- 6/17/2025
In a crumbling Portland home slated for demolition, a rusted film reel unearthed from the walls reveals a forgotten horror: five teenagers filming a séance in the woods. As the footage descends into chaos, an invisible force takes hold—warping time, trust, and sanity. But what was captured in the final frame has never been explained… and the date on the reel matches the day it was discovered—seven years later.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00They told us not to go inside.
00:03The floors were unstable, they said.
00:05Mold in the walls, asbestos in the ceiling.
00:09But Demolition Day doesn't wait for superstition.
00:13I was 23, working summers with my uncle's crew.
00:18That morning in June 1986, I found the reel wedged behind a heating vent in the basement of 312 Willow Street.
00:27It was labeled in thick black marker.
00:32June 6th, 1986.
00:35But the footage, the footage was from 1979.
00:40We watched it on a reel-to-reel projector in the garage.
00:44No sound, just grainy images of five teens laughing, heading into the woods.
00:51Then came the seance, the flickering candlelight.
00:54The way they started accusing each other.
00:57Crying, screaming, bleeding.
01:01One girl walked backward into the trees and never came back.
01:05And the final shot still haunts me.
01:09The reel was silent.
01:11But I swear, that last minute sounded like breathing.
01:15The first time I threaded that reel onto the projector, I did it with shaking hands.
01:24The kind of fear that clings to your ribs, not because of what you see, but because you already know it's wrong.
01:32It started innocently enough.
01:36Five teenagers standing on a dirt path, backpacked and bundled for a chilly Oregon spring.
01:43Their voices were lost to the silent film, but their mouths moved with laughter.
01:48One boy, taller than the rest, carried a handheld camera and pointed to a path marked Willow Creek, trail closed.
01:58They went anyway.
02:01The woods behind Willow Creek had long been a place of whispered warnings.
02:06Stories of children disappearing.
02:08A local legend about a black tree with no leaves, even in summer.
02:14But in 1979, kids loved scaring themselves.
02:19There was something rebellious about it, and as the footage stuttered forward, it was clear they'd planned this outing with that in mind.
02:29The girl with the wide, frightened eyes, Holly, I'd later learn, carried a candle and what looked like a worn, leather book.
02:40Another boy, curly-haired and fidgety, carried a bell jar filled with ash or dirt.
02:46They were trying to summon something.
02:50The camera sat on a rock.
02:53For a few minutes, nothing happened.
02:56Then the footage jumped.
02:59It cut to one of the teens, Ricky, bleeding from his nose.
03:04His head jerked back unnaturally before the image smeared into black for several frames.
03:10When it returned, the group was arguing, no longer laughing.
03:14One boy paced, holding his temples.
03:19The other girl had curled into herself by a tree, scratching at the bark until her fingers bled.
03:26Holly opened the book again.
03:28The candle flickered, then grew unnaturally tall, at least double its height in one frame.
03:36Another jump.
03:37They weren't alone anymore.
03:40It wasn't something you saw right away, but shadows didn't move like that.
03:46A figure, barely a silhouette, passed between two trees in a frame so grainy it almost escaped me.
03:53But once you saw it, you couldn't unsee it.
03:56Another jump.
03:57Ricky was gone.
03:59No one mentioned it.
04:00As if his absence had been erased from their minds.
04:05The next scene showed only three of them.
04:08Holly, the curly-haired boy, and the girl who had been by the tree, whose name, I think, was Mara.
04:16They sat in a triangle, holding hands.
04:19Their faces were blank, eyes wide, unblinking.
04:23There were marks on their skin, scratches that hadn't been there before.
04:27Then came the worst part.
04:31The camera began to move.
04:34Not shakily, not handheld, smoothly.
04:38As if on a dolly.
04:40It circled them, slowly, deliberately.
04:43But no one was filming.
04:45As the reel ticked forward, I felt a coldness in the room.
04:50Not from the garage door being open.
04:52A deeper chill, like something leaning in, just behind me.
04:56I didn't turn around.
04:59The final minute of film was utterly still.
05:02Just the treetops, captured from below.
05:05Leaves barely rustling.
