I never understood why my mother held onto that old, tattered coat. Its fabric had long since faded from a once vibrant crimson to a dull, rusted brown. The lining was torn, and every pocket was sewn shut as if they held secrets too dark to reveal. Yet, when she passed away, it was the only thing she left me—her only possession, the coat.
The moment I touched it, a cold shiver ran down my spine. It wasn’t just old; it felt… alive. I could smell something strange, a faint whiff of damp earth and rotting leaves, like the woods behind our house. That night, the coat hung on the chair in my room, unmoving. Or so I thought.
Around midnight, I woke up to the faintest of whispers. At first, I thought it was the wind outside, but the sound was coming from inside my room. My eyes darted to the coat, now not on the chair where I had left it, but standing—yes, standing—upright in the corner. The whispers grew louder, as if hundreds of voices were calling my name in hushed tones, overlapping and frantic.
I froze, staring at the coat. It had no head, no body, but it swayed gently, as though filled with invisible hands guiding its movements. The coat slowly turned toward me, and the air around it seemed to pulse. My mother’s voice echoed in my head, “Never look inside the pockets.”
But of course, curiosity was a curse I could not escape.
I reached for the nearest pocket, my hand trembling. As my fingers brushed the seam, the room grew darker, shadows creeping up the walls like ink spreading in water. I tore open the pocket, and inside, I found nothing—nothing but cold, empty darkness. Then the voices stopped. Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence.
Suddenly, I felt it—something grasping my wrist. Invisible fingers, sharp and cold, pulling me closer to the coat. I yanked my hand away, but the coat slithered like a snake, wrapping its sleeves around my arm. I stumbled, my heart pounding, as I tried to fight it off. The whispers returned, louder now, angry and desperate.
In a panic, I grabbed a pair of scissors from my desk and slashed at the fabric. A shrill scream erupted from the coat, and black smoke began to pour out of the cuts. I fell back, horrified, as the coat crumpled to the floor, lifeless once more.
But the room wasn’t empty. In the dark corner where the coat had stood, I saw it—a pair of gleaming red eyes staring at me from the shadows. And then I heard my mother’s voice, not in my head this time, but in the room, as clear as day.
“You shouldn’t have opened the pockets.”