Remains- Campfire Story

Picture this. The fire crackles, casting eerie shadows on the trees. It was Jake’s turn to speak, and he leaned in, his voice low and tense. “Alright, listen up,” he begins, eyes flickering toward the darkness. “I’ve got one that’ll stick with you long after this fire’s out. Just… don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The group falls silent as Jake spins his tale.

“There was this woman, Sara Croft,” he says. “Lived alone in this decaying old apartment. The kind of place that creaks when there’s no wind, you know? Sara had been through hell. Lost her baby boy when he was just an infant. No one ever really saw her much after that. She kept to herself, shut away in her crumbling apartment, with nothing but her thoughts and… well, something else.”

Jake’s voice lowers, and the fire crackles loudly in the pause.

“Sara had kept his ashes. An urn, sitting on a dusty shelf. But her grief twisted into something dark—depression, anxiety, schizophrenia. She started hearing things, seeing things. And one day, she decided to try something… crazy. She grabbed an old handheld transceiver—like the ones we use for walkie-talkies—and put one inside the urn, thinking maybe, just maybe, she could hear her son again.”

Jake glances around the circle, his voice now barely above a whisper. “She heard crying. The soft wail of an infant… coming from the transceiver.”

A few nervous glances were exchanged across the campfire.

“She was ecstatic. Sara rushed to get a bottle of milk, hands trembling as she poured it into the urn, like she was feeding her dead baby. Then, she froze. She saw it. A hand—small, gray, and twisted—reached out from the urn. It was shriveled, malnourished, like it had been dead for years. It reached for her.”

Jake’s voice dropped lower, barely audible over the fire. “She freaked. Grabbed the nearest knife and crept toward the urn, her heart pounding so loud she could barely hear. When she peered inside… nothing. But something felt wrong. She could feel eyes on her, watching.”

“The urn… it called to her, and in a panic, she rushed it down to the basement. She slammed the door behind her, locking it, thinking it would be safe. But guilt ate at her. She couldn’t leave her son like that, could she?”

Jake leans forward, the flames lighting his face from below, casting dark shadows across his eyes.

“She opened the door again, and there it was—sitting in the darkness, just where she left it. But something was wrong. Two long, shadowy hands—twisted, clawed—wrapped around the urn. Slowly, they lifted it off the floor.”

A shiver rippled through the group.

“Sara bolted back upstairs, knife in hand. But before she could even catch her breath, the basement door creaked open. The urn… it was there again, right in front of her. Only this time… it was glowing.”

Jake pauses for effect. “She was drawn to it, like she couldn’t help herself. She picked it up, eyes fixed on the soft glow. But behind her—she didn’t hear it—the sound of soft footsteps. Something… was there. She felt cold, rotting fingers grasp her shoulders, and a voice, not quite human, whispered in her ear. ‘Mama…'”

A cold chill seemed to pass over the group as Jake’s words hung in the air.

“Sara dropped the urn, shattering it. The glow vanished, and she gasped, realizing that she was completely alone. She thought it was her mind, her sickness—playing tricks on her again. But when she went to glue the pieces back together… she couldn’t shake the feeling. Was it her son… or something far worse?”

Jake sat back, the firelight reflecting in his eyes. “That’s the thing. You never know if it was her grief, her mind snapping, or something supernatural. But the urn… it never stayed broken.”

He glanced at the darkness just beyond the light of the campfire, and his final words lingered. “So, when you hear a faint cry in the night, or a whisper when no one’s there, you might want to think twice before writing it off as your imagination. Because sometimes… they come back.”

The silence that followed was thick, the fire the only thing daring to move as everyone sat frozen in their seats, staring into the flames, wondering what might be lurking just beyond the glow.