SUFFER IN LOVE

There was a house at the end of Black Rock Road, a house that no one visited, and no one mentioned. It sat there like an old wound on the landscape, forgotten by time, shrouded in silence. Inside, behind the dust-coated windows and decaying beams, something still lingered—a presence, a whisper, a ghost of love turned wrong.

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Ethan knew the house well. He used to live there, once upon a time, before everything went wrong. Before she left. Before she died.

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They had called it love once what he and Claire had. It had been fire, passion, laughter—until it wasn’t. Until the shadows crept in, soft as whispers, cold as regret. Love had a way of twisting itself into something else, something that burrowed deep into the heart and nested there, sharp and venomous.

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It had been three years since Claire had disappeared. Three years since she had walked out of the house into the storm and never came back. The police had searched, but the river had swallowed her whole, or so they said. No body, no answers—just the echoes of her last words.

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"You’ll never escape me."

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Ethan still heard them in the rustling of dead leaves, in the silence between heartbeats. He tried to move on, tried to forget. But love, true love—the kind that tied itself around the bones and squeezed—never truly let go.

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And so, one rainy October night, he found himself standing before the house again, its black mouth gaping open in the form of a half-rotten door. The wind howled through the trees, a mournful sound, as if the world itself was warning him to turn back.

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But love called to him, and he answered.

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Inside, the air was stale, thick with the scent of rot and memories. Ethan stepped carefully, the floorboards groaning beneath his weight. The furniture was still there, untouched, draped in sheets like corpses waiting for burial. The fireplace, where he and Claire had once laughed over a lot of wine, was nothing but a cold, hollow cavity.

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And then—a whisper.

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Soft. Almost inaudible.

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"Ethan..."

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He froze. The sound had come from upstairs.

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His first instinct was to turn and run, to just get out of the house and never look back. But love—love was a cruel thing. It pulled him forward, up the stairs, step by trembling step.

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The bedroom door stood open, swaying slightly as though something had just passed through it. He swallowed hard and stepped inside.

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Everything was just as they had left it—the bed still unmade, her vanity mirror smudged with fingerprints. But something was wrong. The air was thick, pressing against his chest, making it hard to breathe. And then he saw it.

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The mirror.

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At first, he thought it was just his own reflection staring back at him—until it moved.

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Claire.

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She stood there, her once-beautiful face marred by the bloat of water, her eyes empty sockets leaking black streaks down her cheeks. Her lips twisted into something that might have once been a smile, but now—now it was just hunger.

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"You’re mine, Ethan."

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Her voice slithered out of the mirror like a dying breath, wet and gurgling, as though she were still drowning somewhere beneath the surface of the dark river. Ethan staggered back, knocking over the vanity chair. His breath came in ragged gasps, his mind screaming that this wasn't real, couldn't be real.

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But the thing in the mirror took a step forward.

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"You suffered for me, didn't you?" Claire whispered, her voice a melody of sorrow and accusation. Her head tilted at an unnatural angle, water dribbling from her lips. "I suffered too, Ethan. I still do."

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His back hit the wall. The house groaned around him, the wooden beams creaking like old bones shifting in their grave. The air stank of river mud, of something long-dead and restless.

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"You're not real," Ethan managed to choke out.

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A wet laugh. A sound like bubbles breaking the surface of stagnant water.

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"Oh, Ethan." Her form rippled like water disturbed, then stepped out of the mirror.

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Ethan didn't have time to think. His body moved on instinct, lunging for the door, but it slammed shut before he could reach it. Claire—or what remained of her—stood between him, her head twitching, her bloated fingers curling as if they were remembering how to hold him.

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"You left me," she whispered.

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Ethan shook his head violently. "I didn't! Claire, I loved you—"

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"Loved." The word dripped with venom. Her expression twisted, that grotesque, waterlogged face folding into something raw, something broken. "You let me die."

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His stomach clenched. "I—"

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"You never even looked for me."

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The accusation hit harder than any nightmare he'd endured in the past three years. The truth was, he had looked. He had searched the woods, the roads, the riverbank until his hands were raw and his voice was hoarse from screaming her name. But after the police declared her dead, after the search teams gave up, after the pitying glances from friends became too much to bear—he had stopped. He had let her memory drown.

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And now she was back.

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Something unseen gripped his throat, not physical, but felt—a tightening, an invisible pressure that made his vision swim. His lungs seized as if they were filling with water.

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"Come back to me," Claire whispered, stepping closer, her breath like damp earth and decay. "You belong with me, Ethan. We suffered together. We still do."

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He gasped, clawing at his throat, the room spinning. He could feel it now—something pulling him down, down into cold, suffocating darkness. His skin felt damp, his fingers numb. His heart pounded, every beat weaker than the last.

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No.

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No, he wouldn’t let this happen.

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With the last of his strength, Ethan lunged sideways, knocking over the nightstand. A lamp crashed to the floor, the bulb exploding in a burst of light and glass. The shadows in the room shuddered, and for the briefest moment, Claire's form flickered.

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He gasped in a breath.

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Light.

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The realization hit him suddenly. Claire was bound to the dark. The house—this house—was her anchor.

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Dragging himself to his feet, he staggered toward the hallway, towards the stairs. The house seemed to fight him, the walls groaning, the floor buckling beneath his weight. The door at the bottom of the stairs slammed shut on its own.

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"You can't leave me, Ethan!" Claire's voice shrieked behind him, a violent wind whipping through the house. "We belong together!"

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He didn’t look back. He couldn't. His body slammed against the locked door, hands scrabbling for the handle.

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Then—his fingers found the lighter in his pocket.

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A stupid habit, one he hadn’t kicked even after Claire had begged him to.

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He flicked it.

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A tiny flame. A single flicker of warmth against the suffocating cold and dark.

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Behind him, Claire screamed.

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He turned.

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She was changing now, the waterlogged form shifting, warping. No longer just the woman he had loved, but something else—something ancient and starving, something that had festered in the dark corners of grief for far too long.

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Ethan didn’t hesitate.

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He grabbed the old curtain hanging beside the door and pressed the flame to the fabric. It caught instantly.

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The fire roared to life, licking up the walls, devouring the years of dust and decay. The house screamed with her, the air filled with the sound of cracking wood and something inhuman wailing in agony.

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Ethan stumbled outside.

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Behind him, the house burned.

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For a moment, just a moment, he swore he saw her in the flames—standing there, watching him.

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Then she was gone.

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Ethan stood there and watched and wondered if she would ever haunt him again. He believes love never truly dies. It lingers, even in the ashes, even in the whispers of the wind on lonely nights. And sometimes, too often, people suffer in love.

 

 -Mark Gammill

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