What I am about to describe about my life and my current circumstances will beggar belief. That being said, you don’t need to believe me to help. If it all seems too outlandish to justify your time, consider this post to be a hyperspecific thought experiment instead. Whatever allows you to put yourself in my position, because I have no one else to lean on for guidance. 

Here is the thought experiment: in twenty-four hours, you are going to kill the person you love most. Involuntary but inevitable murder. That’s option A - the default ending to this thought experiment. Option B would be to kill them before the twenty-four-hour mark. There doesn’t seem to be an option C, but I don’t know that for sure. 

If you choose option A, you will die, too. But hey, that’s maybe not the worst thing. You won’t have to live with yourself afterward, unlike option B. In that scenario, you don’t die by default but you do have a say in how things will transpire. Option B’s appeal is control, I suppose. Oh also, in option B your loved one definitely dies - option A may instead leave them in perpetual agony for who knows how long. But you won’t be alive to know about it, I guess. One more caveat - if option C exists, i.e. you both live, you only get there by going with option A and effectively doing nothing while hoping for the best. Not to complicate things further, but option A is theoretically one more step towards an apocalypse. 

It’s convoluted, I know.

That being said, if you already have an answer, feel free to let me know. No need to read further and your service to myself and mankind is very much appreciated. If you need more information, keep scrolling down.

Let’s start with this: I was born into a secret cult isolated from society somewhere in the West Virginian wilderness. We worship nature and the gods therein. Our leaders are known as the “Red Vassals”, and they are trying to eliminate the cancer of humanity via the cultivation of an ancient, preternatural tree, letting nature reclaim and regrow the world.

Their words, not mine. 

Of course, they would live through that armageddon because of their unyielding devotion to nature and its regrowth. Normal cult stuff, to my limited understanding.

Again, if it helps, consider this all make-believe. I’ve always thought it was bullshit, unlike my peers. Don’t know why they are able to gulp down the metaphorical Kool-Aid like its water on a hot day, while I’ve found myself vomiting it back out after a sip. I’m just skeptical down to my DNA, I suppose. I certainly wasn’t taught any skepticism from the Vassals, and I don’t have parents in the traditional sense. None of us do. 

In our cult, there are two groups of people: the Vassals and the Gemini. The Gemini are further divided into two subgroups: essents and attendants, also known informally as roots and resins. Functionally, the Vassals raise, educate, and sacrifice us Gemini. The resins are taught that sacrifice is their only purpose, the roots are left blissfully unaware of their impending end. You would think it’s better to be born a root, but I think the cruelty of not knowing, only to have the rug pulled out from under you, is actually much worse. I still haven’t had the heart to tell Grace the whole truth. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell if that's what I actually want for her or if that's my attendant conditioning puppeting me from the shadows. 

Both groups live together at the “reservation”, our compound in the deep Appalachian woods. The Vassals inhabit a large church in the center, with many smaller cottages surrounding it. I don’t think the Vassals built the church themselves; I think they just refurbished it. Based on some Google image comparisons, it looks Christian in nature, but I’ve never asked the Vassals directly. I believe the people who founded the cult happened across this long-abandoned place of worship and selected it as HQ because of the oak tree sprouting from the top. Whoever built the church in the first place designed it around the tree itself, creating a narrow shute in the ceiling to accommodate its growth. On the inside, all you can see is the massive tree trunk erupting from behind the pulpit. From the outside, you can appreciate the canopy resting on the roof. I think the choice to build the church around the tree was originally just a pragmatic one, an efficient and elegant way to use the landscape. In comparison, the Red Vassals clearly chose it because of the perceived symbolism. A primordial tree older than sin growing and enveloping a secular “house of god” very succinctly sums up the cult’s vision for the world. 

Young Gemini live in the church with the Vassals, with all the essents and attendants intermixed and coming to know each other. There's usually about fifteen or so young ones living with the Vassals at any one time.  At some point, usually around the age of eight, however, Gemini are officially “coupled” - one essent for one attendant, one root for one resin. They then move you out to one of the cottages, where you’ll live together till your “germination” ceremony. I.e. the part where they sacrifice us to the earth. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. Moreover, looking at the road signs from the bus window, I am running out of time. Need to speed things up a bit. 

In the beginning, there was Father Ludwig and his three daughters. During his upbringing, he reluctantly watched industrialization defile and destroy his birth-land. When he could no longer watch, he moved his family out into the woods, where they would happen across the place that would become the reservation with its symbolic chapel. For a few years, they lived a simple and peaceful life. But as he aged, Father Ludwig wondered what would become of his daughters when he died. He did not want them to stay and die on the reservation, effectively ending his bloodline, but he did not want them to return to modern society, either. He labored over this dilemma every night until exhaustion finally put him to sleep, until one night he had a spiritual vision that serves as the basis for this cult and, moreover, my existence.

The Vassals tell us Father Ludwig communed with the earth itself that night. In the vision, the earth told him they had been searching for someone pure of spirit to serve as a conduit for nature's divinity, allowing it to simultaneously exterminate and rewrite humanity. When asked if he was willing to be anointed the land’s avatar and the new father of humankind, he accepted and asked the earth what to do next. 

Yes, it is all batshit.  Bear with me, it actually gets worse. 

So, apparently, he woke up the next day, found a specific plot of land, and had his daughters bury him there alive. Before his face was completely covered with dirt, he told his children to come back to his grave in two months. When they did, he proclaimed that his daughters would find a small tree resembling a red maple. They would know it was his new form because they would be able to feel pulsations when they placed their hands on the trunk, almost like a heartbeat. 

His daughters, the original Red Vassals, successfully found Father Ludwig and his oaken heartbeat two months after they had buried him alive. Thus, they unquestioningly followed his instructions on how to grow their cult and bring about the world's end.

To do this, they would need to “cultivate” the land, which is where us Gemini come in. Now is a good time to mention that we are an entirely female society. Any male children are taken away at birth - either killed out of sight of the colony or just left to succumb to the elements in the woods, it's unclear. All men, excluding Father Ludwig in his tree-form I guess, are without a womb. They cannot create and bear fruit like the earth, so they have no home in our cult.

I think the next question most would have is: how the fuck do they propagate? Well, one of three ways, if you believe the Vassals.

Vassals are responsible for all the births on the reservation, and your place in the society is dependent on the circumstances of your conception. If you are an attendant, you were conceived from an outsider. Obviously, the Vassals need to leave the reservation for supplies on a regular basis. When they do, some of them come back pregnant from one-night stands. 

If you are an essent, you were conceived from the “sap” of the tree that used to be Father Ludwig. God knows what that actually means, and I think this is absolute horseshit - I believe the Vassals just decide arbitrarily who is who. But then, what's left? How do they make more Vassals? Simple, they just replicate themselves in a budding ritual, of course. Sometimes a new young woman will just appear among their ranks, and reproduction by budding, an immaculate conception, is the only explanation we have ever been given.

So like I mentioned before, essents and attendants are coupled together right before puberty. From that point on, you are each other’s only family. Outside of daily educational sessions, Gemini who are coupled are forbidden to talk to anyone else, excluding Vassals, but only if they address you first. Co-dependency develops pretty much overnight. 

Once you are coupled, your education becomes segregated, too. Everything I detailed above is taught before segregation. From then on out, however, attendants learn one thing, essents learn something else entirely. Sharing of information, if discovered, is punishable by excommunication and death. 

Attendants are taught the remainder of our so-called glorious purpose. Throughout our adolescence, we take field trips with the Vassals to a remote plot of land. From a distance, it just looks like a patch of red maples. They are all relatively uniform in size and appearance, excluding one in the center, which is significantly larger and taller - apparently, that one is Father Ludwig. Still alive, still growing. The other red maples are buried essents, young women that we all used to know - also still alive, also still growing. 

If there are any attendants who have never been to visit Father Ludwig before, we are treated to an additional spectacle that day. A Vassal will be present at the forest's perimeter and waiting for us to arrive with an honored guest - an outsider, in handcuffs, naked as the day they were born, usually screaming and cursing at us. Since they’re so close to Father Ludwig, they’ll already start to look unwell - their faces purple and swollen with clotting blood. 

The attendants then watch as the outsider is dragged by their arms closer and closer to Father Ludwig. This is where the screaming starts to get to me. The helpless, confused outsider’s arms and legs will start to become unnaturally distended with fluid, doubling in size over the course of a few minutes. If you have good eyesight, you’ll be able to see outlines of blood vessels appear, bloated and congested with coagulated plasma on practically every inch of their body. At a certain point, the screams will stop, and the Vassals will drop the victim’s arms and leave them to decompose where they now lay. Typically, they are still a quarter of a mile from Father Ludwig when they die. 

According to the Vassals, Father Ludwig and the buried essents release a start of pollen that is responsible for the outsider’s horrific transformation. When inhaled, it rapidly clots human blood, causing the vasculature to completely solidify when exposed to it at a high enough concentration. We are all immune, of course, as we are all descendants of Father Ludwig. His blood shields us. 

That was the first time my disbelief was really tested. To my peers, that was definitive confirmation that everything we are taught is true. But how easy would it be to poison an outsider right before we arrive and then drag them toward that patch of red maples while the poison is at maximum effect? Sure would look like something supernatural was taking place. 

As a point of clarification, The Vassals don’t plan on dragging everyone out to Father Ludwig one by one. That apocalypse would be a little inefficient. What we are told, however, is that the pollen travels on the wind to nearby outsider settlements as far as thirty miles away. The people in those settlements have a life expectancy half the national average. They die of all sorts of clots - in the brain, in the lungs, in the heart - and apparently, no one understands why, but the Vassals attribute it to consistent, small doses of Father Ludwig. And as the patch surrounding him grows, the radius that the pollen reaches grows too. They say it will take a few hundred years, but they are confident that they will win the war of attrition in time. 

Of course, they need our help to do that. So, on an attendant’s seventeenth birthday, we will be delivered to Father Ludwig with our essent in tow. Not in a large group like the field trips - just a coupled Gemini and one Vassal. When we reach the patch of red maples, we will find an empty grave on the periphery, pre-dug before our arrival. Wordlessly, we are expected to incapacitate our essent, our only family, with physical violence. The accompanying Vassal will assist in this. Then, we will tie the essent’s wrists and ankles, they will be thrown in the grave, and we will bury them alive. At no point should we speak to our essents to explain. The only way they will germinate into a red maple, like Father Ludwig, is through desperate confusion and deep betrayal. It “cracks their spirit open”, allowing his roots to take hold within them. 

That’s the whole premise - the only way the essents will grow and produce the deadly pollen, as told to Father Ludwig in his vision, is if they are subjected to uncompromising, mind-shattering betrayal. They are seeds that need the right conditions to germinate, otherwise they remain dormant indefinitely. The coldness of profound despair ripens their holy blood for communion.

Father Ludwig senses their vulnerability once an essent is broken and buried in the ground. In response, he pushes the ends of his roots through the soil and into their skin, providing the necessary oxygen to keep their tissue alive as well as catalyzing their metamorphosis. But they still need nutrients, of course. So after an essent is no longer visible in their grave, an attendant lies down on top of the disturbed earth. The Vassal present proceeds to bury us, too. The essent will then quickly grow into and through us, utilizing our blood and tissue as fuel to project themselves towards the surface. Once they are through the topsoil, the sun does the rest in terms of nutrition. 

Essents are seeds, and we are their fertilizer. 

As I alluded to before, essents learn none of this. I suspect they aren’t taught much of anything, other than they are special and that one day, they will be able to grow beyond the confines of the reserve, out into the world like so many essents before them. I don’t think most of them even know there is a world beyond the reserve. That is only speculation, though.

Attendants, on the other hand, are very much aware of the world beyond us. We are given a full and detailed man-made genocides and atrocities. We are even allowed to utilize laptops during certain free times over the course of the day. I think the Vassals need us to believe that humanity is corrupted beyond repair and that the state of the world is beyond saving; otherwise, we might try to abscond with our essents to try to live a different life, with a different purpose. To me, allowing us to use the internet feels like they are saying: “what, you don’t believe that everything has gone to shit? Okay then, spend a few hours on the internet. Let me know what you think.”

It’s a clever system, I’ll give them that. They create dependency, which turns into love, and then they use that love to install guardrails that keep us in line. For example, there is a roll call every morning. If one part of a Gemini isn’t present at the roll call, the other is killed on the spot. Thought it was a hollow threat till I saw it myself. It wasn't a quick death, and I would never allow Grace to be put through it.

Leaving as a couple would be viable, except the Vassals figured out a way around that too - essents are fed an extremely high dose of sedatives every morning. If they go a day without the medication, the withdrawal is supposedly so intense that it effectively fries their brain. So, to leave together, you would need to have the medication as well, and a lot of it, which is naturally kept under lock and key. 

The Vassals go out of their way to make it seem completely hopeless. Even if we were to get away, they said, our “divine training” would eventually kick in. They told us that we have no choice in delivering our essents to Father Ludwig. We could not reject our purpose even if we wanted to, and thinking we could is a delusion and a cardinal sin that has no equal.

But let’s say you were still willing to try to escape - even if you got a few days' supply of the sedatives, only the Vassals know the routes back to civilization. Could we use the Internet to contact the rest of the world for help? Sure, but no one would believe us, and again, we have no idea where we are. Well, we used to have no idea, but explaining that discovery starts with what happened to Holly. 

Holly was the only other attendant I’ve ever known who didn’t seem to buy into all of this at face value. She was a few years older than me. We weren’t friends, per se, but we were aware of each other’s doubts. The biggest difference was our perspective. She was hellbent on getting herself and her essent away from the reservation. As much as I love Grace, my essent, I fell victim to paralyzing apathy for a few years. In my mind, we had both been unlucky enough to have been born into this unwinnable situation orchestrated by a coven of murderous lunatics, but at least we’d get to die together, close to each other. I wasn’t worried about Grace being reborn or mutated into a fucking red maple tree. Not till Holly. 

So, it’s between classes one day, and Holly covertly slips a note into my hand. It says to sit down at a computer next to her and to listen closely to what she has to say but to not look at her or raise suspicion. She tells me that she spent some time getting close to one of the younger Vassals, promising her unsavory reimbursement if she were to take her to visit Father Ludwig, just the two of them. Normally, we are blindfolded when we visit on our field trips, but Holly was able to convince this younger Vassal to not only take her there, but to take her there unobstructed. Holly’s plan was to watch for some sign of civilization on the way, memorize whatever she could, and then google the location upon her return. A distant water tower with a county name on it allowed her to make a reasonable guess of the reserve’s location. 

But in the process, she got more than she bargained for. The young Vassal was zealous and overexcitable, so when they arrived at the plot of land, she was dead-set on showing Holly something. She took Holly to the most recently germinated plot of land, where a fledgling red maple had begun to sprout. The Vassal asked Holly to wait a few yards away, and then out of nowhere, she took out a hand shovel from her satchel and started digging a small hole aside the tree. After waiting for almost an hour, The Vassal waved Holly over, turned on a flashlight, handed it to her, and then directed her to point the light into the hole.

I think the Vassal assumed this was why Holly had requested to bring her to Father Ludwig in the first place - to see the vengeful benediction of nature in real-time. 

Holly started gagging from the smell of decay before she could visualize what the Vassal was trying to show her. She covered her nose with a hand and part of her shirt and then was able to look inside, only to see a rotting human hand pierced by at least ten, red-brown pulsating worms. At least, that is what she thought at first, because she could see them twitching and throbbing. But upon further inspection, they had a splintered, wooden complexion. Like roots.

She stepped back in stunned horror, but the Vassal then indicated that there is another, greater miracle she wanted Holly to observe. Reluctantly walking forward and placing her head closer to the hole, she finally saw it - between the tendons and bone of the hand, an eye was looking back up at her. At first, she thought she was seeing things - like it was an optical illusion created by fungus and dirt. 

After a few seconds of watching, however, the eye blinked. And after another few seconds, it blinked again. And again. Apparently, it almost looked like it was tearing up, but Holly admits she may be superimposing her own feelings on the traumatic memory. 

Her story roused me from my fatalistic catatonia, and I finally was no longer sleepwalking - I was reignited. I became genuinely fearful for Grace, that she could possibly be put through such abominable suffering. But even more than that, now that we knew approximately where we were, I was hopeful that there was something more than this for us in the cards. 

Holly then pulled me into the chair she was sitting in. In the process, she stood up, turned around, and began keeping watch. She asked me to quickly review and memorize the map she had pulled up on her computer. 

To make a longer story short, Holly and her essent died trying to escape. But I learned from her mistakes, and a year later, Grace and I made it out of the woods in one piece. In the months before we left, I was able to slowly pilfer the supplies we needed to make it on our own - food, water, medication, a few hundred dollars, and the night before we left, a backpack and a laptop. Originally, I had given up completely on the idea of escape after Holly's death. But as my seventeenth birthday approached, I found myself unable to cope with the idea of Grace existing in a state of perpetual undeath in the cold hard ground, comforted only by the lecherous roots of Father Ludwig. 

It felt like a happy ending at first. We have been away from the reservation for two whole weeks. Grace didn't understand what was happening, but she trusted my judgement. When we hit a major highway, and then a bus station with trips as far north as Maine, I thought it was all over. But now, I’m not so sure. 

Initially, we made it as far as Pennsylvania. We slept a night in a shitty motel, and then I bought us a bus ticket to Vermont the following morning. Grace and I slept most of the ride, but when I woke up, we had gone South, not North. I looked at my ticket in disbelief, and it revealed our destination was the town closest to the reservation - the first bus station we arrived at a few days' prior. A coincidental mistake made by my exhausted mind, I thought. That rationalization soothed me until the same coincidental mistake happened a second time. And now, a third. Each time I was convinced I had purchased a different ticket, but each time it eventually became clear that I didn’t. And now we are out of time.

My so-called “divine training” kicked in. I suppose. 

It seems my subconscious is doing everything possible to drag Grace back to West Virginia and Father Ludwig. I’m still not sure I believe it all; everything I have to work with is secondhand experience. Even my subconscious overriding my free will could just be psychosocial conditioning and not a sign of an inescapable supernatural trajectory. 

But is it worth risking it? What if the clock ticks over into my birthday, and I go from having partial control of my actions to zero control? If I kill Grace now, I can at least assure myself she won’t be buried in proximity of Father Ludwig. But maybe this is something I just have to keep fighting, and eventually, its hold will break over me. 

Killing Grace is still the safest bet, though. It wouldn’t be violent or painful. An overdose of her medication could cause her to peacefully drift off to somewhere much better than this. 

So tell me - what’s worse, killing your only family involuntarily or of your own volition? 

More r/nogreatanswers and other stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

When every single mistake
Is caused by mental disease
Every predictable failure
Will carry the stench of my piss

There is a malignant cancerous
beating growth in my chest
Overgrown with rot to the bone
I am haunted by a lamentable past

Those poor bastards born in velvet
They grow bored with their gilded cage
Proclaiming themselves leprous
With nothing left but a death wish  

Yet somehow, every time my hands
Are torn open by the atopy
A consequence of wood repeatedly
Slammed against the human anatomy
Forcing every nihilistic petit bourgeois
To beg for mercy

Left unconscious in a pool of phlegm and piss

I took the night security job at Lakeside Carnival on a whim. It was an off-season position, meant to last only through the winter while the park went through renovations and an equipment upgrade. Nothing fancy, but the pay wasn’t bad for what seemed like a simple gig. Besides, I’ve always preferred night work, the quiet hours and the solitude. I’m not a people person, and the idea of roaming an empty theme park under the stars was oddly appealing.

The park had been around for decades. Tucked away on the edge of town near a small lake, it was the kind of place that was bursting with life in the summer and felt like a ghost town in the winter. Rides that would have been filled with screams and laughter stood silent, their bright colors dulled in the moonlight. The whole place had an eerie beauty to it at night, the way the roller coaster’s tracks twisted up into the sky like skeletal hands reaching out for something. It felt still, like it was holding its breath.

On my first night, I met Mr. Davidson, the park’s manager. He was an older man, probably in his mid-sixties, with graying hair and a face that looked worn from years of long shifts and the pressures of running the place. As he walked me around the empty park, showing me my route and the key locations, he spoke in a low, gruff voice that barely broke the silence.

“Listen,” he said, stopping near the carousel. “There are some things you need to keep in mind during your shifts here. This place isn’t like the others. It’s got… a history. Some of it good, some of it not so much. Just follow the rules, and you’ll be fine.”

I chuckled, brushing it off. “Rules? Like don’t ride the Ferris wheel alone or make sure the clowns don’t escape?”

He didn’t laugh. Instead, he handed me a small, worn piece of paper, folded and creased like it had been opened and closed a hundred times. Across the top, in faded ink, were the words: Night Security Rules. Below, in the same old-fashioned script, a list of instructions.

Night Security Rules:

1. Never look directly at the carousel between 1-3 a.m.
2. If you hear carnival music, follow it to the entrance and wait until it stops.
3. Do not enter the funhouse alone.
4. If someone dressed as a clown waves at you, turn around and walk away.

The list seemed absurd, and I chuckled again, expecting him to say it was a joke. But when I looked up, Davidson’s face was grim. He met my gaze, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of something...worry? Fear?

“Do not,” he said, his voice low, “under any circumstances, break these rules.”

I shrugged, feeling a strange discomfort settle in my stomach, but I nodded. “Sure thing. If it keeps the ghosts at bay, I’ll do it.”

Davidson left me with a firm handshake and one final reminder to check the list whenever I felt uneasy. I watched him leave, his figure disappearing into the darkness beyond the park gates, and then I turned to look at the paper in my hand.

The first rule felt innocuous enough: Never look directly at the carousel between 1-3 a.m. I glanced over at the carousel, a colorful fixture even in the dim light. The horses were lined up in silent parade, frozen in mid-gallop, their manes captured in a permanent wave. Their glassy eyes seemed to follow me as I walked by, an effect that was eerie at night. But Davidson’s warning lingered, and I tucked the list into my pocket, telling myself it was just some quirky attempt to add mystery to the place.

The park was still and quiet, an unnatural silence that settled deep into the empty spaces between the rides and food stalls. The Ferris wheel loomed in the distance, towering above the park like a watchful eye. I felt a faint chill, and I told myself it was just the cool night air seeping through my jacket. I turned on my flashlight, the beam cutting through the darkness as I began my rounds.

The hours passed slowly. I wandered through the empty paths, the only sounds the crunch of gravel underfoot and the occasional creak of an old ride swaying in the wind. Around midnight, I found myself back near the carousel, and I paused, glancing at the clock on my phone. 12:15. The rules said not to look at it after 1 a.m., and I had no problem obeying that.

I decided to keep moving, staying close to the edge of the park, where the woods crept up close to the fences. My mind started to wander, drawn to the oddities of the place: the aging rides, the faded posters, the way the park felt almost frozen in time. It was as if it had been waiting, holding onto its past, like a memory that refused to fade.

At one point, I passed by the funhouse. In the day, it was bright and cheerful, with a cartoonish face painted above the entrance. But now, in the dim light, it looked different, almost sinister. The colors were faded, and the once-smiling face seemed to have twisted into a leer. I felt an irrational urge to go inside, to walk through the twisting halls and see what lay at the end. But Rule #3 lingered in my mind...Do not enter the funhouse alone.

I laughed to myself, dismissing the impulse. I was alone in a deserted theme park at night, after all. Who wouldn’t feel a little jumpy?

As I continued my patrol, I caught sight of the clown statues scattered throughout the park. They were relics from the park’s early days, dressed in garish, old-fashioned costumes and frozen in a perpetual wave or a cheerful grin. Something about them was unsettling, the way their painted smiles seemed a little too wide, a little too fixed.

And that last rule… If someone dressed as a clown waves at you, turn around and walk away. It was ridiculous. Who would be dressed as a clown here, at this hour? I shook my head, dismissing the strange list once again. It was nothing more than a set of superstitions, an old security guard’s joke left behind to spook the newbies. I told myself that over and over as I made my way back to the entrance.

As I stood there, taking in the quiet, a faint sound drifted through the air...the distant, tinkling notes of carnival music. I froze, every hair on my body standing on end. It was faint, almost like a memory, a melody that seemed to come from somewhere deep within the park.

I reached for the list in my pocket, unfolding it with trembling fingers. Rule #2: If you hear carnival music, follow it to the entrance and wait until it stops.

The music was growing louder, filling the air with a tune that was both cheerful and haunting. I forced myself to move, to follow the path back to the entrance, my footsteps quick and uneven. The music continued, echoing through the empty park, a haunting melody that seemed to wrap around me, drawing me in.

When I reached the entrance, I stopped, glancing around as the music continued to play, faint but persistent. I waited, my pulse quickening, until, finally, the music faded, trailing off into silence.

I let out a shaky breath, glancing down at the list in my hand. The rules had seemed like nonsense at first, a silly joke meant to unsettle me. But now, standing alone in the dark, I wasn’t so sure. Something about the park felt different, as if it had come alive, aware of my presence.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the park was watching me. By dawn, I’d almost convinced myself that the whole thing had been in my head, just nerves playing tricks on me. But that morning, lying in bed, the faint strains of carnival music still echoed in my mind. It was the kind of tune you couldn’t forget even if you wanted to...the notes lingered, twisting around in my head as I drifted off to sleep.

The following night, I returned to the park, a slight feeling of unease gnawing at me. I told myself it was nothing, that the music had probably come from a forgotten speaker or an automated system that turned on by accident. That’s all it could have been.

I repeated this in my mind as I went through my rounds, my flashlight beam cutting through the dark. The night was colder, a biting chill in the air that seemed to seep into my bones. I kept the list of rules in my pocket, my fingers brushing against the worn paper every so often, as though it could somehow protect me. I’d thought about ignoring the rules, maybe even testing them, but the memory of that music, the way it had wound its way through the empty park, held me back.

