The recent, yet unexpected, passing of Penny’s late grandmother continued to haunt her. Penny had lost her parents at a young age and was raised by her grandmother, a wise woman who made herself a source of warmth and comfort for her granddaughter. That was until the last couple years of her life. She had grown cold and distant, she hadn’t reached out to Penny in months, and she isolated herself in her home. Penny had never expected her to leave so suddenly, and the grief heavily chained itself to her heart.
As Penny packed away her grandmother’s things, she brought the boxes up into the attic, in hopes of removing the haunting memories. Placing box after box, it was hard for her to hold back tears knowing that she was storing the memory of her grandma away. An old picture of her grandparents and father hung low on the wall, over boxes of old items. Penny had lost everyone in her life and the sight of the photo sent her to her knees in tears.
As she wept, there was a shimmer that caught her eye, coming from the corner of the room. As curiosity swelled, she rose to her feet and carefully crept over to investigate the strange sparkle. And there, dangling from a coat hanger, hung a delicate piece, gold and intricately designed, with tiny emeralds glimmering like eyes on either side. With closer inspection, Penny identified the strange piece to be a locket. An old photograph was tucked inside—a sepia-toned image of a young woman who resembled her grandmother. As she picked it up, a slight warmth radiated from the locket, but she couldn’t help but notice that a faint breeze had swirled into the room. She quickly placed the locket around her neck and left the attic, yet she couldn’t shake a disturbed feeling.
The locket lay perfectly still against her chest, warmth radiating from its center, and she felt a strange pull of attraction to it. It was a feeling she couldn’t give a name to, a feeling she had never experienced before. It felt as if something was looming over her shoulder, and it wasn’t the grief from her grandma’s passing. It was something else.
That night, as she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching her. The moment she fell asleep, strange images flooded her mind. They were images of her life with her grandma, yet something felt different, as if something was missing. The images progressively felt darker. She lay there frozen, as she watched her grandmother’s life diminish once again, right before her very eyes.
Penny sat up suddenly, awoken by the replay of her grandmother’s death. It wasn’t until she had rubbed her eyes to clear her mind that she noticed everything in her room had been thrown around. It looked as if someone had broken in and randomly strewn all her belongings over the floor.
Despite being overwhelmed with fear, Penny forced herself to go back to sleep, not wanting to deal with this until the next morning. As she drifted away into a deep sleep, the images returned. This time they were different. This time, in every image, her grandmother was eerily staring straight into her eyes. How could she? It was a dream.
“Penny… Penny you need to destroy that locket,” the image of her grandmother spoke to her without moving, without opening her mouth.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” Penny asked. Her voice was distant, sounding as if she was yelling from the top of a mountain down to her grandmother.
“Look inside it, that picture isn’t me. It has you now. You can’t let it get you too.”
“I don’t understand? What do you mean it can’t get me too?”
“Once it gets you, it replaces you. It’s as if it drains you of your soul. It uses your soul to live its own life as you. And it will do that until it uses every last drop of you, until there is nothing left of you. Then it will move onto someone else.” The image of her grandmother slowly faded into the distance, and Penny’s efforts to grab the image, to save her, were in vain.
Once again, Penny awoke frightened. Her hand immediately flew up to the locket on her neck, and as she opened up the clasp, she noticed the image had changed. It was a slight change, but the photo no longer resembled her grandmother. It was like a distorted image of her. Shaking from her dream, she went into her bathroom to wash her face off with cold water.
As she lifted her head to grab a towel, water still dripping from her face, she caught a glimpse of the mirror. To her horror a figure stood behind her; still as death, with no clear shape to it. It was like she was looking at an object that wasn’t solid, it was blurred around the edges and had no defining features. She quickly turned, to see nothing behind her. But as she turned back to face the mirror, the figure in her reflection lunged at her. Penny shrieked, and covered her eyes with her hands, horrified.
Suddenly, everything was silent. She lifted her hands from her face and stared at her own reflection. She was alone. She watched herself lift her hand up to the locket and ever so slowly open it. Through the reflection she saw the image within the locket. It was no longer her grandmother, it was Penny. The figure looking at its reflection in the mirror smiled. It was an eerie smile, and inhuman looking. It closed the locket and left the room.