05:07But in those branches, you could see them.
05:10Five figures.
05:11Swinging.
05:12Silent.
05:13Then, a date.
05:16Burned into the last frame like a scar.
05:20June 6th, 1986.
05:23The day I found it.
05:26But no camera from 1979 could have recorded that.
05:30The reel was marked June 6th, 1986 from the start.
05:35No forensics ever made sense of it.
05:38No one could explain how a film made in 1979 ended with footage from 1986.
05:45Or, why every original label said otherwise.
05:48I took it to a university professor once.
05:52He watched five minutes and refused to finish.
05:56He told me, without irony, to bury it in salt and never speak of it again.
06:02So I did.
06:03Until now.
06:05I didn't sleep that night.
06:08The reel stayed locked in my uncle's workshop, but I couldn't shake the images.
06:12Not just the footage, but something else.
06:16That feeling I'd had while watching it.
06:18That I wasn't alone.
06:20That someone, or something, was seeing through me.
06:24Over the next week, things started to go wrong.
06:28My friend Bobby, who'd watched the film with me, called two days later.
06:33Aitik said he hadn't been to work since.
06:36Said he felt watched, that his house had gone cold.
06:41He swore up and down that the projector turned itself on one night around 3 a.m., even though
06:48we'd unplugged it.
06:49He burned sage, lit candles, but the smell lingered.
06:54Smoke that didn't come from anything burning.
06:57Something like wet leaves and rot.
07:00Then came the voices.
07:03Low murmurs, mostly.
07:05Just out of earshot.
07:07I heard them, too.
07:09I returned to the reel, thinking maybe it was just paranoia.
07:14That, watching it again, might dispel the fear.
07:17But it was worse the second time.
07:20There were new frames.
07:22Images I didn't remember.
07:24One, showing Holly staring directly at the camera.
07:29Whispering.
07:30But the reel had no sound.
07:33Another of Mara pressing her hand against the lens, as if trapped behind glass.
07:38I paused the frame.
07:41Her eyes weren't her own, not anymore.
07:46I tried to get rid of it.
07:49First, I left it in the dumpster behind the local theater.
07:53Gone the next day, but back in the garage that night.
07:57Then, I buried it.
07:59I dug a hole in the backyard, wrapped it in cloth and poured salt over it.
08:06I didn't tell anyone, not even Bobby.
08:09It rained hard that night.
08:12Thunder shook the sky like the earth itself had cracked open.
08:17The next morning, the film canister sat on the porch, clean, dry, and still warm to the touch.
08:23That was when I called a professor at Reed College.
08:28A folklore expert who specialized in occult artifacts and urban legends.
08:34Dr. Hargrave.
08:36He didn't laugh.
08:37I brought the reel to him.
08:40He didn't touch it.
08:41Only observed it under a magnifier.
08:44He said the film stock had no manufacturer markings.
08:48No edge codes.
08:49No serials.
08:50It was film, but not of this world.
08:54When I asked what to do, he said only this.
08:57Do not screen it again.
08:59And under no circumstance should you bring it into a sacred place.
09:04What happens if I do?
09:07He looked up.
09:08And for a long time, he didn't answer.
09:11Then finally.
09:13It's not the footage that curses you.
09:16It's the watching.
09:18By then, it was too late.
09:21Bobby had gone missing the night before.
09:24Police found his shoes at the edge of Willow Creek.
09:27That same trail-closed path from the film.
09:32His front door was unlocked.
09:35TV on.
09:36No signs of struggle.
09:38The reel sat beside his couch, neatly rewound.
09:43I went there once more.
09:45Back to Willow Creek.
09:47I don't remember driving.
09:50I only remember standing at the tree line.
09:53The scent of damp moss and iron heavy in the air.
09:56There were no birds, no insects, no wind.
10:00I heard the camera click behind me.
10:03But I was alone.
10:05No one's seen me on film since.
10:08Not in family videos.
10:09Not in mirrors.
10:11My reflection is gone.
10:14A price, maybe, for having watched what I wasn't meant to.
10:17But I still have the reel.
10:21I've kept it sealed inside a metal box.
