Candle Face Victim #9: Sacrificed by Her Friends

December 27, 2023

Main Subjects: Candle Face

• Victim #9

I’ve been spending my nights in the living room again, leaving the kitchen light on. The glow casts just enough of a shadow in the far corner for any nocturnal visitors to step forward. As I fought off sleep tonight, I saw the shadows start to move, a clear sign that another visitor had arrived.

Out of the portal stepped a woman who looked young enough to still be in high school. This time, I tried something different. I sat up and waved her over to sit beside me. She glanced back at the dark corner and looked uncertain. Then she stayed where she was and went straight into it. Her words came fast and tight, and I worried her raised voice might wake everyone in the house, or even the neighbors.

This is her story:

High school graduation was coming up, and my friends and I decided to have one last slumber party. It was at my best friend’s house, an old place that always felt dusty and worn out. We stayed up late talking about crushes and what came next, even though I think all of us were nervous about it. Then the conversation shifted. My best friend brought up the ghost everybody in South Austin seemed to know about.

“Do you believe in Candle Face?” she asked.

I laughed. “Of course not.”

The other girls gasped. They looked at me like I had said something I shouldn’t have.

“You have to believe,” they told me. “She goes after people who don’t.”

I brushed it off. “I just don’t believe,” I said.

My best friend leaned forward, calm as ever. “Then let’s summon her,” she said. “Let her see for herself. Maybe she’ll spare you.”

That night, my friends gathered around a flickering candle. They chanted strange words in low voices. I stood off to the side, watching. It all felt ridiculous to me.

When nothing happened, I laughed again. “Where’s your Candle Face now?” I said, louder than I meant to.

A few days later, I disappeared. The same friends who had stood in that room with me joined the search parties and called my name, but they were never going to find me. My body was underwater. With my last breaths, Candle Face told me what had happened.

“Your friends sacrificed you to me,” she said. “They did it to protect themselves.”

That betrayal hurt more than death itself. I said, “Grant me my last wish. I want them to live with guilt and suffer for it.”

Candle Face tilted her head and smiled. “I like the way you think,” she said.

After that, my wish became their curse. Over the years, I watched guilt wear them down. Their lives fell apart.

Trying to escape it, they gathered years later in that same house and summoned my spirit, begging me to forgive them. I said nothing. Candle Face appeared instead.

“You betrayed your friend,” she told them. “For that, you are bound to her curse. You will suffer until death finally takes you.”

My best friend pleaded, “We believe in you. Please, let us go.”

Candle Face’s expression hardened. “Yes, you believe,” she said. “But you did not betray your friend for me. You did it for yourselves. You sacrificed her to save your own lives. There is no mercy for that.”

That’s where they are now. Trapped in torment, with no one coming to save them.

Personal Note to My Readers

During her visit, the spirit showed almost no fear. Anger carried her through the telling, and her resentment toward the friends who betrayed her was plain. Candle Face seemed to respect her final wish and took the curse as her own.

I get the sense that this spirit feels more at ease in Candle Face’s Lair than she ever did in life. Her tie to Candle Face seems strong, as if being betrayed bound them together in ways I don’t understand yet.

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.