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Happy Halloween, everyone, and welcome to one of the Acorn’s favorite and most fun days. Hoooo doesn’t like dressing up, getting candy, and telling some really scary stories from time to time. For this post, here is a story partly based on actual events and some fiction sprinkled in for dramatic effect. Like sprinkles covering a delicious hemlock pie, they are there to distract your gaze. Your job is to decide what is true and what is not. Now, we hope you enjoy the following short story.

The Forgotten Plague

October 30, 2024

In the freezing pre-dawn hours of October 30, a young intern, Elena Vasilev, trudged along the shores of Vozrozhdeniya Island, once part of the Soviet Union’s notorious Aralsk-7 lab. Though the USSR had fallen decades ago, the island had remained a forbidden zone. Remote and desolate, it was largely forgotten—until rumors surfaced of abandoned labs harboring bioweapons.

Elena was one of five volunteers sent by the Kazakh government on an expedition to document and clear out the remnants of the old facility. Her parents had begged her not to go, but the prospect of discovery and adventure had been too tempting. She didn’t buy into the horror stories. This was 2024. How dangerous could an old lab really be?

The team had arrived three days earlier, equipped with minimal supplies and communication equipment, and needed help holding a signal. Already, the island felt like it had a will of its own—a looming, watchful silence weighed heavily over their every move.

By night, the team bunkered down in an old supply shed that somehow had survived the years. Each night, they heard strange, distant howling—too far to pinpoint, yet close enough to tighten their nerves. And yet, no animal tracks. No evidence. Just cold, unbroken sand stretching for miles around them.

October 31, 2024

The morning of Halloween dawned with a peculiar sharpness in the air. Frost clung to the desiccated remnants of shrubs, and a thick, unsettling fog drifted along the shoreline. Elena zipped up her coat against the creeping chill and joined the others outside the shed.

“It’s like the island’s watching us,” muttered Viktor, the team’s lead scientist. He was older, wiser, and had long been a skeptic. But even his tone held an edge. They had all been jittery the last few days, and none could shake the feeling that something was… wrong.

“Last day,” Elena said, more to reassure herself than anyone else.

The plan for that day was simple: they’d explore the main lab building. The lower floors had remained untouched, locked beneath layers of rust and age-old quarantine seals. But the government’s directive was clear: they had to inspect the site and ensure that nothing dangerous remained.

As the team approached the lab entrance, Elena’s eyes lingered on the crumbling Soviet insignia above the door. The shadowed maw of the lab beckoned with an ominous stillness. She swallowed her unease and pushed forward, her flashlight illuminating the dark, sterile interior.

Dust floated like spectral particles in the air, and every step echoed in the cavernous space. The silence was total, broken only by their hesitant breaths. Then, as they descended a narrow staircase, something else joined the sounds: a faint, rhythmic tapping from below.

Inside the Lab

The air grew colder as they ventured deeper. They encountered old files, sample cases, and even syringes still neatly lined on dusty trays. But it was the cells—small, padded, windowless chambers—that raised hairs on their necks. Each cell had a small, smeared window on its door, and a metal plaque that listed only numbers.

“This was where they kept them…” Elena’s voice trailed off as her flashlight settled on one cell, its door ajar. Inside, a tiny bed was bolted to the floor, rusted restraints still attached. But it was what was scratched into the walls that froze her blood:

не уходи (Don’t leave).

From behind her, Viktor’s voice sounded distant, hollow. “Some say they kept infected people down here, quarantined… experimenting.” He shook his head. “But that was over fifty years ago. The smallpox strains, the viruses—they should be long dead.”

Elena took a shaky step backward, but her flashlight caught something else. A handprint, smudged on the cell’s tiny window. Fresh.

A scream ripped from down the hall, shattering the silence. They sprinted to find Maria, the team’s medic, staring into a darkened room, hands clasped over her mouth. Her flashlight beam revealed what looked like hastily scribbled writing on the walls. It was a mix of Russian and Kazakh:

Они здесь (They are here).

The Plague

Before anyone could process the words, a chill swept through the room, prickling their skin. And in that icy moment, Elena felt it: they weren’t alone. Shadows pooled in the corners, and from somewhere deeper in the lab, that rhythmic tapping resumed—closer now.

“Move,” Viktor whispered. “We need to get out.”

They retraced their steps, but as they climbed the staircase, an invisible force seemed to thicken the air, slowing them down. By the time they reached the lab’s entrance, panic had set in. Elena couldn’t shake the feeling of being pursued, like unseen eyes tracked their every move.

Once outside, they collapsed onto the frozen ground, gasping for breath. But the horror wasn’t over. Elena looked up and stifled a scream. Across each of their forearms, small, blister-like bumps had begun to rise.

“No… no, that’s impossible,” Viktor stammered, examining his own arm with trembling fingers. “Smallpox… it can’t survive this long. The virus… it couldn’t…”

But there it was, spreading over their skin like wildfire.

Containment

The team’s frantic calls to base went unanswered, lost in the static of the island’s electromagnetic dead zone. The only option was to quarantine themselves in the old supply shed, and hope help would come.

Hours dragged by as they watched the blisters grow and spread, filling with fluid. The itching was maddening, the fever delirious. Elena’s vision blurred, and haunting images flashed before her—a figure standing at the cell door, scratching those messages into the walls, whispering.

When she closed her eyes, the figure came closer. Always closer.

The Entity

On the evening of Halloween, the hallucinations turned collective. Each team member saw them: spectral forms flickering in the darkness. They were infected, the forgotten prisoners of Aralsk-7 left to rot in those cells, their suffering etched into the walls, into the very air of the island.

“We… released them,” Viktor whispered through cracked lips, his voice faint. “Their pain… it’s trapped here. We’ve…” His eyes glazed over, lost to fever.

In the ensuing hours, Elena heard the whispers in Russian and Kazakh fragments of tortured lives. She could feel their suffering, feel them clawing at her skin, demanding release. Desperate, she turned her flashlight on her arm. Beneath the blisters, faint words appeared as if written in blood:

не оставляй нас (Don’t leave us).

It was then she realized—they weren’t just infected. They were cursed, bound to this forsaken place. And now, she was too.

November 1, 2024

When the rescue team arrived, they found nothing but the empty shell of the old shed, the rotting remains of their campsite, and five abandoned flashlights lying on the frozen ground. Of Elena, Viktor, Maria, and the others, there was no sign.

Local rumors began to spread among Kazakh townsfolk of ghostly figures seen wandering the shores of the Aral Sea on foggy nights. They called them Тени острова—the Shadows of the Island. They say if you listen closely, you can still hear the faint, feverish tapping of the forgotten prisoners, waiting eternally for release.

To this day, Vozrozhdeniya Island remains off-limits. Those brave enough to venture near it say the wind carries whispers, pleas for release, from voices long lost to the past. And if you listen, truly listen, you can hear Elena’s last despairing cry:

не оставляй нас…

Epilogue

In a distant Kazakh village, children gather each Halloween to tell the legend of Vozrozhdeniya Island. Some swear that if you stare into a mirror at midnight and repeat the island’s name, you’ll see Elena’s haunted face staring back at you, pleading for freedom.

But no one does it. No one dares.

Happy Halloween to everyone in Acorn land and until next time…Have a Day!

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