The Curse of the Lost Scribe- Chapter 2: The Whispering Ink

Elias should have run. Every rational instinct screamed for him to abandon the cursed parchment, to leave the study and never return. But his body betrayed him. His breath hitched. His fingers trembled at his sides.

He was listening.

The ink did not sit still. It slithered, thick and glistening, forming new words even as he watched. The lines twisted like living veins, pulsing, spreading, growing. He had spent years studying forgotten languages, dead tongues that had crumbled to dust along with the civilizations that spoke them.

But this script?

This script was speaking to him.

"You have been chosen."

The ink did not dry. It moved—like oil on water, like something alive but bound to the page.

Then—pain.

A sharp sting flared in Elias’s fingertip. He flinched and looked down. A thin cut had opened across his skin, fresh and glistening. A single drop of blood swelled at the wound’s edge, round and perfect.

Before he could wipe it away, the parchment inhaled.

Not metaphorically.

The page breathed in.

The blood lifted from his finger—held aloft by invisible threads. It hovered, twisting, then collapsed onto the manuscript, sinking into the parchment’s fibers like ink into thirsty cloth.

Elias staggered back. His heartbeat was a war drum.

A groan rumbled through the study—not from the parchment, not from the floorboards, but from the walls themselves. The wooden shelves creaked, their spines bowing inward, as though the room itself were breathing. Candlelight elongated, flickering impossibly high, stretching shadows across the ceiling.

Then the first scream came.

Muffled. Wet.

It came from inside the walls.

Elias turned, his breath sharp, his fingers flexing at his sides. The sound was unmistakable—the ragged cry of someone trapped behind the wood, fingernails scraping, voice raw with suffering.

Then a second voice joined the first.

Then a third.

He staggered back toward the desk, his pulse pounding. The air thickened, heavy with something sickly sweet. Not ink. Not parchment.

Decay.

The manuscript’s ink surged again. This time, it did not form words. It dripped. Slowly at first, then faster—thick and tar-like, pooling on the floorboards at his feet. The stain spread outward, reaching for him.

A hand broke the surface.

Elias froze.

The fingers were wrong—too long, the joints inverted, the bones sharp against the thin, ink-stained skin. The hand flexed, clawing against the wooden floor, dragging itself out. The manuscript trembled. The ink bled faster.

And then, above him, the words changed again.

They dripped from the ceiling, written in glistening black:

"Say my name, Elias."

His lips parted before he could stop them. The name hovered on the edge of his tongue, something ancient, something buried, something that should never be spoken aloud.

The walls shuddered. The thing in the ink laughed.

Elias understood then.

He had not been reading the manuscript.

He had been writing it.

And now, it was writing him.

Author’s Note

Thank you for diving into The Curse of the Lost Scribe. This chapter was an exploration of the unsettling power of words—how ink on a page can do more than tell a story; it can shape reality, unravel sanity, and whisper things best left unheard.

Horror is at its most terrifying when it blurs the line between the written and the real. Elias is discovering that some stories don’t just demand to be told—they demand something far more personal in return.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What lurks between the lines for you?

Stay curious. Stay cautious. And whatever you do… don’t say the name.

— Jason Benskin

Chapter 1