As I passed the carousel, I glanced at the clock on my phone...12:55. Five minutes to go before the first rule would apply. A trickle of dread ran down my spine as I realized I didn’t want to be anywhere near the carousel between 1 and 3 a.m. I turned away, deciding to circle around the park, to give the carousel a wide berth. But as I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

At exactly 1:00, I heard a faint sound, just a soft whir, like gears beginning to turn. My heart skipped a beat, and I glanced back, half-expecting to see the carousel starting up on its own. But the horses stood still, frozen in mid-gallop, their glassy eyes staring blankly out into the night. I tried to look away, to continue on my path, but my gaze was drawn to them, an irresistible urge to look directly at the carousel, to confront whatever was happening.

I took a step closer, the rules slipping from my mind as the whirring sound grew louder. The air felt heavier, pressing down on me, filling my ears with a low hum that made it hard to think. My vision blurred, and the world seemed to tilt slightly as I stepped closer to the carousel, drawn to it despite myself.

Just as I reached the edge of the platform, my phone buzzed in my pocket, breaking the spell. I jolted, pulling myself back, and quickly turned away, my heart racing. I walked briskly toward the other side of the park, forcing myself to ignore the carousel, even as the whirring sound faded into silence. I didn’t dare look back.

My phone buzzed again, a message lighting up the screen. It was from Davidson, the park manager. “Follow the rules.” That was all it said, just those three words.

I felt a chill run through me. I hadn’t told Davidson about my shift, or that I’d even considered testing the rules. How could he have known? I shoved my phone back into my pocket, my hand trembling slightly, and continued my rounds, keeping my gaze firmly fixed ahead.

The air felt wrong as I moved through the park, the silence more oppressive than ever. It was as though the rides themselves were watching, waiting for something to happen. The Ferris wheel loomed in the distance, a dark silhouette against the night sky, its empty seats swaying gently in the wind. I could almost hear it creak, a soft groan that sounded unnervingly like a sigh.

Just after 2 a.m., I passed by the funhouse. The entrance was still, the cartoonish face painted above the doorway twisted into a smile that now looked sinister in the dark. The door creaked slightly in the breeze, swinging open just a crack, as if inviting me inside. I felt a strange urge to enter, to walk through the dimly lit halls and see what lay at the end. But the rule echoed in my mind...Do not enter the funhouse alone.

I shuddered, turning away, forcing myself to walk back toward the main path. My footsteps echoed in the silence, each step feeling heavier, as though the ground itself was dragging me down. I glanced over my shoulder, half-expecting to see someone standing at the entrance, watching me leave. But there was nothing...just the gaping entrance of the funhouse, its twisted grin mocking me.

The silence pressed in around me as I continued my rounds, my flashlight cutting through the darkness. I thought about Davidson’s message, the way he’d known exactly what I’d been doing, as though he were watching from somewhere beyond the park’s gates. I glanced at my phone again, almost expecting another message, but the screen was dark.

As the clock neared 3 a.m., I returned to the entrance, eager to finish my shift. I took a deep breath, trying to shake off the lingering unease. Just as I was about to settle back into my chair, a faint sound drifted through the air...the distant strains of carnival music.

My blood ran cold, and I reached for the list in my pocket, unfolding it with trembling fingers. Rule #2: If you hear carnival music, follow it to the entrance and wait until it stops.

I forced myself to stay calm, to follow the instructions, even as the music grew louder, filling the air with a haunting tune. The melody was slow, almost mournful, each note hanging in the air before fading into silence. I stood there, listening, my pulse racing as the music echoed through the empty park, a sound that didn’t belong.

I glanced around, expecting to see lights flickering on, the rides springing to life in some nightmarish display. But the park remained dark, the rides still, and the only movement was the gentle sway of the Ferris wheel in the distance. The music continued, winding its way through the air, a melody that felt strangely familiar, as though I’d heard it before, long ago.

My phone buzzed again, and I glanced down, half-expecting another message from Davidson. But the screen was blank, and when I looked up, the music had stopped.

The silence that followed was absolute, a heavy stillness that pressed down on me, filling my ears with a ringing that wouldn’t fade. I stood there, rooted to the spot, my heart pounding as the reality of the rules settled over me. They weren’t just guidelines...they were warnings, boundaries meant to keep me safe from whatever lurked in the shadows of Lakeside Carnival.

I glanced around, my gaze sweeping over the darkened rides, the empty stalls, the rows of clown statues frozen in perpetual cheer. For the first time, I felt as though the park itself were alive, aware of my presence, watching me from every corner, every shadow.

Just then, I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned, my heart racing, but saw nothing. The shadows seemed to shift, pooling in strange shapes that vanished as soon as I tried to focus on them. I took a deep breath, telling myself it was just the darkness playing tricks on me, but the sense of unease grew stronger, a knot of dread settling in my stomach.

The sound of gravel crunching broke the silence, and I froze. Someone...or something...was moving toward me, footsteps echoing in the stillness. I gripped my flashlight, the beam wavering slightly as I pointed it toward the source of the sound. But the footsteps stopped, and the darkness swallowed whatever had been there.

A chill ran down my spine, and I glanced back at the entrance, suddenly desperate to leave, to escape the strange pull of the park. But my shift wasn’t over, and I knew I couldn’t leave until dawn. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, and continued my rounds, forcing myself to ignore the shadows that seemed to close in around me.

The rules felt heavier now, their words echoing in my mind, a reminder that there were forces at work in the park that I couldn’t understand. I could feel their presence, lurking in the darkness, waiting for me to make a mistake. And as I walked, I knew one thing for certain...I wasn’t alone.

The weight of the silence bore down on me as I made my way through the park. The rides loomed like towering skeletons, their frames twisted and shadowed, each one standing as a silent witness to the strange occurrences of the night. Despite my efforts to stay calm, an unsettling realization settled over me...this place was watching, waiting, and somehow it was aware of my every move.

As I continued my patrol, a strange compulsion grew within me, a pull I couldn’t resist. It was almost as if the park itself were guiding me, leading me down winding paths, past the silent games booths and empty snack stands. The familiar layout felt distorted, the paths stretching longer, twisting in ways I couldn’t quite remember. I wanted to turn back, to escape the maze of shadows, but something drove me forward, an unspoken demand whispering at the edges of my mind.

The pull grew stronger as I approached the carousel, and before I knew it, I was standing just a few feet away, drawn by a force I couldn’t understand. The horses stood in perfect stillness, their glassy eyes fixed on me, their once-playful expressions frozen in something that now felt like malice. I swallowed hard, remembering the first rule: Never look directly at the carousel between 1 and 3 a.m.

But it was already too late.

A flicker of light caught my eye, and I turned to see the carousel coming to life. The faint whir of gears filled the air, followed by the slow creak of metal as the platform began to rotate, each horse bobbing up and down in a slow, ghostly parade. The music started softly, just a whisper of a tune, but it grew louder, filling the air with a melody that was both haunting and strangely familiar.

I tried to look away, but my gaze was locked on the carousel, trapped in the rhythmic rise and fall of the horses. My pulse quickened, and I felt a strange, creeping fear settle over me, an understanding that I was witnessing something forbidden, something I shouldn’t have seen. I wanted to turn and run, to escape the pull of the music and the carousel, but my feet felt rooted to the ground.

Suddenly, I saw something move between the horses...a figure, shadowed and indistinct, darting in and out of sight as the platform spun. I blinked, telling myself it was just a trick of the light, but the figure remained, moving with the same slow, steady rhythm as the horses. My breath caught in my throat as I realized it was watching me, its gaze piercing through the darkness.

The figure stepped closer, slipping between the horses with an ease that defied logic. I caught glimpses of a face...a pale, painted smile, eyes dark and hollow, a hint of red around the lips. The makeup was smudged, the features distorted, twisted into a grin that was too wide, too empty.

A clown.

My heart raced as I remembered the last rule: If someone dressed as a clown waves at you, turn around and walk away. But I couldn’t move. The clown stepped forward, one hand raised in a slow, deliberate wave, its smile widening, stretching impossibly across its face.

I took a step back, my pulse pounding, but the clown kept coming, weaving between the horses as it closed the distance. The carousel picked up speed, the horses bobbing faster, their eyes gleaming in the dim light. The music grew louder, the notes blurring into a discordant melody that filled my head, drowning out my thoughts.

“Stop,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, swallowed by the relentless tune. “Please… just stop.”

The clown paused, its gaze locked on mine, and for a brief moment, I thought it would listen, that it would stop. But then it moved again, its movements jerky, unnatural, like a puppet pulled by invisible strings. It was close now, just a few feet away, its hand still raised in that mocking wave, its painted smile stretched into a leer.

I stumbled backward, the weight of the fear pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe. The clown’s eyes were dark, empty, but I could feel its gaze, cold and unrelenting, piercing through me. I tried to look away, to break the spell, but my gaze was locked on its face, trapped in the horrible, distorted grin.

“Why are you here?” I managed to whisper, my voice shaking. “What do you want?”

The clown tilted its head, as if considering my question, its smile widening. It raised a hand, pointing at me, its finger held steady, accusing. And then it spoke, its voice soft, a whisper that seemed to echo in the empty park.

“You broke the rules.”

The words sent a chill down my spine, and I took another step back, my heart pounding. The clown’s gaze held mine, unblinking, its finger still pointing, accusing. The carousel spun faster, the music building to a feverish pitch, filling the air with a maddening, endless tune. The horses’ eyes seemed to gleam, their mouths twisted into snarls, their glassy gazes fixed on me.

I turned and ran, the sound of the music chasing me, echoing through the empty park. My footsteps pounded against the ground, the cold night air stinging my lungs as I raced toward the entrance. But no matter how fast I ran, the music followed, a relentless tune that filled my ears, drowning out everything else.

I glanced back, just for a moment, and saw the clown standing at the edge of the carousel, watching me with that same mocking smile. Its hand was still raised, waving slowly, its painted eyes glinting in the dark. I tore my gaze away, focusing on the path ahead, desperate to escape the park’s grip.

The exit was just ahead, the gates looming like a dark silhouette against the night sky. I pushed myself harder, every muscle straining as I closed the distance. But just as I reached the entrance, the music stopped. The sudden silence was deafening, a heavy, oppressive quiet that pressed down on me, filling the space where the music had been.

I stopped, gasping for breath, my eyes scanning the darkness. The park was still, the rides frozen in mid-motion, their frames shrouded in shadow. I took a step forward, and then another, my gaze fixed on the gate. But as I reached the exit, a flicker of movement caught my eye.

I turned, my heart skipping a beat, and saw a figure standing just a few feet away, half-hidden in the shadows. It was a clown, its face painted in the same twisted smile, its eyes dark and empty. It raised a hand, waving slowly, its grin widening as it stepped closer.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head, backing away. “No… this isn’t real.”

The clown took another step, its gaze locked on mine, its smile frozen, unchanging. I stumbled backward, my pulse racing, the weight of the silence pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe. The park was watching, waiting, its presence filling the air with a palpable sense of anticipation.

I turned and ran, my footsteps echoing through the silence, the image of the clown’s grin burned into my mind. The park seemed to twist around me, the paths stretching longer, winding in strange, impossible directions. I ran past the carousel, the Ferris wheel, the funhouse, each one looming like a silent sentinel, watching me with cold, unblinking eyes.

As I stumbled past the funhouse, I felt the urge to look inside, to confront whatever was waiting there. But the memory of the rules held me back, a faint reminder that there were boundaries, lines I couldn’t cross.

The laughter started softly, just a faint echo in the distance, but it grew louder, filling the air with a hollow, mocking sound. I turned, my gaze darting through the darkness, but there was no one there...just the empty park, silent and waiting.

The laughter grew, blending with the distant strains of carnival music, a sound that twisted and distorted, filling my mind with a creeping dread. I ran faster, my legs burning, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I pushed myself toward the exit.

Just as I reached the gates, a hand grabbed my shoulder, pulling me back. I turned, heart racing, and found myself face-to-face with the clown, its painted smile stretching impossibly wide, its eyes gleaming with a cold, unfeeling light.

“You broke the rules,” it whispered, its voice soft, a hiss that cut through the silence.

I screamed, jerking away, and stumbled through the gates, the cold night air washing over me like a wave. I ran, not stopping until I was far from the park, the sound of the music and laughter fading into the distance. I didn’t look back, didn’t dare to, the memory of the clown’s smile burned into my mind.

The park gates swung shut behind me with a creak that seemed to echo through the empty streets. I kept running until the lights of the park had faded into the distance, my breath coming in shallow gasps, my mind reeling with images of the night. But even as I slowed to a walk, the feeling that something was following me, just out of sight, remained. I glanced back over my shoulder, expecting to see the painted face of the clown in the shadows, but the streets were empty.

By the time I reached my apartment, the night was beginning to fade, a pale gray light touching the horizon. I stumbled inside, my hands shaking as I locked the door behind me, as if that simple barrier could protect me from whatever had lingered in the park. I wanted to believe it was over, that I’d left the horrors behind, but an uneasy feeling settled in my chest, a heaviness that I couldn’t shake.

I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw the clown’s face, its wide grin and hollow eyes watching me with a gaze that felt disturbingly real. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind replaying the events of the night over and over. The rules, the music, the carousel, each one a reminder that there was something in the park that defied understanding. The park had felt alive, aware, as though it were playing with me, testing the limits of my fear.

The next morning, I called the park’s main office, hoping to reach Davidson, to tell him I couldn’t return, that I was done. But when the receptionist picked up, her voice calm and detached, she told me there was no one named Davidson working there. I insisted, explaining that he was the manager, that he’d hired me just a few days ago, but she only repeated herself, her tone growing colder, more distant.

I hung up, feeling a hollow ache in my chest. Davidson, the rules, the entire night...all of it felt like a dream, a memory slipping through my fingers. I searched my pockets for the list, the rules I’d carried with me through the night, but my pockets were empty. The paper was gone, as though it had never existed.

The days passed slowly, each one bleeding into the next. I stopped sleeping, the memories of the night filling my thoughts with a persistent, creeping unease. Every sound felt amplified, every shadow held a threat. At night, I would catch faint strains of carnival music drifting through the air, a haunting melody that seemed to come from nowhere. I would sit up, listening, my heart racing, waiting for the music to fade, but the tune lingered, filling the silence with a hollow, mocking sound.

And then, one night, I heard it...the soft, rhythmic tapping, the same sound that had followed me through the park. I froze, my heart pounding, as the tapping grew louder, closer, until it was just outside my window. I held my breath, the weight of the silence pressing down on me, the memories of the clown’s painted smile filling my mind.

Slowly, I turned, my gaze drifting to the window, where the glass reflected a distorted version of my room. For a moment, I saw nothing, just my own face staring back at me, wide-eyed and pale. But then, in the reflection, a figure appeared, standing just behind me, half-hidden in shadow. The face was painted in a wide grin, eyes dark and hollow, one hand raised in a slow, deliberate wave.

I turned, my pulse racing, but the room was empty.

The image faded, leaving only the faint strains of carnival music, a melody that lingered long after the room had fallen silent.

Hey guys,

So, I finally worked up the courage to create my first horror story video! As a 20-year-old girl who’s always been into spooky stuff (but still gets spooked way too easily), I’m super excited to share it but also a little nervous. This is my first attempt at creating content like this, so I’m really eager to see what you all think!

I’d love your thoughts:

• What worked well?
• What didn’t quite hit the mark for you?
• Any tips on how I can make the next one even creepier or more engaging?

I’m open to any and all feedback, good or bad—I just want to improve and get better at creating these spooky stories! I’d also love to chat about horror in general, so feel free to message me if you’re into all things creepy. It’d be awesome to make some new horror-loving friends along the way!

Thanks so much for taking the time to check it out and help me out! 🖤

Lifetime spent under the spell of longing
Left a chemical aftertaste in my mouth
Countless futile attempts to escape
This self-serving cycle of violence
Lead me back to your pillar of salt

In your maddening absence I’m lost
Choking on a mouthful of sorrow
In these moments of silence I burn
Powerless and heartbroken
Lying face down on your funeral stone

In a downward spiral together we walk paving
The road to hell with the purest intentions and love

My parents never explained why we had to play the Game of Silence. All I knew was that, every night at exactly 10 PM, we would sit in the living room, completely still, our lips sealed tight. Dad would set the kitchen timer, and that’s when the game would officially begin. We weren't allowed to make a single sound until the timer rang again. The rules were strict, and breaking them? Well, I’d rather not think about what happened when we did.

I made a mistake once when I was younger. It was just a cough. One small, innocent cough. But the moment the sound escaped my lips, I felt it. A sudden, icy brush against my skin, like something sharp and cold dragging across my shoulder. My skin split open, thin and precise, like a paper cut made by something unseen.

Even as a child, I knew. I knew that if I screamed, if I made even the slightest noise, I wouldn’t survive the night. My parents didn’t need to yell or scold me. The terror in their eyes, the pale horror etched into their faces, told me everything. That night, after the timer finally rang, my dad took me aside. “You can’t ever break the rules again,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “They don’t like it.”

After that night, I learned to hold my breath, no matter what.

The rules were simple: no talking, no moving, no noise. I never understood why. There was never any explanation, just the same old ritual.

Now, years later, I still don’t know who they are, but I do know one thing: when you break the rules, they can touch you.

Tonight, the house feels wrong. Something in the air is different. Mom has been nervous all day, pacing the kitchen, wringing her hands. Dad hasn’t said a word, but the tightness in his jaw tells me he’s just as worried. My little sister, Emma, clings to her stuffed rabbit, her eyes darting around the room like she can see something the rest of us can’t.

The timer ticks down. The silence is suffocating. My heart beats in my chest, loud enough that I wonder if it counts as noise. I keep my eyes focused on the floor, trying to block out the rising tension. But then there’s a noise: a soft thump from upstairs. It’s faint, but unmistakable. Something fell. My pulse quickens. Dad’s grip tightens on the armrest. We all know what happens now.

Nothing happens at first. We sit frozen, waiting. Then, the footsteps start, slow and deliberate. They come from upstairs, moving toward us. Mom’s breath hitches. Emma squeezes the rabbit tighter. We’re all on edge, waiting for what’s coming next. The sound grows louder, closer. My chest tightens, fear curling around my spine like an icy hand.

The door to the living room creaks open. But there’s no one there. Just an open doorway, leading into the dark hallway.

The coldness in the room intensifies. The air feels thick, like something is trying to push its way inside.

We sit there, staring at the open doorway, waiting for something to move in the dark. The footsteps have stopped, but the tension hasn’t. The room is freezing now, and I can see my breath in front of me. Emma is shaking, her fingers digging into the worn fabric of her rabbit.

I glance at Dad, his eyes fixed on the doorway, his jaw clenched so tight that I’m afraid he might snap. Mom hasn’t moved an inch. I want to ask her what’s happening, why things feel different tonight, but I know better. The rules don’t allow for questions.

Then, a sound breaks the silence. It’s faint, like a whisper carried on the wind. I can’t make out the words, but I know it isn’t good. The voices, whatever they are, are back. I know from experience that you don’t want to hear what they have to say.

Mom tenses, her eyes wide. She’s heard it too. Dad slowly shakes his head, as if telling us to ignore it, to stay quiet. We’ve been through this before. We know the drill.

But something feels wrong tonight. The air is heavier than usual, the shadows in the hallway darker. It’s like the house itself is changing, warping. I feel a knot of fear twist in my stomach.

The timer on the kitchen counter ticks loudly, counting down the seconds until we’re free. But it feels like an eternity away. I can barely stand the tension anymore, and I’m not sure how much longer Emma can hold out.

Suddenly, there’s another noise. This time, it’s a low scraping sound, like something being dragged across the floor. It’s coming from upstairs again. My heart skips a beat. I don’t dare look at Emma. I know she’s barely holding it together.

The scraping sound stops, replaced by a soft knock on the wall. Three taps, slow and rhythmic. Then another three taps, a little louder this time. It’s coming closer, moving down the stairs.

Mom’s breathing grows rapid, her eyes darting toward Dad. But Dad doesn’t move. His hands grip the armrest of his chair so tightly that his knuckles turn white. He’s afraid too, but he’s trying to hide it. It isn’t working.

Then, without warning, Emma stands up. My heart leaps into my throat. She drops the rabbit on the floor, her small body trembling as she takes a step toward the hallway. “Emma!” I want to shout, but I can’t. I bite my lip so hard I taste blood.

She’s sleepwalking. She does this sometimes, but not like this, not during the game.

Mom moves to stop her, but Dad holds up his hand, stopping her in her tracks. His eyes are wide, and there’s something in his expression that sends a chill down my spine. He’s not stopping Emma. He’s letting her go.

I don’t understand. Why isn’t he stopping her?

Emma takes another step toward the dark hallway, her eyes half-closed. She’s not awake. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. The shadows in the hallway seem to shift, reaching out for her. My heart is pounding in my ears, and I want to scream, but I can’t.

Just as Emma reaches the threshold of the door, something happens. The scraping sound returns, but this time it’s fast and frantic. It rushes toward us, and Emma freezes, her tiny frame standing at the edge of the darkness.

The whispers grow louder, more insistent. They seem to wrap around her, calling her name.

Mom can’t take it anymore. She jumps up, rushing toward Emma, but Dad grabs her arm, pulling her back with a strength I didn’t know he had. “No,” he whispers, his voice strained. “Let her go.”

Let her go? The words don’t make sense. What is he doing? Why is he letting her walk into the dark?

Emma takes one more step, and suddenly, the door to the hallway slams shut. The whole house shakes, and the lights flicker. The cold air vanishes in an instant, replaced by a suffocating stillness.

The timer rings, breaking the silence. The game is over.

But Emma, Emma’s gone.

The timer rang, signaling the end of the game, but my sister had vanished, taken into the darkness beyond the door. My mind raced, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

I turned to my parents, expecting them to react, to rush toward the door, to find Emma. But they sat there, frozen, their faces pale, eyes wide with that same deep-rooted terror I’d seen before. It was as if they were waiting for something.

"Where is she?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Why aren’t you doing anything?"

Mom finally moved, slowly shaking her head. “We can’t,” she said softly, her voice barely audible. “The game is over.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Emma was gone, and they were just sitting there. I stood up, my body shaking with fear and anger. “We have to find her!” I shouted, louder than I should have, but I didn’t care anymore. “My little sister is out there!”

Dad’s voice was firm when he spoke, though his eyes betrayed his fear. “It’s too late,” he said. “The game has its rules.”

“Rules?” I repeated, incredulous. “What about Emma? We can’t just leave her!”

“We can’t go after her,” Mom said, her eyes filling with tears. “Not now.”

The fear in their eyes, the trembling in their voices … it wasn’t just fear of losing Emma. It was something else, something much worse. They knew something I didn’t, something they weren’t telling me.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I ran toward the door, throwing it open and stepping into the hallway. The air was colder, denser, as if the house itself had changed. The shadows seemed darker, thicker. I called out for Emma, but there was no answer.

As I crept through the hallway, my footsteps echoed unnervingly. The house felt larger, more expansive than before, the walls stretching out into places that hadn’t existed before. It was like the game had taken over completely, twisting the space around me.

Then I heard it, a faint sound, almost like a sob. It was coming from upstairs.

Without thinking, I rushed toward the stairs, my heart racing. I had to find her. I had to bring her back. Each step creaked under my weight, the air growing colder with every breath I took. I reached the top of the stairs and paused, listening. The sound was closer now. It was Emma. I was sure of it.

I followed the sound down the hallway toward her bedroom door. It was cracked open, just a sliver of light spilling out. I pushed it open slowly, stepping inside.

And then I saw her.

Emma stood in the center of the room, her back to me. Her rabbit lay discarded on the floor, and she was whispering something, too low for me to make out. Relief flooded through me. She was here. She was safe.

“Emma?” I called softly, stepping closer.

She didn’t respond. She just kept whispering, her voice steady and calm. I moved closer, but something felt wrong. The air in the room was thick with tension, and the shadows along the walls seemed to pulse as if alive.

“Emma?” I said again, louder this time.

She stopped whispering. Slowly, she turned to face me.

What I saw made my blood run cold.

It was Emma, but something was different. Her eyes were vacant, distant, like she was somewhere far away. Her skin was pale, almost translucent in the dim light. Then I saw it, a faint line across her neck, as if something had gently traced the same cold cut I had felt years ago.

“Emma?” I took a step back, my heart pounding in my chest.

She smiled, a small, eerie smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You should’ve stayed quiet,” she said softly.

Before I could react, the door behind me slammed shut, trapping us in the room. The temperature dropped instantly, and the whispers I had heard earlier began again, surrounding me. They were louder now, coming from everywhere at once.

I turned to the door, trying to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I was stuck, and the shadows on the walls began to move, creeping toward me. Emma stood still, watching me with that unnerving smile on her face.

“They’re here,” she whispered. “They want to play.”

The shadows inched closer, their forms shifting, becoming more solid. They moved toward me slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the moment.

I pressed myself against the door, panic surging through me. “Emma, please,” I begged. “We have to get out of here.”

But Emma just shook her head, that same empty smile on her face. “It’s too late,” she said. “The game is never really over.”

The shadows were almost upon me, their cold presence wrapping around me like a vice. My skin prickled, the same sensation I had felt years ago, the invisible fingers tracing across my neck. I was trapped, and I knew that if I made a sound, it would all be over.

Then, I heard a loud crash from downstairs. My parents had finally moved.

“Emma!” Mom screamed from the bottom of the stairs. Her voice broke through the eerie silence in the room. I took the opportunity to shove past Emma, running toward the door. I slammed my shoulder against it, and it finally gave way.

