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// ... 
// Story: Knock. Knock. 
// by Arreis Of Avalon 
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“Where did the diary go?” I look around my bed frantically, my eyes wide. That was so important. I couldn’t have lost it. “I clearly remember putting it under my pillow,” I say. I check. Not there.

I run to my desk and sift through the papers. “I don’t get it.” Nothing there. “Where could I have hidden it?”

I look around, the pictures on the walls looking like eyes in my peripheral vision. I feel them, searching with me, trying to find my diary. Trying to know. Learn. Why were they all so curious? “My memory d-didn’t used to deceive me like this,” I mutter. “All of this is rather strange.”

Something shatters in the distance. A broken light, or window, no doubt. Those visitors… My eyes narrow. “No matter what happened, I have to find it immediately… or else…”

Shattering. Creaking. I sift through my notes again, trying to organize them. So many drawings. So many, many dreams. “Or else I won’t be able to work tomorrow. It has notes on all the observations I made over the last few years.” How long had I been taking those notes? Ever since my schooling? Since the sun set?

I grab my candle. It’s time to search now, not wonder, not think. Only searching. 

I walk quickly into the next room. “Someone gave me this diary when I was first learning how to write.” I gulp, looking around in the darkness. I can’t see anymore. “He said that I would write my entire life down in it. And that with the last page of the notebook, my life would end as well.”

I take a deep breath. “He always speaks in metaphors… I was so young. I took his words literally. I wanted to live a long life, so I rationed the pages. I wrote only in my smallest handwriting, rarely and briefly. It became a habit.”

The shadows seem to close in on me, listening closely for me to finish speaking before they kill me. “But a-after awhile,” I mutter, watching them with my grey eyes, the bags under them growing heavier, “I forgot his words. For some reason, they’ve come back to me now, and they unsettle me.”

As I finish, I quickly begin to turn the light. The shadows watch me hungrily. I take a deep breath. Why had I been talking to? Who was the shadows? Whose eyes watched me so intently?

The light flashes on. 

I run to the upstairs room and twist on the light. Downstairs, the door creaks. I don’t know if it’s open yet or not.

The light flashes on. I see it - a torn note. Is the handwriting small? Is it mine? I don’t remember. Who wrote this note for me?



What seems horrible in this house, will stop scaring you if you go out into the woods. 
Touch them without fear. Open your eyes. Don’t be afraid to look. Don’t be afraid to see.
This is not death, but simply a new time. There is no death.



“How can these pages be here? Why are they torn?” I shiver. Despite the light being on, I feel watched. Scared. Who is watching? Is it you? “I don’t like this at all,” I whisper. “Did someone get into the room while I was asleep, and steal the diary?”

I hear a soft thud in another room, hardly audible. My ears twitch. “I have to check the house again. I really neglected it…” I feel something strange in my heart. Warmth. 

It’s simply the light, warming my back.

I run to the next room and turn on the light.

KNO-KNOCKAKNO-KNOCK

Next room. Next light. “My father worked here before I did. Before him - my grandfather, and so on. Each one of my predecessors added something to this house. But the past is not a very valuable legacy. Which is why many rooms are locked. I never look in there.”

Time is repeating itself. I’ve said this all before. 

I run quickly back to the adjacent room. Thunder rolls. “Something is getting closer from the other side,” I shout, my voice echoing around the room. The noise is nice. Where is the other side? I don’t know. “I have to hurry!”

The door is open. I run to the room and straight out the door.

I am deep in the woods. I see her instantly. The ghost. My eyes widen - no one else is allowed here. I run to her, already having a sharp retort in my mouth to yell at her, tell her to go away. 

There is nothing there. Distantly, a familiar song is played. My head - it hurts so horribly bad. The song sounds so familiar. A music box. It’s beautiful. I feel tears rise to my eyes.

The ghost is gone. My head stops hurting.

“From time to time… I see things that simply cannot be. Sometimes I even see new stars in the sky.” I remember those clearly now, for some reason. 4 beautiful stars, and the sound of laughter. I shake my head. Such thoughts mean nothing. “But I don’t record that in my archives or reports. It’s simply depression. Or maybe it is something worse.”

I always did worry too much.

I walk. I walk and walk and walk. For some reason, I am not scared. The woods, with their scary faces, are not scary.

I stroll leisurely. The break is… nice. 

I reach my house. Back into the fray.

I walk inside.

I awaken.