The girl in the photo on the wall blinked, and Sophie Wilson's heart beat faster than it ever had. At least she thought it did. The girl in the photo looked remarkably like her, complete with the pale blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and alabaster skin. The only difference is that the photo on the wall was of a woman from the late 1800s, and she looked almost… sickly yet still beautiful. She stared harder, the drum of her heart beating so loudly she almost didn't hear the loud pounding on the door. She jumped and looked at the clock on her phone. It was past midnight. She was new to town and didn't know anyone yet. The pounding came again, but louder BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! She thought it might be the cops, but when she opened the door, her blood turned to ice. It was the man she'd buried, and he'd come knocking. He was filthy, covered head to toe in dirt and mud. There was a wound on his head where she'd hit him with a shovel. She could see maggots infest the wound. She screamed and slammed the door shut, locking it behind her. The banging continued, and she ran upstairs to her bedroom. She closed the door and clasped her hands over her ears, hoping the man would go away, or that it was all some kind of horrible dream. All she could think about was when she inherited the house from her great aunt and the note that came with it. Soon, the banging stopped, and she uncovered her ears. She looked out her window, which overlooked the front path, and saw no one or any evidence of anyone being there. She crept downstairs, being careful not to make a sound. The photo on the wall looked almost normal now, aside from its creepiness. She looked out the window, and no one was there. She opened the door, and there was no sign of the man anywhere. There weren't even mud tracks on the ground where there should have been. Her heart sank. She couldn't have made it up. She saw him as clear as day. She shut the door and walked into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of whiskey from under the sink, opening it to take a long swig. The burn felt good going down. She took one more long swig and walked to the living room to turn on the television. As she started dozing off, she began to hear a strange whisper. She thought it was the TV at first, but the noise continued even after she turned it off. She couldn't make out what it was saying. Or where it was coming from.. She realized the whispering was coming from the photo. She marched up to the photo on the wall and ripped it up. She crumpled it up, threw it away in the trash, and went up to bed. 

She slept in late that morning and stumbled out of bed to the living room. She had almost forgotten about the craziness from the night before. Until she looked at the wall and saw the photo, she'd sworn she'd ripped it up and thrown it away last night…. Didn't she? What about the man? Did he show up, or did she imagine everything? Her head was pounding, and she was going insane. Just then, the doorbell rang. She jumped and looked out the window. It was her best friend, Larissa. She was waiting with coffee and donuts, so she let her in. 

"Jeez, Soph, what happened to you? You look like hell."

"This weird stuff keeps happening. I don't know." She lit a cigarette and smoked with shaky hands

"Hey, calm down, tell me what happened."

Sophie knew she couldn't tell Larissa everything, so she flicked the cigarette. "Last night, some dude showed up at my door covered in mud… He pounded like he was angry. It wasn't till I opened the door that I fully saw him. He seemed like… like he'd just climbed out of the grave. And this photo over here," she pointed with her cigarette. "Last night, I swear to God, Rissa, it blinked. Then, later on, it began to whisper. I don't know. Maybe I'm going crazy". 

"It's probably stress. I mean, you've got a book deadline, not to mention you have to work on and sell this old house, which is creepy enough as it is. What happened to that guy you had working on the house?"

Sophie flashed back to that night. The fight. He attacked her with a wrench in the garden.. He barely looked human anymore. His eyes went black, and he seemed hollow in some way. She didn't have a choice; she fought back and hit him with a shovel. Several times.  She felt as if she couldn't stop. Like she didn't have a choice, her body was being controlled by another. Once he was dead, she buried him in the backyard. That's the man who showed up last night. None of which she could tell her. She didn't know she'd zoned out until Larissa grabbed her hand. 

"Hello, did you hear me? What happened to the man who was supposed to be fixing everything?"

"Oh uh.. I don't know. He never came back," She said as she picked at her fingernails. "Look, I'm exhausted. You wanna catch up later?"

"Oh, what about the coffee and donuts?" she asked

"I'll keep my coffee. You can have the donuts."

"Oh, uh, okay…" She looked at Sophie with a worried look. "Sophie, are you sure you're okay here by yourself? What if the man comes back?"

"I'll call the police and come stay with you. I promise. Go. I'll be alright."

Larissa got up from the table and left the donuts. "Alright, just call me later so I know everything's alright."

After Larissa left, Sophie sat down in the office to write some more of her book. Hours passed, and she thought she'd been writing. When she looked up from her daze, she realized she'd only written the same thing over and over and over: "Sophie, come to me…" It was the same thing the photo had been whispering the night before. She threw her laptop on the ground and screamed "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK"

She stepped over the shattered remains of what was her laptop and ran to the living room. When she picked up the photo, the girl was gone. It was just a photo of a living room. Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. She fell to the ground and began to sob, closing her eyes as tightly as she could. She started to hear banging all around her and whispering from the photo. She opened her eyes and she saw two pairs of feet. One pair of dirty boots and one pair of bare pale feet. She looked up, but they seemed to have disappeared. 

"Where the fuck are you you bastards?!" she yelled as she looked around. She looked back at the photo, and the girl was there, smiling a twisted smile, not the downcast look she had before. "What the hell is going on…" Sophie shook, sweat dripping down her pale face, splattering on the photo. The girl from the photograph reached out with a now twisted and gnarled-looking hand. She grabbed Sophie, tearing her white night gown. Sophie backed away as she watched the girl crawl out of the photograph, stopping when she felt the man behind her. He forced her to stand and look at the girl. When Sophie moved her hand, the girl moved hers. That's when she realized that the girl was her. "But how…. It's impossible." The girl didn't speak. Only smiled the same twisted smile as before. She struggled against the man's body, but he didn't budge. The girl lunged at Sophie and dragged her into the photo. Now she’s forever stuck, as the same sickly-looking girl with pale blonde hair, pale, hollow blue eyes, pale skin with a down-cast look upon her face.