The Faceless Ones

The town of Briar wood had always been quiet—an unremarkable place where nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. It was the kind of place where the biggest excitement was the annual harvest festival, where neighbors knew each other by name, and where the nights were calm and peaceful. But that changed when the Faceless Ones appeared.

No one knew exactly when they began to show up, but whispers spread quickly from house to house. At first, it was just rumors—stories of shadowy figures seen in the dead of night, standing in the corners of bedrooms or lingering in doorways. The figures never moved, never spoke. They simply stood there, faceless and silent, watching.

Grace Weston was the first to talk about it openly. She had woken up one night to the unmistakable feeling of being watched. Groggy and disoriented, she had opened her eyes to find a tall, humanoid figure standing at the foot of her bed. Its skin was pale and smooth, like marble, but its face—or what should have been a face—was nothing more than a blank, featureless surface. No eyes, no mouth, no nose. Just emptiness.

Frozen in fear, Grace had stared at the figure, waiting for it to move, to attack, but it never did. It simply stood there, still and unmoving. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. She blinked, and the figure was no longer there.

The next morning, Grace told her husband, Tom, who reassured her it was just a bad dream. But Grace knew better. The figure had felt real—too real.

Within a week, Grace was dead.

She had been found lying peacefully in her bed, no signs of struggle, no obvious cause of death. The coroner said her heart had simply stopped, but no one could explain why. It was as if something had drained the life from her without leaving a mark.

Word of Grace’s death spread, and soon, others began to come forward with similar stories. People whispered about waking in the middle of the night to find faceless figures standing in their homes—always watching, never moving. And like clockwork, those who saw the Faceless Ones were dead within a week. No exceptions. The town was gripped by a growing sense of dread, but no one knew what to do.

Ethan Cole didn’t believe in the stories. He was a skeptic, always had been. To him, the Faceless Ones were nothing more than a collective nightmare—an urban legend that had spiraled out of control. But that was before he saw one for himself.

It had been a normal evening. Ethan was a carpenter by trade, and after a long day of work, he had fallen asleep in his chair while watching TV. Around midnight, he woke up suddenly, his body tense, his mind alert. The house was quiet—too quiet. He glanced around the dimly lit room and felt a strange, unnatural stillness in the air.

Then he saw it.

In the corner of the room, standing perfectly still, was a figure. Tall, humanoid, with smooth, pale skin and no face. Just like the stories.

Ethan’s breath caught in his throat. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but he couldn’t move. His legs were frozen, his body paralyzed with fear. He stared at the figure, waiting for it to do something—anything—but it didn’t. It simply stood there, silent and still, like a mannequin made of flesh.

For what felt like an eternity, Ethan and the figure remained locked in that horrible moment. Then, without warning, the figure dissolved into the shadows, disappearing as if it had never been there.

Ethan sat in the dark, heart racing, drenched in cold sweat. He tried to rationalize what he had seen—an illusion, a trick of the light—but deep down, he knew the truth. He had seen one of the Faceless Ones.

And now, his time was running out.

The next morning, he told his wife, Claire, what had happened. She listened, her face pale, her eyes wide with fear. “What do we do?” she asked, her voice trembling. “We can’t just wait for you to die.”

“I don’t know,” Ethan replied, his voice hollow. “No one who’s seen them has survived longer than a week.”

Desperation gnawed at them both. They searched for answers, scouring old town records and speaking with the elders who had lived in Briarwood their entire lives. But no one knew where the Faceless Ones came from, or why they chose their victims. The only pattern was that those who saw them always died within seven days.

As the days passed, Ethan felt the weight of his impending doom pressing down on him. He didn’t feel sick, but he knew it was coming. It was as if the Faceless Ones had marked him, and now there was nothing he could do to escape their reach.

On the sixth night, Ethan and Claire stayed awake, terrified of what might come. They kept all the lights on, refusing to let the darkness in. But as the clock struck midnight, the lights began to flicker. One by one, the bulbs dimmed and went out, plunging the house into shadow.

Ethan’s heart pounded in his chest as he stood in the middle of the living room, clutching Claire’s hand. “Stay close,” he whispered, his voice shaking.

And then, they appeared.

Three figures, standing in the doorway. Faceless, silent, unmoving.

Ethan’s breath caught in his throat. He could feel the air grow colder, the weight of their presence suffocating. The figures didn’t move, but their empty faces seemed to be watching him, waiting.

Claire screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the silence. Ethan stepped forward, his legs trembling. “What do you want?” he shouted. “Why are you doing this?”

The figures remained still.

“Please, leave us alone!” Claire cried, her voice breaking.

The faceless figures didn’t respond. Instead, they seemed to grow closer, the air around them thickening, pressing down on Ethan’s chest. He couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred, and a cold numbness spread through his limbs. The room spun as darkness closed in around him.

The last thing Ethan heard before everything went black was the sound of Claire’s sobs and the unearthly silence of the Faceless Ones watching him from the shadows.

He was found the next morning, lifeless, his face frozen in a mask of terror. The Faceless Ones had come for him, as they had come for all the others. And in Briar wood, the cycle would continue.

Because once you see the Faceless Ones, they never stop watching. And they never, ever let you go.