The Truth About Scrooge
You’ve been told Ebenezer Scrooge hated Christmas—that he was cruel, miserly, and heartless. But what you don’t know is that the story was wrong. Scrooge didn’t hate Christmas. He feared it. And with good reason.
It began the Christmas Eve Jacob Marley died. Scrooge wasn’t at the counting house that night; he was at Marley’s bedside, watching his partner’s body waste away. Jacob wasn’t alone when he died. Something was there—a shadow darker than the candlelight could pierce, looming at the edge of the room.
“Ebenezer,” Marley wheezed, his fingers clutching Scrooge’s arm with unnatural strength. “Don’t let them take me.” His eyes bulged as his body convulsed. “They’ll come for you too. Christmas Eve… midnight.”
The clock struck twelve as Marley’s chest caved inward, as if unseen hands were crushing him. Scrooge backed into the corner, horrified as the shadow grew legs, arms, a jagged maw. It dragged Marley from his deathbed—his body flopping unnaturally as it disappeared into the floor, leaving behind a sickening stench of burnt flesh.
For seven years, Scrooge dreaded Christmas Eve. Every December, the shadows whispered. The church bells rang at midnight. He locked his doors. He told no one what he had seen.
The night the ghosts visited him wasn’t punishment. It wasn’t a warning. It was a reckoning.
They had come for Jacob. Now, they had come for him.
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