Love at First Sight

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. What could possibly be stronger than love? Right? Fear? Fear can be stronger, and in this story, a woman discovers that for herself. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. I never believed in love at first sight. People who claim to just know always struck me as overly romantic. Fake love. I thought was born out of seeing a person, getting to know them, caring about them. All pretty logical and predictable. But then I met Daniel and all those ideas went away. It didn't just fall for him, I was consumed by him. The first time we met was at a bookstore. I know, I know, stereotypical. I wasn't even looking for anything in particular, just wandering the aisles, running my fingers over the spines of books I'd never read. But then there he was, standing in the next aisle, his head tilted to the side as he examined a used copy of one hundred Years of Solitude. Even the way I remember this title is something I can't explain. I didn't even notice when I stopped walking, My gaze simply locked onto him. It was completely natural, the way a magnet moves toward metal. We spoke for a bit, just a few words about the book in his hands. His voice was low and warm, like the hum of a storm that was about to arrive. It was nothing remarkable, really, But when I left the store that day, I couldn't stop thinking about him, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the slight stubble on his jawline, his scent, earthy, clean, lingering in the air. And that night I dreamed of him. I went back the next morning and then after that, hoping I would see him again. And two days later I did, this time at a cafe i'd never been to before. When I just walked into on a whim. He was sitting by the window, reading the same book, and when he looked up and saw me, his smile was slow, as though he'd been expecting me. It's fate, he said, and I laughed, even though something about the word made my chest tightened. From then on, everything between us moved quickly, too quickly, and within weeks I was spending most nights at his place, a small, dimly lit apartment filled with books, plants, and the faint smell of incense. I barely recognized myself anymore. I was the type of person who needed space, who valued independence. But with Daniel, it was like I couldn't breathe unless he was near. I craved him, needed him, and I hated how much I loved him. Then the strange things started happening. It was subtle at first. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling disoriented, as if I had been somewhere else entirely. My dreams, once pretty boring, turned vivid and strange, and one I was walking through a dark forest, the trees draped with red ribbons. The voice was whispering my name over and over until I woke up gasping for air. Other times I would catch glimpses of movement in the corner of my eye, only to turn around and find nothing there. Then there were the bruises, small dark marks that appeared on my arms and legs without explanation. I'd wake up sore, my muscles aching, as though I had been running in my sleep. Daniel always dismissed it. It probably bumped into something, he would say, pressing a kiss to my forehead. Deep down, I knew that wasn't the answer. The worst was the feeling of being watched it was a strong guess. At night, when the apartment was silent except for the creak of the old wooden floors, I'd lie in bed, staring into the darkness and feel the weight of unseen eyes pressing down on me. I started sleeping with a bedside lamp on, but it didn't help. The feeling was always there, just out of reach, like a shadow that disappeared when you turn to look at it. Through it all, my love for Daniel still grew stronger. I was obsessed, even when I felt uneasy around him, Even when I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right, I couldn't leave. I told myself it was passion, that this was real love, and this is what it felt like. But sometimes late at night I would wonder was it really love. Or was it something else? Entirely, it wasn't normal the way I felt about him. I knew that, but I couldn't stop. Something was binding me to him, pulling me closer, even as the edges of my world began to blur. It was like being caught in a tide. No matter how hard I tried to resist, it was being directed deeper and deeper into him, and I didn't know how to escape, or even if I wanted to. I woke up gasping. My body was drenched and sweat. My sheets were tangled around me like restraints. The dream was already slipping away, but the feeling lingered, the suffocating pressure on my chest. The whisper was still ringing in my ears. It came from a voice that was not my own. I tried to shake it off, but the knees clung to me. I glanced at the clock three twelve am. The apartment was still, except for the rhythmic tick of the. Old wall clock. But I wasn't alone, and I. Could feel it. The sensation of being watched had become unbearable. It wasn't just paranoia. I knew there was something else here, something lurking just beyond my sight. And I would notice when I would lie in bed at night, too afraid to close my eyes, waiting for it to show itself. But never did. It just waded with me, and then came the sickness. At first, it was just exhaustion. My heaviness in my arms and legs always tired. But then