I rushed down the stairs, my legs trembling as I reached the bottom. My parents were standing there, wide-eyed and terrified. Behind them, the shadows continued to grow, spilling down the stairs like a dark fog, creeping toward us.

“We have to leave!” I shouted, grabbing my mom’s hand. But she didn’t move.

“We can’t leave the house,” Dad said, his voice hollow. “If we leave, they’ll follow us.”

“We don’t have a choice!” I shot back, glancing up at the stairs. The shadows were almost upon us, and I could hear Emma’s footsteps echoing from the hallway above.

Dad shook his head slowly. “This is our fault. We broke the rules.”

“What?” I stared at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”

Mom’s face was pale, her eyes filled with tears. “It’s true,” she whispered. “We broke the rules years ago. Before you were born. We didn’t know what we were doing, and ever since, the game has been watching us.”

The room felt like it was closing in around me. “So, what? We’re supposed to stay here and let them take us?”

Dad didn’t answer. He just stared at the shadows creeping down the stairs. “Go,” he said quietly. “You and Emma. Get out of here. Don’t come back.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I nodded. There was no time to argue. I ran back upstairs, finding Emma standing at the top, her face pale, her eyes blank.

“Come on!” I shouted, grabbing her hand. For a moment, she didn’t move, but then something in her eyes shifted. She blinked, as if waking from a dream, and nodded.

We ran down the stairs together, the shadows chasing us as we sprinted toward the front door. I could hear Mom crying behind us, and I forced myself not to look back.

The moment we stepped outside, the cold air hit us like a wave. The house groaned behind us, the door slamming shut. I grabbed Emma, pulling her away from the house as fast as I could.

We ran down the street, not stopping until we reached the edge of the yard. I turned back, my heart pounding in my chest.

The house was dark and silent, its windows empty and lifeless. But I knew better. I knew that inside, the game was still playing.

My parents had stayed behind, victims of a game they had accidentally started long ago. And now, the game would never end for them.

I looked down at Emma, who was trembling beside me. “We made it,” I whispered, trying to reassure her. But I knew the truth. We hadn’t really escaped. The game would follow us, always waiting for the next time we made a mistake.

As we walked away from the house, I could still hear it in the back of my mind, the soft ticking of the timer, counting down once again.

It happened abruptly on a plane. 

I was woken up by some turbulence, and instead of going back to sleep, I stood up and demanded the nearest stewardess to bring me some sugar water. 

My voice was coarse, and I could feel every muscle tense across my body—as if I was preparing to do a backflip.

After crushing a Mountain Dew, I practically barked like a dog: “More! MORE SUGAR!”

It was terrifying.

Something awful had seized all executive functions of my brain—that’s the best way I could put it. It's like my consciousness got kicked out of the driver's seat, and was forced to watch everything from a cage.

I could still see, and hear, and feel every sensation in my body … I just had no input. No control over what I did.

“Mam, please calm down. We’ll get you some soda.”

“Sugar me, NOW!”

Horror quickly blended with embarrassment. I guzzled a dozen soft drinks in less than three minutes, which resulted in vomit all over my pants. People gasped, got up and moved away. I became ‘that woman’ on the plane.

“Do we have to restrain you mam?”

“Not if sugar I more have.”

***

Instead of heading home towards my husband and two daughters in Toronto, I went straight to the travel counter to book a new flight.

“Lost. Angels.”

“Excuse me ma'am?”

“Plane me.”

“You'd like to book a flight to Los Angeles, is that right?”

Despite speaking in broken monosyllables, everyone was very willing to help.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful that I live in a very progressive, nice part of the world that somehow tolerates strange speech and vomit-stained pants, but for once I just wanted an asshole to call me out for a ‘random screening’.

I wanted someone to detain the insanity controlling my body. Instead, I helplessly watched my visa get charged a fortune.

First Class. Extra legroom. Next available flight.

***

Upon arriving in California, a group of women dressed in very fancy blazers held out a sign for me. The sign said Simone. Which was my name.

The palest one wearing cat-eye sunglasses approached with a glossy-toothed smile. “Hello gorgeous. How was the flight?”

“Divine.” The Thing Controlling Me said.

“Good. Let’s freshen you up.”

***

In public, the women laughed and talked about fictional renovations. Everyone would take turns talking about ‘sprucing up their patio’ or how they were ‘building a yoga den’.

In private however, the women spoke in wet gagging noises—as if they were trying to make speech sounds not designed for human mouths.

The whole car ride from the airport, I was engulfed in drowning duck sounds. As a means of distraction (and potential escape), I tried to focus on what was being ‘squawked’, but that got me nowhere. The language was indecipherable. The one who wore a sunhat which obscured her eyes was honking at me especially. “Hreeeonk” she said,  pointing at me, over and over again. “Hreeeonk! Hreeeonk!”

The only consistency I could make out in their language is that whenever they spoke to the sunglasses leader, they would make the same double gagging sound. “Guack-Guack.”

And so, imprisoned in the backseat of my brain, I mentally started to make notes. 

• The leader I will call ‘GG’.
• My name is … ‘Hreeeonk’ ?

***

As we swerved through a busier commercial district, GG slowed her driving, in fact, everyone in the minivan became quiet and started scanning the surroundings.

The car pulled over a curb, near a preacher who was proselytizing by a rack of pamphlets. He might have been a Mormon or a Jehovah's witness.

GG stepped out first, followed by what I would call her right hand loyalist— a woman who perpetually wore a violet scarf. 

From the crack of my window, I watched GG and Violet introduce themselves as fellow evangelicals. They said we were all going to a public prayer, and that we could use more preachers outside to attract attendees.

“That's very kind of you to invite me,” The man said. “ But I'm used to just sticking to my corner here.”

They insisted, and said it was all for the greater good, but the man still politely declined. 

“You should know something,” GG said, and took off her sunglasses. Something in her eyes had the man absolutely captivated. 

“We are angels. Sent by God.”

There was a pause. The preacher continued to stare without blinking. “You're … what?”

“And we're having a congregation.”

The car's windows rolled down, revealing our six woman crew. At this point I should mention that before I became bodysnatched (and even before I became a mom), I was a fashion model for many years.

In fact, all of these possessed women looked like idyllic models, with their long shiny hair and unblemished faces. We were basically a postcard for Sephora.

“You … “ The preacher gawked at all of us. “ You're angels?”

He didn't object when Violet grabbed his rack of brochures, and placed it in the trunk. And he also didn't object when GG led him into the passenger seat in front of me.

The car doors closed and we were off again in seconds. 

“So does this mean the end times are near?” He was visibly stunned. Laughing.

Violet, who sat beside me, secured a gold ring along her finger. A dart-like needle protruded from it.

“Something like that.”

She slinked an elbow over his shoulder and stabbed the ring into his neck.

“Ow! Hey! What’re you? What is that?”

Violet pulled away. “What? This? It’s Bulgari. Off Sak’s on Ventura.”

“Why does it burn?” The man clasped his wound, patting it as if it were on fire.  “Ahh! AAAAAAHHHH!”

After a few squirms and moans, he fell completely limp. All the women honked an aggressive nasal sound. A celebration. The Thing Controlling Me joined in, honking at full volume.

***

The abandoned hotel they inhabited was somewhere between Los Angeles and Bakersfield. It was hard to be precise because my eyes weren't always looking out the window.

“Let me give you the grand tour,” Violet said, or at least that's what I assume the seal-like barking coming from her mouth meant.

The foyer was filled with flats upon flats of energy drinks. Monster, Red Bull, Rockstar, and dozens of other brands that all looked the same.

Our bedrooms looked all like normal hotel bedrooms. Except there were massive locks on the outside handles.

Violet also gave me a peek at the rooftop balcony patio—where I wish I could have averted my gaze, or closed my eyes, instead of staring right at the pile.

There were about two dozen bodies. Each one lifeless, each one dressed in very nice clothes, their ‘’Sunday best”. The preacher was dumped to the back half of the pile. The side with all the priests.

It reeked bad as some of the corpses were clearly decomposing, but The Thing Controlling Me wasn’t bothered by the smell.

Violet laughed her goose-honk laugh and took me downstairs.

***

It was in the dining room where everyone stood in a circle, awaiting my arrival. 

Formerly, this must have been a space where they held buffets and parties, but now it was just a completely bare room with energy drinks and glass pipes on the floor. 

GG came up and handed me a four-pack of Guinness tall cans. The Thing Controlling Me proceeded to guzzle each one.

For the first time, my conscious state became fuzzy—the jet lag and sleep deprivation was finally catching up. I slowly brought myself to the floor.

The rest of them smiled and honked as my hands curled beneath my head. I fell asleep.

***

A kick to the stomach woke me up. I rolled away and grimaced, staring at the black Prada heels worn by GG.

It was a full minute of reflexive dodging before I realized that it was now me who was crawling and sniveling.  The real me. I was moving my own limbs and shielding my face. I was shriveling up in a corner and screaming like a maniac.

“Please! Let me go! Please!!”

Somehow, when Thing Controlling Me fell asleep, I was able to take command again.

The honking entities surrounded my corner and nudged another frightened young woman towards me. I had never noticed her before because she had worn that massive sun hat that whole day.

It was Shula.

I was so caught off guard, I barely realized that I had control over my speech too.

 “... Shula?”

She used to work at the same modeling agency as me, and we often booked the same gigs because our skin tones were complementary. We even did a big eyeliner commercial for MAC once.

“You have to do everything … exactly as I say …”  Shula’s MAC eyeshadow now streamed down her cheeks.

She looked as sorrowful as I felt. 

“If you don’t listen  … they’ll only hurt us more.”

I stood up in my corner, eyeing the four other possessed humans. Their pupils were all dilated, probing me with intensity. 

“What? What do you mean?” I asked.

Shula’s head hung low. “This is your initiation. They want us to fight.”

“Fight?”

She stood up with reluctance and rolled back the sleeves of her oversized sweater. “We are going to have to make it look like I beat you up.”

“What? No. No no Shula. I’m not fighting you.”

“It’s not up to us. You have to do it.”

I wasn’t about to fight in some perverted boxing match. So I decided to run. I tried to bolt to my left, past Violet who was watching Shula. 

But the entity’s reflexes were too quick.

Violet seized my wrist and hurled me against the back of the room.

I slammed into a vinyl counter, breaking a nail, but miraculously, not my skull. By the time I stood up, the circle of women had surrounded me again.

“There’s no escape, Simone.” Shula curled both her fists, her sadness looked terrible and deep. “You need to fight. To show you're strong. Let's get it over with so they don't toss you.”

“Toss me?”

Shula nodded—fighting back tears.  “They've tossed bad picks before. Weaklings. So you have to put up a fight to show you're worthy. I don't want them to toss you.”

I looked at the counter behind me. It was adjoining a kitchen. 

I didn't know how long my free will would last, and I also didn’t know if I would ever have it again. I could have made many other decisions, but the mantra in my head was: escape now or die trying. Although their reflexes were quick, I thought maybe if I vaulted fast enough, I could grab a kitchen knife in time to properly retaliate.

So that's what I tried to do.

I flipped myself over into the kitchen. And this time, no one grabbed my wrist.

Scrambling off the linoleum floor, I shot past the fridge and industrial sink. I shot past the walk-in freezer and fryers.

But footsteps weren't far behind. By the time I reached another exit, someone grabbed my hair.

“You have to fight!” Shula screamed and dragged me to the ground. In seconds, I was pinned with a ladle against my throat.

She held a knee onto my stomach.

“That’s it. Just thrash around a little. It doesn't have to last long!”

I flipped her over and grappled her ladle, putting it on her own throat instead. Shula may have been taller, but she did not have tennis lessons with her kids.

“No! Simone! They can’t see you beat me!”

I pressed on the ladle like I was testing one of my rackets. I was single-minded in escaping, and if it meant I had to choke out my friend. Then that's what I had to do.

“You've got to stop! Plea… pl…

Her strength was fading, but I held on. It was only once her cheeks had turned blue, that I finally let go. 

GG bent over next to me with a smile. “Well done. What a fine vessel Ergic has chosen.”

My friend lay passed out on the floor. I stood with four smiling women who all smirked and patted my back.

***

Flats of drinks were opened in the foyer. They handed me Rockstars like candy, honking and ululating in some kind of trance.

All the while, GG held on to my shoulder, not seeming to care that I was still Simone.  Her squeal-whispers felt like slugs entering my ear.

Snishak G’shak Ree

A new supplicant for thee

Snishak G’shak Gaul

Soon ours, one and all

During the chanting ceremony, Violet’s purple scarf was taken off her neck and then wrapped around my own.

The entities circled around me. They bowed and breathed at me, anointing me with their exhalations.

***

GG took me to my room, and squawked to the entity inside me. I could feel it trying to wake up, playing a cerebral tug-of-war with my body.

Then GG looked me in the eyes without her sunglasses. She didn't have pupils like a normal human. She had the grid-like ommatidia of an insect.

“You are now Ergic’s tool, human. This is a high honor. Ergic is Vice-Praetor of the Old Ones.”

The Thing Controlling Me, or Ergic, had briefly seized control of my head and nodded.

GG put sunglasses over her eyes to speak to me, the real me, directly. “Cooperate with Ergic, and you will triumph. Resist, and we’ll toss you like the others. Understood?”

I didn't know what to say.

GG squeezed and held onto my cheek like I was some toy. Then she left without a word, and turned all six deadbolt locks.

***

I wasn't certain, but I had a feeling that if I fell asleep, I would lose all control again. That Ergic would reassert himself. That’s why I was left here with more beer cans around me. They wanted me to doze off.

I had to stay awake.

There was a discarded laptop in the room. It was probably planted to test my allegiance or entrap me. But I didn't care. I used it to email my husband and people I trusted.

I told them I was taken hostage somewhere in California, and that needed their help. I told them my kidnappers were part of some bizarre cult.

But I didn't tell them about my possession, the preacher, or any of the crazy bodysnatching stuff. I didn't want them to think I was insane ... They would never believe me.

But hopefully you do. 

That's why I also posted this here.

If you live between Bakersfield and LA, and have ever driven past a pink, run down motel, please call the police. 

Send someone.

Save me.

Before The Thing Controlling Me takes over again.

The Elevator Game is a terrifying ritual that promises a journey into another dimension—but at a risk. According to legend, by visiting floors in a specific order while alone, players can open a portal to a strange and haunting reality.

https://youtu.be/VozQ8TIkGDU?si=WUfuTg5QBKGuQ58B

Lost Media, Now Found:

Excerpt from Strange Worlds, 2004. Found in a local book and record exchange - Sacramento, California

Written by Ben Nakamura

Calculated Temporal Dissonance*: 12%. Increased from previously analyzed media.*

***Of note, there are no records corroborating the existence of Justin Deluth, Victoria Giddleman, and Trisha Lewitt. There are records of one "Everett Peterson". He is currently alive and lives in Columbus Ohio with his wife and two daughters.

*The significance of increased temporal dissonance is yet to be determined, but we will continue to follow the measure as more LMNFs are located. —————————————

Think back to your childhood - were you ever pressured into whispering “Bloody Mary” into a mirror five times? Alternatively, did you ever reluctantly place your hand, shaky with nervous jitters, on the dial of a Ouija board? If you really had courage (or if you had some particularly insane friends), you may have visited your local “abandoned murder house” under the cover of darkness, looking to commune with a vengeful spirit or two. I imagine most of you have been subjected to at least one of these rites of passage, or something very similar.

Reflect on that experience now. If you’re anything like me, you are probably feeling a bizarre cocktail of emotions. Something along the lines of:

4 parts: “Wow, the absolute stupidity”

2 parts: Hairs on the back of your neck raising/a chill slithering down your spine

And a splash of nostalgia for good measure.

Rites of passage are powerful, coercive things - and nearly universal in all cultures across the globe. They seem practically baked into our species as a whole. A way for you to prove to your fellow cave-people that when the chips are down, you’ll have the prerequisite bravery to pick up a spear and defend the colony against a ravenous sabretooth tiger. 

Display your courage, and hey - welcome to the in-group. Refuse to participate, and face ostracization and isolation from your peers. To the fledgling adolescent, I can’t think of anything more motivating than the threat of being a social pariah.  

And to be clear, it has never been about facing true danger, at least not in American culture. Rites of passage have always been more about overcoming a fear of the unknown. No one has ever been killed by Bloody Mary or a Ouija board. I theorize some of you may have sprained your ankle on a loose floorboard if you were the “investigating the murder house”-type, but likely nothing more injurious than that.

But that was our childhood. In the age of the internet, has anything changed? Has the exponential increase in humanity’s connectivity put our kids at risk for more dangerous rites of passage? Well, if you were to carefully examine the exceptionally strange details underlying a string of child abductions in the Fall of 2000, as I have, you may start to think so. 

So, without further ado, let’s dive in. As an introduction, let’s look at a key piece of evidence that ties all eight cases together. Specifically, chat logs from the internet communication platform known as “American Online Instant Messenger”, or AIM, for short. 

See below:

XxCardboardNinjaxX: hey justin do we need to bring our textbooks to school tomorrow for bio 

Thund3rstruck1991: no thats on thursday

XxCardboardNinjaxX: cool i have no idea where mine is lolol

Thund3rstruck1991: lmao 

Thund3rstruck1991: have you thought about wat jeremy said?

XxCardboardNinjaxX: no i forgot tell me again

Thund3rstruck1991: its a game.we can try right now. i have the AIM username. its really not a big deal

Thund3rstruck1991: tim did it i think and he’s really cool. nothing happened to him

Thund3rstruck1991: dude dont be lame 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: sorry was taking out recicling 

Thund3rstruck1991: no you werent your just scared to try 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: im not. also how would you know i wasnt taking out the bin dick 

Thund3rstruck1991: i just know lol

Thund3rstruck1991: ok fine let me invite the account to chat. i bet its not even real. its prolly like a bot 

Thund3rstruck1991: i can only do it if your cool with it man its part of the rules

XxCardboardNinjaxX: ugh fine but i have to off the comp in 10 min

Thund3rstruck1991: nice

BlackeyedDiplomat has entered chat

BlackeyedDiplomat: Hello Justin. Hello Everett. 

Thund3rstruck1991: whats up 

BlackeyedDiplomat: Nothing much. I’m elated that you both finally decided to have a chat with me. You are both clearly very brave. Are you ready to begin? To prove your worth? Are you prepared to give yourself over, body and soul, to The Gray Father?

Thund3rstruck1991: yup

BlackeyedDiplomat: Everett? Have you lost your metal? I can only proceed with your consent. But it is always your choice. Maybe you are not ready to be a man. 

Thund3rstruck1991: dude jesus just say yes

Thund3rstruck1991: ev you there?

XxCardboardNinjaxX: yeah sorry mom was calling

Thund3rstruck1991: ev i know she wasnt

Thund3rstruck1991: we doin this or wat 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: fine 

BlackeyedDiplomat: Excellent choice. It is a very simple game.

BlackeyedDiplomat: First, find something of value to you. It could be anything - your first baseball, a family photo, a treasured video game - it does not matter what the object is as long as it makes you feel joy.

BlackeyedDiplomat: Then, hide that object in your room. Somewhere you cannot see it once you put it there. 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: is my desk drawer ok or is that like too close

BlackeyedDiplomat: That is perfectly acceptable, as long as you close the drawer so that you cannot see the object.

BlackeyedDiplomat: Next, say this phrase exactly as written: “I relinquish myself of this world. I seek the love and companionship of The Gray Father. May he come and spirit me to the ether, where I will remain until I have been emptied and cleansed by his lash alone. Ti-un-fel. Ti-un-fel. Ti-un-fel”

BlackeyedDiplomat: Almost done boys. Finally, close your bedroom door, turn off the light, including your computer screen, look up into the dark, and count to ten. 

At approximately 9:15 PM on November 3rd, 2000, Michelle Peterson would enter Everett Peterson’s empty bedroom. She always made a point of saying goodnight to her twelve-year-old before he went to sleep. Michelle was surprised when she opened the door - the room was pitch black. Her son was very rarely in bed before 10 PM, and he nearly always plugged in a night light before trying to sleep. Feeling something was off, she crept over to his bed to check on him, only to find it empty. Twelve minutes later, Michelle would call her local police station in hysterics. Her only son was missing. 

Eight minutes after that, the same police station would get a nearly identical call from Robert Deluth - his only son, Justin Deluth, was also nowhere to be found. Rob had been passing by the family computer room, expecting to see his son working on homework or goofing off online. Concerningly, he instead found the doors were closed. He quickly turned around and paced back towards the entrance of the room, deciding on which words he would use to scold Justin. Being on the computer with the doors closed violated a critical household rule. Justin's compliance with that rule was the only reason he allowed his son to browse the internet unsupervised. But Justin wasn’t in the lightless room. He wasn’t anywhere in the house. 

At first, the police were not overly concerned with the reports. There was no sign of a struggle in either home. Also, the boys going missing at the same time gave them false reassurance against the possibility of a kidnapping. Instead, the police assumed they had snuck out to “meet girls in the woods”, or some other equivalent peri-pubescent outing. Michelle knew at her core that this was not the case - Everett had never snuck out before, and moreover, the mechanics of him sneaking out made no sense. She had last seen him enter his room thirty minutes before discovering his disappearance, and Everett lived on the third floor of their home with no obvious way of safely making it to the ground from his window. She explained this, but it fell on deaf ears.

When dawn rose without a sign of either of them, the police relented, and the investigation began in earnest. 

Michelle Peterson had spent the night embroiled in her own amateur investigation. When the police indicated they weren’t willing to search that night, she began systematically calling all of Everett’s friend’s parents to determine if they had any information that would help find her son. No one had seen Everett. What's worse, she became acutely aware that Justin was also missing. Rob Deluth informed her that he had last seen Justin on the computer, which is what drove Michelle to probe Everett's PC.

That night, her son’s computer was still on, but the screen was turned off. When she pressed the power button under the monitor, there it all was - no other open tabs or programs, just the above chat logs. When Michelle asked Rob Deluth to do the same, he found something troubling. Rob was an honest man, though, so he shared his findings with the police that following morning, in spite of the fact that what he discovered on the family computer initially made his son appear as the orchestrator of both disappearances. 

Unlike Everett, Justin had been running two AIM profiles in tandem that night - one was Thund3rstruck1991, and the other was BlackeyedDiplomat. 

Or at least that is how it appeared at first. To this day, it is unclear if someone else was in the room as Justin that night, watching over his shoulder. 

The search of the surrounding area lasted two weeks, but no signs of either boy were found. While a majority of the police department and hundreds of volunteers were out scouring the suburban town and nearby woods, senior detective James Tulling made a horrific discovery:

“I spent that first few hours really reviewing the chat logs with a fine-toothed comb” the detective recounted. 

“Given that both boys were communicating with each other immediately prior to their disappearances, it became clear that the chat was related in some capacity. Justin, or whoever was typing as BlackeyedDiplomat, had mentioned placing valued items out of sight. Everett had asked specifically if his desk was an appropriate location for said item, so naturally, I wanted to see if there was anything revelatory in his desk drawer.”

Detective Tulling is unsure what the boy had initially placed in his desk drawer, but what was there when he looked clearly wasn’t Everett’s doing. 

“I reached in [to the drawer], and really had to dig through clutter till I found it. It was a statue, about eight inches in length. It appeared to depict an adult man holding a coiled whip in his right hand. There wasn’t any detail to the body itself, it was all just smooth and featureless gray. Almost like an oversized chess piece. Excluding the face, that is. The face, It’s uh, really hard to describe.”

James was right - I don’t know if I have the right language to describe the face either. The best I can muster is this: Imagine the face of a Moai easter island head, but instead of the expression being neutral, it’s one of intense, unbridled anger. 

“So I pull the statue out of the drawer, and as I bring it up to my face to look closer, something on the inside starts to rattle. Like it was filled with marbles”. Detective Tulling turned his head away from me, gently rubbing his shoulder like he was trying to self-soothe, and I’d understand why in a moment. 

“Of course, there wasn’t any marbles in it. When we cracked it open at the station, a handful of teeth poured out.”

Nine teeth, to be exact. They were all clean as a whistle, too. Detective Tulling had a terrible hunch when he turned the teeth over to forensics, which was confirmed two days later. Everett Peterson’s dental records were a match to the discovery. 

This finding was both horrific and baffling, in equal measure. Everett had been seen in good health, acting normally, less than an hour before he was found to be missing. So then, how did his bloodless teeth end up sealed in that grim relic? And I do mean sealed - there was no cap or hole on the statue. It is unclear how they ended up inside. It was like the figure was made around the teeth themselves, but again, how could that be possible?

An identical effigy would later be discovered behind a bookshelf in the Deluth’s computer room, which also contained a set of teeth - ten of Justin Deluth’s. 

“Nothing about it made any goddamn sense. At the time, there were people in our station who, despite that finding, still thought Justin was to blame just because of what we found on his computer. It was insanity to me then, and it is insanity to me now. Not that I have a better explanation. Maybe he was there in the room with Justin. Don’t know how he passed the entire family undetected. Don’t know how he removed the teeth without so much of a whimper from Justin. Like I said, none of it makes any goddamned sense.” And with that, our interview concluded. Detective Tulling could only spend so long recounting these memories, and I don’t blame him one bit. 

Three months later, Victoria Giddleman and Trisha Lewitt would vanish in a small town twenty miles from Everett and Justin's home. They disappeared under nearly identical circumstances: no signs of a struggle in either home, both girls were twelve and without siblings, both in a chatroom with the BlackeyedDiplomat directly before their disappearances. Reviewing the chat logs, Victoria had pressured Trisha into participating in the “simple game”. She was also logged in to both her personal AIM account as well as one with username “BlackeyedDiplomat”. Not the original - that one had been deleted. It was a new account made hours before their disappearance. Of note, details about the chat logs had not been made available to the public as part of the press report surrounding Everett and Justin’s disappearance. 

