Night Terrors

The ancestral farmhouse had always been a place of whispers and shadows, its weathered walls holding secrets generations deep. For Sarah Blackwood, the memories of childhood terrors had never truly faded, even as she approached her eighteenth birthday.

Thirteen years had passed since those childhood nights when the Witch first haunted her dreams. Jake and Max, her protective older brothers, had grown distant—Jake now away at college, and Max working construction in the next county. The family's once-tight bond had frayed, stretched thin by time and unspoken tensions.

The farmhouse sat on the outskirts of Millbrook, a small town nestled in the rolling hills of rural Pennsylvania. Its sprawling acres were more than just land—they were a family legacy, passed down through generations of Blackwoods. Sarah's grandmother used to say the land remembered everything, that the soil itself held memories older than any living soul.

When Sarah's parents died in a car accident three years ago, the farmhouse became her sanctuary and her prison. Jake and Max had their own lives, leaving her to manage the property and complete her final year of high school. The isolation was both a comfort and a curse.

The night terrors had never truly stopped. They had simply evolved, becoming more sophisticated, more terrifying with each passing year. What began as childish fears of a witch hovering above her bed had transformed into something far more complex and sinister.

Dr. Elena Rodriguez, the school counselor, believed Sarah's recurring nightmares were a manifestation of unresolved trauma. "Grief can manifest in strange ways," she would say, her dark eyes filled with professional concern. "Losing your parents, feeling abandoned by your brothers—these experiences create fertile ground for psychological distress."

But Sarah knew the truth was far more complicated. The Witch was real. Not a metaphor, not a psychological projection—an actual entity that existed in the liminal space between reality and nightmare.

On the night of her eighteenth birthday, everything would change.

The lawyer's office was a sterile environment of polished wood and muted colors. Mr. Thompson, a balding man with thick glasses, slid an ancient leather-bound document across the desk.

"Your grandmother's final wishes," he said, his voice clinical and detached. "A condition of your inheritance."

Sarah's fingers traced the edges of the document. The paper was yellowed, fragile—seemingly as old as the secrets it contained. Her grandmother, Elizabeth Blackwood, had always been an enigma. A woman of few words, with eyes that seemed to see beyond the physical world.

The document revealed a startling truth: the farmhouse and its surrounding 200 acres were hers, but only if she completed a specific task before her twenty-first birthday. A ritual, hidden in cryptic language, that spoke of "maintaining the boundary" and "honoring the old agreement."

"What agreement?" Sarah had asked, her voice trembling.

Mr. Thompson shrugged. "Your grandmother was... eccentric. She believed in old family traditions. The details are vague, but the legal requirement is clear."

That night, Sarah spread the document on her bedroom floor, surrounding it with research materials. Local historical records, folklore collections, and genealogical documents created a chaotic map of potential meanings.

The Blackwood family history was complicated. Rumors of witchcraft had always swirled around them, whispered in the town's darker corners. Some said the family's prosperity came from deals made in moonlit forests. Others spoke of protection rituals that kept something—something ancient and hungry—at bay.