The Tenth Sacrifice | True Horror Story

True Horror Story | Summary: The treasure chest brings a curse. This true horror story tells of a demonic game, a ghost child, and a father who sacrifices himself to save his daughter.

I will tell you about the terrifying event we experienced on a summer night in 2016. First, I want to tell you a bit about what happened before. We have lived in Adana since I was born. On the day I was born, while my father was waiting outside the operating room, an old uncle came up to him, looked at my father, and said, “Ahmet.” My father, overwhelmed with excitement, didn’t know what he was saying and replied, “Yes, uncle?” The old uncle smiled and continued, taking a piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to my father. “If you follow the instructions here, you will find a great treasure. This treasure can easily sustain your family and even your relatives until you die. Do not doubt, do not be greedy, or this treasure will be a curse, not a blessing.” My father glanced at the paper in his hand for just a moment, and just as he was about to reply to the uncle, he saw that the man had vanished. Since that day, my father, along with my uncle, has never given up searching for this treasure. Although my grandmother thinks my father was deceived, my father always insists the treasure is real. According to him, the treasure and the old uncle were a sign sent by God, and we would be freed from our troubles.

Our house has three floors. We live on the bottom floor, my grandmother on the middle floor, and my uncle’s family on the top floor. One evening, my uncle and father, still chasing the treasure, started banging on the door as if they were going to break it down. When I opened the door and saw my father and uncle out of breath, I frowned. “What’s going on, Dad? Why the rush?” My father, trying to catch his breath, said, “Melike, run and get the shovels, daughter! We found the treasure!” “What?!” I screamed in a high-pitched voice. “How? Are you sure?” “We’re sure, we’re sure! We’re going to dig it up,” my father said, nodding his head. My uncle chimed in, “Call Nursena too, daughter, let her help. Both of you come.” “Okay,” I said, and went up to my uncle’s floor, banging on their door as if kicking it. When Nursena opened the door, she looked at my face in astonishment. “What’s going on? Are horses chasing you?” I pushed her playfully. “Dad and uncle found the treasure! They want the shovels. They’re calling us to join them.” “Are you serious?!” Nursena shouted. “Of course, I’m serious,” I said. I found two shovels and headed for the door, while Nursena grabbed the other two, and without telling anyone, we went down to the garden to meet my father and uncle.

My father and uncle led the way, with Nursena and me following behind, towards the location of the treasure. There are certain places in our village that the villagers generally avoid; they wouldn’t even step foot there. The reason was that those places were believed to be haunted by jinn. I was scared of such things, but I always tried to console myself by saying, “None of it is real.” After all, we weren’t bad people, why would they harm us? When we arrived at one of those patches of land that the villagers never visited, I looked at the surrounding trees and the desolation. My father and uncle took out their flashlights from their pockets and turned them on. They quickly found the spot where they said they found the treasure. They took two of the shovels and started digging. I looked around hesitantly. Everywhere I looked, I felt like I was going to see something terrifying. “Dad, should we help too?” I asked. My father, continuing breathlessly, said, “No, daughter, you keep an eye out. If one of the villagers comes now, they’ll ruin our work. If the treasure is too much for uncle and me to carry, then you can help.” Nursena had sat down on the ground, watching my father and uncle dig. I stood upright. I couldn’t take my eyes off my father and uncle. The air in the place felt heavy, sweat was pouring. It was no wonder the villagers didn’t come here.