The FBI, now involved given the potential emergence of a serial child abductor, had only one lead to work from: Victoria and Trisha also mentioned talking to someone named “Jeremy.” In their logs, Victoria mentioned that this person had introduced her to the idea of playing the “simple game”, seemingly as a means to generate social clout by proving their collective bravery - just like Justin had three months prior. 

None of the victims' parents knew of a person named “Jeremy” in their child’s life. All of the children named Jeremy in the involved school districts were interviewed, but none were identified as possible persons of interest. 

Two more sets of teens would go missing without a trace before the FBI was handed an exceptionally lucky break. At a library in a suburb outside of Chicago, late into the evening, a young man was sitting by himself in the building’s small computer lounge. The librarian on shift, Eunis Lush, watched him intently from her desk:

“He just wasn’t right. I didn’t even need to look at him, in fact, I wasn’t looking at him when he walked in.” Eunis told me over the phone, now miles away from Chicago in a Florida retirement home. 

“He opens the door, and I can just feel it. You know when you quickly go up in elevation, like when you are driving up a big incline on the highway, and your ears start popping? It was kind of like that. He walked in, and immediately I felt the pressure. It’s tough to explain in words” 

I assured her that she was doing great. Moreover, I highlighted the fact that most of this case was hard to explain concisely, so she was in good company. I then asked her to continue:

“He looked like he was in his twenties. Had a sweatshirt and some denim jeans on. All in all, there was nothing obviously off with him. But when I looked at him, the pressure got much worse. My mom always told me to trust my gut, so I watched him sit down in the computer lab, even though it was hurting to look. I wanted to see if he was doing anything suspicious, which he didn't appear to be. But then, I saw an outline of something in his pocket - I thought it looked like a kitchen knife. That made up my mind to call the police. At the time, it felt like I may have been overreacting - but my gut keep pressing me. Also, I had called them before for less” She said, chuckling and then coughing a rough and phlegmy smoker’s cough. 

Jeremy Valis Jr. was clearly not anticipating being interrupted.

“When the policeman put his hand on the man’s shoulder, he practically jumped out of his seat. They asked him what was in his pocket, and I guess that's when he knew his jig was up”

Before the lawmen could say anything else, Jeremy reached into the pocket Eunis thought contained a knife, but he did not pull out a blade. Instead, he threw something small into his mouth and swallowed. 

It was a cyanide tablet, and he was pronounced dead at the scene one hour later. The police had no idea why this man had ended his own life after being asked one singular question, especially when what was in his pocket turned out not to be a knife, or anything threatening for that matter. Instead, when they searched his corpse, they found a small pad of paper. Eunis’ eyes were clearly not what they used to be, but despite that, her gut may have saved lives that day. 

Inside the notebook, there was a list of every missing child, as well as two more that were not currently missing. The missing kids had been X’ed out in red pen. On the computer, Jeremy was logged into AIM as “BlackeyedDiplomat”, but he hadn’t yet started a conversation with anyone. 

Was Jeremy Valis Jr. behind the disappearances? Looking into his background, he was a high school dropout but otherwise had no criminal record. The notepad was compelling, but it was circumstantial at best. The most damning piece of evidence was that the disappearances stopped after Jeremy died. At the time he died, he was homeless. The few people who knew of him only knew him as the gentleman who lived in the woods on the outskirts of town. 

Years later, the FBI would label these events as an unsolved cold case, but behind closed doors, they were satisfied with the explanation that Jeremy Valis Jr. had somehow been the culprit behind disappearances. None of the missing children’s bodies have ever been discovered, but no further children have disappeared under those same unique circumstances. 

Before we wrap up, a small aside on the effigies. Before the case was officially closed, the FBI noticed something about the statues and their contents that was peculiar enough to give them the impression that it was somehow significant. Four sets of two children, eight in total, had disappeared over the course of two years. Justin’s effigy contained ten teeth, Everett’s effigy contained nine teeth, Victoria’s contained eight, Trisha’s contained seven - so on and so forth all the way down to two. The police interpreted it as some sort of a countdown, but to what exactly?

Thanks to an elderly librarian’s clinical anxiety and prophetic gut intuition, we will never know what would have transpired at zero. If it weren’t for Eunis, we may have had more answers. But I, for one, believe we are much better off being starved for a perfect explanation, rather than learning what the point of all that horror was.

More Lost Media and Stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

Neverending tempest of anxious thoughts
Swallows every minute of every hour
The raging flames of doubt justified or otherwise
Engulf every waking moment in irrational fears

Condemned

To walk down the gloomy road of repetition
Collapsing under the weight of hopeless desperation

Stripped of any purpose and identity in the pits of unrelenting suffering
Twice born as the eternal slave to hysteria and melancholy

Possessed by evil I exit the stage
Marching in Transylvania’s direction
With a single-minded intention
To turn this life into a bitter memory

So, the nightmares you've been having—

He is a priest, but—

No, I know you're not religious, yet the fact remains that your non-belief is ultimately irrelevant.

Perhaps I may explain.

Please, father.

The dreams you've been experiencing—the torments you've been suffering—are real.

Real not only as your subjective experience, but real as in the objective future.

What you perceive as nightmare is a glimpse into the intention of a demon passing through you—

Please hear us out. There is no need for derision. Father, continue:

passing through you, as it travels from Hell to the mortal world.

You are a portal.

The Devil's own corridor.

One of many.

Although how many precisely, we do not know.

Yes, what you dream—the horrors—will happen—are fated to happen.

You see a vision of demonic pre-reality.

Why you? We have no answer.

But we do know why your nightmares began: because the previous carrier of the corridor ceased to be.

The man dies, the corridor passes to another. Flesh is bound by time. The corridor exists outside it.

I understand that temptation. Truly. But suicide would be highly unethical. Not only would the portal pass instantly to another—resulting in no overall reduction in evil—but you would also be knowingly giving the burden of carrying it to someone else. A child, perhaps.

The moral choice is to bear your cross.

No, no. You can bear it.

Others have.

Perhaps you need time to think about what we've told you—

A reasonable idea in theory but ultimately a man must sleep, or he dies.

And the corridor passes.

It's not about fairness. It's about reality—and facing it. What is, is. We are merely providing an explanation for an existing state.

What you have become is not a judgment of your soul.

You may conceptualize it as a mental illness if you wish, if it helps you bear the burden—

Again, your lack of belief in Hell does not matter—

We do not know what would happen if every human was killed, but this is not an allowable possibility. God could not condone it.

Yes, if you must put it that way: it is better for you to suffer than for all humanity to end, even if its ending puts an end also to Hell—

You must—

So, even in the face of all we've told you, you choose to die?

We do not judge you.

To die by your own hand is your fundamental right.

As it is our right to prevent you—

Yes, you're bound.

We cannot in good faith release you. Not after you have made your suicidal intentions clear to us.

Understand, we must act in the most ethical way. As a doctor—

Acceptance is grace.

You shall barely feel a thing. One needle—followed by paralysis. The body, comatose. Maintained in perfect conditions. A long life—

“Do the comatose dream?”

An excellent question.

We pray they do not, and that the corridor becomes dormant.

But we don't know.

Shh.

Please—don't struggle...

[[Originally written in 2013: Open to critique, suggestions and a better title]]

He peered out from beneath his covers, just enough to get a fuzzy look at the cold floorboards and into the dark hallway through his gaping, ravaged door. His heartbeat pounded like bongoes in his ear. Each throb of his heart made him tense with fear, certain it could be heard throughout the darkened home. Try as he might, he couldn't stifle his ragged breathing. He could hold it in no longer than a few seconds before his panicked body demanded more. Fat teardrops slid down his already sticky cheeks. He could hear nothing over the sound of his terror echoing in his head.

Minutes oozed by, the house frozen and waiting for the aftershock. Pieces of his door cast ghostly reflections on the dark, polished hardwood and seemed to wriggle with each futile blink. His thick curtains billowed as the wind gusted but nothing entered. No sound. The crickets had become silent and even the neighborhood dogs had fallen voiceless, knowing. Only the trees rustled as if shivering with anticipation.

He listened. His breathing slowed but only slightly. He strained his ears for any sound that would assure him that it was all over. His breath hitched upon catching the faint creaking of the stairwell. He slid beneath his bed and clutched the covers with his eyes clenched shut tightly. The sound became louder and louder, closer and closer. The floorboards whined with the weight of the intruder even though the house was built no sooner than 2008. Another sound accompanied the creaking, one he couldn't quite figure out the origins of. It was as though a bundle of nails were being dragged along the floor, or even the railing that separated the hall from the 12 feet of nothing and the ground floor.
The sound stopped.

He held his breath, listening.
Even the air has stilled.

All at once, the house jolted. Furniture and objects were flung and suspended in the air. The windows burst inward, and lightbulbs shattered. From everywhere and nowhere came a deafening howling as if the house were being hurled from the stratosphere back down to earth into a cyclone. He became weightless but he felt as though his stomach were a 50-pound weight anchoring him to the floor.

He heard a scream, his mother's scream, and everything fell back to the floor, toppling over, breaking. His head fell to the ground, followed by his body. White flashed behind his eyelids for a moment then a skull-splitting pain shot from his forehead and branched down to the base of his skull. He ignored this and scrambled to his feet.

"Mom!" he called, nearly tripping several times over fallen pieces of furniture and slicing his feet on bits of glass and ceramic. He was forced to hobble on the un-sliced portion of his feet to where he heard the scream. His parent's bedroom door was nothing but scraps reaching out to gore him from their hinges. He inched around them stuck himself to the wall and searched frantically. Their room too was in ruin. Their ceiling had collapsed revealing the dark space above where the attic was supposed to be.

"Mom!" he called again and pieced his way through the wreckage. He climbed over the fallen bathroom door, soaked by the spout of water shooting out of the stub that was once a toilet, and slipped slowly into the adjoining office. Suddenly he felt 100 pounds heavier, nausea washed over him and forced him to double over, retching. The sudden weight made his head pound with white-pain. When he opened his eyes he could see droplets of blood. He reached up to where he had landed on his head but it was dry. Searing hot pain beneath his nose brought him to the realization that he was leaking profusely from it. Plump tears welled up and dribbled down his cheeks.

"Momma!" he bawled, looking up from his bloodied hand.

"Jeremy!" she called.
Jeremy looked up to where her voice was coming from and immediately voided his bladder, the fluid nearly as hot as the blood still trickling from his nose.

"Jeremy!" his mother pleaded, hand outstretched to him.

His brain said to go, to run to her and save her, but nothing moved. Not even a twitch.

On the opposite side of the room which went in and out of focus, a roar like fire booming in his ears, a darkened figure clutched his mother. Yellow-orange eyes stared back at him with beady pupils that stared from darkened sockets. Its mouth opened to reveal sharp, gleaming teeth. He wasn't sure if the thing was laughing or if it was the roaring. It stepped closer on enormous cloven hooves and slid its hand over his mother's screaming mouth, long black nails, or more like claws, dug into her skin.

"The Devil." Jeremy found himself whispering, his gaze locked into the things.

"No," it said suddenly, its voice deep and gravely. "Samael"

Jeremy's eyes widened, his lungs spasmed, suddenly unsure of how to function in its struggle for air to supply his rapidly throbbing heart which felt as though it were being constricted by a thick length of burning twine. He opened his mouth and emitted a screech as the thing, Samael, backed away and faded into the shadows, only his eyes lingering even after the room brightened with the approach of dawn and after the roaring and his mother's helpless screeching faded.

Police later found him standing exactly where Samael had left him 14 hours later staring at two still smoldering holes in the wall muttering over and over again,

"Samael"

Another dose of liquid flame goes down my throat
You who seem to be my only friend these days
The one who leads me down these labyrinthine corridors
Through the shapeless rooms of bitter sweet memory

From the earliest recollections of a cold and brutal world
That has sheltered every moronic childhood dream
To that fateful encounter with a devil clad in a sickly yellow dress
Who has been the only one I have truly loved ever since

I salute the explosive anger that shadowed my first heartbreak
And to the ashen taste left in my mouth by every single loss
When I am cured of the irrational fear
And rid of the constant nagging of ache
Is the day I’ll finally put a bullet in my skull

Because is there really joy without agony?
And what good is hope in the absence of crushing despair?
For this reason, and this reason alone I continue
To bind myself to the pestilent whore named negativity
Because for as long as I remember only sorrow and suffering   
Have brought color to an otherwise painfully dull reality

Hence no matter how the pathetic man
In the reflection begs for a release
I will continue to spit in his face
While I wait for the worst  

Every single day, the same dreams. I am forced to relive the same memories whenever I close my eyes. Over forty years have passed since then, but my subconsciousness is still trapped in one of those nights. As sad as it sounds, life moved on and so did I. As much as I could call it moving on, after all, my life’s mission was to do away with the source of my problems. To do away with the Man Made from Mist.

Or so I thought. I’ve clamored for a chance to take my vengeance on him for so long. The things I’ve done to get where I needed to would’ve driven a lesser man insane; I knew this and pushed through. Yet when the opportunity presented itself, I couldn’t do it. An additional set of terrors wormed its way into my mind.

A trio of demons aptly called remorse, guilt, and regret.

I’ve tried my best to wrestle control away from these infernal forces, but in the end, as always, I’ve proven to be too weak. Unable to accomplish the single-minded goal I’ve devoted my life to, I let him go. In that fateful moment, it felt like I had done the right thing by letting him go. I felt a weight lifted off my chest. Now, with the clarity of hindsight, I’m no longer sure about that.

That said, I am getting ahead of myself. I suppose I should start from the beginning.

My name is Yaroslav Teuter and I hail from a small Siberian village, far from any center of civilization. Its name is irrelevant. Knowing what I know now, my relatives were partially right and outsiders have no place in it. The important thing about my home village is that it’s a settlement frozen in the early modern era. Growing up, we had no electricity and no other modern luxuries. It was, and still is, as far as I know, a small rural community of old believers. When I say old believers, I mean that my people never adopted Christianity. We, they, believe in the old gods; Perun and Veles, Svarog and Dazhbog, along with Mokosh and many other minor deities and nature spirits.

What outsiders consider folklore or fiction, my people, to this very day, hold to be the truth and nothing but the truth. My village had no doctors, and there was a common belief there were no ill people, either. The elders always told us how no one had ever died from disease before the Soviets made incursions into our lands.

Whenever someone died, and it was said to be the result of old age, “The horned shepherd had taken em’ to his grazing fields”, they used to say. They said the same thing about my grandparents, who passed away unexpectedly one after the other in a span of about a year. Grandma succumbed to the grief of losing the love of her life.

Whenever people died in accidents or were relatively young, the locals blamed unnatural forces. Yet, no matter the evidence, diseases didn’t exist until around my childhood. At least not according to the people.

At some point, however, everything changed in the blink of an eye. Boris “Beard” Bogdanov, named so after his long and bushy graying beard, fell ill. He was constantly burning with fever, and over time, his frame shrunk.

The disease he contracted reduced him from a hulk of a man to a shell no larger than my dying grandfather in his last days. He was wasting away before our very eyes. The village folk attempted to chalk it up to malevolent spirits, poisoning his body and soul. Soon after him, his entire family got sick too. Before long, half of the village was on the brink of death.

My father got ill too. I can vividly recall the moment death came knocking at our door. He was bound to suffer a slow and agonizing journey to the other side. It was a chilly spring night when I woke up, feeling the breeze enter and penetrate our home. That night, the darkness seemed to be bleaker than ever before. It was so dark that I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. A chill ran down my spine. For the first time in years, I was afraid of the dark again. The void stared at me and I couldn’t help but dread its awful gaze. At eleven years old, I nearly pissed myself again just by looking around my bedroom and being unable to see anything.

I was blind with fear. At that moment, I was blind; the nothingness swallowed my eyes all around me, and I wish it had stayed that way. I wish I never looked toward my parent’s bed. The second I laid my eyes on my sleeping parents; reality took any semblance of innocence away from me. The unbearable weight of realization collapsed onto my infantile little body, dropping me to my knees with a startle.

The animal instinct inside ordered my mouth to open, but no sound came. With my eyes transfixed on the sinister scene. I remained eerily quiet, gasping for air and holding back frightful tears. Every tall tale, every legend, every child’s story I had grown out of by that point came back to haunt my psyche on that one fateful night.

All of this turned out to be true.

As I sat there, on my knees, holding onto dear life, a silhouette made of barely visible mist crouched over my sleeping father. Its head pressed against Father’s neck. Teeth sunk firmly into his arteries. The silhouette was eating away at my father. I could see this much, even though it was practically impossible to see anything else. As if the silhouette had some sort of malignant luminance about it. The demon wanted to be seen. I must’ve made enough noise to divert its attention from its meal because it turned to me and straightened itself out into this tall, serpentine, and barely visible shadow caricature of a human. Its limbs were so long, long enough to drag across the floor.

Its features were barely distinguishable from the mist surrounding it. The thing was nearly invisible, only enough to inflict the terror it wanted to afflict its victims with. The piercing stare of its blood-red eyes kept me paralyzed in place as a wide smile formed across its face. Crimson-stained, razor-sharp teeth piqued from behind its ashen gray lips, and a long tongue hung loosely between its jaws. The image of that thing has burnt itself into my mind from the moment we met.

The devil placed a bony, clawed finger on its lips, signaling for me to keep my silence. Stricken with mortifying fear, I could not object, nor resist. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I did all I could. I nodded. The thing vanished into the darkness, crawling away into the night.

Exhausted and aching across my entire body, I barely pulled myself upright once it left. Still deep within the embrace of petrifying fear. It took all I had left to crawl back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. The image of the bloodied silhouette made from a mist and my father’s vitality clawed my eyes open every time I dared close them.

The next morning, Father was already sick, burning with fever. I knew what had caused it, but I wouldn’t dare speak up. I knew that, if I had sounded the alarm on the Man Made from Mist, the locals would’ve accused me of being the monster myself. The idea around my village was, if you were old enough to work the household farm, you were an adult man. If you were an adult, you were old enough to protect your family. Me being unable to fight off the evil creature harming my parent meant I was cooperating with it, or was the source of said evil.

Shame and regret at my inability to stand up, for my father ate away at every waking moment while the ever-returning presence of the Man Made from Mist robbed me of sleep every night. He came night after night to feast on my father’s waning life. He tried to shake me into full awareness every single time he returned. Tormenting me with my weakness. Every day I told myself this one would be different, but every time it ended the same–I was on my knees, unable to do anything but gawk in horror at the pest taking away my father and chipping away at my sanity.

Within a couple of months, my father was gone. When we buried him, I experienced a semblance of solace. Hopefully, the Man Made from Mist would never come back again. Wishing him to be satisfied with what he had taken away from me. I was too quick to jump to my conclusion.

This world is cruel by nature, and as per the laws of the wild; a predator has no mercy on its prey while it starves. My tormentor would return to take away from me so long as it felt the need to satiate its hunger.

Before long, I woke up once more in the middle of the night. It was cold for the summer… Too cold…

Dreadful thoughts flooded my mind. Fearing for the worst, I jerked my head to look at my mother. Thankfully, she was alone, sound asleep, but I couldn’t ease my mind away from the possibility that he had returned. I hadn’t slept that night; in fact, I haven’t slept right since. Never.

The next morning, I woke up to an ailing mother. She was burning with fever, and I was right to fear for the worst. He was there the previous night, and he was going to take my mother away from me. I stayed up every night since to watch over my mother, mustering every ounce of courage I could to confront the nocturnal beast haunting my life.

It never returned. Instead, it left me to watch as my mother withered away to disease like a mad dog. The fever got progressively worse, and she was losing all color. In a matter of days, it took away her ability to move, speak, and eventually reason. I had to watch as my mothered withered away, barking and clawing at the air. She recoiled every time I offered her water and attempted to bite into me whenever I’d get too close.

The furious stage lasted about a week before she slipped into a deep slumber and, after three days of sleep, she perished. A skeletal, pale, gaunt husk remained of what was once my mother.

While I watched an evil, malevolent force tear my family to shreds, my entire world seemed to be engulfed by its flames. By the time Mother succumbed to her condition, more than half of the villagers were dead. The Soviets incurred into our lands. They wore alien suits as they took away whatever healthy children they could find. Myself included.

I fought and struggled to stay in the village, but they overpowered me. Proper adults had to restrain me so they could take me away from this hell and into the heart of civilization. After the authorities had placed me in an orphanage, the outside world forcefully enlightened me. It took years, but eventually; I figured out how to blend with the city folk. They could never fix the so-called trauma of what I had to endure. There was nothing they could do to mold the broken into a healthy adult. The damage had been too great for my wounds to heal.

I adjusted to my new life and was driven by a lifelong goal to avenge whatever had taken my life away from me. I ended up dedicating my life to figuring out how to eradicate the disease that had taken everything from me after overhearing how an ancient strain of Siberian Anthrax reanimated and wiped out about half of my home village. They excused the bite marks on people’s necks as infected sores.

It took me a long time, but I’ve gotten myself where I needed to be. The Soviets were right to call it a disease, but it wasn’t anthrax that had decimated my home village and taken my parents’ lives. It was something far worse, an untreatable condition that turns humans into hematophagic corpses somewhere between the living and the dead.

Fortunately, the only means of treatment seem to be the termination of the remaining processes vital to sustaining life in the afflicted.  

It’s an understanding I came to have after long years of research under, oftentimes illegal, circumstances. The initial idea came about after a particularly nasty dream about my mother’s last days.

In my dream, she rose from her bed and fell on all fours. Frothing from the mouth, she coughed and barked simultaneously. Moving awkwardly on all four she crawled across the floor toward me. With her hands clawing at my bedsheets, she pulled herself upwards and screeched in my face. Letting out a terrible sound between a shrill cry and cough. Eyes wide with delirious agitation, her face lunged at me, attempting to bite whatever she could. I cowered away under my sheets, trying to weather the rabid storm. Eventually, she clasped her jaws around my arm and the pain of my dream jolted me awake.

Covered in cold sweat, and nearly hyperventilating; that’s where I had my eureka moment.

I was a medical student at the time; this seemed like something that fit neatly into my field of expertise, virology. Straining my mind for more than a couple of moments conjured an image of a rabies-like condition that afflicted those who the Man Made from Mist attacked. Those who didn’t survive, anyway. Nine of out ten of the afflicted perished. The remaining one seemed to slip into a deathlike coma before awakening changed.

This condition changes the person into something that can hardly be considered living, technically. In a way, those who survive the initial infection are practically, as I’ve said before, the walking dead. Now, I don’t want this to sound occult or supernatural. No, all of this is biologically viable, albeit incredibly unusual for the Tetrapoda superclass. If anything, the condition turns the afflicted into a human-shaped leech of sorts. While I might’ve presented the afflicted to survive the initial stage of the infected as an infallible superhuman predator, they are, in fact, maladapted to cohabitate with their prey in this day and age. That is us.

Ignoring the obvious need to consume blood and to a lesser extent certain amounts of living flesh, this virus inadvertently mimics certain symptoms of a tuberculosis infection, at least outwardly. That is exactly how I’ve been able to find test subjects for my study. Hearing about death row inmates who matched the profile of advanced tuberculosis patients but had somehow committed heinous crimes including cannibalism.

Through some connections I’ve made with the local authorities, I got my hands on the corpse of one such death row inmate. He was eerily similar to the Man Made from Mist, only his facial features seemed different. The uncanny resemblance to my tormentor weighed heavily on my mind. Perhaps too heavily. I noticed a minor muscle spasm as I chalked up a figment of my anxious imagination.

This was my first mistake. The second being when I turned my back to the cadaver to pick up a tool to begin my autopsy. This one nearly cost me my life. Before I could even notice, the dead man sprang back to life. His long lanky, pale arms wrapped around tightly around my neck. His skin was cold to the touch, but his was strength incredible. No man with such a frame should have been able to yield such strength, no man appearing this sick should’ve been able to possess. Thankfully, I must’ve stood in an awkward position from him to apply his blood choke properly. Otherwise, I would’ve been dead, or perhaps undead by now.

As I scrambled with my hands to pick up something from the table to defend myself with, I could hear his hoarse voice in my ear. “I am sorry… I am starving…”

The sudden realization I was dealing with a thing human enough to apologize to me took me by complete surprise. With a renewed flow of adrenaline through my system. My once worst enemy, Fear, became my best friend. The reduced supply of oxygen to my brain eased my paralyzing dread just enough for me to pick a scalpel from the table and forcefully jam it into the predator’s head.

His grip loosened instantly and, with a sickening thump, he fell on the floor behind me, knocking over the table. The increased blood flow brought with it a maddening existential dread. My head spun and my heart raced through the roof. Terrible, illogical, intangible thoughts swarmed my mind. There was fear interlaced with anger, a burning wrath.

The animalistic side of me took over, and I began kicking and dead man’s body again and again. I wouldn’t stop until I couldn’t recognize his face as human. Blood, torn-out hair, and teeth flew across the floor before I finally came to.

Collapsing to the floor right beside the corpse, I sat there for a long while, shaking with fear. Clueless about the source of my fear. After all, it was truly dead this time. I was sure of it. My shoes cracked its skull open and destroyed the brain. There was no way it could survive without a functioning brain. This was a reasoning thing. It needed its brain. Yet there I was, afraid, not shaken, afraid.

This was another event that etched itself into my memories, giving birth to yet another reoccurring nightmare. Time and time again, I would see myself mutilating the corpse, each time to a worsening degree. No matter how often I tried to convince myself, I did what I did in self-defense. My heart wouldn’t care. I was a monster to my psyche.

