The diary was not where it was supposed to be.
It lay on my desk, open, breathing softly like it had been waiting for me all along. I was certain I had locked it away the night before—tucked beneath old notebooks, hidden under the false safety of routine. Yet there it was, its cracked leather cover parted, a single page fluttering as though stirred by an unseen hand.
For a moment, I only stared.
The room smelled of dust and rain-soaked earth. Evening light slipped through the half-open window, turning the ink on the page darker, heavier—almost wet. I stepped closer, my heartbeat loud enough to drown out my thoughts.
The handwriting was mine.
Same slant. Same careless curves. Same pauses where I always hesitated, as if the pen had doubted me too. But the words… I didn't remember writing them.
You shouldn't have come back here.
My fingers trembled as I touched the page. The ink smeared slightly under my skin, warm—unnaturally warm. I pulled my hand away as if burned.
This diary had always been my refuge. I wrote in it when I was afraid, when the world grew too loud, when secrets pressed against my chest begging to be released. It was supposed to listen, not speak back.
I turned the page.
He knows now.
A chill slid down my spine. Who was he? I scanned the room instinctively, half-expecting a shadow to detach itself from the wall. Nothing moved. The house remained still, pretending innocence.
The next line made my breath hitch.
You buried the truth, but ink remembers.
"No," I whispered, though I wasn't sure who I was denying—myself or the diary.
Memories stirred, slow and reluctant. A locked room. A promise made in fear. A night I had trained myself to forget. My chest tightened as the past knocked, polite but persistent.
I flipped back to earlier pages. Dates blurred. Some entries were faded, others freshly written. The terrifying part was not what was written—but when. Today's date stared back at me, ink still glistening.
I hadn't written anything today.
A drop fell onto the page.
Only when it spread did I realize it was blood.
It dripped from the tip of my finger, tracing a thin red line between the words, as if completing a sentence the ink had started. The diary seemed to drink it in, the page darkening, the letters sharpening.
A new line appeared.
This time, you will read till the end.
I slammed the diary shut and stumbled back, my pulse racing. My reflection in the mirror looked unfamiliar—pale, eyes too wide, like someone who had just been caught in a lie they didn't know they were telling.
The diary lay silent again, harmless in appearance.
But I knew better now.
Some secrets fade with time.
Some rot in silence.
And some—
bleed their way back to the truth.