They say some objects remember.
That memories can cling to things like a stain—and if you press your ear close enough, you might just hear the past whisper back.
---
I've built my life around that truth.
Some people collect stamps. Others, coins or paintings. Me?
-------------
My name is Jack, and I collect cursed objects.
Every item in my attic—every bone trinket, cracked mirror, rusted blade—has a story buried in its fibers. A memory soaked into its surface, usually with blood.
My job isn't to destroy them. It's to keep them locked away.
My attic is a prison of horrors—trapped whispers, haunted reflections, and relics soaked in centuries of violence.
Each one is sealed behind iron, salt, and blood.
Not trophies. Not relics of glory.
I keep them to protect the world from them.
And sometimes, to protect them from each other.
The cursed diary wasn't meant to be found.
But it found me anyway.
---
It started with a pawn shop I'd never seen before.
"Treasure Pawn," the sign read—rusted, crooked, barely hanging on.
It was wedged between a boarded-up bakery and a barbershop that looked long abandoned.
Inside, the air was stale. The lights buzzed overhead, casting shadows that clung to the floor.
Shelves sagged under the weight of forgotten junk—porcelain dolls, rotary phones, chipped crucifixes.
I wasn't planning to buy anything. I was just browsing, scanning for anomalies.
Old habits.
Then something fell behind me.
A thump. Soft. Intentional.
I turned to see a diary lying on the floor.
Black leather, cracked and swollen with moisture.
Bound shut with a thin green ribbon.
When I picked it up, something shifted in the air—like the temperature dropped five degrees and the shadows leaned in closer.
My vision pulsed. My fingers tingled.
It didn't feel like it had been dropped.
It felt like it had been given to me.
At the counter stood a man I hadn't seen when I walked in—chalk-skinned, yellow-eyed, too still.
"You see it too, then?" he said, smiling without warmth.
I left five dollars on the counter.
He didn't touch it. Didn't say another word.
---
I didn't open it. Not at first.
I brought the diary home and placed it on the desk in the attic, away from the others.
Even without opening it, the other cursed objects reacted.
The jar of withered tongues trembled on its shelf.
The scrying mirror rippled like water.
One of the sealed masks let out a dry hiss I hadn't heard in months.
On the third night, I heard scratching from upstairs.
I found the diary open, the green ribbon cut clean.
The first page bore fresh writing—in my handwriting.
> "You shouldn't have opened this."
I hadn't.
I turned the page.
> "Too late now. It's watching."
---
What followed was a blur of hauntings.
Memories I hadn't recalled in years started leaking into my dreams.
Voices whispered through the walls.
Objects in the attic began moving on their own.
The diary wrote back to me. Every morning, a new entry.
> "Burn the others. Or I will."
"You belong to me now."
"They're waking up."
At 2:13 a.m., for three nights straight, someone—or something—knocked at my front door.
Three knocks.
Steady. Patient.
I didn't answer.
The diary seemed pleased.
> "Good. You're learning."
But I wasn't going to let it write my ending.
---
On the fourth night, I prepared a binding ritual.
The kind I hadn't needed in years.
A circle of ash and iron.
Sigils inked in blood.
Salt poured until my fingers bled from the cold.
I wore gloves. I didn't dare touch the diary again.
When I placed it at the center of the circle, it trembled.
The pages fluttered.
Words appeared on the open spread as I watched.
> "You think you can contain me?"
"I was here before you."
"I'll be here after."
I didn't speak to it.
You never give a cursed item attention.
That's what they want. That's how they grow.
Instead, I closed it gently.
Wrapped it in binding cloth made from hallowed linen.
And sealed it inside a lead-lined box etched with runes older than anything the diary had ever seen.
I placed it at the far end of the attic.
Behind layers of protection.
Next to the mask that screams.
Above the coffin doll.
Between the jar of tongues and the salt mirror.
---
It's quiet now.
For the most part.
The diary's still in there. I check the bindings every day.
I've never had to reapply them. Not yet.
But sometimes, just before I turn out the attic light, I swear I see the ribbon twitch.
And every once in a while, on nights when the moon is thin and the wind doesn't blow, I hear it again.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
I don't open the box.
Not anymore.