The town had always been small, forgotten by most, except for the occasional traveler who passed through. Tucked between hills, the stone walls were thick, protecting the village from the outside world, and the people within lived their quiet lives. They were simple folk, their daily routine never interrupted, until that thing came.
No one could explain where it came from, or when it started. Some said it was a curse, others called it a demon, but no one knew for sure. All they knew was that it was not a thing to be trifled with.
At first, it was just whispers. The old men at the tavern would talk about a floating head seen near the woods, the moonlight catching its hollow eyes. The women who worked in the fields at night swore they heard it before they felt its presence. The children were warned not to play past dusk.
But of course, there were always some who didn't believe. Young men, braver than wise, laughed at the stories.
It was one of them who found out the truth.
Aric was his name, a lad of no more than seventeen. He had heard the tales, scoffed at them with his friends, and, on a particularly hot night in summer, had set out to prove it was all nonsense.
"All this talk about ghosts," he said, with a reckless laugh, "I'm going to find this thing, and bring its head back to town."
His friends had begged him not to, but they knew him too well. Aric was the kind to prove people wrong, no matter the cost.
He entered the woods at twilight, thinking he could make it back before the full dark. But the trees seemed to get thicker as he went, the light from the sky dying faster than he could walk.
It was then that he heard it.
The first time, it was soft, barely a sound. But the second time, the sound was unmistakable. A whisper, like someone breathing through clenched teeth, but it wasn't coming from a person. It came from nowhere. Then he heard it again: the unmistakable sound of something dragging against the earth.
Then, the head appeared.
At first, he didn't understand what it was. A shape in the air, floating low to the ground. No body, just a head. It was pale, too pale. Its eyes were sockets, hollow and dark, with nothing left behind. Its mouth hung open, a ragged line as if the skin had been torn from it.
Aric stopped in his tracks. His body didn't obey his mind. He couldn't move. The head drifted closer, silent, its hollow eyes fixed on him.
"You shouldn't have come here," the air seemed to whisper. But no one had spoken.
Aric didn't scream, didn't shout. He stood frozen, his heart thumping in his chest. It was like the night had swallowed everything around him.
Then the head spoke again, or maybe it didn't. It didn't matter. There was something worse than the silence that followed. The head's hollow eyes moved, scanning his face, and then it came closer, closer than Aric thought possible.
With a jolt, Aric felt the cold air rush past his face. He felt something press against his chest, and before he could think, before he could react, his body jerked forward.
A hand, though no body to hold it, wrapped around his throat. He couldn't breathe. The more he struggled, the tighter the grip became. The head floated inches from his face, its mouth wide, as if mocking him. Aric tried to scream, but no sound came out. His limbs gave way beneath him, his knees buckling.
Then he understood. The head didn't need a body to move. It didn't need a mouth to speak. It just took.
His vision blurred. His eyes stung with the pressure, the breath escaping from his chest. It was cold. So cold.
Then, the grip released.
Aric collapsed, gasping for air, but the head was still there, hanging above him. For a moment, he thought it was over. But when he tried to stand, his legs gave way. His arms shook. His throat burned.
His mind swirled. The world tilted.
The head hovered closer, its hollow eyes watching him. It waited.
And as Aric struggled to stand, it let him. It let him feel every second of it. The pain, the hopelessness, the final realization that there was no escape.
Aric died that night, alone. There was no body to bury. No trace left of him except the memories of the town, fading into the past, lost to time, and cursed by the thing that never left.