The first sign that something was wrong in the town of Ashbrook was the silence. Not the kind of silence that creeps in after a storm or during a winter snow, but a deliberate, unnatural stillness. The crickets stopped their nighttime chorus. The owls no longer called from the woods. Even the wind seemed to hesitate before pushing through the tall cornstalks that surrounded the town.Children were the first to notice. They spoke of shadows in the fields, of strange lights floating above the crops at night. Parents brushed it off as overactive imaginations, fueled by too many scary movies and late-night ghost stories. But when the whispers started—low, almost inaudible murmurs heard only by the youngest—it became harder to dismiss.
Emily Carter, age ten, told her mother one morning that the corn had spoken to her. She described a voice that echoed in her head, neither male nor female, promising secrets if she only stepped closer at night. Her mother laughed nervously, assuming it was just a dream. By evening, Emily was gone.
The search parties combed through every acre of farmland. Dogs barked and strained at their leashes near the edges of the fields, but no one found a trace. The sheriff claimed Emily had probably wandered off and would turn up soon, but her disappearance lingered in the air like a bruise.
Two nights later, Jacob Meyers, age eight, vanished from his bed. His window was open, though the screen was still locked in place from the inside. His parents swore they had tucked him in and kissed his forehead before sleeping. No footprints were found, no signs of forced entry. Just the imprint of a small body left in the sheets, as if Jacob had evaporated into thin air.
By then, the parents were no longer dismissive. Fear spread across Ashbrook. Children weren’t allowed outside after sunset. Locks were triple-checked. Some families even left town altogether. But the disappearances didn’t stop.
It was Caleb, age nine, who returned.
Three weeks after vanishing, he was found wandering at the edge of Miller’s Pond, barefoot and disoriented. His skin was pale, his veins oddly pronounced beneath his flesh. His eyes, once bright blue, now glowed faintly with a sickly silver hue. When asked where he had been, he could only mumble one word: “Up.”
Doctors examined him, baffled by the strange lesions along his spine, as though something had been inserted and then removed. His bloodwork revealed anomalies no one could explain. The local hospital sent samples to the state lab, but before results could return, Caleb was gone again—this time taken in the middle of the night from his hospital room.
The nurses swore they hadn’t seen anyone enter. Security cameras glitched, showing only static between 2:13 and 2:16 a.m. By 2:17, Caleb’s bed was empty.
Rumours spread like wildfire. Some claimed it was government agents conducting experiments. Others whispered about cults in the woods. But among the children, the truth was shared in hushed voices: It was the Tall One.
They described him with unsettling consistency. A figure that stood twice as tall as any man, with arms too long and fingers like blades. His skin shimmered, changing colours as though mimicking the shadows around him. His face was featureless except for the eyes—blindingly white, like twin moons.
Parents dismissed the stories as nightmares, but deep down, they felt the chill of recognition. The children weren’t inventing this together; they were recalling something they had all seen, whether in dreams or reality.
The Tall One came in the night, they said. He spoke without moving his mouth, his voice slithering directly into their heads. He promised he wouldn’t hurt them, only borrow them for a while. He said they were special—that they carried something inside him he needed to understand.
And then, just as quickly, he would take them.
Ashbrook had become a town of locked doors and sleepless nights. Yet everyone knew that locks meant nothing to the Tall One. He was already inside, watching, waiting.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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