The Ink Stains of Midnight...

A Spine-Chilling Horror?

Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening & Goodnight, in case I don’t meet you…

My Dear Readers,

It’s 3:07 a.m. The house is quiet, except for the faint scratching of my pen on paper. Another sleepless night, but that’s nothing new. Sleep hasn’t been a friend of mine for years not since I started writing these damned stories.

Horror. Fear. Shadows that breathe. I’ve made a living pulling monsters out of my mind and putting them on paper. But tonight, something feels... off. The words aren’t flowing like they should. My hand feels heavy, and the shadows on the walls? They’re moving.

I tell myself it’s exhaustion, the way I always do. Too much coffee, too many cigarettes, and not enough sunlight. But then I hear it.

A whisper.

Soft. Barely there.

“Jacob...”

I freeze. The pen slips from my fingers, rolling across the desk and hitting the floor with a faint clink. I’m alone. I know I’m alone. Midnight and Snowy my cats are curled up in the living room.

“Jacob...”

This time, the voice is clearer and closer. I turn my head toward the corner of the room, where the shadows seem darker, thicker, and alive. My pulse quickens as I stare into the black void.

“Who’s there?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

No answer. Just the sound of my own breathing, rapid and shallow, echoing in the stillness.

I try to shake it off. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. Too many horror stories, Jacob. You’re scaring yourself, I think. But when I look down at the page, my blood runs cold.

The words I had just written are gone. In their place are jagged, spidery letters, etched into the paper as if by claws:

"You write us into existence. Now we write you out."

The lamp flickers, plunging the room into momentary darkness. When the light steadies, I see their hands. Black, ink-stained hands crawled out from the edges of the page, clawing at the desk, pulling themselves up.

I stumble back, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. The hands are followed by faces gaunt, hollow-eyed, and grinning with jagged teeth. They’re familiar. Too familiar. They’re the monsters I’ve written about, the horrors I thought I’d created.

But they’re not just characters. They’re real.

“We’ve waited long enough,” one of them rasps, its voice like nails scraping against metal.

Another one laughs a guttural, wet sound that makes my stomach churn. “You gave us life, Jacob. Now it’s time to take yours.”

I bolt for the door, but it slams shut before I can reach it. The room grows colder, the air thick with the scent of ink and decay. The creatures move closer, their bodies twisting and contorting unnaturally.

“Why?” I shout, my back pressed against the door. “Why are you doing this?”

The tallest one steps forward, its face inches from mine. Its eyes burn like coals, and its breath reeks of old paper. “Because you wrote us into suffering,” it growls. “And now, you will feel it.”

They drag me back to the desk, their clawed hands cold and unyielding. The tallest one places my pen in my hand, forcing my fingers to curl around it.

“Write,” it commands.

“I... I can’t...”

“You will.”

The ink spills from the pen, pooling on the page, and spreading like a living thing. I try to resist, but my hand moves on its own, scrawling words I don’t recognize, sentences that twist and writhe on the paper.

"And so, Jacob was written into his own nightmare, trapped forever in the stories he once loved to tell."

I scream, but the sound is swallowed by the shadows. The creatures laugh as they fade into the darkness, leaving me alone with the cursed page.

The ink drips onto my hands, my arms, and my face, and I realize the truth.

I’m no longer the writer. I’m the story.

And now, as I write this last line, I feel them watching. Waiting. If you’re reading this, burn it. Don’t let the ink spread.

Or you might be next.

What do you think? Did it hit the mark for spine-chilling horror?

Jacob M