My girlfriend is dead and so is my friend. They think I killed them.

We needed to get away.

Lena said the cabin would help. Something cheap and quiet, buried in the Upper Peninsula. Just me, her, and Marcus—our old friend from college. The listing described it as “a cozy off-grid escape, perfect for disconnection and healing.” Lena booked it that night.

“This could fix us,” she told me as we packed. She didn’t have to say what she meant. We both felt it. We hadn’t been right in months.

“I don’t know if a cabin can fix what we broke,” I said.
“Maybe not,” she replied. “But silence might.”

Marcus didn’t know about our problems. He just wanted beer, space to hike, and a few days without technology. I think that's why we invited him. Someone there to remind us of normal. To break the tension.

We drove for hours. Cell service died halfway. GPS followed. I held my phone to the window just in case. Nothing. No bars. No signal. Just the mocking little ‘SOS’ in the corner. We had to rely on the instructions the host sent and we had written down.

The final steps read:
“Turn right at the tree with two red ribbons. Follow the road and make a left at the wooden sign which reads Private Property. Cabin will be on the left. If you reach the pit, you’ve gone too far.”

By the time we arrived, the sun was gone. The woods were swallowing the last light like water down a drain. The cabin sat low to the ground, its windows like tired eyes. A porch light buzzed yellow above the door. It was the only thing that looked alive.

We parked the car and hopped out to inspect it further.

“Rustic,” Marcus muttered.
Lena forced a smile. “You mean charming.”
“It may not be the prettiest but at least we made it here. And the power seems to be working so that's a plus,” I said, letting out a sigh.

We unloaded the car and brought our bags inside the cabin to unpack.

Inside, the first thing we noticed was how clean and tidy it was. Someone had cleaned it recently and hadn't left a speck of dust or a single dirty dish. Not only that, but the cabin felt bigger on the inside. I noticed a note on the side table, by the door. It read:
“Welcome! We are happy to have you and we hope you enjoy your peaceful stay in our cozy cabin.”

In total were 3 bedrooms, a bathroom in the hallway, a kitchen, and a spacious living room with a large fireplace.

Me and Lena took the bedroom with the king-sized bed, and Marcus took the other with the queen. It wasn't lavish by any means but everything inside felt of high-quality and like it had been well maintained. Since we had an extra room, we used it to put our stuff in. It had a smaller sized bed and a toy chest in one corner. It seemed to have once been a child's room but now sat hollow and vacant.

That first night was fine. Me and Marcus played cards. He brought out some of his homemade moonshine and it burned all the way down. Lena didn’t drink, just sat curled on the couch, watching the fireplace like it might speak.

Around two in the morning, I woke up to the sound of pacing on the porch. Slow, deliberate steps.
I held my breath. Five steps forward. Pause. Five steps back.
I didn’t move. Neither did Lena. I could hear her breathing.

In the morning, we checked. Despite the fresh snow, there were no footprints. Nothing disturbed. Just flat, unbroken white.
“I heard it too,” Lena whispered when Marcus went outside. “I counted the steps.”

That night, the power went out. The fire still burned, but the lights flickered once and died. The porch light buzzed, popped, and went dark.

“We brought those backup lanterns, right?” I asked.
“Already on it,” Marcus said, pulling one from his bag. “Always trust a boy scout dropout.”

After an hour, something knocked on the window. One knock. Then a pause. Then three more.
Lena screamed. Marcus grabbed the axe from the fireplace.

We checked. No one there. But on the snow outside the window—bare footprints. Deep. Fresh. Starting at the window like someone had just appeared.

The next morning, we found something slipped under the door. A folded card, printed in soft pastels and bubbly font.
“Thank you for staying with us!” it said above a cartoon cabin with hearts around it.
Inside, handwritten in red ink:
“We hope you enjoyed the silence.”

We decided to leave.
We gathered all we could carry that was important and booked it for the car.

I hopped in the driver's seat but it wouldn’t start. We all decided to hike and make it back to the main road. The drive only took about 10 minutes from the main road so we felt like that was our best shot.

So we grabbed what we could and started walking. We hiked for what felt like hours, marking trees with a pocketknife. But we kept passing the same stump with three limbs—over and over. It was like the forest was folding in on itself.

