"CAN'T YOU TAKE IT SERIOUSLY FOR ONCE?" Bob screamed at his friend, who was making a joke on his situation. 

His friend wasn't making fun of the situation because they found it hilarious or because it was like a big joke for them, for them it was a peculiar and terrifying situation too but knowing the thing their friend had went through for past few days, they thought it will be better to lighten up the mood a bit instead of stressing him out. 

Unfortunately enough, Bob didn't enjoy the joke or their attempt at trying to lighten up the mood. He understands that they do care about him and are trying to make him feel less stressed about it but they aren't going through what he is dealing with for almost a week and for him, nothing about this is funny. He is living in a puzzle game nightmare which he never even wanted to be part of, and this nightmare is leeching out his life, since he move in here. 

"Hey bro, sorry- but you should try to think straight too. This might be a huge prank" And the last thread that was connecting him to keep his cool and sanity snapped as soon as he heard those words. If Jim was in front of him, he would have punched him till he would have understood the difference between a prank and stalking. Even stalking isn't a proper word to describe what he is going through, well who will be even able to say that they are getting pieces of cut up letter in a red envelope for the past 8 days in his desk out of all of the places in the world, without sounding like a crazy drug addict and alcoholic.

"DUDE JUST SHUT UP, I don't think, I can tolerate any of your silly little humor at this moment" Even though his words were rude, his intention of making Jim realise that this is not a situation where any kind of jokes will be appropriate. With those words, he cut off the call and slammed his head on the bed, while still clutching over the letter.

It's the 8th letter addressed towards him, which was delivered through the second drawer in his study table. Usually that drawer is just filled with cut out papers, highlighters, pens and maybe a few rocks but on october 20th, these letters started to show up. 

The first letter also sparked curiosity and unlocked some beautiful nostalgic feeling. His younger sister used to write him letters, when she barely started to write. Those letters were usually just filled with few words and drawings but he held those precious to his heart. But instead of finding a letter filled with childish words or longer messages from his sister. He came across a message card made out of hardwood paper and there engraved his name with red ink along with a short message, 'Hope you stay till the ending.' And the rest of the context of the letters were just cut out papers.

 He asked his parents and other people about the letter, but none of them were able to see the creepy engraving on the paper. He sent the pictures to his friend, but none of them were able to read it, the only person who did believe him was Jim and he is beginning to doubt whether he actually did or not. Unfortunately enough, this wasn't the first time he got those letters, it has been going on for 8 straight days. He tried to stay up all night and watch who put those letters. He also tried to throw all of the cut pieces but all of them came back to the obvious observation that it's creepy. 

Bob checked the time again, almost 11PM. For the sake of his sanity, he decided to do one last thing before he loses his mind. He opened the drawer and left it open for the whole night. All of the cut pieces of God only knows which paper that appears in his drawer everyday thrown in the trashcan downstairs. He watched the drawer from his bed the whole night, along with a casual walk towards it. 

Bright sunlight, bird chirping and the blank drawer made him feel refreshed even after not sleeping even an ounce in the whole night. He shut down the drawer, and sighed in relief. He went downstairs to spend some quality time with his family, not thinking about the creepy letter for once in more than a week and to throw that shitty bag of trashy paper  that gave him chills. He was willing to forget the torturous week as a prank as his friend suggested until he saw no shredded paper in the trash can, painstakingly he went to his room to check and it's back in the drawer, with another letter. Bob's face would have been pure white out of shock and horror but he was already feeling those to show that extreme reaction. He opened the letter, to be greeted with the same wording, same writing style and smell of dried roses. 

Another day went by the similar process and no progress, his paranoia have reached beyond just checking the drawer. But everything fell into an end and just like that, the final letter arrived right before Halloween. Bob laughed a bit, wondering that this looks like a specified escape game walkthrough. The final letter gave him a hint, he will have to solve the puzzle and the first puzzle is to make a clear picture of those cut words.

If he was another random person, he would have reported it to the police or just disappeared, but unfortunately he was not normal and neither was the situation. So, he decided to play along with the game till the end and then free himself from this curse. 

"Will you sign up for this?" Another weird and creepy thing to be on a note that was just appearing in his room all of a sudden. He left the paper lying there and tried to think for a few more minutes. What the heck is this? How come it appeared in his room, out of all of the place? Is it some kind of game? 

He went to the kitchen to see the paper magically appearing there as if it had been there since the first time. He hesitated for a moment and then ran up to his room to see the paper still there.