I deeply regret to admit this, but this was only the first one I had killed, and it too, perhaps escaped this world in the quickest way possible.

Regardless, I ended up performing that autopsy on the body of the man whose second life I truly ended. As per my findings, and I must admit, my understanding of anatomical matters is by all means limited, I could see why the execution failed. The heart was black and shriveled up an atrophied muscle. Shooting one of those things in the chest isn’t likely to truly kill them. Not only had the heart become a vestigial organ, but the lungs of the specimen I had autopsied revealed regenerative scar tissue. These things could survive what would be otherwise lethal to average humans. The digestive system, just like the pulmonary one, differed vastly from what I had expected from the human anatomy. It seemed better suited to hold mostly liquid for quick digestion.

Circulation while reduced still existed, given the fact the creature possessed almost superhuman strength. To my understanding, the circulation is driven by musculoskeletal mechanisms explaining the pallor. The insufficient nutritional value of their diet can easily explain their gauntness.  

Unfortunately, this study didn’t yield many more useful results for my research. However, I ended up extracting an interesting enzyme from the mouth of the corpse. With great difficulty, given the circumstances. These things develop Draculin, a special anticoagulant found in vampire bats. As much as I’d hate to call these unfortunate creatures vampires, this is exactly what they are.

Perhaps some legends were true, yet at that moment, none of it mattered. I wanted to find out more. I needed to find out more.

To make a painfully long story short, I’ll conclude my search by saying that for the longest time, I had searched for clues using dubious methods. This, of course, didn’t yield the desired results. My only solace during that period was the understanding that these creatures are solitary and, thus, could not warn others about my activities and intentions.  

With the turn of the new millennium, fortune shone my way, finally. Shortly before the infamous Armin Meiwes affair. I had experienced something not too dissimilar. I found a post on a message board outlining a request for a willing blood donor for cash. This wasn’t what one could expect from a blood donation however, the poster specified he was interested in drinking the donor’s blood and, if possible, straight from the source.

This couldn’t be anymore similar to the type of person I have been looking for. Disinterested in the money, I offered myself up. That said, I wasn’t interested in anyone drinking my blood either, so to facilitate a fair deal, I had to get a few bags of stored blood. With my line of work, that wasn’t too hard.

A week after contacting the poster of the message, we arranged a meeting. He wanted to see me at his house. Thinking he might intend to get more aggressive than I needed him to be, I made sure I had my pistol when I met him.

Overall, he seemed like an alright person for an anthropophagic haemophile. Other than the insistence on keeping the lighting lower than I’d usually like during our meeting, everything was better than I could ever expect. At first, he seemed taken aback by my offer of stored blood for information, but after the first sip of plasmoid liquid, he relented.

To my surprise, he and I were a lot alike, as far as personality traits go. As he explained to me, there wasn’t much that still interested him in life anymore. He could no longer form any emotional attachments, nor feel the most potent emotions. The one glaring exception was the high he got when feeding. I too cannot feel much beyond bitter disappointment and the ever-present anxious dread that seems to shadow every moment of my being.

I have burned every personal bridge I ever had in favor of this ridiculous quest for revenge I wasn’t sure I could ever complete.

This pleasant and brief encounter confirmed my suspicions; the infected are solitary creatures and prefer to stay away from all other intelligent lifeforms when not feeding. I’ve also learned that to stay functional on the abysmal diet of blood and the occasional lump of flesh, the infected enter a state of hibernation that can last for years at a time.

He confirmed my suspicion that the infected dislike bright lights and preferred to hunt and overall go about their rather monotone lives at night.

The most important piece of information I had received from this fine man was the fact that the infected rarely venture far from where they first succumbed to the plague, so long, of course, as they could find enough prey. Otherwise, like all other animals, they migrate and stick to their new location.

Interestingly enough, I could almost see the sorrow in his crimson eyes, a deep regret, and a desire to escape an unseen pain that kept gnawing at him. I asked him about it; wondering if he was happy with where his life had taken him. He answered negatively. I wish he had asked me the same question, so I could just tell someone how miserable I had made my life. He never did, but I’m sure he saw his reflection in me. He was certainly bright enough to tell as much.

In a rare moment of empathy, I offered to end his life. He smiled a genuine smile and confessed that he tried, many times over, without ever succeeding. He explained that his displeasure wasn’t the result of depression, but rather that he was tired of his endless boredom. Back then, I couldn’t even tell the difference.

Smiling back at him, I told him the secret to his survival was his brain staying intact. He quipped about it, making all the sense in the world, and told me he had no firearms.

I pulled out my pistol, aiming at his head, and joked about how he wouldn’t need one.

He laughed, and when he did, I pulled the trigger.

The laughter stopped, and the room fell dead silent, too silent, and with it, he fell as well, dead for good this time.

Even though this act of killing was justified, it still frequented my dreams, yet another nightmare to a gallery of never-ending visual sorrows. This one, however, was more melancholic than terrifying, but just as nerve-wracking. He lost all reason to live. To exist just to feed? This was below things, no, people like us. The longer I did this, all of this, the more I realized I was dealing with my fellow humans. Unfortunately, the humans I’ve been dealing with have drifted away from the light of humanity. The cruelty of nature had them reduced to wild animals controlled by a base instinct without having the proper way of employing their higher reasoning for something greater. These were victims of a terrible curse, as was I.

My obsession with vengeance only grew worse. I had to bring the nightmare I had reduced my entire life to an end. Armed with new knowledge of how to find my tormentor, finally, I finally headed back to my home village. A few weeks later, I arrived near the place of my birth. Near where I had spent the first eleven years of my life. It was night, the perfect time to strike. That was easier said than done. Just overlooking the village from a distance proved difficult. With each passing second, a new, suppressed memory resurfaced. A new night terror to experience while awake. The same diabolical presence marred all of them.

Countless images flashed before my eyes, all of them painful. Some were more horrifying than others. My father’s slow demise, my mother’s agonizing death. All of it, tainted by the sickening shadow standing at the corner of the bedroom. Tall, pale, barely visible, as if he was part of the nocturnal fog itself. Only red eyes shining. Glowing in the darkness, along with the red hue dripping from his sickening smile.

Bitter, angry, hurting, and afraid, I lost myself in my thoughts. My body knew where to find him. However, we were bound by a red thread of fate. Somehow, from that first day, when he made me his plaything, he ended up tying our destinies together. I could probably smell the stench of iron surrounding him. I was fuming, ready to incinerate his body into ash and scatter it into the nearest river.  

Worst of all was the knowledge I shouldn’t look for anyone in the village, lest I infect them with some disease they’d never encountered before. It could potentially kill them all. I wouldn’t be any better than him if I had let such a thing happen… My inability to reunite with any surviving neighbors and relatives hurt so much that I can’t even put it into words.

All of that seemed to fade away once I found his motionless cadaver resting soundly in a den by the cemetery. How cliché, the undead dwelling in burial grounds. In that moment, bereft of his serpentine charm, everything seemed so different from what I remembered. He wasn’t that tall; he wasn’t much bigger than I was when he took everything from me. I almost felt dizzy, realizing he wasn’t even an adult, probably. My memories have tricked me. Everything seemed so bizarre and unreal at that moment. I was once again a lost child. Once again confronted by a monster that existed only in my imagination. I trained my pistol on his deathlike form.

Yet in that moment, when our roles were reversed. When he suddenly became a helpless child, I was a Man Made from Mist. When I had all the power in the world, and he lay at my feet, unable to do anything to protect himself from my cruelty, I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t shoot him. I couldn’t do it because I knew it wouldn’t help me; it wouldn’t bring my family back. Killing him wouldn’t fix me or restore the humanity I gave up on. It wouldn’t even me feel any better. There was no point at all. I wouldn’t feel any better if I put that bullet in him. Watching that pathetic carcass, I realized how little all of that mattered. My nightmares wouldn’t end, and the anxiety and hatred would not go away. There was nothing that could ever heal my wounds. I will suffer from them so long as I am human. As much as I hate to admit it, I pitied him in that moment.

As I’ve said, letting him go was a mistake. Maybe if I went through with my plan, I wouldn’t end up where I am now. Instead of taking his life, I took some of his flesh. I cut off a little piece of his calf, he didn't even budge when my knife sliced through his pale leg like butter. This was the pyrrhic victory I had to have over him. A foolish and animalistic display of dominance over the person whose shadow dominated my entire life. That wasn't the only reason I did what I did, I took a part of him just in case I could no longer bear the weight of my three demons. Knowing people like him do not feel the most intense emotions, I was hoping for a quick and permanent solution, should the need arise.

Things did eventually spiral out of control. My sanity was waning and with it, the will to keep on living, but instead of shooting myself, I ate the piece of him that I kept stored in my fridge. I did so with the expectation of the disease killing my overstressed immune system and eventually me.

Sadly, there are very few permanent solutions in this world and fewer quick ones that yield the desired outcomes. I did not die, technically. Instead, the Man Made from Mist was reborn. At first, everything seemed so much better. Sharper, clearer, and by far more exciting. But for how long will such a state remain exciting when it’s the default state of being? After a while, everything started losing its color to the point of everlasting bleakness.

Even my memories aren’t as vivid as they used to be, and the nightmares no longer have any impact. They are merely pictures moving in a sea of thought. With that said, life isn’t much better now than it was before. I don’t hurt; I don’t feel almost at all. The only time I ever feel anything is whenever I sink my teeth into the neck of some unsuspecting drunk. My days are mostly monochrome grey with the occasional streak of red, but that’s not nearly enough.

Unfortunately, I lost my pistol at some point, so I don’t have a way out of this tunnel of mist. It’s not all bad. I just wish my nightmares would sting a little again. Otherwise, what is the point of dwelling on every mistake you’ve ever committed? What is the point of a tragedy if it cannot bring you the catharsis of sorrow? What is the point in reliving every blood-soaked nightmare that has ever plagued your mind if they never bring any feelings of pain or joy…? Is there even a point behind a recollection that carries no weight? There is none.

Everything I’ve ever wanted is within reach, yet whenever I extend my hand to grasp at something, anything, it all seems to drift away from me…

And now, only now, once the boredom that shadows my every move has finally exhausted me. Now that I am completely absorbed by this unrelenting impenetrable and bottomless sensation of emptiness… This longing for something, anything… I can say I truly understand what horror is. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the Man Made from Mist isn’t me, nor any other person or even a creature. No, The Man Made from Mist is the embodiment of pure horror. A fear…

One so bizarre and malignant it exists only to torment those afflicted with sentience.

Through the lens, while stargazing, and by happenstance, I first glimpsed the eye. I thought then that what I saw was merely a reflection, for when I blinked, it blinked in perfect time.

Perhaps this reflection was refracted by a speck of dust or glinting of stray light? Perhaps the telescope array, the tube, a knob or aperture had somehow shifted, disarranged, becoming misaligned?

With a great, defeated sigh, I set about making adjustments and then with cleaning, spending nearly half the night. I polished every glass twice, twisted every knob, tried every measure known to me to bring the stars back into sight…yet each time I peered into the eyepiece, I did not find the constellation I sought to see…

I only found the reflection of my own eye staring directly back at me.

As it continued to confound me, long and hard I stared. This view was a frustration shifting slowly from confusion to a dawning fascination for I finally understood and could accept this situation: there was no misalignment, no smear on the lenses, no speck of dust. And yet, I could not seem to gaze past this strange reflection and resume my viewing of the sky above. So it was, with growing irritation, that I simply stared back into my own eye.

The thing must be busted.

Still, I stared and doubt began to show itself. With unsettled self-reflection as that doubt continued to unfold, contemplating the reflection’s strange sudden appearance caused a new and unexpected worry to take hold: What if this reflection I was seeing was not even truly there? What if I've lost my reason and I'm somehow unaware? If I've lost my reason, then there is no mirror image there to see then! What if this thing that I believe in is nothing more than a delusion? An illusion…shades of shadows cast on empty air? What then?

Stepping back, I raised a hand to scratch thoughtfully the stubble growing on my chin as I let this thought sink in…

But that–it simply wasn't true. The mentally unsound lack such capacity to question thoughts such as these reflectively or doubt a single thing they might believe, or say, or see, or even doubt the strange things that they do. Because I feel the grip of fear at such a thought serves for me as well as measurable proof.

Leaning forward, I pressed my vision back against the eyepiece once more. Strangely the reflected eyeball seemed much larger than before. Closer...had it somehow gotten closer?

So it would seem.

Was part of this confounded instrument shifting on its own when the telescope hadn't even moved? How could this be? I hadn't so much as even touched it returning my face to the eyepiece.

Then, as I watched my own reflection, I saw it blink again and felt a chill as cold as ice begin sinking deep into my skin–I became aware right there and then that this reflection in my telescope was not caused by some malfunction from within. The optical tube couldn't be reflecting back to me the sight of my own eye. I became aware this thing I stared upon was conscious and alive.

As I gazed upon it, so its gazed back as if the act was in reply...

This is no mirror image of my own blinking eye I'm seeing as I gaze into the sky, although an explanation with such simplicity would calm the feeling of anxiety, this feeling which is causing me to tremble as it continues to arise. A mere reflection–but no–wouldn't that be be nice?

For this moment I have only blinked but once…

…and I watched this eye amongst the stars as it blinked back at me not just once, but twice.

ss

When Adam's car breaks down in the middle of a desolate forest road, he thinks he’s simply stranded until morning. But soon, eerie sounds in the night and a pair of glowing yellow eyes lurking in the shadows reveal a nightmare beyond his worst fears.

https://youtu.be/JTuZhy4jLO4?si=yNSwYgOK8OW6ICED

It's a strange afternoon ritual, sure. And a work in progress. But fifty-six days into “dealing” with my daily visitor, I was at least getting more efficient. The human mind can really adapt to anything, I thought while resting my bolt-action hunting rifle against the coat rack. I took a seat in the folding chair positioned to face the inside of my front door, glancing at my watch in the process. I used to be a lot less desensitized to this process. 

5:30PM. I tried and failed to suppress a yawn. Anytime now, though. I let my right index finger slide gently up and down the trigger - a manifestation of rising impatience. This ritual had become so redundant that it was almost boring. I put my feet up on a half-packed moving box and attempted to relax while I waited. 

My favorite time-saving measure, without question, has been the bullseye. I hid it from Holly behind a magnetic to-do list that hangs on the door. Probably an unnecessary precaution - it's just a red dot about the size of my rifle’s barrel. Could be a smudge for all she knows. At the same time, I don't want her cleaning it to have it only reappear. She would want to know why it’s important enough for me to replace it. That's a question I don’t want her to have the answer to, I mused, pulling the barrel of the rifle up to meet the red dot. That target has saved me a lot of migraines, though. In the past, I’ve missed that first shot. Then there is either a fight or they run - exhausting no matter how you slice it. Now, when they twist the lock and open the door, the red dot guides me to that perfect space right between their eyes. 

Sparks of pain started to crackle where the butt of the rifle met my chest. I sighed loudly for no one’s benefit and swung the firearm a little to the left so I could see the watch on my right, feeling impatience transition to concern. 

5:41PM. A little late, but not unheard of. I shifted my shoulders to release tension built up from holding the rifle up and ready to fire. The deviation from the norm had spilled some adrenaline into my veins. I felt my eyes dilate and my focus sharpen - my body modulating to once again adapt to potential new circumstances. When I heard a loud mechanical click with a subsequent scream from the opposite side of the house, my predatory instincts withered back to baseline in the blink of an eye. 

They had been doing this more and more recently, I lamented, now trudging down the hallway, using the continued sounds that tend to accompany intense and surprising pain to guide me. A higher percentage still came through the front door, though, based on my counts. The bear trap was a nice backup, though. 

I take a left turn at the end of the hall and lumber down the two rickety wooden steps that connect my home to my garage floor. I look up, and there he is for the fifty-seventh time. The steel maw caught his left leg and clearly interrupted some previous forward motion as he hit the concrete face-first and hard, evidenced by the newly broken nose. 

At first, he’s confused and pleading for his life. He’s telling me what he can give me if I show him mercy. And if I can’t show him mercy, he asks me to spare Holly. His monologue is interrupted when he sees me standing over him. Sees who I am, I mean. Like always, the revelation leads him to shortcircuit from frenetic negotiation to raw existential panic mixed, for some reason, with blind rage. The type of frenzied anger that your brainstem fires off because none of the higher functioning parts of your nervous system have enough of a hold on what is transpiring to activate a less primordial emotion. 

Same old dog and pony show. Wordlessly, I empty a round into his forehead. Then, I send my boot slamming into the foot that’s still caught in the bear trap, causing it to snap and separate at the ankle from the rest of the body, releasing small fireworks of black dust into the air. 

No blood, thankfully. Clean-up would be a nightmare. Other than the cadavers themselves, I have little to clean up. Only tiny bone shards and obsidian sand, both of which are easily vacuumed. 

I will say, having them come through the garage is convenient from a storage perspective. Less distance to move the bodies. I drag the corpse to a metal storage closet that used to hold things like my snowblower. My key clicks satisfyingly into the heavy-duty lock, and I pull the door open. Inside are intruders fifty-five and fifty-six. 

At this point, fifty-six is only a skeleton, leaning lonesomely against the back of the storage closet, making it appear like some kind of underutilized “Anatomy 101”-style learning mannequin. Fifty-five has been completely reduced to a pile of thin rubble coating the floor. 

I cram fifty-seven in hastily, trying my best to lift from my core and not aggravate the herniated discs in my lower back any more than required. The cycle of decay for whatever these things are is, on the whole, pretty tolerable. No organic tissue? No smell of rot or swarm of death flies. The clothes and jewelry disintegrate into the unknown material too. My wife’s cheap vacuum is getting a lot of mileage, consolidating the black detritus for further disposal, but that's about it. 

All of them manageable, except the one. But I do my best to ignore that exception. The implications make me doubt myself, and I despise that sensation. 

Holly never gets home before 7PM on weekdays - plenty of time to clean up the mess. We live alone at the end of an earthy country road in the Midwest. Our nearest neighbors are half a mile away. Even if they hear it,  no one around here is ever alarmed by a single rifle shot. Weekends are trickier. In the beginning, I’d send her on errands or walks between 5PM and 7PM, but that was eventually raising suspicion. Now I catch the automatons down the road with a bowie knife through the neck. The rifle is better for my joints during the week. 

Automatons may not be the right word, though. They can react to information with forethought and intelligence. They just always arrive at the same time for the same reason. That part, at the very least, is automated. 

They’re predictable for the same reason the “red dot” hack works. It helps that they are all an identical height. Same reason they’re concerned about Holly’s safety, too. 

They think they’re me returning from work. 

I was walking home from a nearby water treatment plant, my previous employment, the first day I encountered one of the copies. I think I was about half a mile from home when I stepped on what felt like a shard of glass beneath my feet. I’m not sure exactly what it was; my head was up watching light filter through tree branches when it happened. I felt that tiny snap and then began to see double.

Instantaneously it was like I was stepping off a wooden rollercoaster - all nausea, disorientation, and vertigo. Next was the splitting. I was in my body, but I felt myself growing out of it, too. The stretching sensation was agony - pure and simple. Imagine the tearing pain of ripping off a hangnail. Now imagine it but it's covering your entire body and doesn’t seem like it's ever going to stop, no matter how hard you pull and wrench at the rogue skin. 

When the pain finally did subside, I had only a moment to catch my breath before the copy was on top of me. Paradoxically shouting at me to explain myself with its hands tight around my neck. I didn’t have an explanation, but I gladly reciprocated the violence. Knocking my forehead into his, I dazed him, allowing me to spin my hips and reverse our positions. 

All I knew was he needed to die, so I buried my thumbs into his eyes and pushed until he stopped moving. Through tears, I pulled his body by the leg off the dirt road and into the woods, hands wet and shaking from the shock and the savagery. 

I took the next day off of work. I didn’t explain anything to Holly - I mean, what is there to tell that won’t land me in an asylum or jail? Initially, I thought I had some kind of episode or fugue state that resulted in me killing another man in cold blood because I had mistaken him for some sort of doppelganger. 

I’d reaffirmed my sanity that afternoon when the sound of a male whistling woke me from a nap on the couch. I crept into the kitchen, and there I was - tie loosened and hands sudsy, just getting to work on some dirty dishes from the previous night. Thankfully, Holly wouldn’t be home for another twenty minutes when I drove a kitchen knife through his back. Quit my job the following day and blamed my worsening back pain. The best kind of lies, the most effective ones anyway, are designed from truths. 

I’ve never gone out of my way to prove this, but my guess is the copies materialize where that split happened at the same time it happened every day, and they just pick up where I left off - walking home after a day of work. The rest is history. Well, excluding the aforementioned exception. 

When I noticed that my wedding ring had a plastic texture, immobile and fused to my skin, I didn’t want to believe it. But it kept gnawing at me. One day, I ventured into the woods. When I found that the original’s corpse was seething with maggots, fungus, and sulfur, I realized what I was. 

I love Holly just like he did, and I’m all she’s got now. She doesn’t need to go through this pain if I can prevent it. We’re in the process of moving to Vermont for retirement, where she’ll be safe from this knowledge and from the infinite them. 

I'm not sure what will happen when the copies arrive at an empty house, but they aren’t my problem. 

All that matters to me is maintaining the illusion. Holly can never know.

More stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

I never thought I’d be the one to cover the night shift, but I guess that’s how life throws things at you sometimes. I’ve always been the day shift clerk at this quiet supermarket, a regular, dependable guy doing regular, dependable work. My routine was simple: clock in at 9 AM, deal with a steady stream of customers, and head home by 6 PM. Easy. Predictable.

But last night, that all changed.

It was around 8 PM when I got the call from my manager, Linda. Now, Linda's been nothing but kind to me since I started here. She’s a sweet woman, always understanding when someone needed time off or when the schedule had to shift around a bit. So, when she called and I heard the urgency in her voice, I didn’t hesitate to listen.

“Tom?” Her voice crackled through the phone, tense and fast. “I need you to do me a big favor tonight.”

I could tell something was off right away. I leaned against the kitchen counter at home, glancing at my leftover dinner. “Sure, Linda. What’s going on?”

“It’s…well, it's about Jackson.” Her pause felt heavy, like she was picking her words carefully. “The night shift guy. He’s not answering his phone, and nobody saw him leave this morning.”

I frowned. Jackson? He’d been working the night shift for a few months now, quiet guy, kept to himself, but never struck me as unreliable. “Maybe he’s just sleeping in, forgot to charge his phone?”

“I wish it were that simple,” Linda sighed. “I checked the cameras, Tom. He didn’t leave the store.”

“What do you mean he didn’t leave?”

“I mean,” she continued, her voice dropping to almost a whisper, “he was here at 6 AM when the morning shift arrived, but then…nothing. He’s was gone. It’s like he vanished.”

My heart skipped a beat. This was getting weird. “So…you need me to cover for him tonight?”

“Just this once,” she assured me. “I know it’s short notice, but you’re the only one who’s free. Please, Tom. I’ll owe you big time.”

Something in her voice made me uneasy, but I agreed. Linda had been good to me, and I couldn’t leave her in the lurch. After all, what was the worst that could happen on a quiet night shift?

“I’ll do it,” I said finally. “But only this once.”

Linda let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Tom. I owe you.”

By 10:30 PM, I was on my way to the supermarket, mentally preparing myself for what I assumed would be a long, boring night. The store sat on the outskirts of town, nestled in a quiet suburban neighborhood. It was one of those places that never saw much action, especially at night. I figured I’d probably be alone for most of my shift.

As I approached the back entrance, I noticed something strange. The employee door, which was usually locked at this time of night, was blown open. A gust of wind pushed it back and forth on its hinges, creating an eerie creaking noise. And then I saw him, Jackson.

He was standing just inside the doorway, shivering like a leaf in the wind. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and filled with something I couldn’t quite place, terror, maybe? He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, his face pale and gaunt.

“Jackson?” I called out, more confused than concerned at that moment. “What the hell are you doing out here? The manager’s been looking for you.”

Jackson didn’t respond right away. He stumbled toward me, his steps unsteady. When he got close enough, I could see the sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool night air.

“Tom,” he rasped, barely able to form the words. “Don’t…don’t cover the night shift.”

I blinked, taken aback by the urgency in his voice. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You don’t understand,” he muttered, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “This place…it’s not what it seems. You don’t want to be here at night. Trust me.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little irritated. Jackson had always been a bit odd, but this was too much. “Come on, man, you’re freaking out. Maybe you just need a few days off.”

He grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong for someone who looked so weak. “No. I’m serious. Don’t stay."

I looked at him, puzzled.

Then he continued "But If you do stay…check the last drawer of the counter. There’s something there that will help you. And for God’s sake, leave at 6 AM. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.”

“Jackson, listen to me”

“I’m not going back in there,” he interrupted, shaking his head violently. “Not ever.”

Then, before I could say another word, Jackson bolted, sprinting into the darkness as if his life depended on it.

I stood there for a few moments, watching Jackson disappear into the night. His behavior was bizarre, but I chalked it up to exhaustion. Working nights had probably gotten to him, people don’t always think straight when they’re sleep-deprived.

Still, something about his warning gnawed at the back of my mind.

When I finally entered the store, I found the day shift clerk, Sarah, getting ready to leave. She greeted me with a tired smile, but I could see the relief on her face, she was more than ready to clock out.

“Hey, Tom,” she yawned. “Thanks for covering tonight.”

“No problem,” I replied, glancing around. “By the way, did you see Jackson earlier? He was acting kind of strange.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Jackson? No, I didn’t see him"

I frowned. “What do you mean? He was just outside a minute ago, freaking out about something.”

