“Where there is no imagination, there is no horror.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Jasmine sat in Julien’s car as they drove to the old Burnwood manor on the outskirts of town. The eclipse would take place in about half an hour giving them plenty of time to prepare. In her hands, Jas clutched a piece of paper which had the instructions on it, she would’ve been lying if she said she wasn’t scared.

Julien would show her to the basement and check the house before he left, the plan was that Jasmine would perform the ritual and he would wait outside of the house in the car. For the entire ride, she had listened to her friend telling her how to go about the ritual, to not insult the entity, to make sure she worded her question clearly and cleaned up properly. The information had been drilled into her brain but there was one point that caught her attention, “do not act scared in any way, ya hear? These things can latch onto you and haunt you for the rest of your fucking life. Be quick and calm, if you show any fear, it’ll find pleasure in toying with you. Be careful Jasmine.”

After about thirty minutes, they reached the old manor. During their drive the moon had shown itself, it had turned a malicious red and now as its light shown across the house a rather sinister aura had been added to the atmosphere, as if it wasn’t creepy enough. Jas sighed as she got out of the car along with Julien; this was going to be a long night.

The manor seemed to be even creepier from the inside, as they made their way through the rooms. Once they were in the remains of the living room, Julien put down his satchel and turned to Jas, “stay here, I’m gonna check the place out. If you hear anything, yell. Creepers like to visit this place sometimes and nothing’s gonna stop’em tonight.”

The blonde disappeared into the depths of the house; the shadows seemed to eat him up. An involuntary shiver went down her spine as Jas looked around the room. The furniture was dusty and looked antique, in the corner there was an object with a sheet covering it. Curiosity got the best of her and as Jasmine moved to pull back the covering, she was met with a dirty mirror. Taking the corner of the sheet she wiped off some of the grit and looked at her reflection.

She wasn’t the tallest of women but was pretty enough with her serious features. Her shoulder length brown hair had been dyed blue at the tips and her cream colored skin showed no sign of earlier acne or blemishes. Her hazel brown eyes spoke volumes about her, they were serious and at the same time bright. No one would have guessed that she was only twenty-five if they went by her eyes. She was never one to not voice her opinions or displeasure but then again no one in the Jones family was known for being discreet.

“Jas!”

She turned on her heel and saw Julien in the doorway.

“Let’s go, house’s clear.”

He picked up the bag and made his way to the lower levels of the estate.

The brunette now stood facing the door of a subsection of the basement with the knocker on the other side of it. “This is it. You know what to do right?’ She only nodded and grabbed the backpack from the man and took out her materials. He gave her an encouraging smile before heading upstairs. The first thing she did was turn off all the lights; no light could enter the room. Bending down carefully she placed each of candles on the ground until they formed a triangle or something along those lines and lit each one. Now she took the sand and scooped out a fistful and created a circle around herself and sat inside. Taking a deep breath she placed the burlap bag over her head and began to chant,

“Te nunc esse scientiam, Te nunc esse scientiam, Te nunc esse scientiam, Te nunc esse scientiam, Te nunc esse scientiam, Te nunc esse scienti-“ That’s when she heard it, the knocking. It was here, it was actually here. Jasmine’s breath hitched and her breathing became erratic before she remembered one very important thing.

No fear. No fear.

The knocker on the other side of the door in front of her began to bang against the wood. Clearing her throat, Jas answered, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. “Come in please.”

She heard the door open with a loud creeeaaaaak and a rush of cold air hit her. The room had been warm a second ago; guess her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. There was a sound of scuttling above her and she heard a low growl. “I would like to ask you a-a question a-about my new book. Do you know if it’s going to sell o-o-r will I be cast out of the Authors Society? Can you please tell me, Knockertell?”

The room seemed to become even colder and there was silence for a moment before a low and eerily soothing voice answered from the darkness. “Child, you have nothing to fear. The rumors are just that. Rumors. Your book is going to be the best one yet and there is no danger of being thrown aside.”

Jas didn’t know what to feel, relief? Regret? Dread? Distrust? This creature could very well be lying but instead of acting on her emotions she decided that it would be best to say goodbye for now.

“T-thank y-you Knockertell. Your w-words have given me comfort. I b-bid you f-fare-w-well.” No matter how hard Jas tried she couldn’t stop her voice from shaking and she prayed that her quivers were ignored by the demon before her.

She heard a laugh so low that if the room wasn’t in complete silence she would have missed it. “Goodbye…And see you soon…” that was the last thing she heard before the sound of the door closing reached her ears and only one thought went through her mind.

I’m screwed.

