I used to think horror movies were our weird kind of therapy.

My sister and I grew up in a home where fear was something you could control—pick a film, press play, scream a little, laugh it off, go to bed. People never understood how we could watch the heaviest movies to relax, but it was our way of escaping real life. The fear was immediate and harmless. Or so we thought.

Because the truth is, our apartment already had its own soundtrack.

It started after I brought home a Ouija board. I wish I could blame curiosity, peer pressure, or some dramatic reason, but honestly? I was young, grieving, bored, and stupid enough to believe a wooden board couldn’t change a life. We used it like a party trick. Then the house changed tone—like the air learned how to hold a grudge.

We heard things. Whispers that didn’t belong to the TV. Footsteps in rooms we weren’t in. The sensation of being watched when the lights were off. My sister, who was never truly scared of anything, started sleeping in my room after our movie nights. She’d crawl under my blankets and press her knee into my back like she always did, annoyed and affectionate at the same time.

And then came the night that erased the line between “creepy” and “unlivable.”

She was watching The Exorcist in the living room—because of course she was. By the time she turned everything off, I was half asleep. I heard her set a glass down in the kitchen. I heard her footsteps toward my room. The door was cracked open. She slid behind me under the covers. Her knee nudged my back.

Normal.

Then I heard movement in the kitchen.

Not a quiet settling sound. Not a pipe. Not the refrigerator hum. It sounded like someone sorting through our reality with both hands. I whispered her name. No answer. I assumed she’d fallen asleep.

The footsteps continued. Toward the living room. Back to the kitchen. The click of the light switch.

I froze.

Then I heard the microwave door open.

And turn on.

It took exactly one second for my brain to catch fire.

My sister was in the kitchen.

So what was pressing into my back?

I shot up and ran. I don’t even remember touching the floor. I remember the terror—the kind that isn’t dramatic, isn’t cinematic, isn’t a fun story yet. It was raw and humiliating. Like your body understands your vulnerability before your mind can label it.

I found my sister crying in the kitchen.

My father woke up to our screams.

And in that horrible, bright, ordinary kitchen light, we understood something we never wanted to accept: this wasn’t a phase, or imagination, or a spooky streak of bad nights. This was our reality. And whatever was here didn’t care how much we begged it to leave.

I did things I’m still ashamed of.

One night, I walked with a friend toward Álvaro Obregón, carrying the board like it was a live bomb. I left it beside a homeless woman sitting on a bench, convincing myself I was saving my family. I didn’t even look back until guilt hit harder than fear. I ran back later and took it, shaking, whispering apologies as if my own selfishness could be reversed.

But fear messes with your mind.

When I thought I saw that same woman later near our building, I spiraled. Then my father casually said he’d also seen a “crazy woman” at our door earlier. I didn’t know what was real anymore—only that the board felt like a curse that could follow me through daylight.

We tried to ask for help.

A priest listened, skeptical, until something inside the church caught his attention. He looked up toward a balcony, went silent, and asked us to leave with the board. My sister swore she saw a child-shaped darkness watching from above. Maybe he saw it too.

A “shaman” was the first person who didn’t treat us like dramatic girls. He said something that stuck with me: never trust anyone who turns spiritual help into a business transaction. He performed rituals that quieted the house—but the board kept returning to the same place, like an animal that knows the path back to its nest.

The worst part?

It used my mother.

She was already gone. And one evening, I saw a figure shaped like her moving across our ceiling, upside down, wearing clothes I remembered too well—but with a face that wasn’t a face. Just broken skin and blood and a cruelty designed to hurt me where I was weakest. I still can’t describe the sound I made when I realized grief could be weaponized.

Time softened things.

The shadows became less clear. The nights became less violent.

But my sister still hears it.

A laugh.

Small. Choked. Brief.

From under her bed.

Once or twice a week.

And we still haven’t looked.

So tell me—if you were me, what would you do?
Destroy the board and risk losing control of whatever this is… or live with the terror you’ve already learned to survive? 😔