She shook her head, clearly confused. “I didn’t see anyone. And I’ve been here the whole time.”

A chill ran down my spine, but I forced myself to shrug it off. “Weird. Maybe he was hiding out somewhere.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said, unconvinced. “Well, good luck tonight. It’s usually dead quiet, but…” She hesitated, biting her lip as if she wanted to say more.

“But what?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, grabbing her coat. “Just…don’t let it get to you. See you tomorrow.”

And with that, she left, leaving me alone in the quiet, fluorescent-lit store.

The first few minutes were uneventful. A couple of customers wandered in, buying late-night snacks or picking up a few items they had forgotten. I scanned their goods, made small talk, and settled into what I thought would be an easy shift.

Around 11:30 PM, the store fell completely silent. There were no more customers, no more cars passing by outside. Just me and the hum of the refrigerators.

I began to relax, thinking maybe this night shift thing wouldn’t be so bad after all.

But then, as I sat behind the counter, I noticed something odd. At the far end of the store, in the dimly lit aisles, there was a figure, a customer, maybe? But they weren’t moving. Just standing there between two aisles, like they were waiting for something.

“Hello?” I called out, peering into the darkened aisles. No response.

The figure stood perfectly still at the far end of the store, where the lighting was poor, casting long, eerie shadows between the shelves. I squinted, trying to make out any details, but it was hard to tell if it was a person or just my mind playing tricks on me. The store was silent, except for the faint hum of the refrigerators and the low buzzing of the fluorescent lights above.

“Hello?” I called out again, louder this time.

No response. The figure didn’t move. It was unsettling, but I convinced myself it was probably just a customer lingering in the shadows, perhaps deciding on a late-night snack. I turned my attention to the security monitor, thinking I could get a better look at whoever it was.

Oddly enough, the camera that had a direct view of that aisle showed nothing. Just empty aisles, shelves lined with products, but no person in sight. I frowned, glancing back up toward the aisle itself, and my heart skipped a beat. The figure had moved. It was closer now, just beyond the poorly lit section, but still standing unnaturally still.

My eyes flicked back to the monitor. Still, nothing. The figure wasn’t there. It didn’t make sense.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to shake off the unease settling deep in my gut. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe they were standing just in a blind spot of the camera. That had to be it.

But when I looked back toward the aisle again, the figure had moved again, this time, much closer. Now, it stood under better lighting, but somehow, the shadows still clung to them. I couldn’t make out a face, just the vague silhouette of a person. They stood there, unnervingly still, as if waiting for something.

My body moved before I could stop myself. I got up from behind the counter and made my way toward the aisle. As soon as I rounded the corner and entered the aisle… nothing. No one was there.

I stood still for a moment, the hair on the back of my neck prickling. The store was empty. There was no one there but me.

I checked every aisle, walking through each one slowly, trying to find any trace of someone having been there. But no one was inside. Eventually, I returned to the counter, telling myself that whoever it was must have left the store quietly.

I checked the cameras again. All clear. No sign of any movement.

And then I remembered what Jackson had told me.

The drawer.

I hesitated, looking at the monitor again. Midnight had just passed, and the store felt even quieter now, the silence pressing in on me. Reluctantly, I opened the last drawer behind the counter, expecting maybe some keys or supplies. Instead, my fingers brushed against a folded piece of paper.

I unfolded it and read the first few lines:

These are the rules that you need to follow to make it through the nightshift. I found out about them the hard way, so I’ve noted all of them here to keep the new nightshift clerks safe. If you encounter a strange event, please note it down.

I rolled my eyes, thinking it was some elaborate prank by Jackson or one of my other coworkers. Still, a part of me couldn’t shake off how serious Jackson had been when he warned me earlier. His voice echoed in my head, along with his exhausted, terrified expression.

I continued reading the list.

Rule 1: Occasionally, you’ll see a shadowy figure at the far end of the store, just standing between two aisles. It will not move unless you ignore it. Always nod or wave to acknowledge its presence, and it will leave you alone.

I felt a sudden rush of panic, and before I could stop myself, I shouted into the empty store, “Yeah, real funny, guys! Really mature!”

My voice echoed in the aisles, but the store remained still, as if waiting.

I continued reading.

Rule 2: From 2:00 AM onwards, Aisle 7 becomes different. Products are rearranged, the air is colder, and you will start to see "strange things" that aren't there.

“Sure,” I muttered, rolling my eyes again. This had to be some weird initiation prank for covering the night shift. Still, a strange uneasiness settled into my bones as I read on.

Rule 3: Between 1:00 AM and 4:00 AM, only five customers can enter the store. After the fifth one, any further ‘customers’ are not human, no matter how they appear. Count them carefully, and if a sixth enters, lock yourself in the back office and do not leave until you’re sure they’ve gone.

My eyes widened as I read that one. I forced myself to keep reading.

Rule 4: No matter what happens, Aisle 3 must be cleaned at exactly 2:45 AM every night. A spill will appear on the floor out of nowhere, and you must clean it up as soon as you see it. Ignoring it will cause the spill to spread, and soon, you’ll notice wet footprints appearing around the store.

I chuckled nervously. This was getting ridiculous.

Rule 5: If the back door is left unlocked, someone, or something, will enter after midnight. You won’t notice them, but you will feel an unsettling chill, as if someone is standing behind you.

A chill ran down my spine just as I read that line. I instinctively glanced behind me at the back door, which I’d left unlocked, thinking no one would bother coming through there. We never locked it during the day, so why bother at night?

The next rule sent another wave of dread through me.

Rule 6: Occasionally, you might catch a glimpse of yourself walking the aisles, stocking shelves, or mopping the floors. Whatever you do, do not approach them, and do not let them see you.

A sense of unease started growing in the pit of my stomach. I tried laughing it off, but the truth was, this list was starting to get to me. I continued reading, my fingers trembling.

Rule 7: If you hear sobbing or cries for help from the manager’s office, do not go inside. The door may be ajar. The crying will get louder the closer you get, and if you open the door, it will stop. Something else will be waiting in the silence.

I threw the list back in the drawer to forget all about it, when something in the corner of my eye made me freeze. A shadow flickered across the security monitor, near the back door.

I had to make sure no one had come in.

I hurried toward the back door, expecting to find one of my coworkers sneaking around, trying to scare me. But when I reached the door, no one was there. The air felt unnaturally cold, and a draft blew in through the still-open back door. I slammed it shut, feeling a shiver crawl up my neck. I locked it.

Just as I turned around, there was a faint knock on the door. A cold sweat broke out on my skin, and I slowly turned back toward the door.

I opened it, expecting a collegue of mine to jump out and scare me.

But there was no one there. The back alley was empty. I stepped outside, glancing around.

Nothing. Not a soul.

I shut the door and locked it.

As I got back to the counter, my heart skipped a beat. I felt a cold, icy presence behind me, so real, I could almost feel the breath on the back of my neck.

I spun around. Nothing but the wall.

The chill lingered, creeping up my spine as I stood there, breathing heavily. Rule 5 echoed in my mind. I could feel something watching me.

I had to get a grip on myself, shake off the lingering dread that clung to my skin. Standing still behind the counter wasn’t helping. The rules were unsettling, sure, but that’s all they were, words on paper. I needed to move around, clear my head, and remind myself that this was just a quiet, empty store.

I decided to do a quick walk through the aisles, maybe even restock a few items to keep myself busy. The familiar routine would ground me, keep me from spiraling further into paranoia.

As I walked along the aisles, everything seemed normal at first, the familiar rows of snacks, canned goods, and drinks stacked neatly in their places. But as I made my way toward the freezers at the back of the store, something caught my eye.

There was an ice cream carton lying on the floor, right in front of the freezer doors. It was still sealed, perfectly intact, but just sitting there like someone had dropped it.

I frowned. No one had been in this section recently. The few customers I’d had earlier didn’t even go near the freezers. I bent down to pick it up, telling myself it was nothing.

I stood up with the carton in hand, and as I reached out to open the freezer door, something cold and solid wrapped around my wrist.

The sensation was all too real, yet there was nothing visible holding me.

I yanked my hand back, pulling it toward my chest as I stumbled backward. My eyes darted around the freezer aisle. There was no one here.

But I had felt it. Something had grabbed me.

Panic surged through me, cold and sharp. I stared at my hand, my skin tingling where the grip had been. Thin red marks, tracing the outline of where those fingers had been. They were narrow, and there were only three distinct markings, like the hand that had grabbed me had only 3 fingers.

“What the hell…?” I whispered to myself, but my voice sounded small, almost drowned out by the eerie situation.

I rushed back, my hand still tingling from the icy touch. The thin, red lines on my wrist were still there, burning slightly, as if whatever had touched me had left a mark deeper than just on the surface.

When I reached the counter, I leaned against it, breathing heavily, my heart still racing in my chest. I couldn’t shake the feeling of the cold, thin fingers gripping my wrist.

I was still staring at my hand when something shifted in the corner of my vision.

My head snapped up, eyes darting toward the back of the store, and that’s when I saw it again. The figure, just like before, standing between the aisles in the poorly lit section. Its form was obscured by shadows, but I knew it was the same figure from earlier. That unsettling presence I had seen but convinced myself wasn’t real.

It was standing there, staring at me, unmoving.

This time, I felt the panic creeping up faster. Rule number one.

“Always nod or wave to acknowledge its presence, and it will leave you alone.”

Was this really happening?

I swallowed hard, the dryness in my throat making it difficult to breathe.

I lifted my arm slowly and gave a small, hesitant wave toward the shadowy figure at the end of the aisle.

The figure didn’t move, didn’t step forward or shift in any way. But then, its face, or what passed for a face, lit up with an unnerving, wide grin. The smile was impossibly wide, stretching from ear to ear, teeth gleaming unnaturally in the dim light. It wasn’t a smile of joy or warmth, it was too sharp, too predatory. It radiated a faint, unnatural glow, like the smile itself was made of something otherworldly.

And then, the figure vanished.

I stood there, frozen in place, my mind struggling to comprehend what had just happened.

This wasn’t my imagination. Something was happening, something far worse than I had been prepared for.

“Oh my God…” I whispered, my heart pounding harder than ever.

I didn’t know what to do. My legs felt weak, my mind racing.

With trembling hands, I opened the drawer again, the faint creak of the wood making my heart jump. I fumbled inside, feeling the familiar rough texture of the folded paper. The list of rules. I had to double-check it, make sure I hadn’t missed anything crucial. My mind was spinning after what had just happened, but I needed something concrete to hold onto, even if it was just a set of bizarre, unsettling rules.

As I unfolded the paper, the front door chimed. I flinched, my nerves still on edge, but it was only a customer, a middle-aged man. He looked normal enough.

I let out a shaky breath, trying to calm myself. It’s fine, just another customer, I thought, trying to force my heart rate back to normal. He nodded to me briefly and walked further into the store. I watched him for a second, then turned my attention back to the list, clinging to it like a lifeline.

“Okay,” I muttered under my breath, scanning the rules. “Between 1 AM and 4 AM… count the customers. No more than five.”

I glanced at the clock on the wall, just past 1 AM. So far, only this middle-aged guy had come in. Customer number one. I had to keep track. No room for mistakes.

“And… at 2:45 AM… clean aisle three.” I sighed. It seemed simple enough, in theory. But after what had already happened tonight, nothing felt simple anymore. Still, the market wasn’t large. I could handle counting a few customers and cleaning one aisle. I repeated the steps to myself, like a mantra, trying to find comfort in the routine.

Another customer walked in as the middle-aged man finished checking out, wishing me a good night as he took his bag and left. I watched him walk through the automatic doors and disappear into the night.

That’s two, I thought. I mentally added the new arrival to the count.

Then, the woman who entered next didn’t glance at me. She didn’t say a word. She walked straight ahead, her eyes locked in a distant, unblinking stare. Her movements were stiff, almost mechanical, like she was being controlled. Her skin, pale and almost unnaturally smooth, shimmered under the store’s fluorescent lights as if it wasn’t skin at all but something else, something artificial.

I watched her as she disappeared into one of the aisles, breaking the line of sight. My breath caught in my throat. It took everything in me not to follow her, to see if she was real or something else entirely. But I shook my head, forcing myself to stay behind the counter.

“It’s nothing,” I whispered to myself, trying to sound convincing. “Just a weird customer.”

I glanced at the clock again. It was just past 2 AM. Aisle seven was the next danger zone, according to the rules. I’d have to avoid it for the rest of the night, and that felt like the simplest thing in the world compared to what I’d already encountered. I checked the security monitor, peeking at the dim view of aisle seven. Everything seemed… normal.

At around 2:30 AM, the door chimed again. I turned to see another customer enter, a man, this one seemingly normal. He wandered through the aisles, picking up a few items. I breathed a small sigh of relief, grateful that he seemed ordinary.

But something nagged at me. The third customer, the woman with the robotic movements, I hadn’t seen her leave. My eyes flicked back to the monitor, and I switched through the different camera angles. Nothing. No sign of her anywhere in the store.

Maybe she left and I didn’t notice? I thought, trying to convince myself. But the pit of unease in my stomach only grew deeper.

Four customers now. I mentally ticked them off, hoping and praying that no more would come before 4 AM. The idea of encountering a “sixth customer” was something I couldn’t even bear to think about.

I watched the newest customer as he checked out with his goods, offering a polite “Good night” as he walked out.

Four, I reminded myself.

The minutes ticked by slowly, dragging like hours, and then my attention snapped to the clock. It was almost 2:45 AM.

Time to clean aisle three, I thought, dread settling in my gut like a stone. I grabbed the mop and bucket from the back room and slowly made my way to the aisle. My footsteps echoed in the quiet store, the squeak of the wheels on the mop bucket sounding unnervingly loud.

But just as I reached the aisle, I heard something. A whisper, faint and distant. I froze, gripping the handle of the mop. The sound seemed to drift through the air, faint but unmistakable.

It was calling my name.

I turned slowly, the whisper growing clearer, more insistent. My heart pounded in my chest, each beat hammering in my ears. The sound was coming from the other side of the store, near aisle seven.

My legs felt like lead as I moved toward the sound, each step reluctant, but something compelled me forward. The whisper grew louder the closer I got. My name… over and over again, like a distant plea.

I reached the edge of aisle seven, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I knew I shouldn’t look. I knew. But something took over, some dark curiosity that made me peek around the corner.

And what I saw made my blood turn to ice.

The aisle wasn’t normal anymore. Mannequins stood scattered throughout, posed as if shopping, their stiff limbs dressed in tattered clothing. Their plastic faces were blank, yet they radiated a silent menace that I couldn’t explain. It was as if they’d been caught mid-action, and the second I looked, they frozen in place.

I pulled back, my heart hammering in my chest. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. I took a breath and peeked again, against every instinct telling me not to.

This time, all the mannequins were looking directly at me.

I staggered back, my hands shaking, my pulse roaring in my ears. My body screamed at me to run, but my feet stayed planted to the spot, frozen in terror. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing. And then, at the far end of the aisle, I spotted her.

Customer number three. The woman with the robotic movements. She stood at the end of the aisle, staring directly at me, her face blank . My heart dropped into my stomach. She was there.

Suddenly, she moved. No, she burst toward me, her body jerking unnaturally, her limbs flailing in that same mechanical rhythm. I let out a strangled cry and bolted, sprinting as fast as I could away from aisle seven. I could hear the heavy thud of her footsteps growing louder, faster.

As the sound of footsteps reached the edge of the aisle, they stopped. I whipped around and there was nothing. No sign of her. No sound.

I ran back to the counter, gasping for air. My hands flew to the security monitor, my fingers trembling as I flipped through the cameras. Aisle seven appeared normal on the feed, no mannequins, no woman. Just an empty, quiet aisle.

And then, from somewhere deep in the store, I heard my name again. This time, I wasn’t playing this game anymore.

I glanced at the clock. It was past 2:45 AM. Aisle three. I need to clean aisle three.

I grabbed the mop and bucket, my legs feeling weak beneath me. I bolted toward aisle three, dread pooling in my stomach. As I approached, my heart sank further.

There was a pool of something on the floor. A thick, dark liquid spread across the tiles, glistening under the store’s fluorescent lights. Worse, I could see wet footprints leading away from the puddle, small and childlike, heading toward the far end of the aisle.

I didn’t have time to think. I just moved. I rushed toward the spill, plunging the mop into the murky liquid and furiously scrubbing the floor. My hands shook as I worked, my breath coming in ragged gasps. What is this? I thought, panic clawing at my mind. What is leaving these footprints?

I mopped and scrubbed, my heart pounding in my ears. The footprints led toward the end of the aisle, but as I got closer, they stopped just around the corner. Vanished, as if whoever, or whatever, had left them had simply disappeared.

I stared down at the now-clean floor, my hands trembling around the handle of the mop. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I didn’t know what was real. I left the mop and bucket behind and stumbled back to the counter, feeling completely drained, physically and mentally.

Exhausted. Terrified.

My chest heaved as I leaned against the counter, gasping for breath. I kept glancing over my shoulder, half-expecting to see something emerge from the darkness.

I thought about Jackson again, how exhausted and terrified he had been when he warned me. He must have gone through all of this, experienced every one of these horrifying things to make that list of rules.

A part of me wondered how he had survived it.

Another part of me wasn’t sure he had.

It was nearing 4 AM, and I was almost done with Rule 3, counting customers. Or at least, I thought I was. Somewhere along the way, amidst the strange events, I had lost track. My mind had been all over the place, jumping from one unsettling moment to another. The panic of the night had scrambled my focus. I tried to piece it back together, but the harder I thought, the more I realized I wasn’t sure how many customers had actually come in.

Then, the entrance door chimed, its sharp sound jolting me out of my thoughts. My head snapped toward the door, and in walked a lone customer. He were bundled up in a thick winter coat, the hood pulled low over their face, which was strange. Something about him immediately set me on edge. The way he moved, slow, aimless, like he had no real purpose in the store. He didn’t look around, didn’t acknowledge me. He just wandered, drifting between the aisles, never picking anything up.

I watched him carefully, my nerves taut, trying to figure out if this was the fifth customer or something else. The rule replayed in my mind, “After the fifth customer, any others are not human. If a sixth enters, lock yourself in the back office.”

My heart pounded in my chest. Was this the fifth customer? The night had become a blur of fear and confusion, and now I couldn’t remember what was real anymore.

As I stared at the man, something odd caught my eye, his reflection in the store’s large front windows. It wasn’t right. The image flickered, glitching in and out, like a broken video feed. The movements looked distorted, out of sync with their actual body. My stomach twisted with dread.

Suddenly, the man stopped dead in their tracks, standing perfectly still. Slowly, he turned to face me, and I could feel the weight of their gaze through the shadows of the hood. Two pale, ghostly eyes stared out from the darkness, locking onto me. He didn’t blink, didn’t move, just stared. And it felt like they were looking straight into my soul, seeing something in me that no one should ever see.

Panic hit me like a freight train. I bolted from the counter, my legs moving on pure instinct. I didn’t care what he was, I just knew I needed to get away. My heart thundered in my chest as I ran toward the back office, my footsteps echoing through the empty store.

I glanced over my shoulder, half-expecting to see the customer far behind me, But he was much closer than he should have been, gliding across the floor without moving his legs, almost like a statue being dragged, his eyes still fixed on me, unblinking.

I pushed myself harder, sprinting through the aisles until I reached the back office. I slammed the door shut and leaned against it, my breath coming in shallow gasps. Silence enveloped me like a suffocating blanket, just the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears.

Then, a low-pitched hum began to vibrate through the walls. It was soft at first, barely audible, but it grew louder, resonating from behind the door like some kind of electrical charge building in the air. I gulped, pressing my ear to the door, trying to make sense of it. My body was frozen with fear, my breath shallow and quiet, not daring to make a sound.

The hum persisted for what felt like an eternity, filling the air with an ominous tension. And then, it faded away. The silence returned, thick and oppressive, like the store itself was holding its breath.

I stayed there for what felt like hours, too terrified to move, my back pressed against the door, waiting for something to happen. But the only thing that greeted me was the eerie, suffocating stillness of the night.

Eventually, the fear began to dull, and curiosity took over. I hadn’t heard anything for a while. Slowly, cautiously, I reached for the door handle, my hand trembling as I turned it. I cracked the door open, peeking out into the store.

Everything seemed normal.

The aisles were empty, the lights buzzing faintly overhead. There was no sign of the customer, no sign of anything out of the ordinary. But I knew better than to trust appearances now. Nothing felt right.

I made my way back to the counter, the tension of the night still buzzing beneath my skin, but there was a slight sense of relief beginning to creep in. I glanced at the monitor once more, scanning the empty aisles. The store was deserted, just as it should be.

One more hour. One last stretch, and I’d be free of this nightmare for good.

I kept watching the clock, the minutes ticking away slowly. It was almost over, just a little longer, and I’d be walking out of here, never to return to the night shift again. With each passing second, the weight on my shoulders lifted slightly. It was almost 6 AM.

No customers had come in during the last few hours, or so I thought. The store had been quiet, unnaturally so, but I was grateful for it. The fewer customers, the fewer things that could go wrong.

Then, just as I was beginning to feel a flicker of hope, a soft knock echoed from the back door. I froze, my mind racing. I glanced at the clock. It was 5:50 AM, ten minutes until I could leave. I hesitated. The knock came again, firmer this time.

Reluctantly, I walked toward the back door, each step slow and cautious. I unlocked it and opened it carefully. Standing there, smiling, was one of my colleagues from the day shift.

“Hey,” he said casually, “how was the night? You look like you’ve seen… something.”

I stared at him, feeling a pit of dread growing in my stomach. “Yeah,” I muttered, my voice hollow. “You could say that.”

He proceeded towards the counter.

As he stood there, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The sense of impending doom weighed on me, and my heart began to race again. I glanced around the dimly lit store, my nerves on edge.

Suddenly, the lights flickered, and then, without warning, everything went dark.

The store was plunged into pitch blackness, and my breath caught in my throat. It was still dark outside, far too early for daylight, and now the store felt completely cut off from the world. My pulse quickened as I realized the power had gone out. I grabbed a flashlight from the back office, flicking it on in the suffocating darkness.

I bolted toward the counter to check on my colleague, but when I got there, he was gone. I scanned the aisles with the flashlight, but there was no sign of him. My heart pounded in my chest as I ran to the door, my flashlight cutting through the dark like a blade. But when I reached the front door, it wouldn’t budge.

I turned, shining the flashlight through the glass. What I saw made my blood run cold. The world outside wasn’t just dark, it was void. An abyss. The light from my flashlight didn’t penetrate it at all. It was as if the darkness was swallowing the light whole, consuming everything beyond the threshold of the store. I couldn’t see anything, no buildings, no streetlights, nothing.

The clock on the wall caught my eye, and my stomach dropped. It was 6:02 AM.

Jackson told me to leave at 6 AM sharp. Not earlier. Not later.

I felt panic rising in my throat as the realization hit me. I had made a terrible mistake.

I began running around the store, desperate, trying to figure out what to do. I had no plan, no idea what was happening, but I needed to escape. The store felt different now, like the walls were closing in. The aisles seemed to stretch and warp, twisting in ways that defied logic. Voices echoed through the space, whispers, groans, distant sobs. I could hear the mannequin woman from earlier, her stiff, robotic movements shuffling through the aisles. Somewhere behind me, the man in the winter coat moved soundlessly, his hollow eyes still searching.

I didn’t know what was real anymore, or how long I’d been running. The store was changing, shifting, the aisles no longer obeying the rules of space and time. My breath came in short, panicked gasps as the voices grew louder, the walls seeming to pulse around me. I turned a corner, only to find myself back where I started. No matter which direction I ran, it all looped endlessly.

Time was slipping away too. My mind struggled to hold onto moments, to figure out if seconds or hours were passing.

I screamed, though I didn’t know if any sound came out. Everything blurred together as my movements became frantic. My body felt weightless, as if I was floating through the chaos, trapped in an endless loop of repeating aisles and shifting shadows.

Suddenly, I found myself back at the rear of the store, standing just by the back door. My hand trembled as I reached for the handle. I shoved it open, bursting out into the cool night air.

The world outside was still dark, but now it was the familiar darkness of early night, not the void I had seen earlier. I glanced at my watch, my heart pounding in my ears.

It was 11 PM.

With shaking hands, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pen and the list of rules. My hand trembled as I scribbled down the last entry:

RULE 8: Whatever you do, leave the supermarket at 6 AM sharp, not a minute earlier, not a minute later. If you don’t, the store will feel different, like it’s been sealed away from the world. The aisles will shift and stretch, and strange entities will roam through the store. You’ll be trapped with them until night falls again.

I stared at the note, my heart sinking as I realized just how real these rules were. I glanced down at my hand, the same hand that had felt the icy grip earlier, and the three-fingered markings were still faintly visible on my skin. This was real. Every part of it.

As I stood there, one of my colleagues approached the back of the store, waving at me casually.

“Hey, everyone’s been looking for you,” he said, as if nothing was wrong. “You alright?”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to explain what had happened.

“I’m taking the night shift tonight,” he added. “Is there anything I should know?”

I swallowed hard, pulling out the list of rules, and handed it to him.

“This is not a joke,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Read them. Follow them. Exactly.”

He looked at me, confused, but I didn’t wait for a response. I just turned and walked away, my footsteps heavy with the weight of what I had experienced. I knew I couldn’t explain it to him, couldn’t convince him of what was coming.

I left the supermarket behind, knowing I would never return, not during the day, and certainly not during the night.

Never again.