my body began betraying me. My stomach would twist into knots. Whenever I try to leave the apartment, and the moment I set foot outside, nausea would wash over me like a wave, my head spinning, my vision darkening. At times. It was worse when I thought about leaving him. One afternoon, I sat alone in the apartment, trying to get myself to pack a bag. I hadn't seen Daniel all day, and part of me knew this was my chance. If I could just get out, if I could just put distance between us, maybe I could finally clear my mind. The moment I stood up, sharp pain shot up through my temples. I collapsed back onto the bed, gasping for breath, the wall seeming to tilt around me. Something would not let me go. That night, I started searching. I tore through the apartment looking for what exactly. I wasn't sure, but I knew something was there, something unseen, something meant for me. And then I found it under my pillow. Took away so carefully it might have gone unnoticed. Forever was the length of ribbon. It was tied in a complex knod, a frayed at the edges as though it had been handled often. Breath caught in my throat a binding spell. The realization struck me with a force that left me busy. I had read about them before. Spells meant to tether someone's soul to another, forcing devotion, obsession, love to twisted into something unnatural. My hands shook as I tore through the apartment searching for more, and I found them. A small glass of honeyed water in the corner of the bedroom, cloudy, with something dark strolling at the bottom. My hair, my own hair submerged in the thick golden liquid. A candle hidden behind a row of books on a shelf, blackened at the edges, my name carved into its wax. It was all coming together. I had to keep looking. The final piece was tucked behind the mattress, a bundle wrapped in cloth, the fabric stiff with something dried and dark, and forced myself to open it to my breath coming in shallow gasps. Inside it was a small organ, tiny something you would leap behind in your chicken soup, probably, except this one smelled bad. It looked like a rotting. Bird's heart dropped, its choking on the bile rising in my throat. This wasn't love, this wasn't fate. This was a curse. Daniel had done this to me. He had tied me to him, stitched my soul into his with something dark and ancient. That's why I couldn't leave. That's why my body fought me. Every time I tried to pull away, I stumbled back, my legs weak beneath me. The apartment suddenly felt suffocating, and the air was thick with something unseen. The shadows seemed deeper now, stretching unnaturally. Long against the floor. The walls grown softly, as though they had been holding a secret all along. I had to leave, I had to get away from him before it was too late. But deep inside I already knew the truth. I was bound, and these things, amaris, they don't break easily. I stopped sleeping. Sleep invited something else in Whenever I closed my eyes, I would feel something heavy pressing against me. And it wasn't Daniel. I knew what his body felt like beside me. This was something else, something unseen, that would sometimes begin whispering in my ear in the language I didn't understand. At first, I thought it was a dream, But then I started waking up with my hands clenched so tight my nails left crescent shaped cuts in my palms. Some mornings, my lips were raw, bitten down, as if I had been trying to hold back a scream. And the worst part, I didn't remember any of it. I began keeping track of time, marking down the hours I was awake, trying to make sense of the gaps in my memory. The days blurred together, stretching long and thin, unraveling like freighted thread. I couldn't tell if I was awake or dreaming anymore. I couldn't remember going to work or eating. And Daniel knew. I saw it in the way he watched me. He was careful at first, gentle. Even his hands would brush my face when he thought I was asleep, his lips pressing to my forehead, like he was trying to soothe something unseen. But as the days passed, his patience began to thin. I caught him staring when he thought I wasn't, looking long unblinking stairs that made my skin crawl. He never asked me what was wrong. I never acknowledged the way my body flinched when he touched me. Instead, he treated me like I was already his, like I had no choice but to stay. Maybe I didn't. The apartment had become a prison. Every time I try to leave, my body rebelled, My stomach twisted violently, my head spun, my vision darkened until I was gripping the walls to stay upright. I was sick. That was the only explanation, or at least that's what I told myself. Then I started seeing them, the signs, A shadow moving behind me in the mirror, gone when I turned my head, my reflection lingering a second too long after I moved, The feeling of fingers brushing my arm in the empty apartment. And the whispers, always the whispers. Some nights I heard them through the walls, a soft, rhythmic chat, barely audible, like. A prayer spoken just beneath the surface of waking life. I tried to convince myself it was a neighbors, that there was some rational explanation, padeep down. I knew it was for me, it had always been for me. And then I found the notebook. Daniel's dest roer had always been locked. He never let me near it, but one night, when he was in the shower, I forced it open. My