Microhorror writing Contest

When the old year loosened its grip, the village bells rang without hands. They rang at dusk, deep and bruised, their sound crawling through the hollows and settling in the bones of those who still remembered. The tone was wrong—too low, too deliberate, like a finger dragged across the rim of a glass filled with something darker than wine. Everyone paused mid-step, mid-breath. Shutters closed. Candles were snuffed. No one smiled. We had been taught since childhood that bells rang only for three things: weddings, funerals, and debts coming due. The snow had not yet fallen, yet the ground was wet beneath my boots. Dark. As though the earth itself had begun to sweat. The air tasted of iron and old soil, the kind that clings to things buried too shallow. I followed the path past the yew trees, past the stones etched with names the river had already half-erased. Each step pressed something upward—memories, voices, the ache of old bargains sealed with blood instead of ink. My grandmother used to say the dead never leave; they simply learn patience. She told me once, her fingers cold around my wrist, that our family had made a promise long before I was born. "Not with words," she'd whispered. "With marrow. With breath. The kind that doesn't forget, even when you do."At the edge of the wood stood the gate.It had not been there the day before. Ironwork twisted like antlers, like ribs bent backward, slick with rust that looked too fresh to be rust at all. The metal was warm, pulsing faintly as though something beneath it still had a heartbeat. Hanging from it was a lantern I had buried three winters ago, its glass cracked in the exact pattern of the scar across my palm, its flame burning blue with a familiarity that made my throat tighten."You're late," said the voice behind me.I did not turn. I did not need to. I knew that voice from lullabies and warnings whispered into my ear when I was too young to understand them. Known. Patient. Owed."I closed the door," I said. "I finished it."A soft, indulgent sound—almost laughter."Endings," it replied, "are only pauses we allow you."Silence stretched between us, thick and expectant."You think you chose this path," the voice continued, closer now, breath against the back of my neck. "But the path chose you before your first cry. Before your mother's. Before hers.""Then why wait?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt."Because," it said, and I could hear the smile in it, "the willing taste sweeter."The lantern swung. The gate opened without a touch, hinges groaning like something waking from a long, hungry sleep. Beyond it lay the road I had walked my entire life, except wrong—longer, darker, lined with footprints that matched my own, leading inward instead of out. The air beyond shimmered, thick and wet, and I could smell smoke and copper and something older than both.The bells rang again. Closer now. Expectant.I stepped forward, because the path had always known my name, and because some promises are older than fear.The cold wrapped around me like recognition. The ground beneath my feet felt softer, more alive, as though it had been waiting to remember the shape of me. My shadow stretched ahead, longer than it should have been, and when I glanced down, I saw it was not alone.Behind me, the village exhaled.Ahead, something waited—certain I would come.And I did.— E.L. Ravenheart 🩸