Fortunately, after 15-20 minutes, one of the shovels hit something large. My father and uncle looked at each other. Nursena clapped her hands with joy. When they dug away the soil on top of the large object and revealed something like a chest, sweat was dripping from my father’s and uncle’s foreheads. As they struggled to lift the chest out of the hole they dug, Nursena and I helped them from above. When we finally managed to get the chest out, my father knelt in front of it, said Bismillah (In the name of God), and lifted the lid. We all held our breath. As we screamed in shock at what we saw inside the chest, my father, his hand still on the lid, stared blankly into the chest. Inside the chest were bones, likely belonging to a small child, a red hair ribbon, and a letter. Taking deep breaths, my father opened the letter and began to read it aloud. What he read resembled a note more than a letter: “They asked me to make a great sacrifice. They said only after suffering one great pain would I be happy forever until I died. I’m sorry, my daughter. I hope you are happy now.” My stomach churned. Unable to hold it back any longer, I vomited at the base of one of the nearby trees, while my father let out a cry that could shake the whole village. As I wiped my mouth, Nursena went to a corner, sat down, buried her face in her legs, and began to sob, her shoulders shaking. “Nursena, you’re going to have an asthma attack!” I called out to her. While Nursena tried to calm herself, my uncle tried to calm my father. “All these years!” my father yelled. “All these years I consoled myself thinking it was a sign from God, I kept trying! But look what happened now! It turns out it wasn’t God’s sign, but the devil’s game!”

Then we all sat in front of it, opened our palms, and began to pray for the little girl who died in vain. My father prayed repeatedly, then he and my uncle put the chest back into the hole they dug, filled the hole, took the shovels, and we left. When we arrived home, no one said a word. As everyone went to their beds and fell asleep, I was still trying to sleep. The bones of the dead little girl wouldn’t leave my mind. While sleeping on the floor mattress with my father – or at least I was trying to sleep – my father suddenly sat up and stared at the door in shock. “Daughter, why are you crying? What’s wrong?” he asked. I held my father’s shoulder and said, “I’m not crying, Dad, nothing’s wrong.” My father slowly turned to me and nodded towards the door. “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to her,” he said. I looked at the door in astonishment. I could have sworn there was nothing there a moment ago, but now a little girl was standing at the door. Her hair was tied in a ponytail with a red ribbon. She was sniffling and crying. “Dad!” I said, my voice trembling. I crawled across the floor mattress and pressed myself against the wall. “What’s happening, Dad?” This time, I was crying too. As the little girl slowly started coming towards me, I screamed. “Dad, do something!” My father watched the little girl’s approach as if hypnotized. When the little girl was right in front of me, she tilted her head, looked at me, and smiled. “Nine sacrifices have been made. It’s time for the tenth.” When her small, cold hands clamped around my throat, I let out a piercing scream. As if waking from hypnosis, my father grabbed the little girl, threw her to the ground, lifted me up, and moved to the corner of the room. This time, screams came from my uncle’s floor, and my father and I looked at each other. When we looked back at the little girl, she had vanished.

Running up to my uncle’s floor, we saw their door was open and quickly rushed inside, searching for Nursena and my uncle. While my uncle was trying to open Nursena’s bedroom door, my father angrily pushed him aside, kicked the door hard, and opened it. Nursena was on the floor, having an asthma attack. Opposite her stood the crying little girl. But this time, next to the little girl stood a tall, pitch-black shadow. The shadow fell over the little girl. My uncle and my aunt, whom I hadn’t noticed before out of fear but saw now, had started reciting prayers. Ignoring the little girl, my father scooped Nursena up from the floor, and before leaving the room, he turned back and looked at the little girl. “Get out of here! Go to whoever buried you!”

My father had brought Nursena to the living room. My uncle paced back and forth around my father. My aunt had given Nursena her asthma medication, so she could breathe more easily now. My uncle asked, “Ahmet, should we call a hoca or something?” “No!” my father shouted furiously. “I brought this trouble upon us! I will handle it! Everyone go to bed! No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, don’t open your eyes or get out of bed! This will be dealt with tomorrow!” As everyone went to bed fearfully, my father and I went to our home and settled onto the floor mattress, but I barely slept all night due to the feeling of being watched.