hands shook as I pulled out a small leather boundary. The page is worn soft from use. At first, the writing made no sense. Strange symbols lined the margins ink so deeply they bled through the paper. Then I saw my name, and I saw it over and dover and dover, to strengthen the bond, to keep her tied. The spell must hold. My hands trembled so violently I almost dropped the book. And then the last page, written hastily, ink smudged, as if he had pressed the pen down too hard. She is slipping away. The spell is weakening. If she leaves, she will die. I sucked in. A sharp breath, the words blurring in front of me. My pulse pounded in my ears, and my hands felt ice cold. I was never meant to leave. This wasn't just about keeping me closed. This was something else, something worse. I had to get out. I shoved the notebook back, locking the drawer with shaking hands, and when I turned around, Daniel was standing in the doorway, watching me. For a moment, neither of us spoke. The air in the room was thick, electric with something unspoken. His eyes flickered to the drawer and then back to me. Couldn't sleep, he asked, his voice smooth, controlled. I forced a smile, my lips stiff. No, his gaze lingered, searching my face, and then slowly he smiled. Come back to bed. I hesitated. The air in the apartment shifted, and the shadows stretched somewhere beneath the floorboards. I swore I. Heard something breathing, and I should have run. I should have screamed if my feet didn't move. Instead, I nodded, forcing myself forward because I knew something now. It wasn't just Daniel. It was the. Spell and whatever he had tied to me. It was not letting go. The night I killed Daniel, the moon was blood red. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't plant it. But when I felt the knife in my hands, when I saw him standing in the flickering candlelight, whispering incantations over something I couldn't see, the fear took over. And the fear was stronger than love. They weren't just nightmares anymore. It felt real, too real. I how to wake up in places I didn't remember falling asleep, my mouth tasting of iron, my fingertips raw and aching. I would hear my own voice things I didn't understand, and sometimes. I saw her. She was a shadow at first, a shape in the corner of the room, standing too still, watching me, But each night she grew closer. I never saw her face, only her hands, long fingers, curling towards me, reaching. She never touched me, but I could feel her anyway. And Daniel. I caught him one night, sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, whispering to someone who wasn't there. His eyes were distant, unfocused, as if he were somewhere else entirely. The candle in front of him flickered, the wax pooling in slow molten drips. I didn't move, I barely breathe, And then, in the silence, I heard him say my name, softly, reverently, like a prayer, and then he said something else. She belongs to me. My blood turned to ice. I backed away, forcing my feet to move, my breath shallow and shaking. He didn't look up, he didn't stop whispering. That was when I knew I had to end it. He was never going to let me go, not while I was alive, and maybe not even after. So that night I followed him. He left the apartment without a word, slipping into the darkness, his movements careful and deliberate. I kept my distance, my heart hammering so loudly I was sure he could hear it. He led me to a small, abandoned shack at the edge of town, the place I had never seen before, but somehow felt oddly familiar. The door was open, candlelight flickering from inside. I stepped closer. I could see the other people avoiding eye contact, some covered up their faces completely, rushing out toward the streets, away from me, But I spotted him inside. Daniel knelt before an altar, a low table covered in cymbals, in offerings. In the center a bundle wrapped in red cloth, and he was whispering again, the same chance I had heard through the walls, the same words that had haunted me in my sleep. I couldn't move, and I couldn't breathe. The candlelight cast his shadow high against the wall, stretching and twisting. It wasn't the shape of a man, and then, as if sensing me, he stopped and turned his head smiled. I don't remember lunging for him. I don't remember grabbing the knife, but I remember the way the blade slid into him. How his body jerked, how his eyes widened and shock, and how even as the blood bloomed across his shirt, even as he gasped for breath, he still smiled. His fingers trembled as he reached for me, and with the last of his strength, he whispered, it was for us. I never wanted you to leave. His body slumped forward, and the candlelight flickered. The shadow stopped moving, and then silence. I stood there, knife clutched in my hands, my breath ragged, my heart pounding. The altar sat untouched, the red bundle still breasting in the center. My hands trembled as I unwrapped it. Inside I found a lock of my own hair twisted together with his. It was bound by red thread, and I felt sick. Had been wrong. It wasn't a cur to harm me, a love spell. I hadn't been bound to suffer. I had been bound to stay Daniel hadn't been trying to kill me, had been trying to keep me. And now I had broken the spell. But something was wrong. The air in the shack was growing heavier, pressing down on me. The candle flames