Me and my friends decided to go on holiday together. We booked a quaint little cottage, with tall luscious trees surrounding the grounds. A beautiful little lake was just a bit of a trek down the path to the road. Civilisation was quite a while away as we were in the countryside, but we had booked this holiday in hopes to get away from all the chaos of reality, so this cottage was perfect. No signal, meaning no social media. No way for anyone to get in contact with us, or us get in contact with anyone else, so no distractions. If we really needed to call someone, all we would have to do was drive into the little village, that was only about 5 mile from where we were staying.
The cottage was covered in deep orange paint, that had been worn and discoloured from time, and vines stretched up and around the walls and windows. The plants and grass around the house was quite over grown and leaves were scattered across the stone porch.
The whole setting looked timeless.
We were all extremely happy with the place, it was nice and homey, it felt warm and inviting, we were all looking forward to our time there.
The whole week went well, we enjoyed spending time with each other, away from work and responsibilities. On our last day we spent the time to explore more of the woods, we took photos of the wildlife and scenery and then when it started to get dark we walked back. Once we got back we set up the campfire, we planned on telling scary stories over a few bottles of wine and roasting marshmallows.
Me being the story teller of the group went first, completing free-styling a creepy story about an old man that died deep in the woods, cursed to haunt them for eternity. We were all so engrossed in the story, even me, that when a few bats flew past, slightly rustling the leaves in the trees, we all jumped from our seats. We laughed it off and then decided that that was more than enough scares for the night. Two of my friend went to go collect a few more sticks, to keep the fire going, and I opened up the last bottle of wine.
My one friend, Amelia, came back in a hurry, frantically slurring out words in a panic. Cassidy had just disappeared, they were picking up sticks as Amelia said, and then she turned around and Cassidy was gone. All of us were extremely worried, but as I’ve always been level headed, I was the one to try calm Amelia and Tess, my other friend, down, who were on the verge of tears. I was explaining to them how she probably just wandered off, we were all quite tipsy and Cassidy is the type to just disappear when she’s had a few too many to drink. However, as I was explaining this Cassidy walked up behind me, she was confused about all the fuss and asked what was going on. We were all relieved, and laughed it off moments after, joking about Cassidy being taken by the old man in my story.
The rest of the night we were all a bit on edge after my scary story and us thinking Cassidy had gone missing, I also think the wine played a part in that too. Later on, Cassidy was trying to get us all to go further into the woods to stargaze, as there would be less light and we could see the stars better. I, however, was extremely exhausted and told the others I was going to bed before I collapsed, the world spinning at this point, I’d drank quite a bit more than the others. After that the others went to stargaze, as I was told later on in the morning while I was trying to drag myself up and out of bed for coffee, with a massive hangover.
On the way back home, we exchanged photographs that we’d all taken over the past week, I decided to go through them and pick out the ones I wanted when I got home.
Although I wished I didn’t.
It was late when I got home, I got straight into bed and sat on my phone going through TikTok for a bit. No one had messaged me to tell me that they settled back in okay, but I assumed that they all just went straight to bed. I decided to look through the photos from the week, deleting the ones I didn’t want, and then backing up the ones I wanted to save. It had been a few minutes, I’d gotten through everyday except for yesterday’s photos. As I was scrolling through them, I notice Cassidy looked a bit strange. The photo was only unfocused on her, but the rest of us looked fine. I carried on looking and it got worse.
The lighting was off, but just on her.
It was blurry, but just on her.
And then I got to the one photo that made my skin crawl.
I completely threw my phone across the room when I saw it. Her skin was pale, a greyish colour. Her lips were blue and dry, and her eyes… they were fully white. There was no expression on her face like I remembered there was, she looked dead. There was blood trickling down her face, from what looked look a wound on her head, as if someone had hit her head multiple times with a rock.
I was sat on my bed cuddled up in a ball for a good 5 minutes, confused and scared, before I decided to get up and go to my phone, which had been illuminating my room with the picture still on the screen.
It only got worse.
I kept scrolling and Cassidy’s face was more focused in each one. I could see every cut, every mark on her face. Her eyes slowly started to become more sunken and her lips became black, with a slight smile creeping across them. It didn’t light up her face like it used to, it just made it darker. Every swipe made me more uneasy, I wanted nothing more to stop but something told me to just keep going.
Eventually I got to the photos from the rest of the night, after I had gone to sleep.
Just like Cassidy, Amelias face started to become more blurred and unfocused in each photo. Tess started to look more and more terrified as the photos went on, to the point were she looked completely traumatised, but yet they were posing like a normal selfie. Eventually Amelias face started to focus more, and just like Cassidy, her face became pale, cold and lifeless. There was a gaping hole where her eye used to be, like someone had stabbed something through her eye, and blood pouring out of it. I almost threw up, I could see everything. It was horrific.
After this I knew what was coming, when eventually Tess’ terrified face became blurred and eventually the same thing happened. This time, Tess had her jaw dislocated, and a massive chunk out of her neck. This one was by far the worst.
I turned off the photos and quickly called each one of them.
No one responded.
“I’m sorry you’ve reached the voicemail of [Cassidy] please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you.”
“I’m sorry you’ve reached the voicemail of [Amelia] please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you”
“I’m sorry you’ve reached the voicemail of [Tess] please leave me as message and I’ll get back to you”
The tv turns on as soon as I end the call with Tess.
“Four 18 year old girls, dead in the woods of a holiday house, in cold blood. Locals heard screams coming from the location, when police arrived at the scene they were shocked at the gruesome way these poor girls were killed. The fourth girl has been assumed dead by suicide. We are yet to find out the murderer of these three poor girls.”
I’m dead? I can’t be dead.
But who’s the fourth girl?