When I woke up in the morning, my father wasn’t beside me. When I went up to our roof to set my place for breakfast, I asked my grandmother about my father. She said he had business and would be back later. As everyone ate breakfast quietly, my grandmother suddenly started speaking: “Last night, someone knocked on my door. Thinking it was one of you, I opened it, but I saw a little girl crying in front of the door. Next to her stood a man like a demon. ‘What happened to you, my dear?’ I asked, but she didn’t answer me. She held the hand of the man next to her. When the man next to her lifted his head and looked at me, I thought my heart would stop. The man’s face was pitch black. I was so scared I immediately shut the door. I performed ablution and read the Quran, only then could I sleep peacefully.”

I dropped my fork and knife, jumped up, and ran downstairs. As I ran out the front door towards the place where we found the chest, I could hear my uncle shouting behind me: “Melike! Where are you going like this?!” Without turning back, tears streaming down my face, I answered while running like mad: “I have to find Dad!” I said. When I reached the patch of land where we found the chest, I saw a human body hanging from one of the trees in the distance and screamed at the top of my lungs. Running to the tree and looking in shock at the body hanging from the branch, my mouth went dry at who I saw. I collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. My father had hanged himself from the tree. Beneath his body swaying on the branch was an overturned stool. On the trunk of the tree, a piece of paper was fixed. I took the piece of paper and started reading it aloud so my uncle could hear too. My uncle stood frozen, staring at my father’s body. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. I could see his slightly open mouth trembling.

“I know you will be angry with me. You will ask why I handled this alone. You will ask if we aren’t family. But you don’t know what ordeal I went through last night. Daughter, I am writing this for you. Read it well. Please don’t hate me. Last night, I saw that little girl and a man beside her. I followed them to the place where we found the chest. The man and the little girl stood right over the spot where we reburied the chest and looked at me. It was then that the man’s pitch-black face lit up. That man was the old uncle who gave me that paper on the day you were born. ‘You!’ I said in astonishment. ‘Yes, me,’ he said, curling his lips, and the old man began to speak: ‘Now you will ask, Ahmet, why did you do this to me, you will say. Let me explain. I was young, handsome. I had an illegitimate daughter. Her mother, whom I didn’t know, left our daughter at my door with a letter. At first, I didn’t believe it, I went and got a DNA test, but then I saw she was indeed my daughter. My conscience wouldn’t let me abandon her, I looked after her until she grew a bit, but then one day an old woman came to my door. She handed me a paper. She told me the same things I told you. I believed her. I searched for that treasure for months. I finally found it. In the chest were bones, likely of a newborn baby, a pair of booties, and the exact same note I wrote for you. That’s when I understood. To reach this treasure, I had to make a great sacrifice. And I did. I had never wanted my daughter anyway, I saw her as a burden. I knew that after one great pain, I would always be happy, but it didn’t happen that way. I had done what the jinn wanted, I had given them a sacrifice. They had tricked me. Just like the woman before me. We are not strong, Ahmet, we are not good. Now I have mingled with the jinn, I have aged, I am bound to them, I cannot escape them. This cycle needs to be broken, but no one breaks it because the idea of one great pain followed by a happy life forever seems appealing to mankind. Ahmet, if you don’t make that great sacrifice, you will never be happy. This curse has now infected you too. The moment you opened that chest, make that sacrifice!’ he said. Then they disappeared. I cried a little at first, but then I pulled myself together. I couldn’t give up. My dear daughter… You were the only thing I could sacrifice. But I loved you so much that I could never do it. So I made a greater sacrifice. Instead of sacrificing you for the treasure, I sacrificed myself for you. Because you are my most precious treasure. This curse will now leave you alone. You can live in peace. Please don’t hate me. I entrust you to your uncle and grandmother. Take care of yourself. Your loving father.”

Days passed, my pain did not. Yes, the curse was broken, but my heart was burning. My mother died when I was little, and now my father was gone too. I was left all alone. Months later, as Nursena and I were preparing to go out into the garden, when we opened the building door, we found a red ribbon on the stair railing. The ribbon was wrapped around a small piece of paper. On the paper, it said, “Thank you.” I smiled. I guess my father and everyone who had been sacrificed could finally rest in peace.

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