyone about it, he killed her with a candle. Apparently she couldn't deal with who the man she had been loving so much really was and didn't want anyone else to get hurt the same way like she did. So whenever a person who truly loves somebody enters her cabin, her ghost makes contact with them through the candle and forces them to kill their loved ones the same way she did, so that they can't get hurt any longer.

I wasn't sure what to think after reading about Miranda. I've never believed in stories like that before, but there was absolutely no doubt that I had been in contact with her. That she had been trying to protect me from Melina. And of course, I wondered why. Wondered if she might have been cheating on me. Why else should Miranda have done that? I just couldn't answer that question for myself, and I also couldn't imagine how I was supposed to deal with what had happened. I just knew that I would never fall in love again. Which of course is dramatic, but far not the worst thing. The worst thing for me has always been knowing that it probably still happens. That whenever a person loving someone happens to walk through that forest like we did and sees that candle, they are forced to burn their partner to death. One brief look is all that it needs, the story had said. I should probably go there again and destroy that candle, but I just can't. I just can't ever go there again, too afraid of what would happen if I did. Too afraid of getting hurt even more.