The Bridge of No Return

Maya ran.

Her legs moved before her mind could catch up, crawling out from beneath the bridge through a crack in the wood. Her body was scraped and bloody, but she didn't feel the pain. Only fear. Fear that wrapped around her lungs and refused to let her breathe.

Once outside, the world looked different. The sun was gone. The fog was thicker than before, as if it had teeth. Even the trees were silent, as if they were holding their breath.

She looked back at the bridge.

It was gone.

What stood there now was something older, something twisted. The planks looked like bones. The ropes were braided hair. The pillars were stained deep red. It wasn't a bridge—it was a shrine to horror.

And at the center, the little girl stood again.

Still.

Staring.

Maya turned and fled, not even sure where she was going. She stumbled into the forest that surrounded the bridge, branches clawing at her like fingers. She ran until she saw her house through the mist—only then did she collapse onto her porch, shaking.

Her father opened the door, confused, but when he saw her face—pale, haunted—his expression changed.

"Maya," he whispered, "You saw it, didn't you?"

She looked up, stunned.

"You… you know about it?"

Her father didn't speak. He just turned and walked inside. Slowly, she followed him.

He pulled out an old box from beneath the floorboards. It was locked with rusted metal and wrapped in cloth that smelled like ash. He opened it carefully.

Inside were photographs. Old, black-and-white photos of the bridge when it was first built. Workers standing proudly in front of it. But Maya noticed something chilling:

Every person in the photos had their eyes scratched out.

All but one.

In the center of each photo was a man in a priest's robe. The same priest from her vision. His face was never scratched. His smile was always wide. And his hands… his hands were always bloody.

Her father pointed to him.

"That man… was your grandfather."

Maya felt her stomach drop.

"He was one of the founders. He led the rituals. The killings. The sacrifices. He believed the bridge had to be fed to stay strong. He believed a god lived beneath it… but it wasn't a god, Maya. It was something else. Something older. Something evil."

Maya's skin turned cold.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I thought it was over," her father said, voice trembling. "Until people started going missing again. Until your friend disappeared. I tried to stop the government, but they wouldn't listen. And now… it's awake again."

That night, Maya couldn't sleep.

The wind howled like a screaming woman outside. Her bedroom mirror cracked on its own. Shadows crawled across her ceiling like they were alive.

Then she saw it.

A door.

In the center of her wall. A door that had never been there before.

Old. Wooden. Covered in carvings that moved like worms. It pulsed. It breathed.

She got up slowly. Her body moved on its own. Her hand reached for the knob.

As she opened it—blackness swallowed her whole.

She fell into a space with no ground, no sky, only floating faces. Some crying. Some screaming. Some laughing with twisted mouths stretched far too wide.

She was back at the bridge—but not in the real world. This was its world. The bridge's soul.

A figure stepped forward from the darkness. The priest.

His mouth opened. No sound came out—only flies poured out like smoke.

He held out the same book she had seen before.

> "Read it," he hissed. "Or become one of them."

Maya refused.

She screamed, and the scream ripped through the darkness like lightning.

She awoke.

Back in her bed. The mirror was whole. The door was gone.

But her pillow was soaked with blood.

And in her hand was something she hadn't picked up—

A page torn from the book.

The writing moved like snakes on the paper. But one sentence was clear:

> "The bloodline must pay."