The Accursed Ring

I wish I had never found that damned ring.

A vacation in Brazil sounded like a great idea at the time, just me and my fiancée Lisa, hiking up the mountains, dancing in the clubs, and trying the local cuisine. Too bad it pretty much destroyed my life.

I found it on the ground near the edge of the city, not in some dusty overgrown temple in the middle of the jungle like you might expect. Maybe I should have taken it to lost and found, assuming there was such a place, but for some reason I slipped it in my pocket while Lisa wasn’t looking. Red was her favorite color and the stone was the purest shade of it I’d ever seen. I knew she’d love it the moment I saw it.

My plan was to give it to her when we got back to the states, perhaps after a romantic dinner. While she slept next to me on the plane, I slipped it onto my finger to see how it looked.

I was surprised it fit at all, but then I couldn’t get it off. It got stuck, and even when I wet my finger, it wouldn’t slide off. I think that was when it took affect. The curse.

We were just getting ready to land, already descending towards the airport, when something went horribly wrong. It was all sort of a blur, and I couldn’t quite understand the pilot’s suppressed panicky tone as he tried to speak over the intercom as the oxygen masks fell down in front of us the plane shook like we were flying into a hurricane.

The plane was crashing. There was nothing anyone could do but scream and hold their loved ones. Lisa was awake now, looking around in confusion and terror. I held her close. There was a women standing up and trying to force her way to the front, flailing madly.

“…Phil?” was the last thing I heard Lisa say to me before I felt something strike the back of my head and went unconscious.

When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I was the only survivor of the crash.

I did plenty of interviews, not because I wanted to, but because I needed the money to pay off the medical bills. My life was ruined. Lisa was all I had in life and I lost her. Most of the interviewers commented on my ring, and when I explained where I got it, they accredited it with my survival, calling it the miracle ring along with a multitude of other ridiculous names.

But I knew the truth. It wasn’t a miracle. It was a curse. And it didn’t stop there.

Most days I just stayed home, moping and contemplating my death. It was there, while fidgeting with the ring, that I noticed the darkness. My finger was turning black right around where the ring sat. Slowly… It spread. It reached the tip of my finger and lost most movement in it. My career as a computer programmer didn’t do well with this, and I was eventually forced to quit because I couldn’t do my job well enough anymore.

It also seemed like it gave me a few small blessings. I didn’t get hungry anymore. No longer needed to use the bathroom. And sometimes, most terrifying of all, I would realize that I had stopped breathing. Is this what immortality feels like?

After a month I’d had enough. I took a knife and tried to cut the finger off. But it wouldn’t cut. The darkness had spread up to my wrist, engulfing my entire hand. What would happen to me if it spread to my entire body?

I’m frightened for people around me. I’ve been blacking out, missing chunks out of my day. When I regain awareness, I’m always holding a knife, or a weapon of some sort. Every picture I own has been smashed and shredded. I do not remember doing this.

I’m worried that I’ll never see Lisa again. I can’t let that happen.

This morning I purchased a gun. I have to use it before the darkness prevents me being able to.

Please. To whoever finds this; remember me as I was, not as what I’ve become.