Chapter 10

Blossom stood hunched over the dented box at the bottom of her closet, the cardboard soft and frayed at the corners from years of rummaging. Her fingers moved slowly, reverent almost—like touching memories that still had bite. Inside lay old files—stories she hadn't read in years. Labeled in fading Sharpie: Blossom Aged 7–8, 9–10, 11–13, 14–15, and the unnerving stack of recent writings, dense with scribbles and aggressive annotations.

The youngest ones made her smile softly.

Stories about princesses locked in candy castles. Wisecracking black cats who cast spells with glitter and sass. Dogs who ran detective agencies and fell in love with magical vending machines. Blossom Aged 7 had been a rainbow disguised as a human.

"I used to believe magic was something pink," she whispered to herself, pulling the paper close.

Her handwriting was rounder back then, loopy and hopeful. Even the titles radiated joy—Moonlight Marigold and the Pancake Spell, Sir Woofington Saves Paris, The Black Cat Diaries: Spells, Sass, and Snacks.

She laughed once, the sound cracked at the edges.

But then came the stack marked 12–15. That one pulsed like it had teeth.

She peeled through it slowly. Horror fanfiction titles hit like thunder:

The Blood Carnival

Stitches in the Basement

Michael Meyers vs. My Sleep Paralysis Demon

The Cannibal's Lullaby

The stories were full of twisted imagery, feverish pacing, characters that died violently or vanished into mirrors. A few poems had been paperclipped together, all written in pencil with little hearts next to terrifying lines:

My hands smell like church pews and the devil's cologne Daddy said the monster was fake, so why does it sleep under Mum's gin bottles? I buried my joy where even I wouldn't dig.

Blossom stared.

"Did I really write these?" she thought, suddenly uneasy.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she turned the pages.

"You have an evocative mind," her psychologist used to say. Dr. Kesler. Old, kind eyes. Thick-rimmed glasses. Voice like a soft piano.

"You write pain like it's your first language."

And Blossom, thirteen at the time, would beam at that like it was praise.

"I like exploring it. Pain's honest. It's not something you fake."

Dr. Kesler would tilt his head, studying her. "That's what concerns me, Blossom. You seem eager to share your writing... but reluctant to talk about how it got there."

"I don't like talking," she'd say with a shrug. "Words make more sense on paper."

He had smiled then, almost sadly. "I believe you. But remember this—writing can expose what your silence is protecting. You're brave, but you're also burying something."

Now, reading one particular poem—the one about a girl whose mother died but kept talking through the fridge magnets—Blossom had to set it aside.

Her chest tightened. It felt too personal. Too close.

"I write like I'm haunted," she whispered, sitting back, legs crisscrossed beneath her. "But it's me doing the haunting."

She ran a hand through her hair, suddenly exhausted. Maybe she hadn't changed at all. Maybe she'd just sharpened.

As she stacked the pages into a neat pile, she murmured, "They think the quiet girls write diaries... but we write bloodstained scripts."

And Blossom didn't know whether to laugh... or keep reading.