👻Episode 4: Beneath the Surface: The Voice in the Well

By Grace Antiedu & Nana Ama Acheampomaa

Neneh didn’t eat the next day. Her eyes stayed glued to corners, her ears tuned to every creak, every whisper. She saw things no one else saw—faces flickering in windows, her own reflection watching her too closely, shadows that seemed to crawl.

By evening, she’d made a decision.

She needed to go back.

Not to prove anything. But to understand.

She slipped out of the dormitory, this time with salt in her pocket—something her grandmother always said could ward off spirits. She whispered a prayer her mother used to say when storms shook the windows at night.

“God of the living, walk beside me.”

The night was thick with silence. The well waited.

As Neneh approached, she heard the voice again - fainter now, desperate.

“Help me… please I can’t breathe down here…"

She knelt beside the stone edge and looked in. Just darkness. Deep, endless darkness.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

The voice paused.

Then: “Adeline.”

Neneh’s blood froze.

Adeline.

The girl who had vanished years ago. Everyone said she ran away. Some said she drowned. No one knew. But her voice—this was her voice. And it was still trapped.

Neneh’s hands trembled. She threw the salt into the well and began to pray again, louder this time, firm. As she spoke, the wind rose, howling through the mission ruins. The ground seemed to vibrate. A deep, guttural wail erupted from below.

Then silence.

Not just quiet—absence. The kind of silence that feels final.

Neneh stood, the salt pouch now empty, her prayer complete. The air was still. The well… no longer watched her.

She walked back without fear.

She never heard the voice again.

But for years after, students whispered about how Neneh had changed. How mirrors never startled her again. How she never spoke of what really happened that night.

And how, whenever she walked past the old well, she would quietly murmur:

"Rest now, Adeline. You're free."

📍 End of Story 2 – “The Voice in the Well”

🔮 Coming next: The man who couldn’t stop dreaming of his own funeral.