The rain outside hammered against the windowpane, a rhythmic, insistent drumming that usually lulled Sarah into a state of contented calm. Tonight, however, it only amplified the silence between her and Tony. They sat hunched over the Scrabble board, the flickering firelight casting their faces in a shifting tapestry of warmth and shadow. It was their Friday night ritual, a cosy tradition of competitive wordplay and mugs of spiced tea.
“Your move, old man,” Sarah teased, though her smile felt a little thin. She clutched her tiles, a mostly uninspiring collection of vowels and a lone ‘Z’.
Tony chuckled, a low rumble from his chest. He squinted at the board, then at his rack. “Ah, the perfect word to set the mood.” With a flourish, he laid down his tiles. “H-A-U-N-T.” He grinned, leaning back. “Triple word score. Take that, vowel queen.”
Sarah rolled her eyes, but a prickle of something, not quite cold, not quite unease, traced its way up her spine. “Morbid, much?” She studied the board, the word ‘HAUNT’ glowing faintly in the firelight. Her own tiles seemed to demand a reply. She found it, a word that felt heavy on her tongue. “G-R-A-V-E.” She placed it, connecting to Ben’s ‘A’. The room seemed to hold its breath. The fire, which had been crackling merrily, suddenly spat a shower of sparks, then quieted to an unnerving simmer.
Tony hummed, oblivious, or pretending to be. He picked up new tiles, then his brow furrowed. “This is… odd.” He placed his next word with a hesitant finger. “E-C-H-O.” As the last letter clicked into place, the sound of the rain outside seemed to amplify, turning from a gentle patter to an insistent, almost deliberate, drumming against the glass.
Sarah shivered, pulling the old plaid blanket tighter around her. “It’s just the wind,” she murmured, but the words felt hollow even to her. The air in the room had grown strangely still, thick with a scent she couldn’t quite place – like damp earth and old dust. Her next word seemed to form itself on her rack, demanding to be played. “S-H-A-D-O-W.” As she laid the tiles, the corners of the room deepened, the familiar shadows stretching longer, writhing just beyond the comforting reach of the firelight.
A cold seeped into the room, raising goosebumps on Sarah’s arms despite the dying embers. It wasn’t a draft; it was a presence, heavy and ancient, pressing in from all sides. Tony’s hand hovered above his tiles, his face pale, his eyes wide with a dawning horror. “Sarah… do you feel that?”
She nodded, her throat suddenly dry. The air thrummed with a low, inaudible hum. The scent intensified, metallic and sharp, like rusted iron mixed with something unpleasantly sweet. Her gaze was drawn to the board, to the words they had carefully, innocently, laid out. HAUNT. GRAVE. ECHO. SHADOW. They weren’t just words any more. They were an invocation.
Tony’s eyes, filled with a terrible realisation, slowly landed on a tile he had just picked, then on the space on the board. His hand trembled as he began to place his letters, one by agonising one. “P. R. E. S. E. N. C. E.”
As the last tile clicked into place, the fire in the hearth died. Not dwindled, not faded, but was extinguished, as if a giant, unseen hand had simply snuffed it out. The room plunged into absolute darkness, save for the faint, phosphorescent glow of the Scrabble tiles scattered across the board.
In the sudden, suffocating silence, a sound began. A whisper, not from the wind, not from Tony or Sarah, but from everywhere and nowhere. It was a chorus of voices, ancient and hungry, breathing words that curled around their minds, words that spoke of what they had summoned, what they had named.
Sarah fumbled for Tony’s hand, her fingers cold and trembling, her breath catching in her throat. The whispers grew, coalescing into a single, resonant thrum that vibrated through her bones, a deep chord of malevolence. The glowing tiles spelled out their unwitting incantation, mocking them from the gloom.
“What have we done?” Tony’s voice was a ragged whisper, lost in the overwhelming chorus.
A cold, unseen tendril brushed against Sarah’s cheek, leaving behind a profound sense of utter desolation. It was here. They had called it, word by word, letter by letter. And it had answered. The board, their innocent game, was a conduit. Their words, once mere points and playful jabs, were now something else entirely – an incantation, a tether strong enough to bridge dimensions.
The Scrabble tiles, still glowing faintly, rearranged themselves. Not by human hand, but by an unseen, undeniable force. They didn’t form new words. They formed a single, final, terrifying image on the board:
A gaping, endless, inky black V-O-I-D.
And from the absolute darkness beyond the board, a sound like a sigh, deep and content, filled the room. It was settling in. And they were trapped within its newly-named, newly-claimed domain.
About the Author
Ben Macnair is an award-winning poet, playwright and musician from Staffordshire in the United Kingdom.
