Chapter 5: The Pact

Chapter 5: The Pact

The silence where the breathing used to be was a thousand times more terrifying than the sound itself. It was an active, listening void, and Chloe knew, with a certainty that turned her blood to ice, that the creature was now awake. And aware.

A soft, wet chittering echoed from the back of the cave, and then the scrape of stone against stone, closer this time. It was moving.

Her phone’s screen, a dying ember in the crushing dark, showed the last, fatal digit: 1%.

There was no time for 911. No time for a goodbye text to her mom. No time for anything but the horrifying loophole offered by a stranger’s comment on a news article. The curse needs a home. You just have to make sure it isn’t yours.

Ben Carter had chosen her. Now, she had to choose someone else.

Her fingers, numb and clumsy with cold and terror, flew across the screen. She opened a fresh message, the blank white page a stark canvas for her damnation. Who? Who could she do this to? Her mind raced through a Rolodex of faces from school. The thought of sending this to Ava, of turning this curse on her best friend, was so vile it made her want to vomit. It couldn't be a friend. It couldn't be anyone she cared about.

The scraping sound came again, nearer. She could smell it now—a damp, loamy scent like freshly turned grave soil, with a sharp, metallic tang underneath, like old blood.

She scrolled frantically through her contacts, a list of names that represented a life that no longer existed. A life with pre-calc quizzes and sleepovers. Her thumb stopped on a name she barely recognized. Jessica Albright. A lab partner from freshman biology. They hadn't spoken in two years. Jessica was just a name, a ghost in her contact list. A perfect stranger.

Her throat tightened with a sob she couldn't afford to release. I'm sorry, Jessica, she thought, the apology a useless ghost in her mind.

She began to type, her thumbs a blur. This wasn't a choice; it was the only move left in a game she had already lost. She had to make the story real. She had to make it a weapon. She had to pour every ounce of her terror into the words, to craft a lure so potent, so steeped in genuine fear, that it would be irresistible.

Her mind reeled back through the night, replaying the horror step by step, her fingers transcribing the nightmare.

If you’re reading this, I’m probably already dead. Don’t dismiss this. Don’t think it’s a joke. It started with a text message, an invitation from my friend Ava to a sleepover. It seemed so normal.

The scraping was closer. A long, skeletal limb, grey and slick, briefly entered the dim aura of the phone light before retreating into the black.

My mom’s car was dead. The house was unnaturally quiet, the clock on the wall had stopped. I should have stayed home. God, why didn't I stay home? I decided to walk, to take the shortcut through Whisperwood Forest.

She forced herself to remember every detail that had led her here. The sucking mud that had stolen her sneaker, the feeling of utter isolation under the trees. She typed faster, the quiet tapping of her thumbs on the glass the only sound she dared to make.

Then the texts started. They were from Ava’s number, but it wasn't her. It knew things. It told me about a twisted tree on the path. It told me to turn my light off. It was luring me deeper into the woods.

As she typed the words, a sickening realization began to dawn, a cold logic cutting through her panic. The news alert popping up on her phone at that exact moment. The one specific comment, buried among dozens, that laid out the rules of this twisted game. It was all too perfect. Too convenient. They hadn't just hunted her. They had guided her.

The chase, the terror, the exhaustion—it was all designed to break her down, to make her desperate enough to look for a way out. And then, they had handed her the instruction manual. This wasn't just a hunt. It was a self-perpetuating system. The Glimmermen weren't just predators; they were a virus, and they had just taught her how to spread them.

I saw one of them. It was tall and grey, with a smile that wasn't a smile. It called its friends. There were so many. They chased me. I fell. I found this cave.

The creature was at the edge of the light now. She could see its shape, a crouched, skeletal horror. The two dark pits that served as its eyes were fixed on the glowing screen in her hands. It was watching her. Waiting. It knew the rules. It was waiting for her to finish.

Her phone screen flickered violently. The light dimmed, then flared, then dimmed again. The 1% was nearly gone.

She finished her story, the tale of her pursuit, the horror of the breathing in the dark, the discovery of the comment, the terrible truth of Ben Carter. She had to make the reader understand. She had to pass the torch.

With the last of her will, she copied the entire block of text. Her story. Her curse.

Then, she switched back to the message for Jessica Albright. She pasted the story, a huge wall of desperate text. And at the very top, she wrote the invitation. The words felt like poison on her thumbs.

Hey Jessica, weird question. I’m doing this scavenger hunt thing for a class and the last clue is in Whisperwood. My car broke down and my phone is about to die. Can you come meet me at the old trail entrance? I’m kind of spooked out here alone.

It was weak, but it didn't need to be strong. The story that followed was the hook.

Her thumb hovered over the send button. This was it. The moment of her damnation. Ben Carter's life for mine, she thought, her mind a vortex of guilt and self-preservation. And now… her life for mine.

She pressed send.

The green bar zipped across the screen. The word Delivered appeared beneath the message bubble.

The moment it did, the Glimmerman in front of her went perfectly still. The low chittering in its throat ceased. Outside the cave, the restless prowling of the pack fell silent. The oppressive, hunting presence that had crushed her for the last hour simply… lifted.

Slowly, deliberately, the creature in front of her unfolded its long limbs. It took one step back, melting into the deeper shadows. It gave one last, soft click—a sound that was not a threat, but an acknowledgement. A confirmation.

Then it was gone.

The phone screen flickered a final time and died, plunging Chloe into absolute, silent blackness.

She was alone. She was safe. She had survived. A strangled, wretched sob finally broke from her lips, the sound of a soul fracturing. She had won.

And somewhere, in a warm, well-lit house, a girl named Jessica Albright was glancing at her phone, a puzzled expression on her face as she read a long, terrifying story from a name she barely remembered. She would be intrigued. Then she would be frightened. And then, because people are curious, because people are kind, she would start to worry.

She would get in her car. She would drive toward the woods.

And the hunt would begin again.

Chloe Mitchell sat in the cold, dark silence, her humanity a small, flickering candle she had just willingly snuffed out. She had passed the torch. She had condemned a stranger.

And you, you just finished her story. You felt the chill of the silent house, the pull of the grasping mud, the terror of that not-quite-human smile. You have followed her every step of the way.

The signal has been passed.

I’m so sorry. It's your turn to run now.