You Promised Me

"Don't leave me. Don't you dare leave me."

A chilling scream echoed through the dark room. Claire looked at the couch where her husband had been sitting. The shadows clung to the corners like cobwebs, thick and unmoving. He was just there—then suddenly, he wasn’t.

She blinked hard. Once. Twice. The cushion still bore the impression of his weight, warm and sunken, as if mocking her. Her breath hitched in her throat, eyes darting across the room.

Claire was used to Dave’s constant disappearances.

The first time it happened, she’d torn through the house screaming his name, thinking it was a cruel prank. But when she heard his voice humming from the kitchen an hour later—calm, casual, untouched by time—she stopped asking questions.

She stopped asking a lot of things.

She knew he’d come back.

She told herself that every night.

He would.

That was the promise. The vow.

He should.

The room fell silent again, thick with absence. A grandfather clock in the hall ticked, each second like a heartbeat too far away to be hers. And then—a creak. Not loud. Not sudden. But there. From the hallway.

Claire turned her head slowly, eyes wide and unblinking. Her voice trembled, a whisper barely formed.

“Dave?”.........

Claire sat in the gazebo in their garden, staring up at the night sky, scattered with stars like pinpricks in velvet. The air was still, the kind that made silence feel heavy. Her eyelids grew heavier with each breath, the hum of crickets lulling her into sleep.

She began to doze off.

When she stirred again, she felt fingers gently combing through her hair.

Dave.

She was curled up in his lap, his arms warm around her. A breath caught in her throat, but she didn’t move—didn’t want to risk breaking the moment. She looked up at him, her lips tugging into a soft smile before she leaned in and kissed him. The kiss was short. Tender. Fleeting.

She pulled back and pouted, her lower lip jutting out like a child’s.

“You left me alone,” she whispered, voice edged with hurt.

Dave only smiled in return—calm, familiar, and utterly unbothered by time. He traced a slow finger over her cheek, down to her jaw, then back again, as if memorizing her face all over.

They sat there beneath the stars, bathed in moonlight and silence—two lovers wrapped in the illusion of peace. The night held its breath around them, still and watching.

The wind rustled the hedges gently, as if nature itself were careful not to disturb them. Claire closed her eyes again, resting her head against Dave’s chest, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat—steady, comforting, real. His hand remained in her hair, moving in lazy circles, grounding her.

“You know I hate it when you leave,” she murmured.

“I never leave,” he said softly, his voice a lullaby made of memories.

She smiled, not opening her eyes. “Liar.”

He chuckled. It was low, familiar, the kind of sound that used to echo through the house when he’d read the paper in the morning or tease her over burnt toast. Now, it sounded far away, like something replayed from an old recording—but Claire didn’t question it.

Instead, she lifted her hand and placed it over his.

“I missed you today,” she whispered. “I waited in the living room. The sun went down. You didn’t come.”

Dave didn’t respond right away. He just kissed the top of her head.

“I’m here now.”

And that was enough. For her, it had to be.

Fireflies blinked lazily in the garden, flickering like distant lanterns. The night folded around them, thick with warmth, memory, and unspoken promises. Claire felt safe. Seen. Loved.

And not for a moment did she wonder how the air around her was cold, even though Dave felt warm.

Not for a moment did she think about the gravestone just thirty feet from where they sat.

Sitting on her bed, Claire stared at her phone, scrolling through old photos—snapshots Dave had taken, fragments of their life frozen in time. She smiled faintly, her thumb pausing over one picture: her holding a half-eaten pie, mid-scowl, while Dave grinned mischievously behind her.

“Hey, that’s my pie!” Claire had exclaimed.

Dave, already two bites in, stuffed the rest into his mouth and turned away, completely ignoring her furious rant. With an offended huff, Claire had stormed after him, ready to deliver a lesson in manners. But she never got that far.

Her foot caught on the edge of a stone tile. She pitched forward—only to land not on the ground, but in someone's arms.

“I didn’t think girls were desperate enough to jump on men like this,” Dave had said, his voice teasing, eyes amused. “You must really like me.”

Claire’s mouth had dropped open, flustered, her protest lodged somewhere between indignation and disbelief.

Dave only smirked.

She’d shoved him half-heartedly and turned away, flustered, entirely forgetting what she’d originally chased him for.

That was the first memory she held close—their chaotic, ridiculous first meeting at her cousin’s wedding.

After that, their paths crossed often—mutual friends, family events, random run-ins that didn’t feel like coincidences. Somewhere along the way, their banter turned into inside jokes. Their fights, though loud and theatrical, always ended in laughter or long conversations under the stars.

The chaos softened into closeness.

Three years of dating, five years of marriage.

A marriage filled with love, arguments, and quiet moments of affection—one where silence was just another way of being together.

