Black Window. Scary short story
A girl lived in a small town.
Not far from their house, on a wasteland overgrown with weeds and nettles, there were old ruins. It was unknown what had been there before - a castle or a temple, but people in the city tried to stay away from this place.
Children were also afraid of these ruins, but sometimes they still used to come there, running among the debris and garbage, pretending that they were not at all afraid, although their screams contained more fear than fun.
Adults forbade children to play there, especially since a dead boy had recently been found in the ruins, but the more they talked about it, the more children wanted to visit the forbidden place.
There were many scary stories about the ruins - about the bone monster, about the green fog that could suffocate, about the black window.
The scariest story was about the black window that appeared right in the air, but almost no one managed to see it - because it appeared only on moonless nights. But apparently someone did notice a piece of blackness hanging in front of them, which differed from the black sky in that no stars were visible in it.
If you were not afraid and stuck your hand into the black window, you could pull out a gold bar or an uncut precious stone - a diamond or a ruby. Although you could lose your hand this way. And sometimes they would pull out their own or someone else's death from the black window. Someone else's death would simply fly away, and if someone pulled out their own death, they would immediately fall dead.
The worst thing was for those who did not notice the black window and walked through it. Later they were found in such a state as if they had fallen between two converging walls - their bones were crushed into small pieces.
But all the children dreamed of getting to the ruins at night and finding the black window. Many carried a piece of rope and a triple hook made of thick wire to throw into the black window and pull out gold or precious stones.
One day, a girl and her two friends went into the ruins after school so that no one would say later that they were cowards. They thought that they could just take a quick peek and then leave right away.
They were almost not afraid, because the sun was shining, and the evening was still a long way off.
When the girls climbed into the ruins, they stopped being afraid at all, because there they met two boys from the neighboring yard. It was more scary to twist an ankle or trip and fall, running among the pile of old stones.
After playing in the ruins, the children were about to leave, when suddenly one of the boys screamed:
"Window! Black window!"
The others ran up to the screaming boy and indeed saw a square piece of impenetrable blackness hanging low above the ground.
One of the boys was already tying a wire hook to a rope.
The black window hung in the air, featureless and motionless, but there was still something threatening about it, which made the children huddle together and cast nervous glances towards the black canvas of impenetrable darkness.
"Maybe we shouldn't?" said one girl.
"If you're scared, you can leave," said the boy with the hook, "no one's holding you. And we'll take all the gold for ourselves, since we found this window".
The boy went up to the black window, untwisted the hook and threw it into the center of the blackness, releasing the rope to its full length.
"Got it!" he shouted, yanking the rope, "I caught something!"
He pulled the rope towards himself. And he was about to pull out the rope completely, when suddenly something yanked the rope from the other side, so hard that the boy lost his footing and fell right into the black window.
Someone shouted. Another boy jumped forward, trying to catch his falling friend, but didn't have time.
"So what do we do now?" he asked a moment later, "Go after him?"
The next moment, a huge bony hand stuck out of the black window, trying to grab the boy, but he nimbly crouched and jumped back.
The bony hand disappeared.
"I w-won't c-go there," the boy said, stuttering with fear.
The girls were silent. Their faces turned white as chalk from fear.
"But he's there," the girl said, "and he needs our help."
"Did you see what crawled out of there?!" another girl screamed and started crying, "he's been dead for a long time."
As if confirming her words, the black window disappeared.
And a moment later, the children, as if only now realizing what had happened, started to run away screaming.
Having pushed through the weeds and not noticing the stings from the nettles, the girl got out of the abandoned wasteland and stopped abruptly.
A car drove past, on the other side of the road a woman with bags was walking out of the store. The sun was shining, music was coming from an open window somewhere. It was calm and peaceful around, and what had happened in the ruins seemed like a dream, albeit a very scary one, but quickly forgotten.
The girl did not see any other children, but they could have run in the other direction.
"What are we going to tell his mother?" the girl thought, but almost immediately forgot about it.
She shook off her clothes and went home. She had to do her homework.
"There was no black window," the girl thought, "we just imagined it."
But before she had time to take five steps, suddenly darkness opened up right under her feet...
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• Lord of Time. Scary short story
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• Blue glass. Scary short story