The Legend of Cropsey tells the tale of a sinister figure who haunted the imaginations—and fears—of Staten Island residents for decades. This urban legend describes Cropsey as an escaped mental patient, lurking in the shadows and preying upon unsuspecting children.

https://youtu.be/HzQheQ30Pj8?si=6F8kak3_YCM-7efv

Most people labor under the delusion that social work is a calling, something you are born into - a destiny preordained by the virtuosity of one's saintly soul. That has always felt like ten pounds of bullshit in a five-pound bag to me. But hey - maybe that's true for some of my colleagues, maybe some of them are saints-in-training, guided solely by the desire to provide philanthropy to the downtrodden. That ain't me though. The Job certainly isn't saint-work, either. Saint-work implies that the process is godly and just, which it plain isn't, not on any level. Social work puts you in the trenches, a soldier "fighting the good fight", so to speak. Last time I checked, we didn't send the pope and his bishops, armed to teeth with sharpened crosses and lukewarm holy water, to storm the beaches of Normandy. It's a messy, messy affair - no place for someone who isn't okay getting their hands a little dirty. Assisting the desperate puts you in touch with all sorts of heartache, misery, depravity, tragedy, sadism, loneliness - the list could go on, but I don't want to turn this story into Infinite Jest. But don't just take my word for it. As a frequenter of the r/socialwork subreddit, I'll direct you fine, upstanding, inquisitive lurkers to this quote posted by a fellow solider a few years back that I made a point of favoriting:

"Social work is easy ! Just like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire, and everything is on fire, because you're in hell"

But I'm getting off track. Back to the point, you may be asking yourself, why does Corvus do this, if not for good of mankind? Also, what the fuck kind of name is Corvus? No idea about the name, but I got reasons for doing what I do. Two reasons, really. First and foremost, I've been doing this job for what seems like an eternity - started in the early 1990s, well before Monica Lewinsky was a household name. Been doing it so long that it's practically all I know how to do. Secondly, it distracts me. Hell ain't fun but it sure is stimulating, hard to be preoccupied with anything else amidst the brimstone and lake of fire. I don't like to think about my past, too painful. Rather be somewhere else, even if that somewhere is the metaphorical equivalent of the DMV in Dante's Inferno. And I'm a bit of a hound dog regarding my caseload - when I'm on the job, I barely feel the need to eat or sleep. I get lost in it, and I've grown fond of that feeling.

And that is what I would have believed, to my last goddamned raspy death rattle, if it weren't for Charlie. 

So I'm sitting at my desk, minding my own business between clients, when I see this young guy walk in the front door of the office a good hundred yards from where I am. A real tall, dark, and handsome type. Medium-length curly brown hair, disheveled to the point that it looks intentional and post-coital. Black blazer, black turtleneck, brown chinos. A comfortable six-foot-two inches. Honestly, I think he caught my eye because of how out of place he looked. Young, attractive, put-together, tall - couldn't imagine what the bastard needed us for. 

And he's over there scanning the room, searching for someone, and I feel pretty confident it's not me 'cause I don't know this Casanova, but then our eyes meet. We're staring at each other, and I can tell he's stopped searching. He starts to make an absolute B-line towards me, and I have no clue what this heat-seeking missile wants, but in social work, you get pretty attuned to the possibility of violence from complete strangers. Maybe this is the angry husband of a domestic abuse victim I tended to. Maybe he's a father that hit his kid so I sicked child protective services on his ass. The possibilities are, unfortunately, kind of endless. I clutch a screwdriver under the palm of my right hand and brace myself for the worst. 

As you may be able to discern, I am pretty desensitized to insanity. Not exactly subtextual to this whole thing. But insanity suits me. It takes up a lot of space in my mind and my autonomic nervous system, which is kind of the whole appeal. I've got a lot of repressed traumas I think, a real treasure trove of adverse childhood events that I sometimes can feel rumbling in the back of my skull. I've done an excellent job keeping locked tight, mostly. There is one thing that slipped out, however, and If it weren't important to the rest of this, trust me, I wouldn't even mention it. When I was real young, I almost drowned. I fell right to the bottom of a pool for some reason, no one around to help; who knows where Mommy and Daddy dearest had gotten off to. A lifeguard pulled me up at the last second, just as the thick, murky water began filling my lungs. At least, I think she was a lifeguard; all I remember afterward is the sun in my eyes and being dazed. Don't remember much before or after that, and I don't care to. Can't even go near a pool nowadays, or any body of water for that matter. Over the years, I've gotten a lot of heat from my ex-wives about my absolute unwillingness to get help "unpacking" everything. But as far as I'm concerned, the work is all the therapy and medicine I'll ever need. In fact, I've made a point not to see a "professional" about it - never been to a therapist, never been to a doctor. People consider me a "professional"; trust me, being behind that curtain is eye-opening. 

Before I had this job, though, I was suicidally alcoholic and living on the streets. Theo, a social worker who was a legend of my office, God rest his soul, found my withered husk one fateful night and offered to help. Over time, I got back on my feet. Thankfully, back in the 90s, you didn't need a master's degree to pursue social work, and a bachelor's degree was pretty easy to fake before the internet. One short year later, I was working alongside my mentor. Best fifteen years of my life. My only regret is not getting closer to him. He was always open and vulnerable with me. The number of times I rejected an invitation for dinner with his wife and family is probably in the triple digits. It just never felt possible. Never felt right. 

So anyway, the stranger gets to my desk, and I am ready for whatever argy-bargy this psychopath has in mind. Instead of trying to wring my neck, the lunatic stops a few feet from me, proceeds to slam a weathered newspaper on my desk, crosses his arms, and then waits impatiently like I'm the one holding him up. It takes me a minute to mentally acclimate to this new absurdity and respond. All the while, this maniac is glaring daggers at me, then looking at the paper, then back at me, so on and so forth. Tapping his right foot as if to say: "I'm waiting, old man". 

Eventually, I put on my readers to examine the disintegrating parchment, and its a copy of The New York Times from the winter of 1993. I bring my gaze back to his, completely befuddled, and in the sweetest, most saccharine voice I can muster in these trying times, I ask him: "Can you kindly explain to me what the fuck I'm looking at?"

He rips the paper from my hands, I watch him flip through it, and again, he looks livid with me for not understanding. Finally, he gets to the back of that ancient text and apparently finds what he is looking for, at which point he flips the paper back at me and points to an article circled in blue ink. The column he circled was in the reader-submitted "dating tips" section. And for those of you young enough to be asking - Yes, people used to legitimately look towards the wisdom of other people who would go out of their way to send "dating tips" to a major newspaper. God bless and keep the 90s.

I almost didn't read the title of the article that he circled. I mean, would you have? I don't necessarily seek out opportunities to cameo in every schizophrenic crisis playing itself out on the streets of New York. But, hell, maybe I kind of do. Veteran social worker and all that, I mean.

So I looked at the title, and immediately, I recognized the article. It became pretty infamous back when I started out as a social worker, and not because it gave excellent advice on how to pull off an up-do. I still don't know why this silent stranger is presenting me with it, but it did generate a tiny spark of interest, I will say. He had circled the first and only big break in the "Lady Hemlock" ritual killings that terrorized Brooklyn that winter, which was titled:

"An Occultist's Guide to Love and Loss in the 20th Century"

For those of you who weren't on the NYPD upwards of thirty years ago, allow me to give you a quick synopsis:

Six unexplained corpses in a little over three months, all killed by a singular puncture wound into the back of neck and out through the front. Two middle-aged men, an elderly couple, a wealthy widowed small business owner, and a rising football star out of one the local high schools. All terrifying, but the kid's death - that was kerosene to the growing wildfire. The people wanted answers, but the police had none to give. This killer was busy, too. A new body had been discovered approximately every two weeks, like clockwork. But the police didn't even know where to begin - the victims were seemingly selected at random: no unifying age, gender, job - really no unifying anything other than the manner of death, at least at first. Eventually, it was discovered at autopsy that each victim had a different shape carved on the inside of their skull, right between the eyes. How did the killer do that? Who the fuck knows. If the police had any ideas they sure as shit didn't let the public in on it. If you're an avid fan of Unsolved Mysteries, like me, you would eventually learn that experts in the occult couldn't initially agree on a particular cultural origin for the strange marks. Or, more hauntingly, how they were seemingly inflicted before death. 

Now mind you, this was at the height of the "satanic panic", so before the words "nordic-looking rune" could even leave the police commissioner's mouth during a press conference, people were raring up for a witch hunt. They needed something to chew on, some piece of evidence to assure them that the authorities were closing in on this killer. Thankfully, some real Sherlock Holmes type in the NYPD noticed something in the paper one day that would give everyone something to think about. About a week before each body was found, a contributor who went by the name "Lady Hemlock" had been published in the "dating tips" section of the New York Times. Now overall, the advice itself was pretty benign. Bizarre, cryptic, and borderline nonsensical, sure - but it wasn't a confession to the crimes or anything. Nothing like "Hi, I'm Jeffery Dahmer, and here are some tricks on how to break the ice on the first date by discussing the benefits of low-income housing". With each article, however, a certain shape would be printed alongside it - shapes that, one week later, would be inscribed on the inside of someone's skull while they were still alive and breathing. 

Thus, the search was on for this "Lady Hemlock." The police initially theorized that she actually worked at the New York Times because it was suspicious that the killer was able to reliably get their articles published ahead of time while still staying on a tight every two-week timetable. No "person of interest" was ever identified in the Times, however, and there was only one more victim, but it was hands down the most confusing and gruesome. All the internal organs of some poor sap were found in a trash can by a local park, and I mean all of them - lungs, colon, liver, spleen - every gross viscera present and accounted for, excluding the brain. None of it belonged to the prior victims or any other corpses that found their way into the morgue in the decades to follow. The murder was determined to be related to "Lady Hemlock" due to a shape carved on the outside of the heart. 

And while that is all very interesting, I still had no idea why this man had preserved the article for three decades to then forcefully shove it under my nose for appraisal. So I asked him again, "what, dear God, are you trying to tell me?". Then began the wild gesticulations that inspired his namesake: he pointed at the paper again, then at him, then at me, then at the paper, then back at him, then back at the paper. We'd come to know him around the office as "Charlie" in an outdated reference to Charlie Chaplin, due to his mute nature and his vigorous pantomiming. At one point, it seemed like he had a flash of euphoria, and he began to take off his blazer and turtleneck - and that is when I decided I had seen enough. 

"Marco, get this perv out of here !" I called over to everyone's favorite security guard. We liked him for his work ethic, but we loved him for the beatboxing he did while on shift. 

Kicking and screaming, Charlie was dragged out of our office, Marco throwing the newspaper out after him. In the process, however, a sticky note fell out of the folds onto the entrance mat. He looked at it, read it, and then walked back and handed it to me:

"What are you doing that for, man?" I said, wondering why everyone had selected me as their target for unabashed weirdness today.

"I think it's for you, bud" Marco replied, still huffing and puffing from the commotion.

The note in my hand said: "Thanks Corvus. Appreciate the help."

—-----------

Charlie and his one-man performance would become a regular staple around the office the following month. At first, it was mostly just silly because Charlie never seemed intent on hurting anyone. He just harbored this arcane compulsion to present me with dating advice from a serial killer that, to my knowledge, is still roaming free to this day. But he was never physically aggressive or violent. I offered to help him if he could talk to me or provide some documentation about where he was from, what he was doing here, and what he needed help with, but it always came back to that damn article. Eventually, Charlie needed to find new and creative ways to get the paper to me because security was starting to recognize him on sight: he came to the office early, then he mailed a copy of it to me, then he waited for me to leave, and followed me to my car with it. Why did I never call the cops? Well, as I said, I'm pretty resistant to insanity. As long as it never turned violent, I would wait for Charlie to tire himself out and instead start to badger someone else. 

Over time, though, it transitioned a bit from comedy to tragedy. Every time he came in, he was wearing the same clothes. Then, I noticed he wasn't shaving his beard or showering. Clearly, he was unhoused. I wanted to help him, but he seemed unwilling to accept the type of help I was able to offer. 

One fateful night, I was working late in the office, typing up a case report, when Mr. Chaplin somehow materialized out of thin air in front of me. Scared me halfway to Val Halla. Weakly, he once again handed me that article. I looked up at this odd, frightened-looking man and wondered if this was how Theo felt seeing me for the first time. Whether it was exhaustion, pity, or me channeling my mentor, I relented:

"Sit down and keep your shirt on." I grumbled.

He did as he was told, and I once again began to examine that article, "An Occultist's Guide to Love and Loss in the 20th Century." Charlie, for the thousandth time, stared at me and said jack shit. I guessed that he wanted me to read the whole thing while he watched, and there was no way I could have anticipated why at the time. I sighed, turned on a lamp, and began to read the column. Judging by the date, I believe this was the first one printed (i.e., the column that preceded the first victim):

Dear readers, please spare me a few moments. The world is lost, made blind by circuitry and the advancement of the physical, the material. Yet, in doing so, we are rejecting the immaterial - the omniscient current that ebbs and flows through those favored by The Six-Eyed Crow, our universal mother. And in rejecting the current, what do we have to show for it? A bevy of suitable mates to help carry on the bloodline? The prosperity that cometh with our rightful place in the celestial hierarchy? Dominance and control over those who would suppress the leyline? No, I think not. Yet, in the face of defeat, I remain firm and steadfast. I will continue to preserve the sanctity of the current by performing the old ways. 

Grandmother always used to tell me: "Do not take under what is owed to you; compromise is the corruption that pollutes and festers every choice therein". She lived these words, as grandfather was an amalgam, congealed from the essence of the many. Our coven, and even my mother, rejected the practice, the old ways, and questioned the divinity given to us by the universal mother. This rejection did not deter Grandmother. It amplified her gospel. Her sermon only grew louder. It made her a symbol of devotion and, eventually, a martyr.

I desired to live her words, and in this, I have succeeded. I have had many an amalgam over the years, but I have yet to achieve the perfection necessary to sire my kin. And because of their imperfection, I have cast them out to wander the mortal plane. Alone, forced to endure divinity unlived in penitent singularity. 

But lately, I find myself tormented by my own imperfections. Although I continue to live Grandmother's words, I have not the bravery to spread the gospel openly, which I believe is required to revive our coven. The voice of the current grows quiet among the noise of the world and the voice of my current amalgam. Allow me an opportunity to rectify this error. Hear these words: every soul carries a part of the leyline, however small, and it can be harnessed as a means to draw closer to the universal mother. Follow me, my example, my instruction, and my image, into the next dawn, and witness as I construct a new amalgam, casting aside the defunct and imperfect predecessor. A golem born of a new six: the devotion to adhere, the courage to fight, the desire to take, the wisdom to live, the faith to believe, and the monasticism to remain voiceless and pure.

If you follow these words and learn by my example, your ascension is sure to follow."

When I finished, I noticed Charlie was scribbling something down on a small square of paper. I reached over to take it, assuming it was some explanatory message for why he had been so dead set on me reading this looney nonsense. He raised one index finger to my hand, however, and pushed it back. He then stood up slowly, inhaling, exhaling, and closing his eyes as if to center himself. In one fluid motion, he revealed a pocketknife he had concealed in the breast pocket of his blazer and buried it into his own chest. 

He then dragged the knife up the length of his sternum, smoke and steam rising from the wound that was otherwise completely sterile and bloodless. In stunned horror, I watched him put one hand on either side of the new slit on his chest, pulling and wrenching the tissue agape, only to reveal an empty cavity. He watched me intently while he did so - no pain or discomfort on his face, just despair and longing. 

Before I could react, he drew and arced the knife into the air, then sent it careening down to splinter my chest. I released a bloodcurdling scream, not out of physical agony but out of unbridled existential terror and shock. I couldn't find the will to move as Charlie put his hands through the wound and pulled outward as hard as he possibly could. Nothing. No blood. No pain. Just steam, useless mist rising up and dissipating unceremoniously. I'm just as empty as the nightmare standing before me, I thought. My scream eventually stopped and transitioned more to catatonia as Charlie reached into his pocket and handed me the square of paper to read: 

"We are kin"

—----------------------------------

As with every house of cards, you pull one card loose, the damned whole thing comes toppling down. Proverbially, that card usually isn't as extreme as a knife through your chest as a means to reveal a very noticeable vital organ deficiency, but I digress. 

Charlie and I spent the entire night in my office after I recovered from the shock. Through a series of writings, he explained that a "bright, fuzzy light" handed him the old newspaper and the note, at which point he found himself outside my office. The sticky note was also written in a completely different handwriting than Charlie's, so we suppose it was penned by "Lady Hemlock" ("Thanks Corvus. Appreciate the help"). No memories before all that, though. So, he stood outside the office, read the article a few times, and then wondered what to do next. Took him a while to figure out he was supposed to go inside, knowing he should look for something but not even really knowing what he was looking for. When our eyes met, suddenly, he knew what to do; he was "struck by lightning", according to him. Kin recognizing kin.

In the end, he theorized I was an amalgam like him. I mean, the timeline does add up: I met Theo in '91, got the job in '92, and the killings started in '93 - meaning I would have already been abandoned by the time Charlie was made. Why Lady Hemlock put us together is an entirely separate issue, as it directly contradicts what she said in that article. Maybe she had a change of heart about isolating her so-called imperfect creations. Regardless, the revelation certainly gave my obsession with distraction some new dimensions. Hard to "unpack" your childhood memories if you don't have any. It's probably not a great idea to attend a dinner at your mentor's house and not be able to eat, assuming the food just kind of plops down into some unholy internal nothingness. I may or may not have actually been drinking booze when Theo found me on the street. If I was, I imagine it didn't do a lot other than pickling the inside of my empty abdomen. The weight of it all sometimes overwhelms me to the point of tears; I'm man enough to admit it. 

One day at a time, Charlie tells me (more accurately writes down and hands to me, he still can't talk). He doesn't remember what his name was before, so he still goes by Charlie. We do worry that his appearance portends a new series of "Lady Hemlock" killings as she attempts to create a more perfect amalgam, but we'll cross that strange bridge when the time comes. We've certainly contemplated going to the police, but at the same time, not sure how they will react to the whole "organ deficiency" thing. Both of our chest wounds were healed by the time we left the office in the morning, though, so we're assuming they probably couldn't kill us even if they wanted to. It's been nice, honestly. Having Charlie, I mean. Whatever we are, we can at least be it together. That counts for something. 

He will have to get his master's if he wants to pursue social work, though. It's 2024, after all. Not everyone can be so lucky as to be abhorrently congealed under some godless death ritual in the 90s. 

More stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

The depths of Transylvanian darkness
 In which we have come to congregate
In these sacred funeral grounds
To which we have returned to celebrate
The teachings of our fallen lord
With offerings of infantile flesh
Before the hunt
The ecstasy of a sadistic urge
Burning deep within the mental abyss
Mirroring an effigy of the devil
Consumed by the flames on a cross
Her agonized scream will satisfy
The living image of Sathanas
Entombed
Deep within each of us
 

I’ve come to really hate this time of year. I try not to be too hard on myself for feeling that way, even though it’s been almost a decade since I lost Alex. Maybe the grief would be more dormant if I had even a speck of closure or understanding about what transpired in October of 2015. But I simply don’t. I loved him, and coping with his absence would be hard enough if it was as straightforward as a failed marriage, a terminal illness, or a tragic accident. Even if he were murdered, as horrific as that would have been, murder would have at least had some associated motive and finality to it. I’d at least know, definitively, that he was dead. In writing this, I desperately want to believe that he is dead. But I don’t. Truthfully, I think he’s still alive somewhere, and when the reality of that thought takes hold, it fills me with dread so intense I can feel myself starting to pass out. And everyone around me, my coworkers, neighbors, and even my family don’t remember what actually happened and their part in it. I would give anything to be like them, to have the hollow comfort of false memories. But, for some god-forsaken reason, I think I am somehow immune to the broadcast. 

I’m writing and posting this because I hope to find someone, even just one other person, who has to live with the truth like me. 

It started on the first Saturday in October. Night had just blanketed the Chicago suburbs, and we were both comfortably sprawled out on the couch with some bottom-shelf whiskey and cable television. I honestly can’t remember what we were watching, but I have an oddly vivid memory of the moments before the broadcast. I had set my glass down on the table to look over at Alex, and I think I found myself in the blissful stasis that comes with truly loving someone. We had known each other since we were kids and probably were in love since then too. Alex was a kind soul, a hard worker, and a best friend. He had a sturdy head on his shoulders as well. He was logical and even-tempered, which served as a great counterbalance to my skittishness. My emotional stargazing was cut short by the abrupt and blaring sound of the emergency broadcast system coming from our television set.

Looking back at our TV screen, I was immediately perplexed by what I saw. The siren was still playing, but it wasn’t over the classic emergency screen with the differently colored bars. Instead, the noise was accompanied by what looked like the set of a live studio audience sitcom that I didn’t recognize. The feed was hazy - blurred and dusty like it had been recorded in the 70s or 80s. Two staircases, one on each side of the frame, went up a few steps and then turned to meet at a central balcony that compromised the top third of the room. Below the balcony was what seemed like a family living space, with a stiff-appearing burgundy couch and loveseat in the center. Under the sofa was a Persian rug, bright blue and gold. The color mismatch was immediately off putting. In fact, the entire set was slightly off. Multiple framed family photos were visibly hung on the wall but were set way too low to the ground, almost knee level instead of eye level. Although it was hard to see the fine details, each picture looked like it contained a different family, but they all had the same pose - arms around each other with a cloudy and blue backdrop, like a Sears catalog photo. There was a lamp without a lampshade on the table aside from the couch, with the lightbulb being oversized and nearly as big as the chassis of the lamp itself. An entire taxidermy deer was situated in the back of the room behind the couch, head facing toward the wall instead of forward and into the room. Uncanny is the word for it all, I guess. Before I could find the presence of mind to probe Alex on what he thought was going on, a solitary figure appeared on screen from stage left.

We first saw a black pantleg with a matching black tuxedo shoe enter the frame, but it did not immediately make contact with the wooden tiling of the set. Instead, before hitting the floor, it stopped its motion and was suspended off the floor for at least thirty seconds, like the whole thing had transitioned to being a still photograph instead of a video. Abruptly, the heel of the shoe finally made contact with the ground, causing the emergency siren to stop instantly. Nothing replaced the deafening noise, not even the familiar sound of dress shoes tapping against a hard surface. The figure then rapidly paced to the area in front of the couch and turned to face the camera. In addition to his shoes not sounding against the wood tile, at times, his feet seemed to slightly phase in and out of the floor. Aside from the pants and shoes, he wore a deep navy peacoat buttoned up to the top button with half of a white bow tie peeking out the collar. In his hand, he held the same type of microphone used by Bob Barker during his tenure on The Price is Right - I think it’s called a "gooseneck", long and slender with a tiny microphone head on top to speak into. A power cord connected to the microphone dragged behind him, eventually tapering off to reveal it wasn’t plugged in - the cord's outlet prongs dragging behind him as well. I don’t recall too many details about his face (intentionally, it has helped me cope), but I can’t forget his eyes and eye sockets. The sockets were cavernous, triple the diameter and depth of an average person. They extended well into his forehead, almost meeting his hairline, down into his cheekbones, and the perimeters of the sockets met each other at the bridge of his nose. His actual eyes had normal proportions and moved normally as well. Still, they appeared almost like they were made of glass, with the stage lights intermittently refracting off one or both of them depending on how he angled himself against them. 

After some excruciating silence, he introduced himself as “Mr. Eugene Tantamount” and began to spin his brief monologue. I will attempt to transcribe the speech as I remember it below, but I can’t say it is one hundred percent accurate for two reasons. One, it was a few minutes of my life upwards of ten years ago. On top of that, the speech was incohesive and janky, nearly unintelligible, to me at least. Mr. Tantamount spoke with very awkward and clunky phrasing and took seemingly random pauses, all while interspersing a variety of nonsense words into the mix. 

Here’s the best summary I can come up with from what I remember. In terms of the nonsense words, I am mostly guessing on the spelling. Additionally, to my knowledge, they are not just words in a different language than English. I would hear them a lot in the days following the broadcast but never saw them written down:

“Hello, guests. My, what day we’re having. It reminds me of before. 

(pauses for about 15 seconds or so. As another note, I do not recall him even speaking into the microphone. He just kind of held it off to his side.)

But on to matters: what of the next steps. Who will have the win to become Klavensteng? Ah yes! The grand great. As much as everyone wants to become Klavensteng, not all can, and I am part of all. As you can plainly see, I am very trivid. 

(pauses, points his right index finger at one cavernous eye socket, then points at the other, looking around as he does so)

However, one of the population is not trivid. Or, they have the courage to expel trividness. To become Klavensteng, the hero must become a fulfilled. They must show utmost gristif. A hero rejects trivid and becomes gristif, which you can plainly look that I am not

(pauses again, identically points his right index finger at eye sockets like he did before)

Alas ! Only time will speak. But soon - as our nowtime Klavensteng grows withered. Show your gristif and become above! To honor dying hero, say today is now over to the past and begin all future ! 

(Bows, screen goes black)

At first, I was shell-shocked. I looked over at Alex to try to begin unpacking what the actual fuck just happened when another image flashed on screen accompanied by what sounded like an amphitheater full of people clapping, somehow louder than the emergency siren. 

