The Unbelievable Truth

I never thought I would become a witness to a story so strange that even when recalling it, I still feel a shiver down my spine. It happened last winter when I moved to a small mountain town, a place covered in thick fog all day long. I was a freelance journalist looking for some peace and quiet to write, but what I experienced here completely changed my life.

The house I rented was located on the outskirts of town, an old wooden house that still retained its antique charm. The landlady, Mrs. Eleanor, was an elderly woman with deep eyes that seemed to hold a long story within them. From the first time I met her, I felt something unusual, but I couldn't explain it. Before leaving, she said a short sentence: "At night, don’t open the door." I chuckled, thinking she was just trying to scare me with some local legend.

The first night passed peacefully. I sat at my desk, writing down some thoughts about the town and what I hoped to discover. But at midnight, I heard a knock on the door. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but the knock repeated—slowly, persistently. Goosebumps rose all over my body. Mrs. Eleanor's warning echoed in my mind. I stayed silent, not daring to step outside. After a few minutes, the knocking stopped, and the space returned to silence.

In the following days, I heard the townspeople tell an old story. They said that a young girl once lived in the house I was staying in. She mysteriously disappeared on a winter night many years ago, and no one ever found her body. Rumor had it that her spirit still wandered around the house, knocking on the door every night, searching for someone to let her return to this world.

I didn’t believe in ghost stories, but night after night, the knocking continued, precisely at the same time. One night, I decided to peek through the window to see what was happening. The dim moonlight illuminated the porch, and I saw a figure standing there—a girl with long, disheveled hair obscuring her face. I froze. She didn’t move, just stood there, and after a while, she turned around and walked into the mist.

I couldn’t sleep at all that night. The next morning, I sought out Mrs. Eleanor to ask her the truth. She looked at me, her eyes filled with sympathy, and slowly said, "She doesn’t mean to harm anyone. She just wants to be remembered."

That evening, I placed a candle in front of the door, along with a piece of paper bearing the name of the girl I had heard from the townspeople: Isabella. I didn’t know why I did it, only that I felt the need to acknowledge her existence. Strangely, that night, the knocking never came again.

I stayed in that house for another three months, and nothing happened again. But before leaving, I placed a white flower on the porch as a farewell. As I turned to walk away, I heard a gentle breeze pass by, like a soft whisper of gratitude.

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