October 31, 2020- Thomas Jacobs

They say it takes whoever they want. It doesn't matter who they are. The elderly, children, pregnant women, they take whomever. It's randomized every year. Anyone who says "no" has someone important taken from them, never to be seen again.

This year I was taken. I remember feeling some figure grab my shoulder, leading me to a wall of fog. The fog that the figure said would lead to "their world." 

When we stepped inside the fog, all I could see when I entered their world were dead trees, broken branches and abandoned houses. The sky was orange and their main light sources seemed to be jack-o-lanterns. Graves stood everywhere. No matter where I looked, there'd be about twenty gravestones in sight. 

They took so many lives already, but the only thing I could think about was how this looked like an abandoned Halloween town. I tried to find the spirit that took me, but they couldn't be seen. I thought that maybe they'd stick around, but I guess I had been wrong. 

I could feel a strange liquid hit my shoulder. I looked at my shirt sleeve and it was a reddish-purple color. I remember holding out my hand and a raindrop (if you could call it a raindrop) hit my hand. The texture felt like blood. However, my hand now had a burn on it. I assume this must be how people die somehow- poisonous rain.

I heard a boom of thunder and another branch fell down onto the hard ground. I could hear the branch hit the ground, making me jump where I was standing. The rain started coming down faster. It burned with each continuous raindrop that hit me. I knew I had to escape somehow. I needed to get back to my world.

I remember trying to call out for someone or a spirit to take me back, but my voice seemed to be inaudible to the spirits. I was growing more and more frantic with each and every passing second, every burn aching worse. I remember feeling my vision slowly grow black, but I couldn't fall asleep. I started running, trying to find the fog I entered from as I tried not to trip over any branches or gravestones. Once I got to where I last saw the fog, I felt a sense of horror and dread enter my stomach.

The fog was no longer where I last saw it. It struck me as the rain continued to burn. There was no exit. I was trapped here. I'm losing vision and it's becoming harder to write. There's no doubt about it. I'm about to die from poisonous rain in a whole different world than my own. If you find this note, it'll be too late. I'll be nothing more than a spirit that left their burnt body, haunting this ghost realm for the rest of this realm's existence...