A forsaken husband with a sick daughter bought a dilapidated house in a small town, but after hearing strange sounds from an old well, he decided to descend. What he saw made his hair stand on end…..

Next, Nicholas visited the local paramedic, an elderly man who remembered those events. Yeah, I remember Olivia, he said, pouring tea. Good girl.

Pity her very much. But strangely, the body was never found. Usually in our parts, water doesn’t hold the dead.

Floats them up in a couple days. And what’s special about that well? The paramedic darkened: The well is ancient. My grandfather said they didn’t dig it for water.

Dug for something else. In famine years, people resorted to anything. Even what they shouldn’t.

Meaning? Brought sacrifices. To old gods. Thought if they appeased, rain would come, harvest given.

They say they threw young girls there. Alive. Nicholas felt his hair stand on end.

And did it help? Help? Only made it worse. Because the place became cursed. Death settled there.

And not ordinary death, but hungry. The paramedic sipped tea and continued: After the revolution, wanted to fill the well. But earth caved, stones sank.

Like a bottomless pit. Then decided to just forget it. Only it didn’t forget itself.

And after Olivia, anyone else? No. Olivia was the last. But she turned out the strongest.

Others left, but she stayed. Clung to our world. And now pulls others to her.

By evening, Nicholas returned home heavy-hearted. The picture was getting gloomier. But the scary awaited at home.

Sophie met him at the door, and he immediately knew something was wrong. The girl looked strange—too pale, with an absent gaze. «Dad, where were you?» she asked, and her voice lacked usual liveliness.

«In town, sunshine.» Handling business. «How do you feel?» «Good.»

Just slept a lot. And had strange dreams. What dreams? Sophie went to the window and looked toward the well: Aunt Olivia came again.

Said you met her. And now we’ll be friends. Nicholas’s heart skipped.

So contact was made not only with him. And what else did she say? Told about her place. Says it’s very beautiful there.

Underwater there’s a little house, and fish swim. And it’s not hard to breathe underwater if you get used to it. Sophie turned to her father, and Nicholas saw her eyes were different.

Not in color—the color was the same. But something foreign, hungry appeared in them. «Dad, can I go look at the well?» Aunt Olivia said she’ll show me something interesting.

«No.» Nicholas said sharply. Can’t go to the well.

It’s dangerous. For the first time in her life, his daughter looked at him with displeasure: Why not. Aunt Olivia is kind.

She doesn’t want harm for me. «Sophie, listen carefully. Olivia!» Aunt Olivia isn’t who she claims.

She might hurt you. «Not true.» Sophie flared.

«You don’t know her. She’s lonely and sad, and needs a friend.» This was their first real quarrel.

Sophie ran to her room and locked herself in, and Nicholas stood in the hallway, realizing the situation was spiraling out of control. In the evening, he talked to Aunt Vera, who finally returned. The old woman listened to his story and paled.

«Worst is she latched onto the girl,» said Aunt Vera. Olivia always loved children. Dreamed of her own.

And now? Now she thinks she can take someone else’s child. What to do? Need to call a priest. But he won’t come soon.

And time doesn’t wait. Olivia gets stronger every day. She feeds on the girl’s life force.

Then we must do something ourselves. Aunt Vera was silent long, then took an old book in tattered binding from the cabinet. There’s one way.

But very dangerous. Need to descend to her again. And not just talk, but make her release the girl.

How? Give her what she wants. Not the child, but peace. But for that, need to learn what holds her.

What pain won’t let her go. Nicholas took the book. It was a collection of local legends and beliefs, handwritten, with yellowed pages.

Read, said Aunt Vera. It’s written about ones like Olivia. Maybe understand how to handle her.

But when Nicholas returned home, Sophie wasn’t in her room. The bed was made, clothes in place, but the girl herself nowhere. And only then he heard the voice from the yard: Dad.

Dad, come here. Aunt Olivia wants to talk to you. Sophie’s voice sounded strange—distant, echoing, as if she shouted from underwater.

Nicholas ran out to the yard and stopped dead. Sophie stood by the well. But she stood not on the ground, but in the air, a few centimeters high, as if an invisible force held her.

The girl’s eyes glowed with the same bluish light coming from the well. «Sophie!» he shouted, rushing to her. But the girl raised her hand, and Nicholas felt he hit an invisible wall.

The air before him became dense, impenetrable. «Don’t come closer, Dad!» Sophie said, and foreign intonations sounded in her voice. Aunt Olivia said for now keep distance.

«Sophie, this isn’t you talking. Where’s the real Sophie?» «I’m here, Dad. Just…

Just now I understand better.» Aunt Olivia showed me the truth. Bluish mist began rising from the well.

It swirled and thickened, gradually taking human shape. And before Nicholas stood Olivia, but not the fragile girl he met in the well. This was majestic and terrifying at once.

Her dress billowed though no wind. Hair streamed around her head as if still underwater. And the eyes! Eyes like two wells, bottomless and cold.

Nicholas, she said, and her voice echoed across the yard. «We meet again. Release my daughter, he said, trying to speak firmly.»

Olivia laughed, and this laugh was like shattering glass: your daughter. «And did you care for her when your wife left you? Didn’t you bring her here, to my place, knowing it’s dangerous?» «I didn’t know.» «Didn’t know? And the town folk were silent by chance? Or they warned, but you didn’t listen?» Nicholas realized she was right.

Aunt Vera said from the start the place was restless. But he didn’t pay attention. «You yourself brought her to me,» Olivia continued.

«Yourself gave her into my hands.» «So fate decided.» «No.

I’ll take her back. Try.» Nicholas tried again to approach Sophie, but the invisible wall was insurmountable.

Moreover, with each attempt to break through, it became denser, and the air around him thickened, making breathing hard. «See?» Olivia said. «You’re powerless.

And the girl?» «The girl is already half mine. Look at her closer.» Nicholas peered at his daughter’s face and was horrified.

Sophie was becoming transparent. Through her skin showed bluish veins, and in her eyes flickered the same cold lights as Olivia’s. «What are you doing to her?» «The same that was done to me.

Turning her into what I became. She’ll live underwater in my house. She’ll like it there.

She’ll die. No. She’ll become like me. Not alive, but not dead…