Lena started crying. Marcus accused me of leading us in circles. I yelled back that we’d never turned around. Tensions were high and we were all scared and confused.

Eventually, we stumbled back into the clearing. The cabin was just… there. Like it had been waiting.

That night, the knocking came back. First the window. Then the door. Then the walls.

We sat still, breathing hard.
Then Marcus stood up slowly. He looked… hollow.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he said. “If no one else is gonna do something, I will.”

He grabbed the axe and walked to the door.

I told him “Wait, let's make a plan and figure this out together.”
He quickened his pace and I jumped up to stop him.

“Marcus, wait,” I said again, louder this time as I stepped in front of him, arms outstretched.
“Please don't go. We need to work as a team because obviously something is very wrong and we are safer in a group.”

His expression was blank as he lifted the axe and used the wooden handle to crack my nose and send me to floor reeling in pain.

Halfway out the door, he turned to me with wild eyes.
“They said I can go home. I have to go. They’re calling me.”

The second his foot hit the snow, his expression emptied. He didn’t even close the door behind him.

I started to follow, but something in me froze. Like my legs knew what my mind didn’t.
I simply got up and shut the door behind him.

We waited.
An hour passed.
Then another.
Then…

thud.

Something hit the porch. Heavy. Wet.

Another piece of paper slid under the door.

We hesitated to move and it felt like hours before I gained the courage to stand.

It said: “We only take what’s given.”

I opened the door.
Two severed hands. Marcus’s. His fingers curled and still twitching. Freshly severed arteries and tendons gushing bright red blood onto the white.
I slammed the door shut and fell to the floor crying. Knowing behind me was the only thing left of my friend.

Lena didn’t speak after that.
I guess neither did I.

Neither of us slept that night and we both sat in silence in the living room knowing Marcus was dead and his hands sat lifeless and cold on the porch.

The next day she began frantically rummaging around the house going through all the rooms, cabinets, and drawers.

She found an old toy chest in the back bedroom. Inside, broken crayons and scraps of construction paper sat underneath old wooden toys.

She used them to draw loops and spirals on the walls. Symbols. Names.

“I can hear them in the walls,” she whispered. “They keep saying my name.”

She stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. I found her crouched by the fireplace, whispering into the flames like it was answering.

“Can you grab the lantern from the back room? I'm scared of the dark,” she asked, voice low, eyes never leaving the fire.

I nodded, stood up, walked ten seconds into the dark.
When I came back—she was gone. The front door wide open. No footprints. Nothing but wind and silence.

I found one more drawing on the wall. Different from the rest.
A message.
“Don’t follow. They said I could go home. You’ll be safe if I go. I believe them.”

She was gone and I knew it. There was nothing I could do. I fell to the floor and sobbed. I lay there until morning and hoped that whatever took them would take me too.

When the first gray light hit the trees, I left. I walked until the snow turned to slush, until the trees thinned and I could hear the hum of distant trucks.
A snowplow picked me up.
I said I got lost hiking.
Nothing more.

The police investigation led to nothing other than Lena and Marcus's family believing I killed them for having an affair behind my back. They accused me of double homicide and said the motive was a crime of passion. Police told me they theorized I had taken them to the woods to kill them after finding out about an affair. I stuck to my story and said we had been killed off one by one after going to a cabin for a weekend. They never found the cabin and needless to say the listing was gone.

But I came back a week later.
Maybe it was guilt. It didn't feel right to be alive. Deep down I wished for death. For the end of this suffering. For peace and atonement for leaving them behind.

The listing was gone but of all the things I brought with me when I left that place, I made sure to grab the note on how to get back.

So I drove back to the Upper Peninsula and down the main road which led to the cabin – looking for a tree with 2 red ribbons.

But there were no ribbons.
No sign.
No path.
No cabin.
Just an empty clearing.

I fell to my knees and cried uncontrollably and screamed to be taken too.

It was as I lifted my wet face from my cold hands, that I spotted something red on the ground in front of me.

Half-buried in the snow—was a single broken crayon.

Its red tip poking out…

Like it had been placed there just for me.