Candle Face Victim #5: Too Late to Believe

December 7, 2023

Main Subjects: Candle Face

• Victim #5

It’s been a week since my last nocturnal visitor, and I’d started to wonder if they were done coming to me. That’s a strange thing to admit. What used to fill me with dread now leaves me waiting for the next encounter, even hoping for it. I’ve stopped taking afternoon naps, so I’ll be tired by nightfall, and I’m going to bed early instead of staying up late. I want to be ready if another spirit appears.

So far, my role has been simple. I listen to their stories and write them down. I haven’t helped them in any real way yet, but I’m holding on to hope that one day I can.

Then last night, something finally happened. Just after I finished saying my prayers, I noticed movement in the shadows of my room. At first, it was only a shift in the dark. Then it took shape and became a young woman. She came toward me as if she had no time to waste. This is what she told me:

It started at a gas station. I was trying to get inside before it got too late, and as I walked in, I noticed a young girl with messy hair pass by me. Something about her pulled at a memory, a story I had heard at the women’s group home where I was staying.

Late at night, we would sit around and talk about the ghost of a girl who died in a fire. They said she haunted people who doubted her. At the time, I barely paid attention. I was too caught up in my own problems, my mental health, and the things I was dealing with every day. The story felt small compared to what was already going on in my life.

That night, standing under the gas station lights, I laughed to myself. “If she were real,” I said, “she’d know life has worse demons.”

After I left the gas station, I took the longer way back to the group home. I wanted some quiet. The path ran through a wooded area off the main road. The trees moved in the breeze, and for a moment, it felt calm.

Then I felt it. A sharp heat at the back of my neck, like someone was watching me. I quickened my pace, fighting the urge to look back. Then I heard it. A whisper, so faint I almost missed it. “Believe...”

My heart started pounding. I turned around, but there was nothing there. Just the woods and the dark. I cursed my imagination and started walking again, faster this time.

Then I saw the glow. It came from the woods to my right, a soft flickering light. I followed it and found an old tent hidden among the trees. The flaps were unzipped, and inside, a single candle was burning. Sitting beside it was a little girl. Her eyes were full of sorrow, and when she looked at me, it felt like she was staring straight through me.

“Do you believe now?” she asked, her voice low.

I froze. “I... I don’t know what to believe.”

The wind roared without warning and put out the candle. The tent went black, and she was gone.

I ran. Regret hit me with every step. Why had I taken that path? Why had I mocked the story?

A week later, I found myself going back to those woods.This time, the flaps were zipped shut. My hands were shaking when I opened them.

Inside, the tent was filled with candles. Their glow reached every corner. And there she was, standing in the center. The flames lit her face.

“Why?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Why me?”

“You needed to believe,” she said. “In life, you fought your demons, but you never believed in me. You denied my pain, my existence.”

Tears ran down my face. “I believe now. I see you. I understand.”

The candles flared, their flames reaching toward me. She stepped closer until her face was only inches from mine. “It is too late,” she said softly.

Then everything went dark.

Days later, they found my body in those same woods. The cause of death remained unknown.

The spirit finished her story and looked at me, waiting. For the first time during one of these visits, I sat up in bed. I reached out my hand, and she did the same. Before we could touch, an ear-splitting screech came from the shadowed corner of my room. She pulled back at once, retreated into the portal, and vanished.

I rushed downstairs and wrote down everything I could remember.

The investigation continues in the three most recent entries below. Each adds to the record on Candle Face (Isabel), the Lost Souls, and the Fugitives. You’ll find every entry to date in The Journal.