Diary Entry:
November 10, 1994
The harvest festival will end in chaos. They will blame the wind, the faulty wiring, but you will know the truth. When the fire starts, it will burn brighter than anything this town has ever seen, a warning to those who remain blind. A boy will scream, a shadow will move, and the cracks will widen.
You can try to stop it, but it won't matter. Some things cannot be undone.
End of Entry.
I stared at the diary, my pulse racing. My breath caught in my throat as I reread the words, over and over, trying to make sense of them. The harvest festival. It was happening tonight. Everyone in town would be there—the booths, the games, the food trucks, and the fireworks that always ended the evening. It was one of the biggest events of the year, a tradition as old as the town itself.
And now the diary was saying something would go wrong.
I slammed it shut, my hands trembling. Was it warning me? Or was it taunting me? The entry didn't give much detail, but it was enough to set my mind spinning. A fire. Chaos. A boy screaming. It sounded like something straight out of a bad dream.
I didn't want to believe it, but the diary hadn't been wrong before. The small predictions, the ones I'd written off as coincidence, were starting to stack up. Like the time it mentioned a power outage at the school two days before it happened. Or the note about the old elm tree by the library falling during last week's storm.
They weren't earth-shattering events, but they were real. And they had happened exactly as the diary said they would.
This time, though, it felt different. Bigger. More dangerous.
I glanced at the clock. 5:30 PM. The festival would be in full swing by now. The thought of going made my stomach churn, but staying home wasn't an option either. If something really was going to happen, I couldn't just sit here and do nothing.
I grabbed my jacket and stuffed the diary into my backpack. Whatever this was, I needed answers, and sitting around in my room wasn't going to get me any closer to finding them.
The town square was alive with light and laughter when I arrived. Strings of fairy lights hung from every lamppost, and the smell of fried dough and roasted chestnuts filled the air. Kids darted between booths, their faces painted like tigers and butterflies, while parents stood in groups, chatting and sipping cider.
It was the same as it had always been—a picture-perfect scene of small-town charm. But tonight, it felt off. The air was heavy, almost electric, and every laugh, every cheer, seemed to echo too loudly, like the sound was trying to drown out something else.
I found Lila near the ring toss booth, her arms full of prizes she'd won. She looked up and grinned when she saw me.
"Hey, you made it!" she called, waving me over.
"Yeah," I said, trying to match her enthusiasm. "I thought I'd check it out."
She tilted her head, studying me. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I forced a laugh. "I'm fine. Just… tired."
Lila didn't seem convinced, but before she could press me, a group of kids ran past us, yelling and laughing as they chased each other with glow sticks.
"Come on," she said, grabbing my arm. "Let's check out the fireworks spot before it gets too crowded."
I let her pull me along, my eyes scanning the crowd. The diary's words echoed in my mind, a constant loop that I couldn't shut off. A fire. Chaos. A boy screaming.
"Ethan, seriously, what's up?" Lila asked as we wove through the throng of people.
I hesitated, debating whether to tell her. But before I could answer, the sound of glass shattering cut through the air.
Everyone stopped, heads turning toward the sound. It had come from one of the booths near the edge of the square, where a vendor had dropped a tray of drinks. A nervous laugh rippled through the crowd, and the music started up again.
But I couldn't shake the tension that had settled over me.
We found a spot near the back of the square, where the crowd thinned out. Lila was still talking about something—probably a story from school—but her words blurred into background noise. My focus was on the diary, the weight of it in my backpack like a constant reminder.
And then I saw him.
A boy, maybe ten or eleven, standing by the cotton candy stand. His face was pale, his eyes wide as he clutched a small stuffed animal to his chest. He was staring at something, frozen in place, but I couldn't see what.
"What's wrong?" Lila asked, noticing my expression.
"That kid," I said, nodding toward him. "Something's not right."
Lila followed my gaze. "What, the one with the bear? He looks fine to me."
But he wasn't fine. I could feel it. The way he stood there, unmoving, like he was rooted to the spot—it sent a chill down my spine.
And then he screamed.
It was a sound that cut through everything else, piercing and raw, and the crowd fell silent in an instant.
The boy turned and ran, disappearing into the throng of people, and that's when I saw it. A shadow, long and thin, slipping between the booths like smoke. It moved too quickly to be a person, too fluid to be anything natural.
"What the hell was that?" Lila whispered, her voice tight with fear.
I didn't answer. My heart was racing, my mind trying to process what I had just seen.
And then the fire started.
It was small at first, just a flicker of orange near one of the food trucks. But within seconds, it grew, the flames leaping higher and higher as people screamed and scrambled to get out of the way.
Lila grabbed my arm, pulling me back. "We need to get out of here!"
But I couldn't move. My eyes were locked on the fire, on the way it seemed to spread unnaturally fast, like it had a mind of its own.
"Ethan!" Lila shouted, snapping me out of my trance.
We pushed through the panicked crowd, the heat from the flames growing more intense with every step. The square was in chaos now—parents yelling for their children, vendors trying to salvage their booths, and the sound of sirens in the distance.
But as we reached the edge of the square, I turned back one last time.
And there it was again. The shadow, slipping into the woods behind the festival, disappearing into the darkness.
By the time we made it back to my house, my hands were still shaking. Lila paced the room, her face pale, her usual bravado nowhere to be found.
"That wasn't normal," she said finally, breaking the silence. "That fire… that shadow… Ethan, what the hell is going on?"
I hesitated, unsure of how much to tell her. But after what we had just seen, there was no point in holding back.
I pulled the diary out of my backpack and handed it to her. "This," I said. "It predicted everything."
Lila flipped through the pages, her eyes scanning the entries. When she reached the one about the festival, she froze.
"This… this can't be real Ethan, I surely said I would help you but don't... just don't joke around" she whispered, but her voice lacked conviction.
"It is," I said, sitting down on the edge of my bed. "I don't know how, but it is. And whatever that shadow was—it's connected to all of this. To the diary, to the town, to everything."
Lila sank into the chair by my desk, still clutching the diary. "What do we do now?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
I didn't have an answer. All I knew was that the diary wasn't just a warning. It was a guide, leading me deeper into a mystery I wasn't sure I wanted to solve.
But one thing was clear: this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
Just as the weight of the night's events began to settle, a faint knock sounded at my bedroom door. Before I could answer, Hannah peeked in, her wide eyes filled with fear. "Ethan," she said, her voice trembling. "Dad just got a call. That boy—the one who screamed at the festival—he's missing. They said he ran into the woods, but no one can find him." The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I looked at Lila, who had gone pale, the diary still clutched in her hands. "It's happening again," I whispered, the realization chilling me to the core. The diary hadn't just predicted chaos—it had marked the beginning of something far worse.