flickered violently as if something unseen had stirred. And then I heard it, a whisper, not from Daniel, not from outside, but from the dark, the space just beyond the flickering light. A voice I had heard before, the voice that had followed me in my sleep, a voice I had no longer had a reason to stay hidden. I turned slowly, and she was there, standing in the doorway, no longer a shadow, no longer reaching waiting. I opened my mouth to scream, but she got to me first. Daniel's body was cold when they found him. I don't remember calling the police. I don't remember running back to the apartment, locking the door, or washing the blood off my hands. The hours after his death were a blur, like something had reached into my mind and carved out the memory. But the fear remained. When they asked me what happened, I told them the truth, at least the version They would believe that I followed him, that I saw him doing something strange, and that I was scared, that I didn't know what came over me, that I acted in self defense, and somehow they believed me, or maybe they just didn't care. Another domestic incident, a fight that turned deadly, A woman who felt threatened self defense. No charges filed, no further investigation, case closed, but I knew better because I could still feel her. I tried to move on. I told myself it was over, that Daniel was a danger, and that without him, that was free. The apartment felt different now. The shadows still stretched long against the floor. The air was still thick, suffocating. The whispers hadn't stopped. If anything, they had grown louder. I started seeing her more often, not just in the corners of rooms, not just in the spaces between blinks. She was closer now. She never spoke, never moved, but I could feel her waiting watching. A month passed before I found the notebook again. I had hidden it away, stuffed in the back of a drover, too afraid to open it. That night, something drew me to it. Pages smelled of wax and old paper, of something ancient and wrong. My fingers trembled as I flipped through it again, the past, familiar words, the desperate notes about keeping me bound. And then near the back I found something new, something I had missed before. A single passage written in smaller, more frantic handwriting. The spell cannot be undone only transferred. If broken, she will claim what is left. My throat went dry. She wasn't just a spirit. She wasn't just an echo of the ritual. Daniel hadn't tied me to him alone. He had tied me to her. That night, I woke up to the feeling of fingers brushing my cheek. I shot off, gasping, my heart hammering in my chest. The apartment was silent and the air was still, but I knew I wasn't alone. I turned slowly, my breath caught in my throat. She was there, standing in the corner, no longer a shadow, no longer. Just a shape in the dark. I could see her now, skin pale as wax, lips sown shut with red thread, empty black sockets where her eyes should have been. Her head tilted slightly, the way Daniels used to when he watched me. She had been waiting, and now she had come for me. I don't know how long I sat there staring at her, minutes hours. My body wouldn't move, My breath felt trapped in my chest. And then she took a step forward. I scrambled back, nearly falling off the bed. My pulse pounded in my ears. I wanted to. Scream, to run, but something inside me whispered the truth. There was nowhere to go. She was inside me now. The spell had never really broke, had just shifted. She had been bound to Daniel, first, feeding on his devotion, his desperation, his need. To keep me. But now now I was the only one left. Now I was the one bound, and she was not going anywhere. The next morning, I tried to act normal. News of the incident had subsided and I hadn't had to explain much to my job. When I went back to work, I smiled when people spoke to me. I did everything I could to pretend that nothing was wrong, but didn't knew. She was still there. I would see her reflection in the windows, in the glass of my phone screen, the puddles of the street, always just behind me, always watching. And worst of all, I was starting to feel her inside me. Small things at first, the urge to pick up my lips until they bled, the strange way my voice echoed when I spoke too softly, the sensation of hands pressing against my ribs from the inside, like she was settling in making herself at home. I stopped leaving my apartment. After that, the outside world didn't feel real anymore. Nothing did. At night, I heard her whispering not to me, through me, like she was trying to call someone, to bring them closer, to bind them. I don't know how much time had passedince then, maybe weeks, but I do know one thing. The spell was never about love, was about ownership. And now I belonged to her. Just like Daniel did, just like someone else will. Because one day someone will find me, someone will love me, and she will be waiting for them for the next one. Because I love spells don't fade. The Only Transfer Scary Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Karo. Yes, I have a lot more ideas for stories that you have been sending in, so thank you for that, and if you want to get in touch, I'll leave my contact information and the description of this episode. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it Scary everyone, See you soon.