Claire smiled down at her phone again.

He had taken every photo.

He had seen her in every light.

And now, even in his absence, he was everywhere.

Dave nudged Claire gently, pulling her from the glow of her phone. She looked up, eyes lighting up as she launched into another story—one of those golden memories tucked away in the corners of their shared past.

She spoke animatedly, her hands moving with her words, laughter soft and fond in her voice. The room was filled with her warmth, her nostalgia, her love.

Dave said nothing. He just stared at her, blank and still—watching, listening, as if trying to hold on to her voice.

Then, barely a whisper, his lips moved.

“You know I’m not real... right?"

The words were almost inaudible—soft enough to be a trick of her imagination. Claire froze, her voice catching mid-sentence. A chill slid down her spine, but she didn’t look at him right away.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself.

When she finally turned her head back, the bed beside her was empty.

He was gone.

Again.

It had been five days. Five long, suffocating days—and Dave still hadn’t come home.

Claire sat on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, her phone gripped in trembling hands. Her mind buzzed with static. Dark thoughts clawed their way to the surface—thoughts she tried to swallow down but couldn’t ignore.

She dialed his number again.

Wrong number.

Her breath quickened.

“No,” she whispered, fumbling to try the other number—the one he rarely used. It rang. Once. Twice. A third time.

Then—his voice.

Dave’s voice boomed through the phone speaker.

Her heart leapt.

But before she could speak, she heard the cold, automated ending.

“Hey, this is Dave. Leave a message after the beep.”

It was just his voicemail.

Claire’s hands shook as she stared at the phone, her throat closing up. Then, in a sudden burst of fury and grief, she hurled it across the room. The plastic cracked against the wall and fell to the floor, lifeless.

He was gone.

He had left her.

Again.

This time, maybe for good.

She crawled around the room, searching—desperately—for something, anything, that might prove he’d been there. A scent. A sock. A strand of hair. A sign.

But there was nothing.

Just the untouched lunch tray on the table.

Her plate sat there—scraped clean, as always.

Dave’s plate?

Still full. Untouched. Cold.

He never ate. He always said he’d eaten outside, or that he wasn’t hungry.

She’d believed him.

Every day, she had thrown away his meals, not questioning the silence.

Now the truth gnawed at her.

Maybe he had never eaten.

Maybe he had never come home at all.

Her breath hitched. The weight of absence became unbearable. She dragged herself to the living room carpet and collapsed there, her cries muffled by the thick fabric, her fists clenched tight.

“Dave…” she whimpered, over and over.

“You promised me…”

It became a chant.

A prayer.

A curse.

“You promised me… you promised me…”

Somewhere in the haze of her sobs, she heard movement. A shift. A shuffle. The faint hum of presence.

She looked up.

Dave stood above her.

Expressionless. Watching.

Her tears paused in mid-fall, her vision blurry. He reached down and lifted her like she weighed nothing at all. She felt herself floating in his arms, detached from reality, too numb to be comforted.

In a dazed whisper, she asked, “You’re not real… are you? None of this… is real?”

Dave looked down at her.

And smiled.

“Yes, love. You’re right. None of this is real.”

The words sliced through her like ice.

Something inside her cracked.

A sharp pang hit her chest—deep, cruel, final. Her breathing turned ragged. Shallow.

Then—

Silence.

Her body convulsed once… twice… and then lay still.

The room was quiet again.

The house returned to its natural state—empty. Untouched. Dead.

Only the sound of the clock ticking remained.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

 Later that night, the neighbors reported hearing a woman laughing and talking to someone in the garden, and later screaming. But when the police broke down the door the next morning, they found Claire’s body alone in the living room.The garden was undisturbed.The second plate on the table was still full.

Author’s Epilogue

Grief is not always loud. Sometimes, it is quiet—a shadow at the dinner table, a second plate set out for someone who never arrives. Claire’s story is not about ghosts in the traditional sense. There are no creaking doors or haunted mirrors. The horror here lives in the mind. In the heart.

In the memories that refuse to fade.

Claire loved Dave so much that she refused to let him die—even when he already had. Her mind built a version of him, fragile and flickering, to fill the silence. She spoke to him. Ate beside him. Slept with the shape of him beside her.

But delusion, like any living thing, grows.

Her illusion of Dave grew too large, too real—and in time, it consumed her. The boundary between memory and madness blurred. And in the end, when Dave told her the truth—that nothing around her was real—her body simply… couldn’t hold on anymore.

Was it heartbreak? Psychosis? Something supernatural?

That’s not for me to decide. And perhaps, not for you either.

All I know is this: love is a powerful thing.

But when left alone in the dark, even love can turn into something monstrous.

— The Author

Written By:- Muskan Nim

Date:- 14-07-2025