What feelings usually go through your mind when you come across a strange object while cleaning out a dusty attic? Intriguing? Perhaps daunting? For Alice Par, it was indeed a little unnerving to come across an ancient-looking ring at the bottom of a battered box. It looked to be at least three centuries old with a cracked stone in its middle the color of hardened sap. The band was tarnished but it was obvious it was once a bright gold.

Picking it up, Alice dropped it in surprise; the ring was cold as ice. Something caught her eye and saw the imprint of the cold metal etched on the pads of her forefinger and thumb.

"How..." Alice peered back in to the box where the ring fell and leaped backwards with a cry of alarm. Sitting in its corner, seemingly harmless, the ancient ring was emitting a strange, dull green glow.

Hands shaking and fearing the worst, she carefully picked it back up, this time with the hem of her sleeve. Upon closer inspection, the young woman noticed deeply engraved x'es on either side of the touching bands.

A low rumble outside broke her chain of thought. She got up and looked out of the tiny window across the room and saw menacing clouds gathering in the distance, their black underbellies threatening to unleash a fury of freezing rain. It marked the unfortunate death of fall and its transition into winter. Terrible torrential downpours and violent lightning storms plagued the land before the fifteen foot snow drifts and three inch sheets of ice bound the most terrain-ready vehicles solid to the ground.

Alice turned from the oncoming storm and back at the battered box that contained the ring in her search. There wasn't anything out of ordinary about it besides the condition it was found in. Placing the still glowing banded metal in an inside pocket of her jacket, she began a more thorough search of its previous home. Torn sheets of what looked like pages out of a diary littered a third while broken feathered quills, a smashed inkwell and a leather bound book took up the rest of the room.

A few words of a faded piece of paper caught her roving eyes and she gingerly picked it up. Alice realized it was a page torn out of the ratty diary. Most of its surface was covered in the spilled ink but a date in the top left corner revealed it to be in the early 1700's. Besides that, nothing indicated who it belonged to, not even a quick glace at the entry spoke of it. But what it did say snared her attention like a lightning strike.

Saturday June 3rd, 1703
Someone's been following me...I can feel their eyes on the back of my head. No sound, just an overwhelming sense of dread, a hunted feeling that wouldn't disappear. I'm still having trouble taking off that blasted ring. There is something curious about it though...a small x on its side seems to be getting darker lately.

Reading what she could of the second entry froze the blood in her veins.

Tuesday June 6th, 1703
Something's trying to kill me, it almost succeeded, and the print isn't fading from my fingers...they look like eyes. Twin pools of darkness...

The rest of the paper was covered in an inky pooled mess. Where the ink wasn't present, she could make out a letter here and there, sometimes a whole word but that one full sentence said it all.

Alice's numb fingers dropped the diary page to join the rest in the battered old box below. She removed the ancient ring once more and again examined its features. It still emitted that strange, dull glow and the engraved x'es on the tarnished metal band were deep as ever. The cracked amber stone still sat in its cradle, its surface showing the deep darkness below. Alice turned it from side to side, studying the detail.

"What? How...how can that be possible?!" Her face paled further as the ghost of a fifth x became visible before her very startled eyes, sitting down hard on the floor. Alice managed to keep a hold of the thing as she gaped at this new discovery. Why did another x suddenly appear? Was it her touch? Her presence? The thought sent a bolt of chilled ice down her already tense spine. None of this made sense. Unless...no, it couldn't be. It was stupid to even think like that. It was impossible.

Alice got up and began pacing the room, fear rolling off in waves, a nervous energy filling her body. The answer was obvious: destroy it. Maybe that will deter the inevitable from occurring.

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Rain spattered the little window as Alice stayed cooped up in the dusty, cluttered attic. The new discovery petrified yet captivated her and she was left with a difficult, yet more obvious decision. Did she want to believe these horrifying facts or throw caution to the winds and keep it?

She had spent the next few moments reading more diary entries, sifting through whole pages that were indiscernible because of the ink. At the very bottom of the box was a sheet that managed to remain relatively clean, though some words faded due to age.

The entries where dated back to 1701 when whoever wrote these bought this house and recorded their first years here. Alice felt the owner was a girl based on the furnishings and color of the place, not to mention how they wrote. The letters spoke feminine.

Alice managed to find a very recent date, still hundreds of years old, but she could tell it was a different person due to differences in handwriting. The style of the writing was similar to the older ones, yet when compared side-by-side, still appeared as though they were written with different hands.

This was perhaps a relative, possibly the woman's own daughter. Roaming the house earlier on, Alice did find a room that might have once belonged to a child, though the majority of masculine color indicated a son. The entry spoke of the uncertainty of previous events, one in particular about the person's mother then oldest daughter disappearing without a trace.

The investigation was still going on despite the lack of evidence the police managed to find. For one, there was no body to speak of in each separate case. For another, as far as they could tell, there wasn't a struggle of any kind. It was like the two disappeared off the face of the earth. Impossible, yes. In reality, even more so. You can't just can't flat out vanish into thin air.

Despite what she read, part of her wanted to think it was some twisted up lie to cover something up. Sure, the appearance of the fifth x and the marks on her forefinger and thumb unnerved her, but it was possibly a trick of the light. The print was probably from the ice cold metal and, given the dull glow of the attic, she could have completely missed that extra engraving.

But the other part of her, the more cautious side, found all this highly suspicious. Get rid of it and don't look back is what it said. Don't get involved with something like this.

A bolt of lightning struck in the distance, temporarily illuminating the semi-darkness of the attic. Shadows crawled along the walls and floor, objects seemingly alive and dancing in place. There was one in particular, a formless mass hovering high near the ceiling by the tiny window. It went unnoticed by Alice, who was currently rolling the ancient ring between her fingers, studying it once more.

The silhouette began slowly creeping downwards amidst the flashes outside, creating still shots among the various objects and the young woman sitting on the floor. An ominous feeling took over and she looked around curiously.

It stopped right before a stack of boxes below the window and faded from sight before Alice noticed its presence. The idea that she was being watched surfaced, sending her nerves on end once more.

A curious sensation washed over the young lady and she suddenly had a strong desire to place the ring on her finger. Alice was surprised at this crazy urge, even more so when it intensified to an almost unbearable level. All she remembered before blacking out is something chilled touching her right hand and a feeling of not being alone.