10:24Locked inside another.
10:26Buried again with salt and prayers and warnings.
10:29Because somewhere in that footage, time bends.
10:35Memory breaks.
10:37People vanish.
10:38And if you ever come across it, don't thread it.
10:43Don't watch, burn it, or walk away.
10:46But never, never play the willow tape.
10:50Years passed.
10:52I moved away.
10:53Changed my name.
10:54Tried to outrun what I saw.
10:57But some things cling, no matter how far you go.
11:00In 1995, I got a letter with no return address.
11:06Just a folded piece of paper, yellowed and brittle.
11:09It said,
11:10They're still watching.
11:12H.
11:14I hadn't spoken that name in nearly a decade.
11:17Holly.
11:19She was supposed to be dead.
11:21Swung from the trees in that silent final frame.
11:25But I found myself tracing that single letter again and again.
11:28Until the ink rubbed off on my fingertips.
11:32That night, I dreamt in black and white.
11:35I was in the woods again.
11:37But this time, I wasn't watching.
11:40I was being watched.
11:42Eyes peered through the trees.
11:44The candle flickered again.
11:47I could smell it now.
11:48Wax.
11:49Old paper.
11:50Burned hair.
11:51I turned to run and fell into the earth itself.
11:55Swallowed by rot.
11:57When I woke up,
11:58Dirt was under my nails.
12:01My fingers smelled of smoke.
12:04I told no one.
12:06In 2004, a man knocked on my door.
12:09He said his daughter had vanished in the Portland woods near Willow Creek.
12:13That her friends claimed they were making a film.
12:17He held up a photo.
12:18It was the same camera, same model, same make.
12:22A reel-to-reel.
12:24Just like the one from the tape.
12:26I told him everything I could, but he left hollow-eyed and trembling.
12:30A month later, they found him in the woods.
12:34Eyes wide.
12:35Skin cold.
12:37No cause of death.
12:39The coroner noted one thing.
12:41His pupils had narrowed to pinpricks, like someone looking into direct light or through a lens.
12:50I don't sleep much now.
12:52Haven't in years.
12:54The tape's buried deep, but its echo still finds me.
12:59Sometimes I hear the clicking sound in my dreams.
13:02Sometimes it's just behind the walls.
13:06Sometimes I see shadows that don't belong to me.
13:10So if you're hearing this, if this account finds you, promise me something.
13:17If you ever come across a metal box sealed with iron wire and etched with the date June 6th, 1986, don't open it.
13:28And for the love of God, don't watch the willow tape.
13:35In 2023, the house at 312 Willow Street was demolished for real.
13:42Foundation and all.
13:44But during excavation, the crew found something unexpected.
13:49Beneath the crawlspace, buried in the untouched soil, was a metal box wrapped in rusted chains.
13:56The foreman, a man named Alvarez, said it was ice cold despite the summer heat.
14:03Inside, the real.
14:05Still marked June 6th, 1886.
14:08It changed hands three times that year.
14:11Archivists, collectors, even a YouTube urban explorer.
14:16All of them disappeared within months.
14:18No trace.
14:19Only their empty homes.
14:21Power still running.
14:22Cameras still recording.
14:23Then, the footage resurfaced on a darknet forum.
14:28Digitized.
14:29Cleaned.
14:30But the last frame was missing.
14:32Just static.
14:34And a sound.
14:35Barely audible but there.
14:38Like breath behind the microphone.
14:40Or someone whispering just beyond the veil.
14:43They say the original reel is still out there, sealed in something stronger than iron.
14:49But if you hear a knock late at night and no one's there, ask yourself.
14:54Did you watch the willow tape?
14:56And so, the shadows stretch further and the mystery only deepens.
15:03But this is far from the end.
15:06It's merely the beginning.
15:08What lingers beyond the door?
15:10Who is whispering your name?
15:12And what is that shifting in the corner of your eye?
15:15The answers await in the next chapter of these chilling tales.
15:21Subscribe to Nightfall Crypt and hit the notification bell.
15:26Because the crypt's secrets are endless and the darkness never sleeps.
15:31Until next time, stay in the light if you can.
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