In the small town of Woodbury, the name of the Thompson twins had become synonymous with a shiver down the spine, a quick glance over the shoulder, and a hurried pace once the sun dipped behind the horizon. Theirs was a tale born from the twilight hours, whispered in the back of the classroom or over the fence between neighbors, never quite reaching daylight, where such things could be laughed away.
But in the ’80s, the story was no mere whisper.
Born conjoined at the back, Jennifer and Jessica Thompson were a medical marvel, the sort of case doctors wrote about in journals with cold, clinical fascination. Yet no one ever wrote about their eyes—those dark, glittering things that always seemed to know more than they should, more than they could. The girls shared a body, shared a heart, shared a fate, and most of all, shared a mischievous cruelty that lingered long after their little pranks.
The neighbors’ dogs were the first to know it. What started as harmless games—tying a tail to a tree, tickling a nose with a feather—escalated into something darker, meaner. Cats were found shaved, birds with clipped wings fluttered hopelessly on the ground. The girls never laughed when they did it. They watched, their mouths still as stone, their eyes flicking with curiosity, as though they were conducting some private experiment. Something about the way they observed the suffering made people uneasy.
Then, there were the health crises. Constant trips to the hospital, endless tests, and murmured concerns. They spent more time in sterile, white rooms under fluorescent lights than they did in schoolyards, but they never complained. In fact, they seemed to enjoy their time there—watching, listening, always plotting their next move.
Their mother, poor Mrs. Thompson, had wanted children so desperately. Her hysteria was the stuff of local gossip. Multiple miscarriages had left her frayed at the edges, and in the dark of the night, when hope had long since shriveled, she'd struck a deal. But not with a doctor, or a specialist, no. She'd whispered her desires into the night, into shadows that stretched too long and whispered back.
When the twins were born, the town clucked its tongue and moved on. Children come in all shapes and sizes, and who were they to question God's design? But as the girls grew, people began to wonder if it was God’s hand at all.
The Doctor and the Doorway
That final visit came on an overcast Thursday, the kind where the sky hangs heavy and the wind feels as though it's carrying whispers from faraway places. The Thompson twins, now 14, had come in for what was to be a routine check-up. They had been paler than usual, their breathing shallow, their once-glittering eyes now dull, but they hadn’t complained. Not even when their usual doctor wasn’t available.
The substitute, Dr. Meyer, was new, fidgety. He hadn’t quite learned the rhythm of small-town medicine. The nurses fluttered around him, peppering him with questions about dosage, about charts, and in the flurry of activity, he did the one thing he shouldn't have: he laid them flat on their backs.
Jennifer and Jessica gasped, but the sound was faint, lost in the rustle of papers and clatter of trays. Conjoined at the back, the girls couldn’t breathe in that position, and as their lungs pressed together, they felt the darkness begin to close in. Dr. Meyer, oblivious, stood at the doorway, answering a nurse’s question, unaware of the silent tragedy unfolding behind him.
The first to die was Jessica—the twin on the back. As the world went dark for her, Jennifer, still conscious, felt the slow squeeze of her sister’s death like a tightening vice. The blood stopped flowing, the air grew thinner. Her eyes locked on Dr. Meyer, standing there, unaware, indifferent. Her final thought, her final promise, burned itself into her mind like a brand: Somaneta Forest.
The Return
There are places in this world that seem to stretch thin between here and somewhere else. Woodbury, quiet and tucked away, was one of those places. And in the days following the twins’ deaths, something shifted.
The Thompson house sat empty for a few weeks after the funeral, a “For Sale” sign creaking in the wind. But no one bought it. No one wanted it. Strange things happened there, at night mostly—lights flickering on, shadows passing by windows when no one was inside. The neighbors swore they heard whispers on the wind, hushed giggles in the dark.
Then the animals started disappearing. A dog here, a cat there. When they were found, they were in strange states—almost as if they’d been the victims of some dark game. No one spoke of it, not outright, but the town knew. The girls had come back.
You see, a deal like the one Mrs. Thompson made isn’t so easily undone. The shadows that had answered her desperation had bound themselves to her daughters, and when those daughters died with revenge in their hearts, they came back with it too.
It started small. A neighbor’s dog went missing, only to be found days later with its paws tied together in a mockery of the twins' conjoined bodies. A cat was found, its whiskers clipped, its fur matted in a way that made it look almost… sewn together. Each incident was marked by the faintest of whispers, carried on the wind: Somaneta Forest.
People began to lock their doors. Pets were kept indoors. But still, the whispers came. The town tried to move on, but fear had taken root, spreading through Woodbury like a disease.
Somaneta Forest
No one knew what the phrase meant, exactly. Some thought it was a foreign language, others claimed it was the twins' own creation, a child’s twisted nursery rhyme. But everyone knew what it meant—revenge.
The twins were not content to haunt pets. Their list of wrongs extended further. The doctor who had failed them—poor Dr. Meyer—was found dead in his office one winter’s morning. A heart attack, they said. But his body had been found sprawled across the floor, his limbs contorted in such a way that it looked as though he’d been tied to something, as if invisible threads had pulled him tight, suffocating him. Around him, scattered in a circle, were bits of ribbon.
And faintly, on the windowpane, written in frost, were the words: Somaneta Forest.
Lingering Shadows
The town of Woodbury is quieter these days, its streets emptier, as if holding its breath. But those who’ve lived here long enough know the truth: the twins’ presence lingers still. Their whispers ride the cold October wind, slip into the stretching shadows, and curl through the dark corners of the woods.
They’re waiting, watching, whispering that dark promise in voices tinged with childlike cruelty: Somaneta Forest.
For those two cunning sisters, it meant, “What you’ve done to me must be done to you—but tenfold, and to your death.”
So the people of Woodbury keep their windows locked, their lights burning through the night, and hope the twins’ vengeance never finds them.