Julien was sitting in the car when he heard footsteps running towards the vehicle. Looking up he saw Jasmine racing towards him. She got in and stared dead ahead, she was panting as though the devil himself had been chasing her.

“How’d it go?” Julien inquired but she remained unresponsive and quiet. “Jas?” She looked at him and for the first time since high school he saw fear in her dark eyes. “It was fine…until just before we parted. It said goodbye but then it also said see you soon. Julien I…I don’t know what to think…I…Help me…”

“Shit.” That was the only thing he was capable of saying because at that moment his heart was racing so fast that he honestly thought that it would leap out of his chest and slide down into his lap at any minute.

The next week flew by for Jas and the Knockertell’s prediction turned out to be true and its comment about seeing her again drifted to the back of her mind, and she did not pay its words much time until tonight.

As Jasmine lay in her bed, reading she heard a subtle knocking on her walls. Putting it off to the wind and old structure of the building she returned her attention to the book. After sometime she marked her place and turned off the lamp that was resting on the night table next to her.

It had been a good week; her book had become a best seller and she could now live in comfort knowing that money wasn’t a problem for the time being. Julien had been tense ever since that night and she couldn’t figure out why. The entity hadn’t bothered her despite its promise and she thought that she had nothing to fear. But she didn’t know how wrong she was.

That very night as she slept, her apartment exploded with loud knocking sounds from all around her. She shot up in bed and looked around frantically. This had better not be a joke by Julien. The sound faded before starting again with less volume. She got out of bed and looked around again. The banging faded, and she thought that it had only been her imagination until-

“No more questions, child?”

She froze before turning around, there it was, the Knockertell. It was a tall thin creature with long limbs that had several joints. Its pallor was paler than her white sheets and it didn’t have any eyes as far she could tell, but it did have two mouths where one’s features should be. It had been crawling on her wall. Slowly a knocking sound was heard as it hit its hand against the wood. Jasmine slowly backed up until she hit her bedroom wall.

Outside she heard thunder boom but she was too scared to look out the window. Julien had been right; she shouldn’t have thought that it would not return. Ever so slowly the creature’s head turned a hundred and eighty degrees and she was met by two red and bloodshot eyes. As Jasmine stared into them, she felt pain, sadness and had a desire to claw her eyes out, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away. Her vision darkened and she fell to her knees.

The Knockertell laughed as blood spurt out from her mouth. The last thing she saw before blacking out was its figure climbing out of her window, and into the rain.

She woke up the next morning, on the floor in her own blood and vomit. Slowly sitting up, pain shot through her head and a spell of dizziness overtook her, “ouch, damned head hurts. Something tells me it ain’t a hangover” .She got to her feet and tried to stand on her own, only to fall back onto the carpeted floor. Letting out a groan of discomfort she again tried to orient herself and grabbed her cell phone having the intention of calling Julien.

She waited and after three bells his voicemail activated, hey you’ve reached Julien Frost, I can’t take your call right now but leave a message and I’ll get back to you. “Hey Jul, I need to talk to you ASAP call me when you get this… It came back.”

As soon as Julien got her message he all but ran to her apartment and banged on the door, Jas flinched and she let him in. Julien wasted no time as he wrapped her in an embrace his strong arms locked around her petit figure as Jas returned the affection gladly, just having him there calmed her down. Julien pulled away and stared at her eyes, concern flickering across his features.

“What happened?”

His voice was barely above a whisper and he looked terrified. Taking in a breath, Jas recounted her tale, starting with the little knock that she heard just before she fell asleep. Describing the incident was not a problem, she was a writer after all, and detailed descriptions came with the trade.

Julien listened silently, giving small nods here and there to show her that he was listening intently. She finished her story and they once again sat in silence until she spoke.

“Julien…What the hell do I do?”

He was uncharacteristically quiet and he wasn’t looking at her.

“I don’t know…”

Jas desperately wanted to reverse what happened. However, there was nothing Julien or anybody else could do to help her and ever since that night; Jasmine Jones has suffered from vivid dreams and night terrors that she has no recollection of whatsoever in the morning.

Her belief in those silly rumors cost her a good night’s sleep along with a bit of her sanity.

Well that’s the end of this story, tell me do you think it was justified for Jas to believe in those stupid rumors? Or was it just a silly mistake? Leave your opinion in a comment down below.

Also sorry for the long post but I wasn’t sure of where to cut off the story so I decided to just finish it off.

Oh! A little fun Fact: The chant Jas was repeating for the ritual is from Latin and roughly translates into “we now have the knowledge, you now have the knowledge”.

I hope you enjoyed this story and if you would like me to do more stories like this please tell me by leaving a comment down below. Happy reading!

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