We were eight years old again, and my cousins and I were back at my grandparents’ house—its sprawling, shadowed rooms and thick air somehow even older than I remembered. The house creaked as though it was breathing with us, a hushed whisper at every step, and it felt like the walls held secrets of their own, watching and waiting.

We’d been sent upstairs to bring down the old mattresses, dusty and abandoned like the rooms around them. This part of the house had been empty for years, left behind after my uncle moved overseas. We always joked about how “someone else” must be living up there now, but tonight, in the silent dark, it didn’t seem funny.

With no power and no light but the thin, eerie beams that crawled through the grimy windows, we fumbled our way up the staircase, barely able to see each other. The air grew colder, thicker, the smell of dust and something sour filling our noses. Each step made a hollow sound beneath us, muffled as if the house were swallowing our every move.

As we reached the landing, a faint light beckoned from behind a tall, faded curtain in the corner. We had no other source of light, so I stepped forward, curiosity pulling me closer despite a growing feeling of dread. The curtain felt cold and brittle under my fingers as I slowly drew it aside, letting the pale, sickly light bleed into the room.

And there she was—a hunched figure, almost blending into the shadows at first, but her eyes glinted sharp and bright, fixed right on me. The woman’s face twisted into a smile so wide it almost tore her skin, a chilling smile that seemed to curve too high, too deep. Her hands hovered over an ancient blender in front of her, its glass jar fogged, the base coated in grime. She held something alive in her hand—a lizard, its tiny claws scraping desperately as she held it above the blender.

Without breaking her gaze, she dropped it in, a sickening thud echoing as it hit the bottom. She didn’t stop there. Slowly, with an unnatural ease, she raised her other hand to her mouth, her crooked fingers disappearing into her lips. When they emerged, they held a slimy, wriggling frog that she yanked out of her mouth as if pulling something rooted deep within her. Her fingers slick and glistening, she shoved the struggling creature into the blender, forcing it down as it squirmed. Her eyes never left mine, that smile still stretching, her mouth a dark, hungry pit.

I froze. Every muscle locked in place, my breath lodged in my throat, while she reached for the blender switch. And as her finger hovered over it, the smile widened further, stretching and tearing into my mind, imprinting itself there.

And then I woke up.

I’m just copy pasting this here. It was a real dream but I wrote this a long time ago and its quite… heightened as I was trying to get the emotions through. Its also terribly cliche writing, I promise I’m a better writer this was just a quick write up long ago. (I read a lot of RL Stine as a kid can ya tell?)