I took a job working at a garden party, thinking it would be an easy way to make some quick cash. I imagined setting up decorations, pouring champagne, and maybe tidying up afterward. It sounded perfect—who wouldn’t want to work in a beautiful garden under the stars, with music and laughter filling the air?
But the moment I stepped onto the estate grounds, I knew something was off. The place was grand, with towering hedges and flowerbeds arranged with precision that made it feel unnaturally perfect, almost too perfect. The host, a gaunt man with eyes too deep and a smile too wide, greeted me. His handshake was cold, but I brushed it off. “Just nerves,” I thought.
The party started at dusk, and as I moved through the garden, something felt wrong. The guests were… strange. They were all dressed in elegant clothing from a time long past—Victorian-style gowns, waistcoats, and top hats. No one seemed out of place, yet the way they looked at me made my skin crawl, their gazes lingering too long, their smiles too sharp.
As the evening went on, the air grew colder. I was asked to refill a wine glass by a woman in a pale green dress. Her fingers were ice-cold when she handed me the glass, and when I returned it, I noticed something horrifying—the liquid in the glass wasn’t wine. It was thick, dark, almost black, like oil or ink. The woman smiled, her teeth unnaturally white and sharp.
I hurried back to the bar, trying to shake the feeling, but it only got worse. As I looked around, I saw more unsettling things. The guests didn’t seem to blink, their movements were fluid but stiff, like puppets on strings. I heard whispers from the hedges, voices calling my name, even though no one was there. Shadows moved where they shouldn’t, crawling up the walls and across the ground, always just at the corner of my vision.
Then, I noticed the portraits inside the mansion, visible through the windows. They were of people dressed just like the guests, but each face was twisted in terror. I realized with a sinking feeling that these weren’t portraits of past family members. These were the guests, trapped in those frames.
Panic rose inside me, but I knew I couldn’t just run. I made my way toward the exit, but the host blocked my path, his once too-wide smile now replaced with a look of hunger. “Leaving already?” he asked, his voice smooth and dark like the liquid in that glass.
I tried to stammer an excuse, but he grabbed my wrist, his grip like iron. “You see,” he whispered, leaning in close, “we’ve been waiting for you. Every year, we need one more… guest to join the party.”
His eyes gleamed, and I saw them—shadows flickering behind his pupils, ancient and hungry. The guests began to circle around me, their faces expressionless, eyes locked onto mine.
The last thing I remember before everything went black was the feeling of icy hands pulling me down into the earth, into the garden itself, as the host whispered, “Welcome to the party.”
I woke up the next morning, back in my own bed, heart racing, drenched in sweat. Was it a dream? A nightmare? I don’t know. But I haven’t gone near a garden since, and I never will again.