The Hand Paper's Lament: A Bathroom's Curse

In the heart of a bustling city, nestled between towering skyscrapers and a labyrinth of narrow streets, there stood an old, dilapidated apartment building. Its walls were adorned with peeling paint, and the windows were often left open, allowing the city's relentless wind to whisper secrets to anyone who dared to listen. The building was known by the locals as the "Whispering Walls," and it was said that those who lived within its creaking frames were bound to encounter the supernatural.

Amidst the city's hustle and bustle, young Li moved into an apartment on the third floor of the Whispering Walls. She had recently lost her job and needed a fresh start. The apartment was cheap, and the building's eerie reputation had deterred most potential tenants. But Li, driven by a sense of adventure and a need for change, had seen past the building's grim facade.

The apartment itself was modest, with a small living room, a kitchenette, and two bedrooms. The bathroom, however, was something else entirely. It was an old, clawfoot bathtub that seemed to have been plucked from a bygone era. The walls were lined with peeling wallpaper, and the floor was covered in a thin layer of dust. It was in this bathroom that Li first encountered the hand-written lament.

The words were scrawled in a spidery hand, as if the writer had been in a hurry to get their message across. "I am cursed. I am cursed. The bathroom's curse will never be broken," the words read. Li dismissed it as a joke, a mere quirk of the previous tenant's imagination. But as the days passed, she began to notice strange occurrences.

First, it was the sound of whispering voices in the bathroom at night. The voices were faint, almost inaudible, but they were there, echoing through the empty apartment. Then, Li noticed that the bathroom's mirror would occasionally fog up, as if someone had been standing there breathing heavily. She began to feel a sense of unease, but she pushed it aside, convincing herself that it was all in her mind.

One evening, as Li was preparing for bed, she heard a knock at the door. It was her neighbor, a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Chen. "Li, you need to leave your bathroom door open," Mrs. Chen said, her voice tinged with urgency. "The curse is real, and it will only get worse if you close it."

Li laughed, but Mrs. Chen's eyes were filled with fear. "You don't understand. The bathroom's curse is a trap for those who dare to close the door. It's a portal to the other side, and once you're in, there's no going back."

Li dismissed Mrs. Chen's warnings, but the next day, she found her apartment ransacked. Her belongings were scattered across the floor, and the bathroom door was wide open. She had closed it the night before, and now it was gone. Panic set in as she realized that Mrs. Chen's warnings had been true.

Determined to uncover the truth, Li began to investigate the apartment's history. She discovered that the bathroom had once belonged to a young woman named Mei, who had lived there alone. Mei had been found dead in the bathroom, her body drained of blood. The police had never solved the case, and the bathroom had been sealed off ever since.

Li's investigation led her to a small, dusty book in the apartment's library. The book was filled with handwritten notes and sketches of the bathroom. It was Mei's diary, and it revealed the truth behind the curse. Mei had been a medium, and she had made a deal with the devil to gain immense wealth and power. In return, she had to sacrifice her soul to the dark forces that had bound her to the bathroom.

Li knew that she had to break the curse if she wanted to save herself and Mei's soul. She began to perform rituals and read incantations from the diary, but the bathroom's curse was strong, and it seemed to grow more powerful with each passing day. Li's sanity began to fray as she was haunted by the whispering voices and the ghostly apparitions of Mei.

One night, as Li was in the bathroom, performing the final ritual, she felt a cold hand grip her shoulder. She turned to see Mei, her eyes hollow and her skin translucent. "You must close the door," Mei whispered. "The curse will end, and I will be free."

Li hesitated, but she knew that she had no choice. She closed the bathroom door, and the whispering voices grew louder, the temperature dropped, and the room was filled with a blinding light. When the light faded, Mei was gone, and the bathroom was no longer there. The apartment was silent, save for the sound of Li's rapid breathing.

Li opened the bathroom door, and the apartment was back to normal. The ransacked room was untouched, and the bathroom was sealed off once more. She had broken the curse, but at a great cost. Mei's ghost had vanished, but Li's mind was forever altered by the experience.

In the days that followed, Li moved out of the apartment and into a new home. She never spoke of the Whispering Walls or the bathroom's curse, but she often found herself thinking about Mei and the hand-written lament. She knew that the curse had been broken, but she also knew that it had left its mark on her soul.

The bathroom's curse had been lifted, but the whispers of the Whispering Walls continued to echo through the city, warning those who dared to ignore the supernatural. And for Li, the memory of Mei and the bathroom's curse would forever be etched into her mind, a reminder of the dark forces that lurked just beyond the veil of the ordinary world.