"Fuck it, I am not paranoid." With those words he writes his name on the paper and throws it back on the drawer. He for sure knew that it wasn't a wise decision but he definitely knew that he is not insane, and he will prove that to everyone. 

After a while another letter made its way on his drawer and this time, it wasn't some letter or cut piece, it was a letter with the same red ink and the scent of dried roses, "Touch the world with my hands and destroy them with my demands,"

"What sort of rubbish is this?" He tried to comprehend those words but his mind gave up as soon as it began to think. 

He searched them up on the internet but the only thing that came up was just some collection of poems that weren't even remotely related to him. He gave up after a few more searches and slept on that letter. The only thing that he learned from this whole letter was that you should never try to get your head around something that you don't understand, but sadly it was too late for that. 

He woke up to another letter, but this time it wasn't filled with cut up letters, he was equally astonished and shocked to see one of the basic features of the envelope disappear in a shrill wave.
This time the letter was filled with his picture along with words put on them, "Forever be ever, be in our soul" each written in the same bloody stylish way.

Another silly rhyme took a toll on his mental health and he began to question his sanity for the nth time. The only thing he thought of right now was to look for the places where those pictures were taken and after a long time, He finally found another letter with the words, "Kind souls are green light, won't go down without a fight". At this point, he just assumed that these people were just putting random bullshit on this paper for this halloween surprise. But it was the most simple one so far, so it didn't take him much time to find the next letter. 

His kind little sister room, whose sweet demeanor consists of her fighting for anything. The next letter was on the box, "Great powers will be your strength, to save loved ones from brutal end".

Bob who was at least enjoying the letters for a while began to feel paranoid at the mention of loved ones, he didn't see his family members anywhere in the house, he checked all of the door, windows after that to escape from the place and look for his family but unfortunately there were no doors. He looked back at the door he came into the room and instead of the beautiful beige coloured door there lies the rigid wall, even all of the windows suddenly vanished among the walls. Soon the room began to lose the ailments to make it even less familiar to him. In the end, all that was left was just a beige coloured box, which held him from all directions.

Bob screamed in pain, and cursed under his hand while holding onto his head. Was it really happening or is it just another fever dream? He didn't feel anything but at the same time he felt every kind of emotion. The overwhelming pressure, fear and agony took over him and he was forced to shut his eyes in front of that. 

With another passage of silence, he got up to find himself in his living room, but again with no doors or windows. He saw another letter in front of him, with the letter finale engraved on it. The content of the letter was way more different than he thought, it wasn't another weird rhyme theme, it was just a word, "Failure". That word made his surroundings crumble down to the beige one again. 

"NO- BUT HOW- WHAT HAPPENED" Bob screamed at the top of his lungs. How did he even get himself in this mess? Just as he was wondering and blaming gaming this whole thing on his sister, parents, friends for not believing in him and himself, he heard a voice for the first time. 

"IS THERE SOMEONE HERE? PLEASE, HELP ME!" He screamed again, the only reply to his question was the echo of the word, "Forever" in the most eerie voice he had ever heard.

"PLEASE, STOP THIS. IT'S NOT A JOKE" Bob also knew that it wasn't a joke, this thing has crossed the line of reality and dreams, it couldn't be a joke.

"Forever," the same voice echoed back.

"PLEASE, I WOULD DO ANYTHING TO GO BACK" 

"Anything?" with a different reply from the eerie voice, Bob smiled in joy and repeated the word, "yes, anything"

...

 
The next morning, November 1st, They found Bob's dead body in his sister's room lying on the floor, bleeding from his wrist while a red pen lay around the room. It was declared later that he took his life by stabbing himself with the pen. Some of his friends shared the crazy story, the one he told them. In the end, people just assumed he went insane and killed himself in front of his sister.

Her sister was fortunately too young to remember that incident, and maybe the fact that their father took her out of the room while covering her eyes also played the part in her not being that traumatized or in grief, but that didn't stopped people from calling her heartless and the one who ate her brother's will to live away. 

As the years passed by, people stopped talking about that incident that much but it still had a quite a significant amount of effect on her family. Their family was never the same after that incident, her mother became either overprotective of her or absent, there was no inbetween. She either cared too much about her only living child or was lost in the grief of the lost one, and the fact that she is the same age as her brother when he decided to take his life away also didn't help the situation.

One morning, She found an anonymous red letter lying on her second drawer, with her name engraved on it with red blood. The content of the letter wasn't just terrifying but horrific.

"Help out your brother, Jane"

____________________________________

Word count :- 2163

This feels like a fever dream to me, I haven't slept in almost 2 days and I am writing this at 2am lmao