🕯️ The Nightly Storyteller Presents: “The Draw”

🎙️ Intro — The Whisper Between Worlds

> The rain has a voice, you know.

Not the soft lullaby poets talk about, but something older… lonelier.

It speaks in patterns — the rhythm of regret against a windowpane, the sigh of wind slipping through an open crack.

When I was younger, I used to listen to it.

But that was before I learned that some knocks shouldn’t be answered.

And yet, we always do.

We open the door — hoping for closure, or forgiveness, or maybe just a sign that we’re not alone.

Tonight’s story begins with a knock like that…

and a coin that should’ve stayed in the rain.

---

🌧️ Scene One: “The Draw”

Cary, Illinois.

A neighborhood where every house looks like it’s waiting for something — blinds half-closed, porch lights flickering like they’re afraid of the dark.

Inside one of those houses, three friends gathered as rain lashed the windows.

The air smelled like damp carpet, burnt popcorn, and stale beer. Somewhere, a fridge hummed with a tired rattle. The heater clicked on, coughed, and fell silent again.

Leah sat cross-legged on the couch, scrolling through her phone, her thumb pausing on a text thread that hadn’t seen a reply in weeks.

Mark, jaw tight, sat beside her, still in his grocery store uniform, a crumpled termination letter peeking from his jacket pocket.

Jess, the quiet one, leaned against the wall, her black hoodie smelling faintly of smoke and rain. She hadn’t said much since her father’s funeral three days ago.

No one wanted to be alone, but no one really wanted to talk either.

Thunder rolled overhead — slow, lazy, like a sleeping animal turning in its den.

“Let’s do something,” Mark said finally, rubbing at the bags under his eyes. “Anything to forget today.”

Leah glanced toward the attic. “There’s that box up there. My aunt used to keep weird stuff in it. Cards, crystals… a witch board, I think.”

Mark forced a grin. “Perfect. Let’s summon some good luck.”

---

Jess returned from the attic carrying a dust-covered cardboard box. The air filled with the smell of old paper and cedar. Inside lay a warped witch board — not store-bought, but carved by hand. The letters were uneven. The wood splintered. The planchette shaped like a tear.

Beside it, a tarot deck bound by a fraying ribbon.

“Guess this’ll do,” Leah said, clearing a space on the coffee table.

They lit three candles, their small flames bending with every draft. The room flickered in orange and shadow. The rain outside whispered against the glass, steady and soft — like something breathing just beyond the walls.

Leah shuffled the tarot deck. The cards were waxy, slightly sticky, the edges curling from years of handling. She drew three, laying them down carefully.

The Tower.

The Moon.

The Devil.

The thunder cracked — perfectly timed, as if the storm had been waiting for the reveal.

“Great,” Mark muttered, his forced laugh sounding brittle. “Ruin, fear, and a deal with the devil. Fitting, Jess. Thanks, Leah.”

Jess didn't look up. “Let’s just finish. Please.”

Mark brushed dust from the witch board and placed the planchette in the center. It was cold, unnaturally so, slick against their fingertips.

The candlelight quivered. The shadows leaned closer.

“Is anyone here?” Leah asked, her voice trembling just enough to betray the joke.

Nothing. Then — the faintest vibration under their fingers.

The planchette began to move.

C—O—M—E—I—N.

The last letter finished, and the planchette didn’t stop — it scraped loudly across the warped wood, leaving a faint, greasy residue that smelled of sulfur and old pennies.

Then came a knock at the door.

Three knocks.

Slow. Hollow. Certain.

Mark stood, his pulse quickening. “Probably some idiot messing with us.”

He opened the door. The night stared back — black, wet, and humming with electricity.

No one was there.

Only a single gold coin gleaming on the doormat.

He picked it up. The metal was warm — almost alive — and it thrummed faintly in his hand, like something with a pulse. Rhythmic. Counting.

It smelled faintly of rain and blood.

“Some prank,” he said, forcing a laugh. “Lucky charm, maybe.”

Leah exhaled shakily. “Then why does it feel… heavy?”

Before he could answer, every candle went out. The lights popped. Darkness dropped over them like a shroud.

---

👁️ The Echoer

The first voice came from the hallway vent.

Soft. Familiar. Wrong.

> “Leah…”

It was her ex’s voice — perfect in tone, but hollow in soul. The voice of her most painful, unreturned text message.

Then came another, from the kitchen:

> “Mark…”

A mocking, disappointed echo of his old boss, pronouncing the word failure without speaking it.

And finally, from behind Jess:

> “Jess…”

Her name, spoken in her father’s voice — raw, broken, and impossibly close.

Something moved in the dark. Not walking. Crawling.

The faint scrape of fingernails along drywall. The wet sound of breathing through too many throats. Skrrrchhh.

The candles flickered back to life, one by one — and for a split second, they saw it.

A shape — long and twisted — sprawled halfway up the wall, its limbs jointed wrong, its head cocked at an unnatural angle. No eyes. No mouth. Just skin stretched too tight and trembling.

It vanished the moment the last candle flared.

Mark screamed. Jess, reacting to her father's voice, tried to grab the heavy planchette to throw it. But she only managed to knock the gold coin from the table.

The creature stopped.

Then it screamed.

A sound like every memory being ripped apart at once. Glass shattered. The wall clock burst. For a moment, they couldn’t remember their own names.

Amidst the tearing sound, the coin’s noise was unnaturally clear — a tiny, sharp clink as it rolled across the floor, stopping precisely halfway between them and the crawling shadow. The creature paused, listening to the silence the coin created.

Then — a whisper.

Faint. Warped.

> “Leah…”

Jess’s voice. But wrong. Echoed from nowhere.

When the lights returned, Jess was gone. The floor was wet where she’d stood, the air thick with the scent of copper and rain — as if something had been dragged through a storm that didn’t belong inside.

The coin remained, gleaming faintly, untouched.

Leah stared at it through tears. “We leave it,” she whispered. “We leave it right there.”

They ran. The door slammed behind them. The rain swallowed their footsteps.

But the coin stayed.

Still warm.

Still humming.

---

🪙 Mythos: The Threshold Seal

No one knows who made the coin — or what it seals.

Some say it was forged from the first lie ever told.

Others whisper that it’s a fragment of a promise that should’ve stayed broken.

It protects only when given up, never when held.

And once used, it takes something in return — a memory, a name, or a face.

Those who survive forget more than what they saw.

They forget who was with them.

---

🕯️ Outro — The Storyteller’s Reflection

> I drove past that house once. The windows were dark, but I swear I saw something glinting on the porch — just a speck of gold, catching the moonlight between cracks of thunder.

I didn’t stop.

Some thresholds are meant to stay closed.

Some knocks aren’t invitations — they’re warnings.

And sometimes… the coin comes back.

Not to the house.

To the survivor.

Somewhere behind me, in the dark, something clinked once —

like a coin settling on wood.

But that’s a story for another night.

---

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We’re just getting started — and things are about to get dark.

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