I ducked and stepped in to get my bones out of the cold, thanking whatever powers anyplace was open so late. The door creaked open, a strange invitation to the realm inside, where dim lanterns cast trembling light upon ancient tomes stacked on sagging shelves. Each book seemed to murmur dark secrets of curses and evil rituals, bound in leather and looked unsettlingly like human skin.
Oddities filled each nook: a withered hand clutching a coin, eyes of glass that followed your every move, and a mirror, its surface cracked, showing not reflections but the damage inside. An old skull swayed gently from a string, whispering secrets, while glowing rocks donated with an eerie light. In a dusty corner, a clock ticked backwards, counting down to some unknown horror.
From the shadows emerged the shopkeeper, an old gal with hollow eyes that seemed to cut through your soul. She offered tea in a cup that weighed a ton, like trying to move a corpse . "Every item has a history," she rasped, "a soul."
I turned to eye up the door but it had vanished, replaced by impenetrable darkness. The shopkeeper’s eyes gleamed with sinister satisfaction as she whispered, "Welcome, dear guest, to your eternal night."
Now we learn: dusty memories like this are traps, a collector of souls, and yours was bound to its eerie inventory, as soon as you began to read my tale.
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(8k, expansive, (intense fisheye distortion), photograph, [multiple exposures] overlay [long exposure] for ghost effect))