Diary Entry: November 16, 1994
You will read these words, and they will consume you. The deeper you dig, the more you'll unravel, until even the people you love become faint echoes in the back of your mind. You will tell yourself you're searching for answers, for justice, for a way to make things right. But the truth is, you will forget. You will forget why you started, forget the face of the one you swore to protect.
The diary will become everything to you. Its words will fill the silence, its truths will become your obsession, and its warnings will seem louder than the voices of your friends and the cries of your family. And before long, you will find yourself standing in the ruins of your life, wondering when you stopped caring about anything else.
You will lose yourself, Ethan Holloway. Not to the darkness, but to the words.
End of Entry
The words blurred together as I stared at the page, the weight of the diary pressing down on my lap like a stone. My heart raced, a sickening mix of anger and fear tightening in my chest. How could it know this? How could it possibly predict my thoughts, my actions, even the things I hadn't admitted to myself yet?
I slammed the diary shut, the sound echoing through the silent room. My breaths came fast and shallow as I fought to suppress the rising panic. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true.
But even as I denied it, I couldn't ignore the gnawing sense of familiarity in the words.
Lately, the diary had been all I could think about. I spent hours reading and rereading its entries, dissecting every sentence, every phrase, every scribbled note in the margins. I told myself it was for Hannah, that I was trying to find a way to bring her back. But somewhere along the way, the lines had blurred.
It wasn't just about Hannah anymore. It was about the mystery, the power, the strange, unexplainable pull of the diary's words.
I barely noticed the knock at my door until it came a second time, louder and more insistent.
"Ethan?" Lila's voice broke through my haze, sharp and concerned. "Are you in there?"
I hesitated, glancing at the diary as if it might vanish if I left it unattended. "Yeah," I called back, forcing my voice to sound normal. "I'm here."
The door creaked open, and Lila stepped inside, her expression wary. She looked at me, then at the diary on my desk.
"You've been in here all day," she said, her tone accusatory. "Have you even eaten?"
"I'm fine," I said, brushing her concern aside. "I've just been… busy."
"With that thing again," she muttered, nodding toward the diary.
I stiffened. "It's not a thing, Lila. It's the only chance I have of figuring out what's going on."
She crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing. "Figuring it out? Or losing yourself in it?"
Her words hit too close to home, and I turned away, pretending to organize the clutter on my desk. "I don't have time for this," I said. "Every second I waste is another second closer to—"
"To what?" she interrupted, stepping closer. "To losing yourself completely? Ethan, I get it. You're scared. You're desperate. But this—" She gestured toward the diary. "This isn't helping. It's taking over your life."
I clenched my fists, my frustration boiling over. "You don't understand, Lila. You didn't see what I saw. You didn't hear her scream. I can't just sit around and do nothing!"
Her face softened, but her voice remained firm. "I do understand. More than you think. But you're not going to save Hannah by shutting everyone else out. You need to take a step back before you drown in this."
I wanted to argue, to tell her she was wrong, but the words wouldn't come. Deep down, I knew she had a point. But admitting it felt like giving up, and I wasn't ready to do that.
"Just… leave me alone," I muttered, turning back to the diary. "I need to think."
She stood there for a moment, her disappointment palpable. Then, without another word, she turned and left, the door clicking shut behind her.
The hours blurred together as I poured over the diary, searching for some clue, some hidden message that might give me a way to fight back.
The entries seemed to taunt me, their cryptic warnings and eerie predictions pulling me deeper into their web. I found myself flipping back to old entries, comparing them to recent ones, trying to piece together a timeline that made sense.
But the more I read, the less sense it all made. The events seemed to spiral outward, connecting in ways I couldn't quite grasp, like the threads of a spider's web. And at the center of it all was the diary itself, an enigma that seemed to defy logic and reason.
I didn't notice the sun setting until the room was bathed in shadows, the faint glow of my desk lamp the only source of light. My stomach growled, a sharp reminder of how much time had passed, but I ignored it.
My mind was a storm of thoughts, each one louder and more chaotic than the last. What if the diary was right? What if I was losing myself?
I shook my head, trying to banish the doubt. No. I wasn't losing myself. I was fighting for Hannah. I was doing what I had to do.
But the voice in the back of my mind refused to be silenced, whispering doubts and fears that I couldn't quite ignore.
By the time Lila came back, I was a wreck. My eyes burned from lack of sleep, my head throbbed with the weight of too many unanswered questions, and my hands shook from the adrenaline that never seemed to fade.
"Ethan," she said, her voice softer this time. "You need to stop. Look at yourself. This isn't healthy."
"I can't stop," I said, my voice hoarse. "Not until I figure this out."
She sighed, pulling up a chair and sitting across from me. "Then let me help you. We're in this together, remember?"
I hesitated, the diary clutched tightly in my hands. Part of me wanted to let her in, to share the burden that felt like it was crushing me. But another part of me—the part that had grown obsessed with the diary's secrets—wanted to keep it to myself.
"You wouldn't understand," I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper.
Her eyes hardened, but she didn't argue. Instead, she reached across the table and placed a hand on mine. "I don't need to understand everything," she said. "But I understand you. And I'm not going to let you go through this alone."
For the first time in hours, I felt a flicker of something other than fear and despair. Maybe it was hope.
I took a deep breath, closing the diary and setting it aside. "Okay," I said. "Okay. Let's figure this out together."
She smiled, a small but genuine expression that felt like a lifeline.
And as we started to sift through the chaos together, I realized that maybe—just maybe—I wasn't as lost as I'd thought.