The Light in the Well

We all heard the stories. That it was bottomless. That a girl had fallen in and never been found. That, on certain nights, you could hear her crying from the darkness below.

But we were kids. Warnings were dares.

It was October when Ryan dared me. A flashlight, ten minutes, one peek into the well. I said yes. I wish I hadn't.

The night we went, the air was sharp with the smell of burning leaves. The schoolyard was quiet, the only sound the crunch of our footsteps through dead grass. Ryan was grinning, the flashlight in his hand, the beam jumping as we moved past the swing sets and the rusting jungle gym.

“There it is,” he whispered.

The well sat in the shadows, surrounded by a few cracked stones and a rusted old bucket half buried in dirt. It looked older than the school itself. Older than anything.

I stepped closer. The well was wider than I thought, maybe six feet across. A rotted wooden frame stood over it, the rope long gone.

I took the flashlight from Ryan. “Ten minutes?”

“Ten minutes.”

I leaned over the edge, slowly shining the light down.

At first, all I saw was darkness. Then the beam caught something—rough stone walls, damp and glistening. I leaned a bit more.

That’s when I saw it.

A light. Faint, pale, moving. Like someone far below was swinging a lantern in slow circles.

“Ryan,” I hissed. “There’s a light down there.”

He stepped beside me. “Maybe a reflection?”

I shook my head. “It’s moving.”

We stared in silence. The light dimmed, then brightened again. Closer.

Then… a sound.

Clink.

Clink.

Like something metal striking stone.

My stomach turned. “We should go.”

“Wait,” Ryan whispered, eyes wide. “Look—”

The light below shifted and revealed a shape. A face. Pale and blurred. Looking up.

I dropped the flashlight. It bounced once on the stone rim and fell, spiraling into the darkness.

The light below flickered wildly.

Then it went out.

We both stood frozen, the dark yawning before us like a mouth.

Then…

A scratching sound.

It started low, echoing from far below. Then louder. Closer.

Something was climbing.

We ran.

We didn’t stop until we were out of the schoolyard, back under the streetlamps. Panting, pale, terrified.

Ryan didn’t speak the rest of the way home. I didn’t sleep that night.

The next day, he didn’t come to school.

The day after that, his parents called the police.

They said he left a note. Said he needed to go back. That she was calling to him.

They never found him.

Not in the woods. Not in the well.

But sometimes, when I walk by the school at night, I swear I hear footsteps behind me. A voice, too faint to understand. And sometimes… I see a light.

Swinging.

Waiting.