An elderly man in his 60s or 70s was pictured sitting on a throne made of slick, black material. Nothing else was easily visible in the frame; the background was obscured by the angle of the camera and the darkness behind him. The fuzzy quality that made the last segment feel like a sitcom had dissipated. He wore green and brown army camo, with the sleeves and his pantlegs rolled up to their halfway point to reveal his forearms and calves. Initially, it looked like his arms and legs were gently resting against the material. However, upon further inspection, it became clear that all the skin that made contact with the chair was effectively fused with the throne itself. It's hard to explain, but imagine how the cheese on a burger patty looks when it is cooking. Specifically, when the edges of it extend beyond the meat and onto the grill itself - how it the cheese ends up bubbling and cauterized against the hot metal. That's how the skin that contacted the throne looked. Above his collar, his eyes were being held open by the same black material, fish-hooked under his upperlids and tethered to something out of frame above him, keeping his eyes open and unblinking. The material seemed to fill the space around his eyeballs to the point that it was slowly leaking down the corner of his eyes. He only looked forward into the camera, I don't know that he could move his eyes in any other direction. His mouth was closed, but the material was dripping down the corners of his lips, similar to the corners of his eyes. He looked dead until I saw the synchrony of his chest rising with the subsequent flaring of his nostrils. It was slow, but he looked like he was breathing. Before I could discern more, the feed unceremoniously returned to normal. 

I turned to Alex and reflexively asked, “Jesus, what was that?” Guerilla marketing for a new movie was the only explanation I could think of at the time. 

Alex was holding his hands over his mouth, sitting forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees. I assumed whatever that was had really freaked him out, and I put my hand on his shoulder, trying to console him. Then he said something like this:

“Can you imagine?”

“Can I imagine what, love?” I replied. 

"Can you imagine getting the chance to be Klavensteng*?”* He said, eyes welling up with tears. 

At that moment, I assumed he was making some joke to cope with whatever weird avant-garde bullshit we had just been unwillingly subjected to. I forced a chuckle, trying to play along with the bit, but he turned and glared at me with instantaneous rage. Jarred by the suddenness of his anger, I was too confused to calibrate a different response, and he silently excused himself to the bedroom and went to sleep for the night. I followed him in a few minutes after that, taking a moment to compose myself, but he did not want to talk about it anymore when I met him in bed. 

As far as I can recall, the following few days were relatively normal. Slowly, however, Alex began to exhibit strange behavior. First, I found him rummaging through my sewing supplies, observing the geometry of my sewing needles from every angle, holding them by the head while swiveling his head around them. When I asked him what he was doing, he said something along the lines of:

“Could I borrow some of these?”

When I asked why the hell he would need to borrow some of my sewing needles, he again got frustrated with me, dropped everything, and left the room. One night, I woke up to find him out of bed at 3 AM or so. Concerned, I got up, looked around, and called out for him. I located him in our guest bathroom with the light off, which nearly gave me a heart attack. He was stretching both of his lower eyelids and staring into the mirror. He was not even remotely startled when I gave him shit for not responding to me while I was calling his name. When my anger melted into concern, and I asked him to explain what he was doing awake at this hour, I think he said:

“Just checking how trivid I am”

The following morning, he did not go to work. When I asked him if he was feeling unwell and taking a sick day, he told me he quit his job. He let this abrupt and significant life decision slide out of him while sitting at the kitchen table, sequentially lifting each of his fingernails of one hand with the other and inspecting the space under them by putting them right up to his face. I stood there in stunned silence, and eventually, he said to me, or maybe just to himself:

“I’m really pretty gristif, I think”

Alex was clearly experiencing some sort of mental breakdown after what we had seen on TV a few nights prior. I sat down next to him and put my right hand over his, noticing a firm, thin, and movable lump between the tendons of his second and third fingers. When I saw the pin-sized entry wound closer to his wrist, I knew he had inserted one of my sewing needles under the skin of his hand. 

He saw my abject horror, and his response was:

"Slightly less trivid now. More work to be done though."

I called my mother, explaining the whole situation in what was probably a disorientating mess of words and gasps. When I was done, my mom paused for a few moments and then replied:

“Well, honey, I wouldn’t be too worried. I think he is going to be able to get more gristif. What an honor it would be, for both you and Alex. If he were selected to be Klavensteng, I mean. Let him know he can come over and borrow more sewing needles if he thinks he needs to”

I was speechless. At some point, my mother hung up. I guess she supposed we got disconnected when, in reality, I was just catatonic.

Everyone I talked to spoke exactly the same as Alex and my mother. They all knew the lingo and, moreover, acted like I knew what the fuck they were talking about. We started getting cold calls to our home phone from numbers I did not recognize. They would ask if they could speak to Alex. Or they’d ask how it was going, how “trivid” he still was and how “gristif” I thought he could be. Eventually, these numbers were from area codes from states outside Illinois. Then, it was international calls. If Alex got to the phone before me, he would just sit and listen to whoever was on the other end of the line with a big grin on his face. At a certain point I disconnected our home line, but that just meant all these calls started to come to our cellphones. 

If I asked, he could not or would not explain what any of this meant. In fact, he looked dumbfounded when I asked. Like the questions were so frustratingly basic that he could not even dignify them with a response, and all the while the memories of Mr. Eugene Tantamount, the man in camo, and the black plastic substance haunted me. No research I did on any of it was ever fruitful - and to me, that meant Alex was going insane. Unfortunately, that did not explain the phone calls or my mother's response to everything, but I actively pretended it wasn’t related to Alex’s behavior. And no matter how much I begged and pleaded; Alex refused to see a physician. 

When I went to work, people would pat me on the back or go out of their way to do something nice for me. Initially, I thought they had somehow heard through the grapevine that Alex was losing his grip on reality and they were reaching out to support me. This notion was shattered when my boss presented me with a hallmark card, signed by every member of my office, all 40 or so of them. Inside, it said:

“Thank you for supporting Alex and congratulations on being the spouse to the next grand great! Alex will make a wondrous Klavensteng*”*

Sometimes, I wish I had just given up. Gone far away, just packed up, and did not come back, all with the recognition that this event was beyond my understanding or control. If I had done that, I would have had a different last memory of Alex. But I loved him, and I couldn’t abandon him, and now I am cursed with the memories of those final few minutes. 

When I returned home from work three weeks after this all had started, I discovered Alex sitting at our grand piano in the living room. Music was his creative outlet for as long as I had known him, and I felt a brief pitter-patter of hope rise in my chest seeing him sitting on the piano bench, back turned towards me. That hope was wrenched away with the noise of a wire being cut with scissors. I slowly paced towards him, trying to brace myself for whatever was happening. When I got to Alex’s shoulder and saw that he was delicately feeding piano wire through the space between his left eyelid and eyeball towards the back of his eye socket, I felt my knees give out, and I fell backward. The noise drew his attention towards me, and he pivoted his body and smiled proudly in my direction, small spurts of blood running down his face onto his t-shirt. His right eyeball was slightly bulging from its socket, with a few centimeters of piano wire sprouting out from the cavity at the six o’clock position. 

“I think I’m finally gristif*”*

I rushed to call the paramedics, locking myself in our bedroom for the time being. They assured me that they understood and would be there ASAP. Sobbing, I prayed that the ambulance would be here soon, before Alex lost his vision or worse. It couldn't have been more than a minute before I heard multiple knocks at the door. The knocks continued and intensified as I ran past Alex to what I thought were the medics, no words being spoken by whoever was on the other side. As I opened the door, twenty or so people spilled inside our home. Some of them I recognized - next-door neighbors, a UPS man I was friendly with - but most of them were strangers. They were all smiling and clapping and laughing as they surrounded Alex. They lifted him onto their shoulders and moved him out the door. I yelled at them to put him down, at least I think I did. Honestly, it was all so much in so little time that I may have just let out some feral screams rather than saying anything coherent. 

When I followed them outside, all I could see was people in every direction. I legitimately could not determine where the crowd ended - to this day, I have no idea how many people were in that mob, but I want to say it bordered on thousands. Nearly every inch of asphalt, grass and sidewalk in our cul-de-sac was covered by someone. None of them were outside when I got home from work, which couldn't have been more than ten minutes prior. They each had the exact same disposition and jubilation as Alex’s kidnappers, their ecstasy only growing more feverish when they saw Alex arrive on the shoulders of the people who had stolen him from our home. I tried to keep up with him and his captors, but I couldn’t fight through the human density. I watched Alex slowly disappear over the horizon amongst a veritable sea of elated strangers. Hours later, the last of the crowd also vanished over the horizon. 

I have not seen Alex since October 26th, 2015. When I went to the police, I expected the detective who was taking my statement to act like everyone else had for the last month - but he did not recognize the word “trivid”. Nor the word “gristif”. He did not know what it was to be a “klavensteng”. Instead, in a real twist of the psychological knife, he turned it all back on to me:

“How about instead of wasting my time, you tell me what a klavensteng is. Or what it means to be gristif.”

And of course, I did not know. I still do not know. 

My mom didn’t recognize the words anymore. My coworkers did not recognize the words anymore. And it's not like Alex was erased from reality or anything; I still have all of our pictures and all of his belongings. But when I try to speak to anyone about him and what happened, they cut me off and say something like:

“So sad about the boating accident. I bet he’s happier wherever he is now, though”

What truly tests my sanity is the fact that the explanation for his disappearance changes every time I talk to someone about it. It’s like they know he’s “gone”, but when they are pressed on the details behind that fact, their mind is just set to say whatever random thing pops into their head. Too bad about the esophageal cancer. That house fire was so tragic. Can’t believe he got hit by that drunk driver. The only detail that doesn’t change is that everyone is very confident that he is “happier wherever he is now, though”.

I’m not so confident about his happiness or his well-being. In fact, I’m downright terrified that wherever he is, he is starting to look like the man in the army camo - being slowly subsumed by whatever that slick, black plastic-like material is. And I would give anything to be like everyone else and just forget. I would give anything to experience even a small fraction of that serenity. But I can't forget.

I'm assuming this has been going on for a while, and that the cycle will restart once they are done with Alex. With that in mind, I don't watch any movies or television because I'm afraid someday I'll be in front of a screen, and I'll hear that emergency broadcast siren, and it'll start over again, and he'll be the one on the throne. I had to take a few Xanax to be in front of a screen long enough to type up this post, which may affect the coherency of it all, and I apologize for that.

Now that most of you, likely all of you, think I am clinically insane, back to the point of this post: Is anyone else immune, like me?

More stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

https://youtube.com/shorts/hGHYLGlg7SU?si=AsLAoxupHhwf80J0

My friend has been missing for almost a month now. He’d been living with his parents, feeling stuck and frustrated ever since his grandfather passed away. When he inherited an old film projector from him, he thought it might somehow help him break through his writer’s block.

The last time we talked, he told me he was going to finally try it out and watch whatever was on those old reels. Apparently, he fell asleep watching one of the movies, but when he woke up… Well, according to his notes, he didn’t wake up in his room. He woke up in some kind of labyrinth.

His parents found his notebook under his bed after he disappeared. I’ve started typing it up, but it’s long, and I’m still going through it. For now, I’m posting the first part, hoping someone might have some idea of what’s going on—or maybe where he could have gone. I’ll post the rest as I go through it.

If anyone has seen anything like this before, please, let me know:

"It’s been over a year since I wrote my last short story. My heart just hasn’t been in it. I’m not sure what to write. I guess I’ll start by explaining what and why I’m writing. I’m an aspiring fiction author, but I’ve struggled with writing for a long time. Mostly because I’ve been depressed for years. I feel like I have a ton of good ideas, but it hurts to think. I love my imagination, but it’s an increasingly painful place these days. It’s so bad that I’ve been too afraid to try to do anything creative. I’ve mostly been trying to avoid my thoughts because I don’t want to think about how my life got this way. But I can’t stand just sitting around getting more depressed. I need to do something to at least try to fix my life.

Recently, I decided to write this diary just to get myself writing something again. Maybe if I just try to write whatever comes to mind, it could turn into a story. As I said, my thoughts have been painful and scary lately, but horror is one of my favorite genres. Maybe I could get inspired to write something horrific. And I’m struggling to write even this. I’m just so indecisive about every word. I hate how very long it takes me to wake up sometimes. Over two days, I only wrote a little over a paragraph. This is the only practice that will get me back into writing anything again. But it’s okay if I just keep at this. I’m sure I can get used to it again. It’s just so annoying how groggy and lethargic I can feel sometimes. I’ll try writing while watching something instead of listening to music for a bit. The music can sometimes feel like noise if I’m not in the right mood and I’m forcing myself to write. That was a dumb idea, but watching something is too distracting. I’ll just listen to fantasy music.

I haven’t written anything in so long because I was pretty depressed after getting kicked out of the friend group I had for over two years. It’s a long story that I don’t want to overthink about right now. I’ll just say that it sent me back into my old ways of being a depressed, lethargic shut-in who hardly gets any exercise or sun. I tried therapy, and I gave up on that. It’s another long story I might get into later. It’s well after midnight, and I’m pretty tired, so I guess I’ll stop here. I know I haven’t written much yet, but I started pretty late. Besides, I want to try to improve my sleeping habits. I would like to wake up before noon instead of well after for once. It’s so hard to get good sleep when you’re depressed.

My parents and aunts finally stopped fighting over the inheritance from my grandparents and settled on who gets what recently. It took years for everything to be settled in court finally. According to my parents, my aunt did some stuff to give herself control over my grandparents’ finances shortly before they died. I don’t know, and I don’t know if I care. I loved my grandparents, but I don’t like sticking my nose in or thinking about my family’s drama. It’s nice to have some extra money, my grandfather left me a few things. They just arrived in the mail today. Most of it is computer stuff. I got my love of tech from my grandpa. He taught me how to use them when I was really little. I remember visiting my grandparents and playing Nickelodeon and Cartoonnetwork games on his computer as a kid. It was a while before I had a computer at home. And even longer before we had internet faster than dial-up.

As nice as the computer stuff is, it’s not the most exciting thing my grandfather left me. I also got this old projector. It doesn’t have any branding or labels on it, but it looks really nice and in good condition. Maybe my grandpa made it himself. His tech interests and knowledge were always far beyond mine. I was only ever interested in PCs, and He liked to fix anything and everything. Still, I wonder why he left me a projector. I was never really interested in this kind of stuff. One summer, my friends and I wanted to make a movie, and that’s maybe why. But I was always way more interested in writing and making video games. Because of that, my tech interests and knowledge have always been mainly focused on the software side.

This projector looks like it's from another era. The design is elegant yet mysterious, with intricate engravings along its metal casing that seem to tell their own story. I can't shake the feeling that there's something more to this projector, something beyond its physical appearance. Perhaps there's a reason my grandfather left it specifically to me, a reason that goes beyond nostalgia or a passing interest in filmmaking. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before, but it’s bizarrely cold, almost like dry ice. I’m going to try it out in my large walk-in closet. The walls in there are bright white and plenty large. Plus, it’s more than dark enough for the projections to show up clearly. Also, the bulb outlet has a power socket.

I locked my bedroom door so my parents don’t bother me while I watch this. I'm shocked this old projector still works perfectly; it emits an eerie, whirring hum as it powers on. Luckily, it came with a large film reel already loaded. I’m not surprised this thing is so slow. I guess this projector hasn’t been tested in a while because it’s kicking up a lot of dust. The hum of the projector is growing a little louder, filling this small space with a strange, low mechanical rhythm. The light from the projector is flickering to life on the wall in front of me, revealing a black-and-white scene reminiscent of early silent films. The image is blurry, grainy, foggy, and distorted as if it's been warped by time itself.

It's hard to discern what exactly is being shown. Shapes and shadows dance across the surface, forming abstract patterns that seem to shift and morph with each passing moment. The scene is slowly beginning to coalesce into a semblance of coherence, like memories emerging from a fog. The images are muted and washed out as if drained of life. The setting appears to be abandoned, and It’s an empty, featureless dessert. A barren expanse is stretching out before me, devoid of any signs of habitation or vegetation. The sky above is a dull, featureless gray, casting a pall of gloom over the scene. Despite the lack of any discernible movement, I can't shake the feeling of being watched. It's as if unseen eyes are peering out from the darkness, observing my every move with a sense of malevolent curiosity.

As I continue to watch, the scene on the wall begins to undulate subtly, like the surface of a still pond disturbed by a single drop. The barren desert landscape starts to darken at the edges, the shadows deepening and growing as if the night is rushing in at an unnatural pace. The horizon line is beginning to appear cracked and uneven and separate the barren plains from a sky choked with churning, unnatural fog. An inky blackness is bleeding down from the clouds, slowly but steadily consuming the empty landscape. The whole scene is flooding with a strange, viscous substance. It's as if the very essence of the film is seeping through the projector, defying the laws of reality. The thick, murky liquid is creeping slowly across the landscape, swallowing everything in its path. It moves with an eerie deliberateness, oozing into every crevice and corner, consuming the world before my eyes.

The viscous darkness now pools in the center of the barren vista, swirling and churning as if alive. From this inky well, a grotesque and misshapen head is slowly rising from the ground. Its features are vague and indistinct, like a half-remembered nightmare. It seems impossibly large, and its silhouette dwarfs the horizon. Hollow eyes stare out of it into the abyss, devoid of any emotion or life. It has a single, elongated nostril that hangs flaccid. The head makes no sound as its gaping maw yawns open, revealing row upon row of jagged teeth. All the liquid is somehow draining out of its mouth and drying most of the land.

A shape is emerging from the depths of the churning, black ocean, or perhaps it's a boat - the distinction is blurred in the murky depths of the film. It's a silhouette shrouded in darkness, and its contours are barely discernible against the inky blackness of the water. It’s slowly inching its way towards the shore. As it draws closer, details start to emerge from the gloom. A lone, skeletal rowboat bobs precariously in the churning waves. Suddenly, a long, spindly arm reaches out from the water, grasping the edge of the boat. The figure is pulling itself up onto the rocking ship, and each movement is deliberate and foreboding.

It seems impossibly tall and thin, its limbs extremely long and twisted, like the branches of a gnarled tree reaching out to ensnare unwitting prey. Its head hangs at an unnatural angle. And its eyes... if they can be called eyes, gleam with an otherworldly light. They’re piercing through the darkness with an intensity that sends shivers down my spine. The water around the ship is starting to bubble and froth. The figure is crying out a mournful sound that cuts through the rhythmic groan of the projector like a knife. It’s somehow human and inhuman at the same time. For all my growing sense of unease, I’m unable to tear my gaze away from the unfolding spectacle. It’s now standing on the boat, and It seems to be searching for something. Its pale, hollow orbs are scanning the barren horizon. It lets out another mournful cry, this one tinged with desperation.

The camera just panned over to the forest. A monstrous, undulating creature is emerging from the depths of the forest. The grainy film struggles to capture its details. However, I can just barely make out its immense, barnacle-encrusted limbs and a hide that ripples like a vast sea. It's a creature so large it defies comprehension, dwarfing the mountains in the distance and casting an oppressive shadow that seems to stretch for miles. It moves with an unnatural grace, and its form is shifting and undulating like a specter summoned from the darkest depths of the human psyche. Its body is a patchwork of mismatched limbs and grotesque appendages, each one moving in perfect synchrony with the others. As it draws nearer, I can make out the details of its… well, what I guess is its face. Its eyes are empty voids, sucking in the light around them like black holes in the fabric of reality. Its mouth stretches impossibly wide, revealing row upon row of jagged teeth that glint malevolently in the dim light.

The camera shifted focus again, and it settled on the most disturbing sight yet. In the center stands a colossal tree, unlike anything on Earth. It stretches endlessly upwards, disappearing into the swirling gray above. The sheer size of it is overwhelming, dwarfing the mountains on the horizon and casting a sickly green pall over the landscape. But it's not just the size that’s chilling. The tree's roots are sprawling like the tentacles of some ancient leviathan. Its trunk is impossibly bulbous, its surface mottled and wrinkled like ancient, sunbaked flesh. The bark is gnarled and weeping sap that glows faintly, pulsating with a rhythm that mimics a heartbeat. Its branches are thick and sinuous and writhe and twist like enormous, petrified serpents. They seem to pulse with a slow, rhythmic life, their surfaces glistening with a sickly luminescence that seems to emanate from within the bark itself. Nestled amongst the branches, colossal, fleshy fruit dangle precariously, their surfaces pulsating with a rhythmic, almost hypnotic glow. They resemble giant, misshapen eyes, staring down at the desolate plain below with a cold, unblinking gaze.

But the most unsettling aspect is the single, immense eye embedded deep within the trunk itself. It's a pulsating orb of raw, chaotic energy, the iris a swirling vortex of shifting colors. It stares out from the tree with a chilling intelligence. I can't help but feel it looking directly at me, judging, scrutinizing. This tree, this grotesque parody of nature, feels ancient beyond imagining, powerful beyond comprehension. It is a monument to some dark, unknown force, and I have a feeling I've stumbled upon something I was never meant to see. This tree, this entity, is the epicenter of the film's universe, a god-like presence that exudes an aura of primordial power. It's as if the tree has always been there, watching, waiting, a silent observer to the passage of eons. The figure from the boat, now on land, approaches the tree with a slow, reverent gait. Its form is dwarfed by the sheer size of the tree, yet there is a connection, an unspoken understanding between them. The figure reaches out a hand, and the tree responds, a single massive limb lowering to touch the figure's outstretched fingers.

The landscape is starting to warp and twist, contorting into bizarre and unnatural shapes. The once primarily empty expanse is now filled with strange, otherworldly structures. Now, I see an overgrown garden with gnarled trees reaching out like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky. They’re casting twisted shadows across the ground. Strange, barely discernible shapes are popping in and out of view. Grotesque humanoid forms with unsettling proportions are writhing and wriggling across the screen. Their movements are jagged and erratic, as if they are not entirely tethered to the laws of physics. Their faces are shrouded and obscured by masks of blank, dark expression. I can make out the silhouette of a looming structure, its jagged spires piercing the heavens. As the minutes pass, the imagery is becoming increasingly surreal and disorienting. Shapes morph and twist in impossible ways, defying logic and reason. In spite of the unsettling nature of the footage, there is a certain monotony to it. The abstract patterns have become hypnotic, and It’s starting to make my eyelids feel heavy. Between that and the rhythmic whirring of the projector's mechanics, I just might fall asleep in my chair right here.

What happened? Where am I? I don’t feel like I was asleep for very long. This doesn’t look anything like my closet. I just woke up, and I’m in a little white room. There’s nothing in here except me, a small desk, a chair, a notebook, and a pen. The scariest thing is there is no door or window. I don’t know how I ended up here or why. But I’m guessing whoever put me in here wants me to write my thoughts in this notebook. Well, I'm less guessing and more hoping that writing this will make them happy and let me out. I don’t know what else I can do right now, but I can’t think of what to write, and I’m still exhausted. And the fact that everything in this room is the same shade of white is strangely maddening. Especially with the only light source here being one overbearing, almost blinding bright white fluorescent light. I think I’ll just try to take a nap. Maybe this is just a nightmare, and I’ll wake up in my room.

Fuck, damn it, I’m still stuck in here. And I think that the light is getting worse. It’s almost impossible to see anything. It’s almost like the light is washing away all the shadows and contrasting light. It’s very disorienting. It’s like being lost in a blank, white, empty void. I tried breaking through the walls. I even tried hitting them with the chair. But it didn’t do any good, and I just wore myself out. I have to find some way out. That was weird. I had to rewrite that last sentence because I accidentally wrote it on the desk. At least, I think I did. Wait, where’s the desk? I can’t tell where the desk is.

I keep trying to feel around for it in the all-consuming light. But it’s almost like it just keeps shifting virtually as though it was liquid. Yet it feels rock solid and bone dry. It’s a very confusing feeling I’ve never experienced before. I’ve had trouble feeling around for things in the dark before. But nothing has ever run from me like this. Damn, this is frustrating. What the hell? I slammed my fists down on the desk, and for a moment, I could tell where it was. However, as soon as I moved my hands, it shifted again. I can hardly believe it, but I think concentration makes it stay. Ok, this has to be a dream because it’s working. I don’t know if I’m awake, I feel very awake, but I don’t care. I just want out. I have an idea. Wow, that worked. I drew a circle on the wall and forced my hand through. So I guess if I draw a door, maybe I can use it to escape. It’s worth a shot.

It was all I could do to scratch a crude rectangle across the wall, but I managed to make it through. I thought, but where am I now? I can’t see anything; it's just pure bright white everywhere. Why can’t I stand up? Am I falling? I think I am. How did it take me so long to notice that I was falling? It’s like I wasn’t falling before I saw, or guessed it? But I didn't even feel like I was floating. I didn’t feel like anything like I was barely even existing. I’ve been falling for a while. What’s going to happen? Am I stuck falling forever, or am I going to land? I don’t know which I’m more afraid of. I’ve had way more than my fair share of suicidal thoughts, and I’ve even attempted it a couple of times. But I’m a coward who’s terrified of death. I don’t want my life to end now, especially not like this. And not here all alone. I'm so sorry…

What? Am I ok? Am I alive? How did... Where am I? The floor is so soft and cold. It's almost like it's not even there. But I feel like I'm on solid ground. That is solid enough, anyway. This room is just as blindingly white as the last one. Well, at least this one is a lot bigger and has several doors. I might find an exit around here. This place is like an office building, except it's far more cold, sterile, and pure white. Every step I take here seems to be getting me more lost. How long have I been searching for an exit? This place is almost like an empty dream. I tried calling out for help, but I couldn't. No matter how hard I yell, I can’t hear myself. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me. I tried clapping, kicking the wall, and stomping the ground. But I heard nothing but a cold void of silence. This place is like a box that’s hostile to any sign of life. It’s oppressively sterile and trim as much as it is hopelessly endless. I don’t even have any breath in here…

How long have I been trapped here, searching for an exit in this stark white maze? I can’t remember if I checked three hundred rooms or just three. I think this place is doing something to my brain. I can feel my mind slowly fading and getting fuzzy. I’m starting to struggle to think and concentrate. What’s going on? Where am I? This place seems to be making me numb inside and out. I can feel my mind draining. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I think? Why is my mind so blank now? Where was I? I lost my train of thought. I need to concentrate. I just need to find the exit…"